#outlander 03x02

Welcome to the Outlander 31 Day Challenge!

Today is Day 14: Favorite 20th century scene

03x02 "Surrender." Claire - in 20th century Boston - comes across a bagpiper in the park. She is suddenly, greatly, moved.

As are we. For how could she - we - not think of Jamie, and think about how sad and isolated and so very far away from home Claire must feel in this moment.

On their wedding night, Claire says to Jamie, “I want to look at you.”

For she wants to prove she is all in. That she is accepting the gift Jamie gives her in his body, in his protection. In the pleasure they can make together.

In Boston, Frank says, “Look at me, Claire...”

For he wants her to acknowledge him with her eyes.

In the cave, Mary says, “You can look at me, if you’d like...”

For she wants him to feel tenderness - for him to enjoy the simple pleasure of her body.

In Edinburgh, Jamie says to Claire, “You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

Proving to her that her insecurities are for naught. For she knows that he means inside and out.

She begins to hope. That twenty years of longing will be fulfilled.

So she is emboldened to say to Jamie, “I want to see you.”

Because “looking,” while nice - and essential to enjoy physical intimacy - is no longer enough for them.

They want - need - to SEE each other. To look upon their bodies, yes - but more importantly, to see into each other’s heart and mind and soul.

Knowing that if they don’t find themselves within each other, all is truly lost.

But they look --

-- and see --

and find.

 “I tried to send her away,” he said at last. “She . . . well, what she said to me . . .” He glanced at me; I saw the movement of his head. “She said she’d seen me with ye, Claire—and that she kent the look of a true love when she saw it, for all she’d not had one herself. And that it wasna in her mind to make me betray that. But she would give me . . . some small thing. That’s what she said to me,” he said, and his voice had grown husky,“‘some small thing, that maybe ye can use.’”  

      “It was—I mean, it wasna . . .” He stopped, and made that odd shrugging motion of his, as though his shirt were tight across his shoulders. He bowed his head for a moment on his knees, hands linked round them.  

      “She gave me tenderness,” he said finally, so softly that I barely heard him. “I—I hope I gave her the same.”  

      My throat and chest were too tight to speak, and tears prickled behind my eyes... I reached across it and laid my hand on his, the tips of my fingers on his big, weathered knuckles. I took a breath, then two, trying to steady my voice, but it cracked and broke, nonetheless.  

      “You gave her . . . tenderness. I know you did.”  

      He turned to me, suddenly, and my face was pressed into his coat, the cloth of it damp and rough on my skin, my tears blooming in tiny warm patches that vanished at once into the chill of the fabric.  

      “Oh, Claire,” he whispered into my hair. I reached up, and could feel wetness on his cheeks. “She said—she wished to keep ye alive for me. And she meant it; she didna mean to take anything for herself.”

“Sometimes I hoped ye did,” he said, speaking through clenched teeth. “And then sometimes I could see it — him with you, day and night, lyin’ with ye, taking your body, holding my child! And God, I could kill ye for it!”

He respects Mary too much to tell her that he can’t bear to look at her - for his heart is still so full of Claire.

So he tells a white lie - that he always closes his eyes when he is intimate with someone. And we, having seen him in many intimate moments with Claire, when they can’t stop looking at each other - know it isn’t true.

But he has so much respect for Mary - for her gift of tenderness - that he makes sure she knows it’s not her, it’s him.

The true, true beauty of The Books is that this painful chapter in Jamie’s life is eventually closed. First, the child he’d dreamed of while living in the cave - Brianna - not only learns of his time in the cave, she also sees it for herself during her first (18th century) visit to Lallybroch. She truly appreciates the magnitude of her father’s sacrifice - and recognizes the peace and serenity that the cave gave him:

Seven years! Seven years to have lived here, in cold grime and gnawing hunger. I wouldn't last seven days, she thought…She sat still, and listened, and thought she knew what Jamie Fraser had found here. Not loneliness, but solitude. Not suffering, but endurance, the discovery of grim kinship with the rocks and sky. And the finding here of a harsh peace that would transcend bodily discomfort, a healing instead of the wounds of the soul. He had perhaps found the cave not a tomb, but a refuge…

– Brianna’s POV, Book 4 (Drums of Autumn)

And second - Jamie himself takes Claire to the cave. He holds her tight, shows her how he lived, tells her how he had dreamed. And he takes so much joy from the fact that he *was* able to hold his child, *was* able to reunite with his wife - that his 20 years of sacrifice were well worth it.

He laughed and turned her round to look, but kept his arms around her. He was loath to surrender the warmth of her and held her like a shield against cold memory.She was still, leaning back against him, only her head moving as she looked from one end of the cave to the other…“Did you sleep with your head at this end?” She tapped her foot on the graveled dirt of the floor.“Aye. I could see the stars, if the night was clear. I turned the other way if it rained.” She heard the smile in his voice and put her hand along his thigh, squeezing.“I hoped that,” she said, her own voice a little choked. “When we learned about the Dunbonnet, and the cave…I thought about you, alone here—and I hoped you could see the stars at night.”“I could,” he whispered, and bent his head to put his lips to her hair…She made a small hmp noise in her throat and folded her own arms over his, warming him through his shirt.“I feel as though I’ve seen it before,” she said, sounding a little surprised… “Ye’ve been here many nights wi’ me, Sassenach. You and the wee lass, both.”