Sam and Cait story - from how they met until... well, it's still unfinished so you still have time to jump in š, but basically this is a story of how stars aligned and how two people fell in love, both on and off camera.
chapters: 42/? - ā¼ā¼ā¼ā¼
Last chapter update on 01/07/2023 - CHAPTER 42- NEW UPDATE šā¼ā¼ā¼ā¼ā¼ā¼ā¼
- click on the title for the full story and chapter summary or if you've missed the last chapter click directly on the chapter
COME TO ME
Jamie and Claire story - in short, they meet and form an instant friendship, blossoms love that will be torn apart when Claire's past pulls her back as tragedy hits her family and Jamie has to deal with his own past. Will she come back to Jamie?
Find out as we move further with this story, but if you haven't read it yet, this is the best time to jump in as love blossoms in Lallybroch.
chapters: 18/?
Last chapter update on 01/10/2023 - Chapter 18 - A promise made šāØšš
- click on the title for the full story and chapter summary or if you've missed the last chapter click directly on the chapter
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Chapter 30 is now live: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31022585/chapters/87841183
Single Da Jamie Fraser and single mother Claire Beauchamp, are thrown together by the fate of the universe - meeting for the first time in the Headmasterās office...
Will they be able to stay away from one another?
Or, alternatively - Your child punched mine in the face and now weāve both been called to the Headmasterās office. I wanted to be angry at ye, but yeāre bairns actually quite sweet and yeāre fit as fuck.
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Organization for Transformative Works
An audible sigh escaped me as the light reflected his copper and auburn curls. And when he casually ran his hand through his hair, then rubbed his neck, twisting his head side to side, I almost began to drool.
Hereās a dumb thing Iāve been sitting on for far too long. But itās ~spooky season~ and maybe I will actually finish it if I post it. Maybe. Maybe!
Plot: The (so-far-untitled) story of how Jamie and Claire metāConjuring edition. I promise itās not scary :)
You can also read it on Ao3.
~*~
November, 1971
Claire Beauchamp is barely eight years old when she starts to see the dead.
She is wandering around a Scottish cemetery, having abandoned her uncleās pensive mourning in favor of something more productive. She is tired of grieving in the raināis in fact tired of this country altogether, though she is as devoted to their purpose here as she is to cats, plants, and God. For somewhere in this wet and dreary place are her parentsāthe possibility of their discovery the very reason she and Lamb have moved here from England.
At this age, Claire is precocious, restless. She is a girl whose insatiable curiosity often carries her places she doesnāt belong. Claire has heard too much (an ominous knock at the door) and seen too much (a battered car, upholstered seats stained with river water), but there is still a part of her that burns with optimism; thinks miracles can happen.
She begins leaping from one grave to another, legs aching as she launches from stone to stone. Shiny with the dayās rain, the markersāa mismatched assortment of headstones, monuments, and granite slatesāform no discernable pattern as they stretch in all directions. She clings to the base of an obelisk memorial, catching her breath.
The sight of Lamb off in the distance, stooped with the weight of his responsibility, sends her lunging toward a faraway tree line. She needs more distance between herself and the hallmarks of her uncleās grief: his rumpled flap cap and moon-ringed eyes; the ever-deepening crease between his brows, which splits his face in half just as tragedy has cracked Claireās life into two distinct parts. Before. After.Ā
The rhythm of Claireās soles smacking the rock, of her own breathing as she prepares for another leap, soon frees her mind to think of happier things. These daydreams are not of princes and princesses, or of fire-breathing dragons, but of real-life resurrections. She has spent countless hours between the library stacks, seeking scientific evidence that such things do, sometimes, happen.
She thinks of a particularly stirring case she found last Wednesday: Jessie Flowers, age 36, from northern Indiana. Here was a man, in good health and a father of two, who came back to life hours after he was pronounced dead from a drowning in Lake Michigan. The photo-copied medical reports, eyewitness accounts, and images of a fully recovered Jessie now fuel Claireās leaps and, eventually, her imagination:
She pictures going back to the old house on Chestnut Street and finding it filled with the familiar music of her parentsā existence. Her motherās sewing needles click-clack while a sitcom laugh track plays in the background. Thereās the swish-swosh of cloth against leatherāher father cleaning his work shoes, a nightly ritualāand the hiss of his lit cigarette. Her mother tsks when she notices a sloppy stitch; her father laughs at the TV, having finally caught a joke delivered minutes earlier.
When Claire walks through the imagined front door, they rush towards her without a secondās thought. They are relieved to finally tell her thereās been a terrible misunderstandingāthat they did not die in the crash that tossed their car into a deep ravine. That they have been injured, starvedāso hopelessly lost in the corners of the Scottish wilderness, unable to share news of their survival with anyone.
Mamaās hands are all over her as she recalls how they swam out of the wreckage and made it safely to the riverbank. Can you imagine, darling? Your father and I, rubbing sticks together for fire? Claire must try to understandāPlease donāt be angry with us, darling!ābut they couldnāt wait for the police arrive, so desperate were they to return home to her. What else were we supposed to do? Twiddle our thumbs for the thirteen days it took them to find the car?
Papa grunts his approval at Mamaās defense of their logic. He bemoans the lack of trail markers, the ineptitude of Search and Rescue. He has already written a strongly worded letter that questions the ethics of declaring one dead before oneās body is found.
For a moment, Claire is at peaceācheered by her motherās imaginary darlings and her fatherās convictionāas she jumps her way through the maze of graves.
But when her legs buckle and she loses her footing, the fantasy comes tumbling down with her. Henry and Julia Beauchamp have been gone for eleven monthsāand there is nothing of them here. Their graves sit empty in this field of stones while their bodies lie at the bottom of some distant river, two secrets that Lamb claims (hopes) his hired team of human eyes, spotlight beams, and industrial claws will soon uncover. He has lost all faith in the police. The police lost all faith months ago.
The truth of this pricks at the back of Claireās eyes and weighs her down. She so badly wants to be the brave girl everyone has commended her for being, but she cannot keep her sorrow from pouring out in great, heaving sobs. Hunched on the ground, cradling her twisted ankle, she thinks of how unfair the world isāand how she is surely the loneliest person in it.
Suddenly, there is a disturbance in the wind, and Claire knows in the very marrow of her bones: Someone is here. There is no shadow or sound to announce this new presence, but Claire is as sure of it as she is of her own bruising knees and, now, of the increasing impossibility of her parentsā discovery.
Through a veil of tears, she looks up to find two wrinkled feet standing on a grave just a few feet away. They are shoeless and purple and they smell of something foul. Claire drags her gaze upwards to find a pair of matching ankles and legs, then a bloodied waist, until she is staring directly into a womanās eyes. Bulging from their sockets and clouded by death, these eyes reach into Claireās soul and set down roots, as immovable as the gnarled hand now closing around her wrist.
Then Claire is falling.
She is soaring through a dark and nameless space where there is only a deafening buzz. The noise swallows her screams just as the darkness obscures her sight. The descent is endless, as if it cannot be measured by distance or by time, but only by the intensity of Claireās fearāwhich grows and grows the more she falls. She is certain she will be torn in two by the sheer force of her own terror.
And then, just as suddenly, she crashes against something solid. The buzzing quiets, the darkness abates, and Claire opens her eyes to a blinding brightness. A uniformed man hovers over her with a flashlight, brows knitted together and fingers sleeved in red. His words are muffled and reach Claire slowly, like they are floating through a viscous film.
āStay with me, lass. Stay wiā me,ā he says before shouting over his shoulder. When he wipes the sweat from his forehead, he leaves a streak of blood behind. āFor fuckās sake, can I get more help over here?!ā
Claire feels a sudden pressure, then a searing pain. Another man is pressing into a stomach that she realizes is not her own, a vain attempt at staunching the blood that does not belong to her either. Her handānow reaching feebly for a dark-haired girlāis the same hand that dragged her here, but no longer gnarled. The eyes through which Claire sees the girlās stricken face are not yet clouded by death.
āWh-whereās yer brother?ā Claire croaks, and she is shocked to find a womanās voice inside her mouth. Shocked further still by the knowledge of the girlās name and of the gun shot that has ripped this alien body apart. āJenny?ā
āI dinna ken!ā the girl sobs, beside herself. Jenny tries to break through the wall of paramedics but is forced back into a room of toppled furniture. A fireplace crackles cozily behind her, wildly at odds with the surrounding chaos but reminiscent of Henry Beauchampās lit Rothmans. But noāthat memory is from a different place, from a different time. Claire is a wholly different person from the girl she was in the house on Chestnut Street, or just minutes ago in the cemetery.
āHe ran, Ma! He just ran!ā
Claire is now keenly aware of the front door, which stands open to the quiet night and the swathe of white beyond. The snow-covered land stretches beyond eyesight, marked here and there with trees, valleys, and rocky inclinesāplenty of places where a frightened boy might conceal himself and be forgotten. She thinks of several neglected barns that she, Claire, has never actually seenāa collection of half-fallen structures that look like kneeling parishioners, bent in prayer for the repairs that Claire knows there is no money for.
āMy son is out there,ā Claire rasps in her foreign voice, but no one seems to hear her. Black spots creep into her vision and stretch, forming ribbons that wrap themselves around her limbs. She is weightless, almost buoyant, as they pull her along an invisible current, back towards the darkness of the nameless space.
āMy son,ā she tries again, weak but frantic. Every word on her tongue is like an etching in stone, decided long before itās even spoken. āH-heās all alone out there.ā
āYer husband is on his way, mum,ā says one of the men above her. They seem farther away, trapped behind glass. āDinna worry about him now. Ellen, I want you to focus on me. Stay wiā me.ā
āN-no,ā she whispers, her lips so chapped they feel coated in salt. She tries to steady the flutter of her lids, the involuntary skyward roll of her eyeballs. āItās my s-son. Please, you have to find myāmyāā but the rest of her words are lost in a rush of liquid metal. Blood fills her throat and pools in her mouth, and Claire is drowning inside, alongside, this woman.
Then she is falling again.
This time, the journey is different. She slams against the ground, and back into herself, in only a matter of seconds. The rain has become a steady pour, andāthere!ājust in the distance stands her Uncle Lamb, wrestling with a half-broken umbrella. But the vice-like grip around her wrist, and the eyes that ripped through her soul, have disappeared. The woman who brought her through the darkness, whose body she just inhabited, is nowhere to be found.
Now, there is only the faintest whisper, carried on the wind from the land of the dead.
Claire had been staring uselessly at her closet for what felt like an age. She knew what she needed to do: the thing she had been trying her best to avoid, for the intrusive questions it was sure to unleash. But the simple fact was that with Jamie due to arrive in just 24 minutes, she was in desperate need of help.
Picking up her mobile with a resigned sigh, she typed out a quick message.
You home? I need some fashion advice.
Two minutes later, Claire heard her front door open and close, followed by the click of fashionably high-heeled footsteps coming down the hall to her bedroom ā where she stood surrounded by every article of clothing she owned, strewn across every flat surface available.
āDid a hurricane pass through Paris wiāout my noticinā?ā Gillian asked from the doorway, eyes twinkling with amusement.
āYes, thatās obviously whatās happened,ā Claire replied, with an exaggerated roll of her eyes. āCome on, Gill. Iām short on time and youāre the fashion guru. Help a girl out.ā
Gillian sidled across the room and ā relocating one of the piles to make space ā made herself comfortable on Claireās bed, legs crossed and eyes narrowed.
āAlright, my snippy wee friend. Tell me what it is that youāll be doing, and Iāll see what I can do.ā
Claire ran her hands through her hair in frustration. āThatās the main problem. I donāt know!ā
This bit of information was greeted with a quick twitch of perfectly sculpted eyebrows and an injunction to āExplain. Now.ā
āAll he said was that heād pick me up at 7. Which is inā¦.ā Claire glanced nervously at the clock. ā19 minutes.ā
Gillās face lit up in a mischievous grin. āOh, so weāre noā talking about a work function, then? Does this āheā have a name? And why do you noā just text him and ask what the plan is?ā
Claire proceeded to give Gillian a quick rundown of the situation, knowing sheād receive zero helpful advice until sheād spilled the dirt. Yes, he had a name. No, she didnāt have his number. Yes, heād exited her apartment somewhat...precipitously...the previous evening. No, she didnāt want to talk about it.
āAnd what might this mystery man look like, eh? Please, Claire, tell me heās handsome and not another drab history professor.ā
āFirst of all, letās not bring up Frank right now. Or ever again, actually,ā Claire huffed, glancing once more at the clock. āAnd secondly, youāll see him for yourself in 15 minutes, and Iād rather not still be naked when he gets here!ā
āOch, I dinna think heād mind so much, but as you wish.ā
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Just wrote my first Outlander story inspired by a rewatch! Thought Iād share it on here and see what everyone thinks! Iāve linked the story on AO3 (where iāve originally posted it) below!Ā
A03Ā
****************************
Chapter One:
Jamie had remembered the various times Claire had mentioned about advances in her time. They would lay together, his hands brushing through the whips of her curls that didnāt fall easily behind her ears and listening to all of her wonderful stories... imaginative ideas and revelations of what amazing things were to come.
He didnāt scare easy, nor was he thrilled by the thought of his world disappearing as quickly as it would, but he knew it was for the best. Time had a way of changing and carrying on no matter what anyone wanted. Despite his own fears he couldnāt help but notice the glimmer of hope that appeared whenever she spoke of the future.Ā
They often laughed, as Jamie would defend the idea of horses being the perfectly reliable transport method, many a horse had gotten him through the years he reminded her. Claire immediately brought up cars in her defense explaining the speed and the mechanics the best she could. It wasnāt til now she even really thought about them as being a magnificent change of the future. Though she wouldnāt have gotten to explore the Scottish highlands without one. Thereās no way she would have gone back to look at those flowers at Craigh na Dun if it hadnāt been for speedy transport option available to her.Ā
āThatās how I got to the stones... in a carā she explained. One of the many times theyād spoken of their first encounter. Her head was neatly resting in the crook of his neck, his embrace welcoming her like it always did so perfectly.
āA car?ā He frowned causing his accent to exaggerate and prolong the ārrrā sound reminding her of a pirate.
She nodded. āItās like anā¦ummā¦ā she tried to think of the right description. So many things in her time existed, yet she understood for Jamie these may seem hard to comprehend yet alone explains rationally. āA horse but itās a kind of machine that is quicker than a horseā¦ā she stumbled on her own words, seeing his face show even more confusion than before, so she began to describe what material they can be made out of, the speeds they go, the colours, everything she could imagine in her mind to help paint a realistic image for him.
āWhy not just use a horse, if itās practically a horse?ā James Fraser said as boldly as he dared.
Claire smiled, pushing her hand softly into his chest; the smile appearing on his face confirmed he was winding her up, as usual. She softened her hand and rubbed up and down his stomach, pulling her body closer to his.
āHorses arenāt really used that much as time goes on⦠thanks to the industrial revolutionā she resisted adding in the last part but sheād promised after being framed and tried as a witch sheād always be honest and this was part of it. If she knew something she wanted him to know, to understand to grasp a better sense of the reality she was already immersed in.
āI seeā was all he replied. Claire knew not to press the matter anymore. He must have understood enough as he nodded, unsurely, but he still nodded.
So when he saw one approaching with great speed he had an idea straight away he might know what it was. Well, at least he assumed. It was a similar shape and structure to what Claire had described, the best she could as lass and with little interest for the machines. It stopped almost suddenly, the tyres skidding on the gravel road and without a word a man appeared from inside, hovering shakingly besides the door. Ā
āI almost hit you!ā the middle aged man declared, screaming his words into the road. It was a mix of shock and fear. There was no other cars around nor would their be for a while. These parts of the highlands were often secluded, with only haunted souls remaining. So bumping into a man and what appeared to be another person wasnāt what he had expected on his afternoon drive.
āAyeā Jamie replied. His strong accent appearing through more with each sound he made. He turned and picked up his fragile wife in his arms, her body lifeless and cold. He had used his arms to tightly secure her as much as he could against his chest, to shield her from the harsh cold air.
The man stepped back, slightly unprepared for what had been brought before him. He hadnāt been on the front and wasnāt use to the slight of body unlike many of his friends and neighbours. He looked at the man in front of him judging whether or not he was the reason this lady was in his arms or the one who saved her.
āI... I need ye helpā¦ā James Fraser begged. His voice breaking at the realisation his wife was in this position, that his own causes had been the catalyst for why his wife was in his arms not stood proudly besides him showing him her land⦠her time. God he needed her here right now, sheād be able calm his fears instantly.
The man gulped and nodded. Through his own judgment he knew the sad eyes like the scot in front of him. The pain was leaking out like waves of gas. He quickly returned to his automobile and opening the doors to the back of the machine. āPut her in here. Weāll take her to the hospital. Itās not too farā he declared, wasting no time and getting quickly into the front of the device and turning the rounded shape object he was holding on to so tightly his knuckles were turning white.
āHospitalā Jamie spoke quietly to himself, looking down at his Sassenach. He brushed the stray hairs from her face, holding his hand over cheek to cup her delicate chin. She had spoken of them regularly on the battlefield, explaining it was what she had been trying to set up and create to tend to the wounded. A hospital he thought to himself. If only she was awake to him talk so confidently of words he had not yet seen or experienced but had learnt through her wisdom and grace. Aye, sheād indeed probably be proud of him.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapter 20 snippet (for more click on the link š):
āWhat?ā he asked, walking over to the kitchen island. āIf youāre going to be this sheepish, Balfe, weāll have a problem on set. Have you seen the number of scenes where my bare arse takes the lead?ā
He sat down on the stool and made a face like itās the most normal thing in the world that his bare arse and balls are splattered all over the leather seat. It wasnāt, but he was trying to make a point. If he was being honest, it was quite uncomfortable.
āMental note, disinfect the stool.ā Caitriona murmured.
āOi!ā he cried out.
āIām not being sheepish, Heughan. Like I said, I have walked around naked on set before.ā She replied cockily.
āProve it. Get naked.ā Sam replied quickly and she burst out laughing.
āI believe one naked chef is all Britain can handle at the moment. Now go on, get yer fine Scottish arse under the shower.ā She said theatrically, her Irish accent in full mode.
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