#quotelander

A Breath of Snow and Ashes

“This is the part where you don’t expect too much,” she said into his ear.  “This is the part I’m not good at.”  

“Claire,” he tried to raise up but she wouldn’t let him.  He felt one hot tear on his shoulder.  

“Claire, please.”  His heart squeezed tight.  She hugged him tighter.  

For the first time ever, he wished Frank Randall were alive.  I wish ye were here right now to watch me take yer wife, and do what ye couldna do. Ye bastard.

Jamie rolled to his side taking Claire with him.  He kissed her then.  Trying to tell her what she wouldn’t believe.  That she was beautiful, and sexy, and sensual. When he felt her relax into his kisses he touched her again.  Her hips twitched. Good, still sensitive.  He slid his fingers inside her.  Stroked her.  Felt her body respond.  

Her moved over her again, nudged her knees apart.  And watched her.  Her head was turned on the pillow, away from him.  It felt wrong, to enter her like this.  But how else to show her?  How else to prove to her?  

He moved then.  Slowly.  Steadily.  Watched her every movement, looked for any discomfort.  He slid home.  

Her eyes flew open. She turned her head sharply to look at him.

“Okay?” he asked, unsure of her reaction.

“My God,” she breathed.

He slid a hand down her body to urge her legs higher on his hips.  Watched her eyes widen again as he ground himself into her.  

He flexed his hips.  Slowly.  Over.  And over.  He watched her amber eyes darken.  Her lips part.  Her breath become shallow.  

It was intoxicating, making love to her.  She was everything he knew she would be.  If this was what she saw between them, no wonder it stopped her in her tracks.  

Her body answered him.  He quickened his pace to meet hers.  Her hands were all over him again.  In his hair.  Holding on to his bottom.  Clasping his neck.  He closed his eyes and lost himself in the feel of her.  

Hot.  Soft.  Tight.  The sensation of her gripping his hips.

“You feel so different,” she muttered.  “So very different.”

He grit his teeth waiting for her.  Determined to drive the demons out of her. Replace the shadows that lived in her memory.  And when he felt her tighten around him, her muscles contracting, he let go.  

He let go and gave himself to her.  Body, mind, heart and soul.  

God.  How she owned his soul.

They lay tangled together, drowsy and contented, both on the edge of sleep.   But Jamie needed to know something first.  

“Sorcha?” he whispered.  She stirred slightly.  “What did ye mean, I felt different?”  He brushed the curls back from her face.

“I don’t know.  Fuller, I guess.”

Jamie chuckled low in his throat.  Take that, ye bastard, he thought.  

“In my heart…” she said, her voice trailing off.  Sleep was fast approaching.  “I don’t know how to explain it.”

Jamie sighed.  Out with it then.   “I think you’re pregnant.”

A silence descended on his kitchen, as Claire stared daggers at him and he fought to not shrink away from her gaze.  

She huffed.  “You bastard.  How could you say that to me?”

She tried to push by him, but he laid a steady hand on the counter, blocking her path.

“Claire, it would explain…”

“I’ll be damned if you’re going to say something that…cruel to me every time you think I’m being…hormonal!” She shoved him, and he finally took a step back,  letting her pass.

“Will ye take a test at least?” He said to her back, and she froze.

“I explained this to you, in detail. That is not in the cards for me, and you said you understood.”  A dark chuckle escaped her. “What,  did you think you’d be the exception?  That somehow with you, it’d be a better match, and I’d magically get knocked up?  And you want me to pee on a stick on the sick hope that maybe everything I told you wasn’t true?”

“That’s not what I’m saying!” He roared, his fist slamming on the counter. “There’s something wrong with ye, and you’re just ignoring it! Do you think your hiding how many times you get sick each night? How about the dark circles under your eyes from no’ sleeping?”

“You don’t own me because we’re fucking!”

Jamie’s heart dropped to the bottom of his stomach, where he felt it shatter and dissolve.

“We’re just fucking now, are we?” He said quietly. “Good to know.”

She grabbed her jacket and purse and headed for the door. Thank God, Jamie thought, because he couldn’t stop the tears running down his face.

He watched her fumble through her purse for her keys and phone. He wanted to beg her to stay, but the anger and pain coursing through him held his mouth shut. Her shoulders heaved, and she turned, not meeting his eyes.

“I’m going home. I need to think.”

“Aye.” He choked out. “You’ve already gutted me, woman. You may as well finish it.”

Happy Galentine’s/Valentine’s Day, boos! As I’m not around to celebrate, I’m cheating today and making a throwback to one of my favourite romantic moments I’ve written. Love you X

“You crept in.” She whispered, tilting her head and offering him a tentative smile, both tender and restrained. “Once you asked me why I came to hate you, when we seemed to get along at first.” Claire licked her lips, gaining time to order her rioting thoughts. “I told you the truth, but maybe not all of it.”

“And ye came here to elaborate on that?” Jamie leaned against the wall, watching her fumbling hands intently, a flash of amusement clouding his eyes.

“You know me, always wanting to have the last word.” She impatiently brushed her hair away from her face, her smile steadier. “Beyond my feminist inclinations and your careless disregard for being an agent of change, the truth is that I had to push you away. You were creeping in, almost under my skin without me noticing it.”

“How rude of me.” He gave her a lopsided smile, raising his chin. His face was soft, as she hadn’t seen since their last date, when he had spent the movie credits looking at her with an inscrutable look that left her unsteady and throbbing.

“Very.” Claire walked towards the kitchen countertop, playing with an orange to keep her hands occupied, forcing herself to keep talking. “Beyond Medicine, there is nothing I have ever loved and surrendered myself to that I haven’t lost, with a great deal of pain. I guess I’m more of a coward than I thought, because I allowed fear to start making all the decisions.”

“Self-preservation.” Jamie said in a low voice, respectfully keeping a distance between them. “If ye keep sailing within sight of the shore, ye’ll never know the thrill of the ocean, but ye’ll probably never drown either.”

“Indeed.” The female surgeon breathed deeply, letting the orange roll away from her hand. “Except I’ve been drowning ever since you revealed yourself as Scalpel. I knew I had allowed you in by then and I panicked, because I think I knew – deep down – you’d fight for me. This push and pull we have, it has always been a way of getting closer, never further apart.”

“Claire.” The way he said her name – her name, in opposition to a professional title or a friendly moniker - almost made her come undone. “Why are you here?”

“I’m addicted to loneliness.” She slowly, fearfully, walked to him until there was barely a palm between them. “I’ve been alone for so long. It’s like moving back with your parents after living on your own for a while. Nothing seems to fit anymore, in the space that once was more than enough. You have your own schedule and quirks, a way to fold your clothes and a routine in the morning. I don’t know how to share this house of my heart – myself – with anyone anymore.”

“In spite of that, ye came here – willingly.” Jamie caressed the curve of her cheek with the tip of his fingers. She turned her head to better feel his touch and folded her own hand around his fingers.

“Yes.” Claire sighed, feeling dizzy from his featherlight touch. “I don’t know everything yet. But it means something.” Her lips searched his and she whispered against his breath, fresh from toothpaste, just before she finally kissed him. “You mean something to me, Jamie.”

With a small groan she loosened her grip on his waist, shifting slightly to allow him the freedom to move from the bed. He pulled up his boxers before stepping out of the room and quickly returning with his guitar. He came back to see her propped up against a pillow, and he paused slightly at the sight of his favorite rugby shirt- now hugging every curve of her frame.

He coughed slightly as he sat down on the side of the bed, facing her. He lightly tapped the body of the guitar and his eyes shifted from her face to the strings and back again. His fingers pressed against the strings and his thumb strummed, a slightly sharp note reverberating. He froze, pressing his palm to the neck of the guitar, muting the sound quickly. “Och that is… No’ how it starts.”

“Well I’ve never…” she feigned shock as she watched him. She tilted her head as a smile played at the corner of her mouth, “Didn’t think you were inclined to stage fright.”

“Well I’m no’ on stage,” He clarified as he cleared his throat as a smile pulled across his face, “… and I havena played a song to a lass in my bed in… a long time.”

The words hung between them. Another shade of his façade fell, and she saw a clearer glimpse of Jamie, offering a small piece of himself. He saw the question in her eyes. Why. He watched her lips form the word when a knock at the door shattered the moment and Jamie looked towards the door.

I’ll be sharing some of my favourite passages from Outlander fics in the next few weeks (months...? There are so many!). Hope you enjoy them as I do.

She will let Jamie lay her down—gentle, so gentle—in front of the fireplace. And Jamie will bend—reverent, so reverent—and lick the pale tributaries of her inner thighs, inching towards the most tender part of her. “Please,” she’ll say, and he will make her say it again.

“Please.”

There are old lines. Ones they will know, remember as a soft curve or a particular bulge of muscle. Theirs to re-meet, reclaim and own.

There are also new lines. They will cut their teeth on them, tasting each other’s now-bonier spines or the looser skin of their upper arms. Jamie’s hands will still be larger—so much larger—than hers, and he will grasp the soft side of her knees, spread, and sink. “God,” Claire will think he says, and then wonder if he’d ever prayed in an empty church. Found some kind of grace in religion, as she had done, during those lonely, intermittent years.

Claire will kiss Jamie’s jawline, remembering that he likes it. Jamie will nip Claire’s neck because he knows it makes her shiver. And they will both be happy when they see that they’ve remembered correctly, that he does, yes, still like it when she kisses his jawline and that she does, yes, still prickle with goosebumps when he nips her neck. Please. God.

Jamie will begin to move faster, pushing Claire up and up until stars fall into her open mouth, then pour out again onto his shoulder. The bite marks there will glisten.

Not long after, Jamie will follow, the fullest kind of breaking. And this time—oh, oh, oh this time—she will hear his whisper. Not “God” at all, but:

“Claire.”

And maybe, she will think, her cheek finding his steadying beat. Maybe this is what God is. The sound of your name in a lover’s mouth. Your face inside his heart.

“Hey Sassenach?” His head was turned away from her as he groped for the remote, which he grabbed with a triumphant noise.

“I have a confession.”

“What kind of confession?” he asked, distracted as he fumbled with the buttons.

“I lied,” she said, “I don’t give up!”

She stretched across him then, knocking the remote out of his hand, cursing out loud when it tumbled with a clank against the table before falling to the carpet out of reach. She bent forward to try and grab it, but Jamie was quicker, latching onto her arms and yanking her back up towards him, sending her body flying into his lap.

She was giggling again as she pulled back slightly, the sound dying on her lips when she realized how close they were. Their faces were mere centimeters apart, chests heaving and nearly touching. His hands were wrapped around her wrists, gentle but firm at the same time, caught between their two bodies.

Claire swallowed hard, raising her head slowly to meet Jamie’s eyes. He was staring at her intently, his eyes lowering to her lips, which she licked unconsciously. Tentatively, her body acting on its own, she brought a hand to rest on his chest, her fingers curving gently over the taut muscles there.

He let out a shaky breath at the contact ( her touch on him, the rush of a sudden blaze ), and raised his eyes back up to hers. One of his hands reached out to tenderly push a few stray curls out of her face, tucking them behind her ear before his fingers curled and curved down her neck, tangling into her hair. She leaned into his touch, her own sigh rattling her body, eyes fluttering closed.

“Claire,” he said it so quietly ( a plea ) that she barely heard him, but she did. Her eyes slowly opened back up to his, hooded and dark blue with desire. She swayed into him, foreheads now touching, both of his hands sliding back up to gently cup her face, thumbs caressing the apples of her cheekbones.

She rubbed her nose against his, her own hands moving up against his chest to his neck, gooseflesh rippling on his skin underneath her touch. They both moved to close the distance between their mouths at the same time when the creak and slam of the front door rang out like a gunshot, leaving them scrambling back from each other.

Jamie had smiled as he signed his birthright away and kissed his young nephew in his forehead. He wholeheartedly wished the best of luck to the tiny boy who would inherit what was meant to be his. Jamie did not feel any resentment at the unfairness of it all. Such things were now far and away from him. It was best to reconcile with the facts as they were and move on.

A few hours later Jamie was safely back in his room and away from his family. He had been thinking of what the future held for him now that he had no future. Everything looked a bit hopeless. He guessed that he could stay here in his family’s land and help out as best he could. One did not need to be very smart or able to speak to pitch hay or plant carrots. He could see his nephews and nieces grow up and Ian and Jenny would not worry too much about him. That would seem to be the best course of action for all involved.

But he didn’t want that. Jamie did not want to be the sad remnant of what could have been. He couldn’t bear pity no matter how well intended. The tenants would look at him and think him feeble. His sister would treat him as she would another child. It would be very hard to live with.

So he resolved to leave Lallybroch and find his own way in the world. It was a frightening proposition as he would do so without being able to speak but he saw no other recourse for someone in his situation.

He would only need a wee bit of land to farm where he could have some chickens and maybe goats for milk. It didn’t even have to have a house as he was capable of building himself a cottage. He would like a remote area as he did not see much call for company in his life. Who would want to be friends with him?

All goals, however small, required money and he had none. He did have his mother’s pearls and his father’s ring. And he had his spoons.

The silver apostle spoons had been a baptismal present. He hadn’t known that they were his until his Da had shown them to him when he was twelve. He’d been curious about their purpose and his father had told him they were intended for Jamie’s children . Jamie had been horrified by the idea that he was meant to have thirteen children for each of the spoons but his father had set him to rights.

Every so often he would go looking for the fine leather box to look at the spoons. He did not know why he found the idea of them so pleasing. He guessed it had something to do with their implied permanence. These spoons would be passed on to his children and their children and so on and so forth.

It was very difficult to grasp for someone so young but no less meaningful.

On his last night at Lallybroch, he’d gone to his box again. The spoons inside gleamed in the firelight, and he’d taken one by one inspecting it carefully before setting it down. The intricate silver was beautiful and he placed it against his warm cheek. He was surprised to realize that he was crying.

It was daft. He’d just given up everything and he was sobbing over spoons.