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The family that had found Jamie and Claire washed up on the beach had kindly leant them their recently vacated slave’s quarters, their first bit of luck since narrowly avoiding a drowning. Their hosts, the Oliver family, had bade them use it as long as it took for Claire’s leg to heal, and asked no rent for the use of it. Jamie had offered any help he could provide around their homestead, which Mr. Oliver had graciously accepted but had yet to actually call in upon. Marsali, Fergus and Ian had made camp with some of the other shipmates a mile or two down the coast, and each had already found a spot of work to start lining their pockets once more.
Jamie left them to it. Part of his mind berated himself for not immediately seeking out a way to get them a bit of coin with which to make yet another fresh start. But a much larger part kept replaying a vivid image of Claire’s unflinching body being dragged below the water by an impossible weight, and he knew he couldn’t leave her in her current state.
He was bone tired himself, and ached in places he hadn’t ached since Ardsmuir. Still, once he had gathered his wits about him on the beach, and had been offered accommodations, he had hauled himself in halts and starts from the sand, shuddered once, and reached down for his wife. She had blearily assessed that she had broken her leg- the one that had been tied to the mast, no surprise there- and very badly.
“Jamie, no…” She muttered as he had slid an arm behind her shoulder, and another gingerly near her knees.
“Aye. Ye dinna mean for me to leave ye like some rubbish from the wreck, do ye?”
She rolled her eyes (she’d probably have to be dead to be prevented from that habit) and argued, “No, but I’m certain someone who hasn’t been holding me aloft at sea for hours could be pressed into service and do a half decent job of it.”
Jamie waved a dismissing hand at her and deepened his squat, forking his hands around her more fully. He tossed one of her arms gracelessly over his shoulder, as she clearly had no intention of doing it herself, and began to lift her.
Every inch from the sand felt like 100 stone added to his arms. He began to see the wisdom of Claire’s hissed admonition. It was too late now, though, and he came to stand straight at last, the burning of his shoulders and arms keeping his vision from swimming too badly.
“You’re an idiot.” Claire nagged, even as she brought her brow to rest against the reddened skin of his neck. He felt her lips press her thanks there.
“And yer a shrew, so I guess we’re even, aye?” He returned automatically and with no heat, squeezing her face between his shoulder and his own face, gently nuzzling a stubbled cheek against hers. Christ, how he loved her.
Mrs. Oliver shot a shocked look at Claire- surely for her mouthy comment- and Mr. Oliver gave Jamie the kind of appraising look one might give a recently lame prize horse.
He mentally shrugged it off. He couldn’t be bothered with another man’s opinion of his marriage. He could only be bothered to force one foot in front of the other as the sand shifted below him. The quarters- most accurately labeled as a large shed- were blessedly just past the first dune, and as soon as Mr. Oliver swung the door shut behind them, Jamie gasped and collapsed to his knees, gingerly setting Claire upon the single threadbare cot. It was barely wide enough for Claire, with two of her thickest petticoats still clinging to her.
“Love?” Claire was patting his cheek to get his attention. He vaguely wondered how long she had been trying to catch his attention.
“Hmm?” He forced his gaze to focus on the amber of her eyes. It helped to clear some of the fog. The golden glow of them always did.
“They said they’d bring us each a dry change of clothes and a blanket shortly. Ian has already been up and down the town looking for us. They got word to him and he is out collecting wood for a fire.” Jamie nodded blankly, blue eyes locked with amber.
“Lay your head down for a few minutes, Soldier, before you collapse.” She insisted firmly. She was propped on one elbow, and laid a single hand on his shoulder, exerting as much of the meager strength she could call forward.
“Yer clothes are drenched. Your leg needs mended.” He stated, his hand dragged across the cot to find a patch of her skin. It didn’t matter particularly to him, so long as there was no barrier between them. He found her wrist, and felt her pulse steady under his ring finger.
“Yes, but yours are too. We’ll be fine for a few hours. My leg isn’t in immediate need of attention.” He had fixed his stare on the steady thrum of her vein below his finger, but flicked his eyes up to her face to assess her veracity.
Lines of humor and warmth appeared at the corners of her eyes. He saw sincerity sparking there before she even spoke. “I’m alright, Soldier. Thanks to you. Have a rest, and so will I.” As if to demonstrate, she shifted on her elbow until she lay flat on her back. She twisted her arm around until she could clutch his fingers, and she turned her head to catch his eyes.
Jamie tapped his finger in time with her heartbeat three times, one for each unspoken word. I love you. Then he sat back on his heals and hunched forward until his forehead made contact with the cot next to her hip. He tapped her wrist three more times, then knew no more.
…
He woke to quiet rustling, and throbbing aches in every joint he could account for. Even with his head pillowed on his forearm, his chest pressed into the wooden frame of the cot in front of him, he could tell several hours had passed and night had well and truly fallen. His eyelids refused to stay open long, but he remained just barely aware, and he reached out with his other senses. The smell of the sea breeze and soggy wool. He heard the crackle and pop of a partially smoored fire. He could taste nothing but grit and acrid sea water. He felt the gentle movements of the cot as its occupant adjusted herself.
Claire!
He sat bolt upright, alert and wide-eyed. Claire groaned in exasperated defeat and let her head fall as dead weight back to the slim pillow. “I’m sorry. I was doing my best not to wake you.” She sniffed once in defeat, and her hand came out to rub his shoulder gently, another apology.
“Dinna be sorry, lass. I’ve slept half the night away, have I?” He glanced through the boards of their sparse accommodations.
“We both did. I’ve only been awake a few minutes. I was trying to get out of these damned skirts.” She said, somewhat guiltily. Her lips quirked contritely at his scowl.
“Claire…” He growled irritably.
“Oh, please don’t fuss at me, Jamie. I wouldn’t have tried at all, only-” She broke off and nodded at her injured leg helplessly. “It’s only the weight of them is really…” she sighed in frustration and finished quickly, “Quite painful.”
He knew it had cost her to say such a thing. She, like he, hated to admit weakness or inability. He decided he could be gracious in the face of her admission and help her with the task at hand.
“Let’s see that settled, then.”
Claire reached around her hip until she found the ties in the back, and began pulling at the laces until her two remaining petticoats sagged about her waist. Jamie gathered them in his hands and motioned for Claire to lift up onto her hands so that he could slide them past her bottom. She did so, and he eased them past her upper thighs until she could settle her weight back on the cot. Jamie, not intending to waste any more time, brushed a quick thumb over one kneecap before continuing his track, only to be stopped by a jerk and hiss behind him. Claire’s face had morphed from white to gray-green, eyes slammed shut, tears sparking at the corners, and lip pressed in between her teeth.
He hadn’t thought he’d jostled her leg, but her features painted a very different, very painful picture. “Claire…?” He whispered softly, afraid even the tone of his voice might be too much of a jolt.
She sucked air through her teeth, retracted her fingernails from the bedclothes, and opened her eyes. “Just fold back the skirt and let’s see the damage before I lift it. I think I might faint if I try just now.”
Jamie nodded grimly and did as she requested. With the very tips of his fingers, he collected the frayed hems and directed them gently upwards, careful to angle them so that the ends trapped beneath her useless limb wouldn’t draw against her. “Jesus!” Jamie shouted, appalled at the sight before him. Her entire leg from ankle to knee was swollen grotesquely, and painted in every shade of blue, black and purple he could imagine (and several had never seen before).
Claire gritted her teeth. “Ah, so ‘very badly broken’ wasn’t too far off.” She grunted with an odd detachment. “At least my powers of diagnosis are still intact.”
“Christ, Claire. Jesus.” Jamie swore again. He’d seen nastier breaks of course, but perhaps only on a battlefield, and never on someone so small and undeserving as his wife.
“We’ll manage.” Claire said, thin lipped, in her best imitation of a soothing voice. “The bone didn’t pierce the skin. That’s good. Less chance of infection. No stitches. I think Ian or Fergus will need to help you set it tomorrow though. I don’t think I’ll be conscious long enough to apply the correct counter pressure needed to slide the bone back into place, once you begin applying traction.” She surveyed matter-of-factly.
“Me?!” Jamie questioned, half panicked at the mere notion of touching her leg.
“Yes, it’ll have to be. It’ll require quite a lot of force. You’ll pull at my ankle, away from my body, Ian will loop some cloth under my knee and pull toward my body. The bone should slide toward you and back into place as you both slowly relax the tension. We can’t splint it as is, it’ll never heal back.” She gestured impatiently at the awkward angle her shin lay in. Jamie felt whatever was on his stomach- probably only accidentally swallowed sea water at this point- threaten to repeat on him.
“Oh no, no.” Claire commanded at once. “Stop that this instant. I’m still ill at ease from the petticoats. If you vomit now, I’ll not be able to control myself, and the last thing I need is the uncontrolled spasms that come with retching, thank you very much.”
Jamie swallowed thickly but nodded again.
“Let’s just focus on the petticoats, hmm? We can manage that much, can’t we?” Her voice held her usual confidence but he saw the pleading, worried quality in her eyes.
“Aye, we can do that.”
It took a fair amount of doing, and Claire was sweating and pasty by the end of it, but she managed to hold her leg up with two hands behind her knee while Jamie did his best to navigate the skirts past her leg without them coming into contact with it. That left only her shift, which was easy enough. In a move well practiced by the both of them, she snaked her arms around his neck, he raised her off the bed, and slid it off her in one smooth motion.
“Well, my lad, you made quick work of that, didn’t you?” Claire smirked.
Jamie’s answering grin could only be described as shit-eating. “When yer wife’s a deviant that soiled your innocence, it comes with the territory.”
Claire shook her head in good humor. “A deviant am I? Well. This deviant is tired of smelling like the underside of a hull. Bring me a wash rag, would you?” Jamie found a small ewer of water set next to the fireplace, and a pile of assorted linens that must have been brought after he’d fallen asleep. He soaked a small cloth generously in the lukewarm water and passed it to her. He turned back to the task of finding her something clean to wear, and after a few minutes of sorting, he found a long shirt for himself and a night rail that would serve Claire’s purposes as well.
He swiveled round to see Claire hunched over, sponging her healthy leg as it dangled over the edge of the cot, having apparently already seen to her face and more sensitive areas. She sat back and looked at him with a weak smile. Without a word exchanged, he reached for the cloth at the same time she offered it to him. He chuffed once and swiped at the bottom of her foot and between her toes, determined to rid her of every last grain of sand. When he had finished he shook out the cloth, folded it back, and reached for the tops of her shoulders. He caressed the skin there, which had been rubbed raw by the dragging weight of her clothes and the turbulent waves. He settled his weight on the cot, balanced on a half his arse, and leaned over her to reach the smooth expanse of her back. She fell into him, pillowing her head on his shoulder and relaxing some of her weight into the solid lines of his upper body.
“There, mo nighean donn.” His work completed, he set the rag down on the edge of the blanket and passed one arm in front of her torso, drawing her further into him. He swept his free hand in long strokes up and down her back, dragging blunt nails as he went. She shuddered in pleasure. “Tis verra fine to hold ye just for the sake of havin’ ye near.” He rumbled into the mess of her mop of curls.
“You always did know what I was thinking.” She said as her own arms came to loop around his waist.
He hooked his fingers at the top of her shoulder and rocked them side to side gently. He heard her release a long breath. He felt it the moment she fell asleep; the final bit of weight she had tried to keep him from bearing relaxed into him, and her breath tickling the hair along his neck shallowed almost imperceptibly. He continued to rock her for a few minutes, and when he was sure she wouldn’t wake, he lowered her to the cot, maneuvered her into the night rail, and pulled the blanket up to her chin. He made quick work of his own hygienic routine, changed into the fresh shirt, and made himself a pallet on the floor next to the cot, between her and the door.
…
As it turned out, Jamie only got a couple more hours rest before he was startled awake once more by Claire’s fidgeting.
The soft shifting of fabrics against one another as Claire moved about wouldn’t normally be enough to wake him, but in this case, they were joined occasionally my a muffled grunt or a quick, sharp exhalation.
He dragged his way back to consciousness, and tilted his head up. The only piece of her he could see was a single hand, wrapped around the frame of the cot, clenched so hard her knuckles were bone white.
“Sassenach?” Jamie questioned urgently, struggling to shrug off his fatigue and sit up. Her hands instantly unfastened from the bed at the sound of his voice, and her face appeared over the edge, sweat soaked, flushed, and exasperated with an edge of panic.
“Damn it all.” She replied, voice thick with unshed tears.
“What’s that?” He asked, more alert now, and getting his knees under him to edge toward her.
“It’s no-” she began, only to swiftly be cut off by her husband.
“None of that now. Out wi’ it.” He cajoled gently, leaning over to snatch the still damp cloth from the rough hewn stool on the other side of the cot, and laying it across her clammy forehead.
Her eyes fluttered shut in relief at the coolness of the rag. “It’s my leg. I’m afraid you may need to go find one of the boys-” she stopped and exhaled sharply, as her whole body seemed to shudder just once in sheer agony. “Need to set the leg sooner rather than later.” She gritted out, hands reaching blindly for the leg in question, and stopping just before she could take hold of it, as if suddenly remembering why that was a poor idea. “Compartment syndrome probable. Shock likely, if untreated.” She was retreating into her training, something he had seen her do many times before, but never with eyes glassy from pain, and never with such a reedy, strained voice. He understood very little of what she said, but his objective was clear enough: get help, quickly. Fergus was the closest by, as Ian was still camped with Hayes and Leslie on the beach, half a mile passed the Oliver residence.
Jamie pressed a shaky kiss to her forehead and stood to undertake his latest mission. “Aye, Fergus. What else will we need?”
Claire raked ragged fingernails across her forehead, dislodging stray hairs and the damp towel, and leaving angry streaks upon the skin there. It’s like she was trying to reach inside her own mind to find the answer. “Need…?” She closed her eyes, sighed deeply, and thumped her head back against her pillow once. “A belt, or an equal length of fabric. And something I can bite. Splinting material, for after. A stone or brick that can be heated.”
“Aye.” He said again, for lack of anything more coherent to say. Then, “A stone?” He was fairly clear on the rest of her instructions, but he could think of no use for a stone.
Her eyelids slid open then and she made very serious eye contact with him. “The pain might send me into shock after. With chills, sweating, unconsciousness, weakness. If I begin to shiver, you’ll need to keep me warm. A hot stone or brick at my feet and blankets should help.”
“Is that all that can be done? If you- for the shock?” He questioned frantically. He hated to think of himself and Fergus left to fumble with her care were she to take a turn for the worst. She trusted very few doctors in this time, and hadn’t had a chance to meet anyone on the mainland yet that might be trustworthy.
Claire stretched out a hand to him, which he clasped gratefully. “I’ll be fine. If I slip into shock, elevate my legs, and splint the broken one. Keep me warm, and check my breathing. It may take a while, but I should wake up and be fine.” She gave his hand a squeeze. How like her, to comfort him, even in the midst of her own crisis.
“Should?”
“Will. I will wake up, Jamie. I’m not quite through with you yet. Besides, I mightn’t even go into shock in the first place. I’ll almost certainly faint from the pain, though.”
Jamie nodded and let her soothing tone and healthy grip travel up the length of his arm and into his heart.
“Aye, ye are wicked stubborn. Ye’ll be fine.”
Claire nodded curtly then gestured for the door. “Go fetch Fergus before I lose my nerve.”
He strode toward the door with purpose, and out across the dunes. He vaguely remembered the Oliver family pointing out a house just beyond a copse of trees which was theirs. They had offered Fergus and Marsali use of the floor before they hearth in their main room in deference to Marsali’s pregnancy.
Jamie made quick work of finding the window which looked into the area, and tapping the glass there. He supposed this close to the coast, windows were strictly necessary, considering the weather and sand. Fergus’ head popped briefly up, caught sight of him, and stirred the rest of him into motion. Before long, Marsali had been shushed back to sleep and Fergus was outside the house with Jamie.
“Yer Ma is in need of our help. Her leg is much worse. I’ve been sent with instructions.”
“Oui. Let us go, then, Milord.” Fergus acknowledged, lacking most of his typical charm and humor. He looked about as grim as Jamie felt, and Jamie knew the fierce determination in his eye to be a reflection of his care for the woman who had been his first true mother figure.
The two hastily made their way back to the slaves quarters, stopping only once to collect a promising looking stone and a few convenient pieces of dry driftwood to add to the fire if needed.
They entered the shack rather loudly, and Jamie instantly sought her face. She was grimacing fiercely, and had wound the sheets around her hands for something to grip against the onslaught of pain. Streaks of tears adorned flushed cheeks.
“M-milady?” Fergus called uncertainly. He had seen her downtrodden, and sickly before, but it never failed to stagger him.
“Fergus! Thank God.” She praised quickly. She went about reiterating the mechanics of setting her broken leg to the pair, before ensuring Jamie was familiar with her preferred splinting method.
“Yes, you should be able to hold both ends of the belt in your good hand, Fergus. Just like that. Once Jamie has a good hold of my foot, you both must pull away from one another. It’ll take quite a bit of force, I should think, with all the swelling.” She eyed her leg dubiously. “Once Jamie has my foot, I think it likely I won’t be coherent enough to be of much use. Even the sheets dragging across it feels like a crushing weight. You’ll feel the bone fall back in to place, and the misalignment should be visible, just here.” She indicated with a finger directly above the spot that dimpled in unnaturally on her shin.
“If I’m unconscious for more than 12 hours, fetch a doctor or burn a feather or... whatever you deem necessary to try to wake me. It shouldn’t come to that though, I think.” She ended wearily.
“Allonsy, Milord. Milady has waited long enough, no?” Fergus prompted with finality, gently threading his belt under her bent knee, and very gently lifting her leg off the bed. Claire strangled a pained moan. Having given her marching orders, her energy seemed to have fled in a hurry. Fergus watched as Jamie delicately placed a clean, dry rag into Claire’s mouth to keep her from biting her tongue. He slid a thumb across her chin in silent encouragement, then took his place at the foot of her bed.
He tried to be gentle about it, but there was little to be done, he knew, as he lifted her leg by the ankle off the stretched canvass of the cot. Claire’s aborted shout was muffled, but not enough to stop the slice of pain which rent through him. Christ, if only he’d fallen in love with a woman less inclined toward trouble. He shook his head, berating himself before the thought was even finished. Those women weren’t his sort. Only she was.
He locked eyes one final time with Claire, nodded once at her, half delirious as she already appeared to be, then turned to Fergus to signal him. Jamie couldn’t manage to be verbal, but Fergus had spent years learning his silent communication, and the two simultaneously applied traction as instructed. He watched nauseously for movement below her skin, and found it with the trained eyes of a hunter. Claire’s shrill scream abruptly ended and he looked up just in time to see her eyes roll back into her head grotesquely. He continued his pressure, and within a few seconds, there was an auditory pop as the bones shifted back into their proper place, and the jagged angle of her shin corrected.
The two men released most of their traction, and Jamie gestured with his head that Fergus could let go all together. Fergus did so, and the two gently placed her leg back on the bed. “Sit by your lady’s head. She said to watch her breathing. I’ll splint the thing before you go back to your own wife.”
Fergus nodded smartly and took up the spot by her upper body. As Jamie was reaching for two equal sized lengths of wood, he caught movement out of the corner of his eye, and looked up in time to see Fergus combing out the tail ends of Claire’s curls with his fingers. His son’s eyes darted to him for a second before he explained, “She used to like it when I did this in Paris, after… After. Sometimes, before you came back, it was the only words she would say that day: ‘Fergus, could you comb my hair?’ I think… I think she could not think of anything to say, but she could say that, and it was easy enough.”
Jamie grunted in acknowledgment, but remained bent to his work. He didn’t often think of it- as unpleasant as it was- but after Claire had lost Faith, there had been weeks where her only comforter had been an eleven year old Fergus.
When he finished winding the bandaging material over the splints, Jamie rose, stretched, and dropped a warm hand on Fergus’ shoulder. “Thank ye, lad. Go back to Marsali, and keep her far from trouble, aye?”
Fergus quirked his lips as if to say, ‘is that possible?’ But he gathered his things and did so anyway, after bending to place a kiss on Claire’s cheek. “Bonne nuit.”
Jamie took care to stoke up the fire a bit, drape his blanket at the foot of the cot, and pour a glass of water and set it on the bedside stool in case Claire woke and became thirsty. The chores took three times as long as they normally would, however, because Jamie kept scurrying back to his wife, and scrutinizing the rise and fall of her chest, which was hard to make out in the dim light unless he was right next to her.
Once all his tasks were completed, he couldn’t fathom simply sitting still, and wasn’t sure his body was even up to the task of holding itself upright anymore. That considered, Jamie moved toward the cot with purpose, and sidled up next to Claire. He cradled her neck in one hand, and cupped the other behind one of her shoulder blades, and lifted until she was in a sitting position. With some maneuvering, he was able to keep her upright until he could take a seat behind her, and lower her upper body until it rested against his, back to front.
With her nestled in against him, Jamie brought both of his legs up onto the cot, bracketing Claire’s, careful of her injured leg. He wrapped both arms around her, and settled the blankets back up over them both, enveloping them in warmth. With her head resting just below his chin, and her entire back spooned up to his front, Jamie could feel the steady thrum of her heart, and the ebb and flow of her breathing. His own back rested against the wall of their lodgings, with only a single thin pillow for padding, but he’d slept much rougher, and without the comfort of his woman in his arms.
He drifted then, never fully asleep, but restful nevertheless, listening for signs of wakefulness from Claire.
She slept until midmorning, and Jamie thanked the Lord he had has the foresight to take a pish outside before he and Fergus had mended Claire’s leg, for he would not have been in a position to stay warm and drowsy with her if he hadn’t. The first sign of consciousness was a deep sigh, heavy, but relatively unburdened considering their last few days. Jamie rubbed one of her arms with his hand energetically, trying to transfer some of his own alertness into her. She hummed softly, and her head rolled to and fro. He couldn’t see her face from this angle, but he suspected her eyes to be open, and thus surveying the room before her.
Claire seemed to notice then, that she was propped up against her husband, still fully ensconced in his embrace. Both arms slid to the one of his that was slung low over her waist, and she hugged his limb closer to her, humming again through another deep sigh. “Jamie…” She murmured warmly.
His reply came as a warm, low breath of, “Aye?” in her ear. He angled his head to see her better, just in time to see her lips drift drowsily up into a blissful, half lidded smile.
“I ought to put you in charge more often, Solider. You did an excellent job by the looks of things. My leg hardly even hurts unless I move it.” Her voice was sleep warm and full of gentle teasing, as if she didn’t want to disturb the peace they had built in their room.
“Och, no. Ye’ve had your hands on the reins since the day I met ye, and it hardly seems fair to yank them from ye now. Disregarding the fact that you could barely sit a horse when I met ye. You always were an intractable wee thing.” He hugged her to him, and nuzzled a stubbled cheek into the side of her neck by way of punishment.
Claire revealed more of her neck in invitation, and he pressed an ardent kiss there, before retreating and reaching for the glass of water, which he handed to her gently. She took a few small sips and returned it to his hand. He drained the rest of the glass, sunk a little lower into the cot, and dragged her with him, returning to the soft embrace of sleep.
…
The next few days proved less fretful, but no less exhausting for the pair, as Claire had developed some, “respiratory symptoms from the inhalation of large amounts of water,” which would have sounded more impressive if she hadn’t been hacking up one of her lungs while trying to say it.
Jamie, at Claire’s direction, would draw a large, strong thumb over her brows, and sweep it down in a line on either side of her nose, swooping below her cheekbones to loosen the phlegm there. He didn’t mind this request at all. In his life, his hands had seen far more brutal and toilsome work. Besides that, it was a relief to study the delicate, substantive, planes of her face. His Sassenach had always been fair skinned, but even the pallid, limpid texture of her face was a comfort after the image of her still and gray, sinking to the bottom of the sea. Besides which, after their 20 year separation, touching her was rather more a necessity than a casual comfort, even when they two were safe and at ease, as damnably infrequent as it was. So no, stroking his wife’s face to ease her pain was no burden, but in fact an undertaking which he took to with great tenderness and a sense of pride. He took the opportunity to tell her so, every time she was awake to hear it, and frequently when she was not.
“It’s a blessing, mo chridhe, to be charged with yer care,” he told her on his second night of sitting by her bed, tracing lines of alleviation into pearl smooth skin. She had just been chastising his lack of self-care, and had plead him to leave her be and seek his own rest on the bedroll to the other side of her narrow cot.
She was invariably exhausted, despite two days of near constant sleep. Her voice was drowsy, eyes half lidded, and likely only half lucid, but her sharp tongue was near impossible to make blunt. “You may not think as much when you’re carrying me to the chamber pot every few hours for the next several weeks, my lad.”
“I’ll think it so long as it is true, Sassenach. There’s hardly been an hour since I met ye that I havenae wanted to hold ye in my arms.” He had bent at that, pressed a kiss to the brow he had just been stroking, then to each cheek, and at the insistence of her slim, urging fingers in his hair, a lingering kiss to her lips as well.
“Oh, Jamie.” She said softly, and with such affection it made his heart clench and his lips turn up by mere reflex. His hand sought hers without conscious thought, and brought hers to rest in between each of his, dragging a soothing patterns across her knuckles.
“Sleep.” He commanded softly, but her eyes were already closed.
“You’re incorrigible.” She hummed, barely audible, and squeezed his palm once before acquiescing.
He discovered, early on, that a warm compress to her chest also brought Claire some relief, and for the first time, he caught a glimpse of why medicine held his wife’s fascination. There was a definite satisfaction in devising remedies and recognizing their marked improvement upon a patient, especially one so beloved to him. Unfortunately, he also identified the frustration of how arduous and fleeting such remedies could be. It took nearly thirty minutes to boil a kettle of water in the fireplace, and another five to ten minutes before it was then cool enough to dip a cloth into so that it wouldn’t burn Claire’s chest. But once the cloth was of adequate temperature to cause relief, the drafty room made quick work of cooling the cloth to such a degree as to wrack her with shivers and whimpers at the ache it caused it her lungs. If Jamie was lucky, he was able to dip the cloth once or twice more into the kettle before it needed to be put back on the fire to reheat.
Through repeated trial and increasingly desperate tribulation, he found it much simpler to either warm his own hands by the fire, or press them between his knees to generate sufficient heat to bring her some ease. Since taking to his bed, she had always teased that he ran as hot as a furnace, and he was never so thankful for his warm-blooded tendency as he was when he rested one of his great, heavy hands on her breastbone and felt at once her sigh of contentment. Her airways were irritated and raw from the salt water, and he even went so far as to occasionally place a thumb and two fingers on either side of the base of her throat, to allow his heat to soothe there as well.
After a particularly ferocious bout of coughing on her end, he rubbed small circles against her sternum with the callused base of his palm. She moaned piteously and he shushed her, whispering, “Hush, mo ghraidh, be still. It’ll pass. It will pass. Hush, now.”
How many times had Claire sat, just as he did now, hunched over a patient’s bed, having administered all the tonics and poultices and bandages she could, feeling restlessness settle in, knowing nothing else could be done but to wait? How many times had she played the part over his sickbed? He felt a pang of regret snap through him, zinging down his spine and curling around his wame. If it was like this every time she had, he thought he owed her rather more than the sheepish looks and amused apologies he’d given her in the past.
He found himself wondering if Frank Randall had ever sat by her bedside like this? Claire had said Brianna’s birth was a difficult one, that she had been unwell for sometime after. Had Frank taken up a vigil by her sick bed, smoothed solace and love and devotion into her skin for a lack of any other way to help? Claire’s account of her marriage with Randall were vague, but hesitantly neutral or mildly positive. Still, every time they did discuss it, there was something about the rigid set of her shoulders and the slight downturn of her mouth that made him doubt Frank had ever worried over the volume of her pillows, or whether her blanket was tucked around her tightly enough, or fretted if the warm honey water he eased into her mouth was too hot.
He supposed none of that mattered now, as she was once again his wife, and he’d have to be very much dead and buried before leaving her to suffer a sickbed alone.
Once the congestion and mild fever cleared, Claire was much more active, and thus much harder to keep still, as her leg required. Marsali had taken a mending job, and often brought pieces over, to offer Claire some varied company. Two weeks in, Claire’s restlessness was becoming nearly uncontrollable, and Jamie found it necessary to place a chair and stool outside their shack, which she could sit and prop her leg upon. He begged Marsali to take on more mending projects and offer some of them to Claire, just to keep her mind and body occupied. It wasn’t her favorite occupation, but it kept her sitting still, and it was the only way Jamie let her sit outside, for the sake of the better light.
The five took meals together often, either out of doors, with the women perched upon the only two chairs available, and the men taking easy seats in the warm sand after long days of chopping wood, hauling timber, or building fence, as Mr. Oliver required. Ian, newly restored to them, was full of vim and vigor, and did a good job of distracting his Auntie with tales of his adventures, minus those involving Geillis. He, like most Scots (his uncle included) was a natural born storyteller.
Claire greatly regretted having told Jamie that she should avoid any walking or standing on her injured leg for at least four weeks. It meant that Jamie carried her everywhere (or rather, the few places he allowed her to go, which were always within five feet of that damned shed). He had steadfastly refused to fashion her a crutch, had shifted the few pieces of furniture far enough apart to prevent her hobbling about, and had angrily berated her into submission the one time he came in to find her hopping upon one leg in order to reach to their single stoneware pitcher.
“Would ye no’ mind, woman, for just once in yer life?” He snorted, snatching the pitcher from her hand and slamming it down on the bench just past the fireplace.
“I’ll thank you to lower your voice and not order me about like a child, you brute!” Claire fired back, one hand fisting at her side, the other hanging on to the edge of the cot for balance.
“A brute, am I? If that’s what ye’d have me be, I can be! I can snarl and hold ye down if needs must! Will ye have me do it, then, or will ye mind your own damned advice and sit down?” He thundered, towering over her, face red.
“You can’t shout me into submission, Jamie! You may be able to intimidate everyone else into going your way but it won’t work on me! I was getting a drink. I’m damned near 50 years old, I think I can handle that for myself after all these years!” She hissed back, hand clawing at the wall for lack of a better target.
“Christ, Claire, what if ye’d fallen and hurt yerself e’en worse than ye are already?” He gestured at her splint disdainfully. “What a damned foolish thing for you to do, and selfish! Your independence got ye into this blasted mess in the first place, d’ye no’ think o’ that?” His accent always got thicker when he was angry, too focused on his rage to enunciate as he normally might.
“My fucking independence is endearing and commendable when it serves you! But once it becomes an inconvenience, it’s always my bloody fault, isn’t it? Well you can’t have it both ways, James Fraser!” She was so mad she was spitting, and Jamie could see the cords in her neck from the strain of her fury. He was about to launch back in for another round of verbal assaults, when he noticed a small tremor in Claire.
He had been so furious and hell bent on making his point known that he had forgotten to consider that Claire hadn’t stood by herself for nearly three and a half weeks, and it was clearly showing now. The knee in her healthy leg wobbled and he noticed how her injured ankle dipped dangerously low several times, barely missing the floor before she hiked it up again with noticeable effort. What had before been a light hand on the cot and the wall had morphed into a nearly desperate grasp on both, and it dawned on him that this was probably the only thing keeping her upright.
He made every effort to let the anger and tension drain from his body. He felt his shoulders sink to their normal position, felt his arms relax, felt his breath come more naturally. “I am acting a brute.” He admitted softly. “Come to me, Claire, before ye fall o’er.” He reached out to her, and after a second’s hesitation, she lay her forearm along his, grasping at his elbow and leaning into him for support. Even though it went against the impulse he had to coddle her, he decided not to pick her up and take her to the pitcher himself. Instead, he reached out for her other hand, laying her arm over his in the same manner as the first, and he took small steps backwards, allowing her to take minuscule hops on her good foot until they reached the bench she had been aiming for in the first place.
By the end of the two meter journey, Claire was shaky and sweating, and she swiveled herself until she could recline on the far end of the bench. She was panting, but Jamie let her have her arms back, and she collapsed back into the wall, reaching for the pitcher which had been unkindly left out of reach of her cot when he, Ian, Fergus, and Marsali and quit the cottage to see to various errands.
He handed her the closest cup, one of tin that Fergus and Ian had salvaged from the remains of the wreckage, along with several other odds and ends, a day or more past. Claire unsteadily poured herself some water and drank it down quickly before repeating the process again. She had yet to look at him since their heated exchange.
Jamie crouched down in front of her, and took the twice empty cup from between both her hands, setting it on the bench beside her. He took her right hand in his, caressed his wedding ring on her third finger. “You’re right about your… self reliance. I’ve always admired it in ye, and it’s a trait I’ve valued in myself when I have the blessing of using it. I tend to make an arse of myself when I let it get away wi’ m’, aye? I’m heart sorry for what I said in my worry.”
He dipped his head, hoping to catch her eye. She allowed it, and her eyes were much softer than they had been moments before. “I’m sorry, too, Jamie. Caring for someone so stubborn isn’t very easy, I should know. I’m not making this simple for you, am I?”
“I didnae fall in love wi’ ye for the simplicity of you, though, did I, Sassenach?”
She did her best to suppress a grin, with little success. “I should think not, for I am rarely simple.”
“Nae.” He agreed companionably. “Nor am I.” He noticed that she irritably brushed aside a strand of hair sticking to her sweaty neck. “Could I tie your hair back for ye, mo Ghoal?”
“Yes, thanks. I think my last thong is floating somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean.” He chuckled in humorous acknowledgment, pulled the thin lace of leather from his own hair, and used it to tie her own back, and away from her neck. She sighed gratefully.
“I had thought you might like some fresh air before I came in. Maybe out by the shore where we can feel the breeze, watch the water birds. I could hobble ye there, if ye like?” He knew she was feeling cooped up and frustrated with the lack of something to occupy her. He also knew he’d feel the exact same if their positions were reversed.
Claire considered her next words before answering. “I’m a bit worse for wear just from the few steps between my cot and here… Maybe you could carry me there, and I can work my way up to making it out there on my own?” She suggested mildly, clearly frustrated by requiring the concession, but weary to ruffle his feathers.
“Aye, that’ll be fine, then. If ye give me a few days, I could fashion you a cane of sorts to help ye get around until you’re able to put full weight on the leg.” He offered amicably, rising to stretch his back before bending to pick her up.
She wound her arms around his neck and tried to use their strength to lighten his load. He barely was able to choke back a laugh, the notion of her weight being burdensome to him laughable.
He whirled her out the door with a flourish, eliciting an amused giggle from her, and trekked across the dunes until he found a half shaded spot where they could watch the tide, and the various creatures that relied upon it, without the harsh glare of the sun.
Jamie had found a good length of of oak wood approximately the right proportions for a cane, and he began to strip away at the bark while Claire pillowed her head upon his shoulder. They commented on the erratic behavior of the birds that swooped and dove and squabbled among each other. He used handfuls of barely damp sand to smooth the wood below, so that no splinters would find their way into Claire’s delicate skin. Claire pressed their hips together, and kept up a running commentary on supplies they might gather, and the resourceful ways they might go about doing so to save their precious little capital. Jamie sketched patterns into the wood with his fingers, imagining and re-imagining carvings he might put there to please his wife. Claire offered up a list of the heads of various horned beasts he might carve into the handle for her. “If you’re to make me carry a cane, the least you could do is fashion it into some sort of viable weapon to beat you back with.” She offered helpfully.
He threw the half-finished cane in the sand at their feet, grabbed her playfully around the waist, and hoisted her into his lap, squeezing her until she squeaked and laughed and begged for mercy. He settled her there, kissed the crown of her head, and took up her tally of rations they’d need until they could find themselves a decent homestead.