Chapter Text
“Are ye sure ye dinna want to wait to do this with yer mother when she returns?” Roger asked as they continued along the road to Lallybroch.
They had reached that frustrating point in their research where they were forced to wait for new resources to arrive from the distant libraries that possessed them. Rather than give in to cabin fever, Brianna had grabbed the map with Lallybroch circled on it and pushed Roger’s keys into his hand.
“No, I want to see it myself. I don’t want to hear her stories about how it was, I want to see what it is,” Brianna struggled to explain to him. “And it’s… I don’t want to put her through seeing it like it is now if that might be… I don’t know. I just think it might be harder for her too.”
“All right,” Roger replied, pressing his foot to the gas with more enthusiasm.
They crested the hill and Brianna gasped. Roger pulled the car over so they could take a moment to see it from the distance. Even though it was clearly in disrepair, the sight of the large stone house and lilting tower were an impressive sight. With a quick glance over at the stricken Brianna, Roger pulled back onto the main road and continued along slowly, ready to turn back if at any moment she changed her mind and wanted to turn back, to wait for Claire.
He brought the car through the main archway into the desolate yard and switched off the ignition, waiting for Brianna to get out first.
She did so slowly, looking around every which way, unsure where to direct her attention first.
“It’s huge,” she finally exclaimed. “It’s kind of a mess right now… but I can see it—what it must’ve been.”
“Aye,” Roger agreed, closing the car door and taking a few steps towards the house, which appeared to have boards and chains barring entrance. “The stonework isna in terrible shape though the roof needs replacing. It’s likely no much to look at inside at the moment. But it’s a bonnie spot.”
“My grandfather built this,” Brianna said in awe, walking up the steps and putting her hand to the stone wall. “My father was born here… I should have been born here.”
“Ye dinna ken how to pick the lock, do ye?” Roger inquired as he ran his thumb over the padlock holding the chains in place.
Brianna pulled a bobby pin from her hair and made an attempt but it was clear to Roger that she wasn’t acting based on any real knowledge and though Brianna managed to elicit a few promising noises from the mechanism inside, the pin bent out of shape before the lock could yield.
“You don’t have bolt cutters or a hack saw in the back of the car, do you?” she countered but Roger just shook his head. “Didn’t think so.” She wandered back down the steps and started to follow the outer wall of the house, stopping at a window. It was several feet higher than she could see without some assistance. Glancing around the yard she found nothing to the purpose.
Roger could see what she was looking for and came over to crouch beside her weaving his fingers together into a foothold. “Grab the sill up there to balance yerself,” he advised, “and pray I can hold ye in place long enough for ye to take a peek.”
Bree grabbed hold of the windowsill above to help relieve Roger of bearing the entirety of her weight.
“It’s no use,” she told him as she shook him off and dropped to the ground unassisted. “The windows are too dirty to see anything and they won’t open from the outside. There’s no getting in without breaking the glass, which is where I draw the line.” She brushed her hands off on her pants with more attention than was necessary, keeping her eyes down while doing it.
“We can still walk the grounds, if ye like,” Roger offered.
“A bit,” Brianna agreed a little reluctantly. She knew it was unlikely they’d be able to find the dunbonnet’s cave on their own; while it intrigued her she didn’t know if she was ready to see the place where Jamie Fraser had spent most of what would have been her early childhood. It was still surreal to think that she might have been raised so differently. Seeing her mother’s enthusiasm as they traced Jamie’s path through history, she tried to picture what that childhood might have looked like—a very different kind of schooling, no bicycle riding, no paved streets or sidewalks to decorate with chalk. What’s more, she couldn’t help but absorb Frank’s explorations of the devastation that rained down on the Highlands following the ‘45’s failure. She couldn’t help but be grateful to Jamie Fraser for urging her mother back through the stones so that she could have a proper childhood—a childhood free of want and worry.
They were quiet as they meandered through the large yard and deeper into the overgrown grounds. Roger stopped suddenly, his mouth hanging open as though he wanted to say something but he remained speechless. Brianna noticed the distinct tops of gravestones peeking over a low, stone wall at the top of an incline.
“Uh… do ye…” Roger began awkwardly.
“No,” Brianna said with surprising force before turning around and heading back the way they had come. She was afraid of what she might find up there. It was a long way from where they had found Jamie’s grave but if her mother planned to go back—to try to find him in the past… And aside from what she feared to find, she didn’t really know the others she might find up there anyway. Her grandmother and grandfather were buried up there but even her mother had never met them; if there were others up there her mother had known, did Brianna really want to know when they would die? She shook her head against the grim thoughts.
Stomping back into the yard, Brianna wondered why it was she had been so adamant about coming to Lallybroch. She wanted to see it, yes, but it wasn’t giving her the answers she had expected… of course, she wasn’t really aware she had been looking for it to give her anything.
She strolled to the main gate and looked up the road. It disappeared from sight as it wound its way through the trees and up out of the valley but the slight depression where it cut through the landscape was still visible. It left the view unmarred and after a few minutes with her eyes closed she could just about believe that she was staring into the past when she opened them again.
Brianna leaned against the stone of the entryway imagining what it must have been like for her mother that first time Jamie had brought her here to Lallybroch. She had said that it was right after Jamie had taken her to Craigh na Dun, right after she had chosen to stay with him and make a life with him. So he’d brought her home; this was where they had lived for almost a full year after their failed political maneuvering in France; this was where they had wanted to live out their days.
The sun was sinking, casting long shadows of the stone arch and Brianna herself across the yard, reaching for something—reaching for what might have been, perhaps?
There was a clicking noise from behind her, breaking the quiet spell.
Roger had retrieved his camera from the car and seized his opportunity.
“I couldna resist the way the light was hitting ye,” he confessed sheepishly. “I should ha’ asked—”
“It’s okay,” Brianna said with a smile. The confusion of not knowing what she was looking for had faded as she looked out over the grounds of the property and the road leading up to it. Something about the permanence of it resonated with her. She didn’t want to call it belonging—she was still too unsettled by the sensation. But the beauty of the place—even in its run-down state—was undeniable. She wanted to feel like she belonged there… but maybe it was off because it wasn’t the right time… If her mother did succeed in going back, in finding Jamie Fraser, would she, Brianna still feel like she belonged in the twentieth century? Alone?
“Would ye like me to take one wi’ ye looking to the camera?” Roger offered. “Give ye a chance to prepare yerself?”
He was walking the line between genuinely asking—afraid that he’d upset her, maybe—and teasing her. Brianna’s smile grew and heat rose in her cheeks. Maybe she had more than her mother grounding her in the twentieth century.
She shifted so that she faced the camera more directly and tried not to have her posture appear too posed. Roger took another shot.
“I don’t think ye can leave until ye’ve visited the broch that gives the estate its name,” Roger informed her with a nod towards the slightly crooked tower in the distance. “It’s unlikely we’ll be able to get a peak inside, but we can try the door. Ye should have a grand view of the house from there as well,” he added.
“Bring your camera,” Brianna urged him as she set off for the tower, a greater sense of peace settling on her with each step.
They traced Jamie to 1766 just a few days later and let Claire know. It wasn’t much longer before she arrived in Scotland again and Brianna could tell that Claire had made her decision and though Brianna had told herself all along that she knew it was the only decision her mother could make, the thought of losing her stung.
But there were more preparations Claire needed to make before she left, which gave Brianna more time with her mother. Roger brought his camera out again and snapped enough photos of the three of them to fill an entire album.
While Roger was changing out the roll of film in his camera, Claire retrieved a cardboard shoebox from among the things she’d brought with her from Boston.
“I wanted to bring some photos with me—or at least try,” Claire explained. “I don’t know if they’ll survive the journey but if there’s a chance… I want to be able to show him how you grew up… but I can’t decide which ones to bring. I was hoping you wouldn’t mind helping me choose.”
Brianna’s throat was too tight to allow her to speak so she simply nodded and pulled a chair closer to her mother who rested the box on her knees and began by pulling out a small stack from the front of the box—Brianna’s baby pictures.
“Ye were a round, wee thing,” Roger commented, reaching over and taking hold of a few embarrassing shots Brianna had quickly relegated to the “no” pile. They showed her in various states of undignified undress—in her bathtub with a washcloth dangling from her mouth, on her training toilet, wearing only a diaper and bent over so that she looked like she might fall on her head as she peeked through her legs… She snatched at the pictures and managed to get all but one away from a laughing Roger.
Claire pressed her lips together in a smile as she tucked away one of Brianna asleep in just her jumpsuit, her arms folded over her chest and her legs straight out—it was exactly the way Jamie used to sleep… and perhaps still did.
Brianna chose to include a photo of herself with her beloved childhood dog. “You said he had dogs at Lallybroch, right?” she said as she slipped the photo into the pile of possibilities—it was already too large and would need to be further narrowed down.
“There were several of them,” Claire nodded. “Oh, no, don’t put that one in.” Claire pulled out a photo of Brianna in her school uniform standing in front of the mantel in the house in Boston. She held a certificate for perfect attendance and her two front teeth were missing from the proud grin she wore.
Brianna frowned at it a moment, unsure why her mother would object to the humiliating image until she noted the mirror above the mantel behind her. Claire’s reflection was clearly visible and just next to it vaguely obscured by the burst of light she could just make out a bit of Frank’s face. She hadn’t realized she’d been avoiding the photos with Frank in them—easily done since he was behind the camera in most cases. She set the photo aside and purposely sought one that had her with both Frank and Claire from when Claire finished medical school.
“Do you think you should include some of yourself?” Brianna suggested. “Don’t you think he’ll want to see what you did this whole time too?” She pulled out another of Claire alone with her diploma and offered it to Claire.
Her mother took the picture and smiled briefly before setting it aside. “I’ll be able to tell him on my own. But you…”
She didn’t have to finish the thought—he would never see Brianna except in the photographs.
The photo of Brianna with Claire and Frank was still in her lap. She would never have a picture of Jamie—of herself with Jamie… Unless she counted the ones Roger had taken of her at Lallybroch. He had taken the film in to be developed; those pictures would be ready in just a few days, before Claire left. Brianna decided she'd make sure to slip one of the pictures from that day into her mother's collection—she'd have to be sure to find one that didn't show too much of the dilapidated state the house was in; maybe one of the ones of her leaning against the broch or her in the stone gateway...
She would never know what he looked like beyond what she was able to see of him in her own reflection. Frank was gone but she would always have those images of him as reminders along with his books and other trinkets he’d left behind—a straight-edge razor, his favorite hat, the embossed briefcase he’d carried to and from the university every day. She had nothing of Jamie Fraser except the stories her mother had told her and a collection of historical records that didn’t even get his name right half the time.
Brianna realized she wanted him to know her. She wanted him to know how much he had given her when he sent her mother back through those standing stones. She turned to the piles of photographs with renewed purpose. If a picture was worth a thousand words, she would have to make sure each one counted.