Chapter 32: Hopes and Fears

May you, William James Matthew Fraser, be healthy, honest and happy all throughout your life.

May there always be work for your hands to do.
May your purse always hold a coin or two.
May the sun always shine upon your window pane.
May a rainbow be certain to follow each rain.
May the hand of a friend always be near to you and
May God fill your heart with gladness to cheer you.

Something was different. Not wrong, not uncomfortable but different. He could recall vividly how his heart had almost exploded with joy when he saw Bree for the first time. How nothing had felt more real to him than holding Em in those first few hours after Claire had returned through the stones, and during the long ride back to Lallybroch. Those memories had given him peace when he felt scared, hope when he felt lost, and the strength to do what needed to be done even when it seemed impossible. There were no words for the immense love he felt for his children. But there was a new sensation now, he didn't love his daughters any less but he couldn't deny that there was something about holding his son, his own flesh and blood in his arms, that made him feel like his life was complete. A son who could pass down the Fraser name, to make his own father proud.

Standing in the early morning light, looking out over the courtyard towards the north facing tower, he whispered to his son "This land is your legacy William, yours and your sisters and I vow to you that I will see it stand proud for you once more." He was so small, wrapped in Claire's shawl so that only his tiny hand and face could be seen. Only two days old and already more precious to him than he could have ever imagined. A single strand of hair covered his head, too early yet to tell if it was auburn like his mothers, or red like his own. His eyes were still dark blue, but Jenny had told him once that all children's eyes are blue until they grow into them. He could sense Claire's spirit within him, strong and determined. That strength had saved his son's life already and god willing it would keep him from harm in the future, unless he had his mother's tendency to get herself into grief as well.

He sighed longingly looking over at the pile of blankets piled warmly around his sleeping love. She had survived, but she was still weak and although he was grateful that she had lived, he couldn't fight the fear that he may still yet loose her. "Ye mother is a fierce woman, a warrior." He looked upon her longingly, praying that she could find her strength again soon, "Ye've nothing to fear mo ghille, I'll not let any harm come to ye." As if sensing his father's words, William began to stir, he was a restless child never sleeping for more than twenty minutes at a time and always hungry. Jamie hadn't had a decent nights sleep since before he was born but he didn't mind.

JAMMF

Downstairs the house was beginning to stir. "Shh" He whispered again as he walked down the stairs towards the kitchen. Jenny had arranged for some honey water to be ready by the fire if he needed a feed before she was awake. With young Michael, Emily and now William Jenny was doing her best to see that all of the bairns were fed on a regular basis. One of the local crofter's wives, Mrs Gibbons, had offered her assistance and had come to stay with them, but with a bairn of her own the milk was still stretched thin.

"Good morning James." John greeted me warmly as he discarded the pile of firewood he had just carried inside. "And how is young William this morning?"
"He's a braw lad John." I nodded proudly. "Although he does seem awfully fond of the drink. He can't seem to get enough of the sweet water."

"Well as long as he stays off of the hard stuff I dare say he shall be fine." John looked him over longingly,
"Aye." I agreed rocking him gently in my arms.

"And Claire? Is she well?"
"She is resting. She assures me she is not in any danger." As much as I wanted to, I couldn't find any comfort in her words. The memory of losing her too raw in my mind.

"She's a smart woman your Claire. Rest assured James that Matthew tells me she will be on her feet again soon. Have faith in that."
"Thank you." Not just for his kind words, which were sorely needed, but also Jamie acknowledged unspoken with a lingering glance, for bringing Matthew, for saving Claire and the bairn and for coming after him and saving his own life as well. John simply nodded back, 'you're welcome'. The exchange was brief and silent but a great deal had been said and understood between them.

"Shh wean. Ye'll wake ye mother." I warned William as I left John and made my way again towards the kitchen. I grabbed the pot of boiled sweet water, checked the temperature like Jenny had shown me and then began to feed William. He barely stirred as he kept his gaze firmly on the jug before him, his exposed hand resting against the side as he gulped down the mixture with haste. I had been quite proud of myself, based on Claire's descriptions of 20th century feeding devices, I had managed to fashion a 'bottle' Claire called it, out of a smaller whiskey urn, some soft timber moulding and a piece of fabric from one of Jenny's old dresses. Once the 'bottle' was filled with the sweet water, the moulded lid could be placed on top to create a smaller opening like a cows udder. It was very rough though so Jenny had insisted on covering the udder with some fabric so as not to cut the bairns mouth. It was a weird idea at first, to feed the wean from a jug but it had proven itself very useful during the last two days.

"Da….. Da…." Em cried out from her room on the second floor. I had been so proud when she had learned the word just weeks before, but now it was becoming somewhat of an irritation. "Christ." I swore under my breath, "She'll wake the whole house up." I looked to William still feeding and tried to judge how long before he would finish and I could go upstairs to Em.

"Allow me." John called out as he returned with a second load of firewood for the kitchen. Before I could argue, John had already climbed the stairs and was heading for her room.

"What's wrong with her?" I wondered aloud. She hadn't been settled in weeks but it was getting worse and nothing I did seemed to console her. I could tell by the pitch in her voice that she was in terrible pain and it broke my heart not to be able to do anything about it. I wished Claire was well enough to tell me what to do. No doubt she would have some ointment or potion that would work.

"She's teething the poor lass, they all go through it." Jenny heard my thoughts. She looked like she had been up all night, her hair in disarray and her clothes smeared with soot as she placed young Michael in the cot beside the warm fire of the oven and grabbed her apron. "They'll all be wanting their breakfast soon."

"I dinna ken how ye do it Jenny. Ye've got the five bairns and I've only the three bairns, and yet I dinna seem able to manage even with that."
"It's nothing once you get the hang of it, and you will in time." It was easy to forget that although I had been uncle to Jenny's children, I had also been absent in France when the older ones were young, and as a guest of the English when the younger children had been born. I hadn't met Bree until she was almost 5 years old and well past the wean stage and young Em and Micheal were still only just new to the household. The only child I had really seen raised was young Ian, but he had been such a contented docile child that nothing seemed to ever phase him. It was like I was experiencing everything for the first time.

"Look who's up." John announced as he walked into the kitchen with Em in his arms. She was chewing on a piece of leather and seemed to have forgotten what had woken her only moments ago. "I do believe that your daughter has gotten a new tooth." John grinned, taking a seat at the table and placing Em on his lap ready to feed her.

"It suits you." I noted, drawing no attention to the twinkle in Jenny's eye.

"I do regret not having had the opportunity to father a child of my own. I guess for some of us that life has other plans." He paused a moment, looking at me, trying to see if his meaning was clear, and it was. I knew he had feelings for me, that he had desires that took him away from the traditional life of wife and family that most men longed for. It was one of the things that we had bonded over during my incarceration, two fathers forced to live in a world without children. "But this." He interrupted my thoughts, "If I can be allowed to call myself uncle, to help you and Claire to raise these fine children of yours, then it will give me the greatest honour."

"The honour, John." I allowed myself to smile warmly at him, "Is mine."

"Do you have any idea how lucky you are Fraser?" I could hear a tone of regret in his voice, of envy even. He looked away, a quick cough and clearing of his throat and his carefree demeanour was returned.
"It is you who has made me a lucky man." I objected. If it wasn't for your protection and friendship back then, then I would never have lived long enough to see my daughter Bree, or to find Claire again. In truth John, I have you to thank for Emily and William as well. And now, thanks to your friendship with Matthew, I have you to thank for Claire's life now too. My debt to you will never be repaid."

"Just make sure you treat these children, and your wife right and we will be even." He said, spinning Emily around to face him. "Now young lady. What would you like for breakfast?"

JAMMF

It was another three weeks before the snows cleared enough for John and Matthew to be able to make the journey back to the garrison. They had made themselves useful during their stay, chopping firewood, stoking the fires, bringing in the supplies from the storage shed and ensuring that the livestock didn't freeze during the long cold nights. Typically, Young Jamie and Fergus would have seen to most of those jobs with help from Ian and myself and a handful of the men. But Fergus was busy tending secretly to our other stock and I had kept the men busy trying to arrange for Claire's departure before the sudden and harsh storm, that they hadn't had the time to prepare their own dwellings for the winter. In my remorse, I had sent them all of to tend to their families and to rest up before the snows cleared and life got busy again. Young Jamie was healing well. He was regaining the use of this leg in short bursts and he was able to walk around the house, aided by a walking stick Fergus had fashioned for him from a fallen branch. Watching Ian and young Jamie hobble around the house on their crutches was a strange sight indeed. Jenny didn't know whether to throttle them or hug them half the time and young Jamie's mischievous nature and cabin fever was not helping matters one little bit.

Maggie and Katherine helped out around the house, helping Bree to keep the linen clean and the rooms tidy. They waited on Claire and the rest of us and made do with what little supplies we had left. Bree was becoming so much like her cousins, I wondered how different her life might have been if she had stayed in her time, with Claire. Would she have turned out to be as kind and considerate, or would she have been more independent, more self-indulged like Dougal's girls who had lived their lives surrounded by maids and servants?

Standing by the fire, looking out through the parlour window at the first glimpses of sunshine in weeks, everything felt so surreal. How many times had my life been mapped out before me only to change? Loving son, brother, second in line and then heir to the Laird of Lallybroch. Outlaw, soldier, a condemned man in hiding hunted by both the crown and his own blood. Homeless, destitute then heir to the Mackenzie fortune and Leoch. Single, happy, forced to wed, overwhelmed with love. Husband. Father to be. Prisoner and condemned man once again. Traitor to his own people. Wine merchant, father to be and adoptive father. Leader and Commander. Murderer. Widowed and condemned to die yet again. Prisoner. Friend. Pardoned. Simple Farmer and then with great joy, husband and father yet again. Like a giant river reaching out to the sea my life had ebbed and flowed, twisted and turned so many times that to say that I could foresee the future, that I could tell where it would all end was mere foolishness. I knew I was but a mere ripple in the water, making my way from beginning to end and that one day, hopefully far from now, that the journey would end. If there was one thing I could do, it was to vow to myself that for as long as this branch of my life was in motion I would hang onto those I held dear and the land that I loved for as long as I could. After all, I thought to myself, my son in my arms, Bree flittering around nearby and Em playing on the rug by the fire, Claire safe and warm in our bedchamber upstairs, it couldn't get more perfect than this.

JAMMF

"Jamie?" I still felt tired, even though I had been asleep most of the morning. The wounds from William's birth still pained me when I moved too suddenly but at least I was able to get up and move around on my own. Feeling my energy returning, I had just sat up in bed, ready to throw off the covers and join my family downstairs when I heard the door opening. I turned ready to see Jamie bounding through the door with Em or William in his arms, but instead was confronted with an unfamiliar hand holding the door slightly ajar.

"It is I ma'am. Lord John Grey." His soft voice whispered through the door, "I was not sure if you were awake, but since I find that you are, would you mind terribly if I came in?"
"Of course." I don't know why I hesitated, gathering the bedclothes up and holding them tight against my chest. Jamie had filled me in on many details since I had first learned of his acquaintance with Lord John, and I understood that there's was not a common bond. I dare say any bond between a prisoner and a soldier is far from common, but their bond clearly went deeper than that, like two long lost brothers, or even lovers.

"I didn't mean to disturb you." He began, grabbing the chair from the corner and taking a seat carefully by the fire, "But Matthew and I will be leaving soon and I do not know when we will get this opportunity again."
"Opportunity?" Lovers? I felt an intense surge of jealousy. Jamie was not in love with this man, even if it was clear that this man was in love with Jamie. But I couldn't help but feel threatened by him nonetheless. There was a silence between us, I could see that he was trying to find the words for what he wanted to say, and normally I would have chimed in but this time I waited. It felt important to let this play out.

"There was something about James, from the moment I first saw him." He began, "There was an honesty I suppose? I knew, even when I was only a scared boy in that god awful woods, that he was a man of his word, that he could be trusted." John looked up at me, nodding slowly, "I can see that you have experienced that too. It's a rare trait not often seen, not even among the honourable themselves." He continued,

"I have noticed as much myself." I agreed trying to decipher why he was in my room.

"You know, I thought I was saving you that night." He grinned shyly, "From being dishonoured at the hands of the unscrupulous Red Jamie. But even then, it was there for anyone to see how fiercely he loved you."

"I beg your pardon?" I wasn't sure where this was going, or rather I feared it was going where I didn't want it to go.

"That's the night I fell in love with him." He continued bluntly, now avoiding eye contact as he looked at a spot on the floor. "I was jealous of you, even then. I didn't really understand why at the time, but it seemed important to make sure that he was kept safe."
"Your pact with your brother you mean, your family's debt of honour?" I tried to clarify so that there was no misunderstanding.
"Precisely. We could have stormed the camp and hunted you all down on the spot but I persuaded my brother not to. I told him I couldn't remember exactly which way I had gone and that it was too dark to find my way back."
"But why?" I asked confused. Why did he do it? Why was he telling me this now?

"I can't explain it, it just felt very important not to let anything happen to him." John tried to explain.
"It must have been a surprise then, when you found him alive and a prisoner in your cells?"
"I couldn't believe it. It was like the fates had conspired to bring us together again. It was all I could do not to expose my joy to the other men, both prisoner and soldier alike."
"I can only imagine." I tried to listen to the sounds outside he room. Where was Jamie I wondered?

"I could tell almost instantly that something was wrong. The light had faded in Jamie then, he was torn, tormented and it was a tiring effort keeping him from causing himself harm and from provoking the other soldiers angst. I'd recognised the longing in him, I'd felt it myself, and I knew that without intervention that the darkness would consume him and soon."

My heart sank, I too had known that pain. I had wished to die myself when we had first been parted but I had Bree and Frank to help pull me out of it, eventually. Jamie had been left all alone. "I can't imagine he made things easy for you."
"Far from it." He remembered, recalling some memory from his past, "But it was worth it, and I had hoped that one day, just maybe, he may come to feel for me the way that I felt for him."

I sat there, speechless. Anyone who knew Jamie knew that that day would never happen.

"He never told me what had happened to you. All he would say was that you were gone and it was clear that he had lost the will to live." He's infliction changed slightly, and he looked at me, accusingly. "Even dead I was no match for your memory, no one ever could be."

"I guess I should take that as a compliment?"
"You should. I could see it years ago, and even when I first saw you again earlier this year. The love you two feel for each other, it radiates off of you both." He sat up and looked sternly into my eyes. "He's a virtuous man Claire, He'd made an oath for king and country and he would sacrifice everything as you well know to keep it. But for you Claire, for you he would forsake it all and burn in hell for all eternity if he had to, to keep you safe. I envy you, to know a love like that and I envy him because I can see in your eyes that you have the same passion for him in your heart and that you would do the same." His body gestures changed suddenly then and he looked at me judgmentally, "That is why, I must ask you because I haven't the courage to ask Jamie. What really happened to you?"

"What do you mean?"
"I know what you said, that you both thought the other was dead. But for the life of me I cannot understand why you wouldn't have written for news, why Jenny wouldn't have contacted you, or even Jamie for that matter. Surely a love so strong wouldn't let death keep you apart and I simply cannot rest until I understand."

"I'm sure I don't know what you mean." How much did he know? How much could he be trusted?

"There is something about you Claire." He used my name so informally, "I didn't pick up on it right away, but there's a difference about you. Like there is with Lt Johnston. The two of you are so alike that it's almost unmistakable. Your superior knowledge of medicine, your mannerisms, your fearlessness. Tell me Claire. I must know, what really happened to you during those missing years? Where did you go?"

"I assure you Lord John." Pleading with him not to push things any further. "That what I have told you is true, and I regret the time apart as much as Jamie does. There's nothing either one of us wouldn't do to change the way things have happened but what's done is done and we need to leave it in the past and move on."

"Very well." John took a deep breath, "I will accept your answer for now, but rest assured that if the time comes that you are ready to elaborate on your experiences some more then you will find me more than willing to listen."

John tapped his fingers on the table, stood up, sat down and took another deep breath like he was clearing a great weight from his chest, "You need not worry for him. My love for him is just as strong as yours, and I promise you that I will do everything in my power to see that James and those he loves are safe from any harm, including from the English. You need not worry for him Mrs Fraser. But maybe, if you are so inclined, you could say a small prayer for the rest of us poor souls who will never know a love as deep as yours." Without further ado, he stood up "Until next time, Mrs Fraser." He bowed and then he was gone.

I let out a breath that I hadn't realised I had been holding and tried to make sense of what had just happened. The closest I was able to make sense of it all was my husband's lover trying to persuade me that nothing had happened, would ever happened and that even though his love was unrequited he would protect Jamie, and by extension me and our children, until his dying breath. In his own way he was trying to relieve my fears and to give me a little peace that I didn't need to worry about Jamie and any retribution from the English. But what did I have to fear? Did he know about the cattle? The horses? Did he know about the stones? What exactly did he think I was worried about? If he had wanted to relieve my fears, he had only succeeded in lighting flame to ones that had not been there before. I quickly gathered my things and went to find Jamie.