I don't own anything other than my OC. All the rest is the property of Diana Gabaldon and the producers and writers of the TV show Outlander. I just like to play!

People disappear all the time. Young girls run away from home. Young children stray from their parents and are never seen again. Housewives take the grocery money and a taxi to the train station. Many of the lost are found, eventually, after all disappearances have explanations. Usually.

It was 6 months after the end of the war. Frank, Claire and I were on holiday in the Scottish Highlands. For Claire and Frank this was supposed to be a second honeymoon, but I knew that it was more of Frank's desperate way for them to reconnect after spending just 10 days together over the last 5 years. They were practically strangers to each other as was I. We were all completely unfamiliar with the new people we had become after being separated by the global war.

On September 1st 1939 the United Kingdom had declared war on Germany. My sister Claire had immediately joined the British army to serve as a field nurse. Her husband Frank, from what Claire had told me, was given a position in British military intelligence. Claire would not expand further on exactly what that meant, but was forthright with the details of her own deployment and duties. I being a child of fourteen at the time, was evacuated from London along with most children and mothers of young babies, as it was expected that bombings would be targeted at London to destroy the armament factories. Claire had insisted I leave London as she was to be deployed shortly and Frank would not be around to care for me either due to his duties. I resented the fact that they thought I could not take care of myself, I was not a helpless child. As Claire was my primary guardian after the death of our Uncle Lamb, she had the final say. One day in early September she had walked me to the train station, I was allowed one small suitcase with clothing and things for washing and food for the journey, I was also allocated a small box containing a gas mask. Claire had pinned my name onto my clothes and had kissed my cheek, given me a hug and promised that we would see each other soon. She had lied.

For a short time, I was allocated a position with older couple in the lowlands of Scotland they were famers and clearly needed the money that came to them from being a host family. They were pleasant enough at first but it was clear they needed help with the day to day running of the farm. I remember finding it strange that they had requested girls as surely boys were more suited to the tasks required. Soon I came to realise that the only reason they had taken the two of us in was to act as their slaves. We were worked to the bone day in and day out with the running of the farm, cooking, cleaning, and farm chores and any other little task that could be thought up. The girl placed with you, Dot as you had come to know her, struggled with the physically demanding tasks. We were beaten often for not completing a task to the master or mistress'; they insisted you call them this; satisfaction. Dot also fell pregnant during this time with the older bastard's spawn. You were sorry for Dot but grateful that you were shorter and a late bloomer. At fourteen years old you remained physically more childlike then a girl on the cusp of womanhood. When a billeting officer got word of our situation we were both removed, Dot was returned to her parents in London and I was returned to Frank. It was clear to me that Frank was much changed in just the year we had been separated, while he was sorry for what had happened to me he was very distant. He assured me that Claire had been made aware of my current situation but was not permitted to take leave at present. I spent some weeks in the hospital before Claire was finally permitted to come and visit me, I had been recovering physically from my wounds and putting weight back on after being denied much food for the last year. Once I was well enough to be discharged Claire was forced to return to her nursing position and due to the sensitive nature of Frank's work I was not permitted to stay in London. I was therefore taken to Liverpool and shipped off to Australia for the remainder of the war. Hundreds of us were loaded onto a ship bound for Melbourne, most going to distant relatives. Frank had managed to secure you a position with a relative of a colleague of his. I was assured that everything had been checked out and that I would be safe. Letters were few and far between and became scarce as the people writing them became strangers separated by circumstance and a vast ocean.

When I returned to England in 1946 I was a woman grown, no longer the awkward child I had been. Claire and Frank were waiting for me and the distance and awkwardness between all three of us was palpable. I was used to Claire and Frank's open affection for one another and quite often amorous displays. They were used to a child, not the woman I had become. The gap between the two of them seemed the distance of the ocean I had just crossed. We spent a few months trying to regain some semblance of a normal life. Claire was busy trying to make it look like she was content with playing house. I couldn't bear to be idle and inspired by Claire's stories of combat nursing, had decided to take up a nursing program at the hospital. Claire had helped me to hone some skills in the field and I could tell just how much she missed her job. I knew she would never be happy to play the role of housewife but she was trying for Frank's sake. Frank had recently been offered and accepted a position as a history Professor at Oxford University.

It had been Frank's suggestion that they take a trip; a second honeymoon he had called it; and he began to come up with a list of possible destinations that were not full of the post war jubilation. Frank had mentioned a reverend he had been in contact with in Scotland regarding his family genealogy project that he had thrown himself into since the end of the war. The reverend lived in the Scottish Highlands near Inverness and had a large collection of memorabilia from the Eighteenth century, into which Frank had a particular interest in some officer ancestor of his. Frank had been corresponding with the reverend for some time and had been planning a visit anyway so it was settled to Inverness they would go. It was Claire's suggestion that I accompany them, stating that I could do with a holiday, before starting my position at the hospital. She had little interest in Frank's genealogy project and while desperate to reconcile with a husband she barely knew, she had wanted someone around while he was conducting research with the reverend. While Frank was not keen on me intruding on their trip he had instantly extended an invitation to you as he would do anything to make Claire happy, and so you found yourself unpacking your suitcase in a small bedroom at Mrs Baird's bed and breakfast.