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Chapter Text

The wards of Hickam Field Hospital still carried the sharp bite of carbolic soap and the sour, damp smell of uniforms left for too long in the heat. Claire Beauchamp tugged the pins from her cap one by one, shaking loose a few stubborn curls. A trade wind slipped through the open louvers, cool and salted, carrying the faint sweetness of plumeria from the bushes lining the sidewalks. Even here, in corridors lined with antiseptic bottles and steel-framed beds, Hawaii pressed itself upon her with impossible lushness, insistent adventure, and impossible liveliness. 

She was still so new to island life. Everything dazzled, even as she pretended otherwise. 

“Off duty, Beauchamp?” Mary, one of the orderlies, called to her as she passed with an armful of linens. 

“Until the next accident,” Claire said dryly. She tucked her cap into her tote and stepped out into the sticky evening. 

The base was humming with electricity tonight. Lanterns had been strung across the lawn near the officers’ club, casting their warm glow against the dark. A song floated from the bandstand, soft at first, then swelling as she neared. Music mingled with the shouts and laughter of young men who drank as though the Pacific were not bracing for war. From a distance, it could have been mistaken for another summer party, were it not for the edge of relief in their voices, as if distraction itself were a form of defiance against the punishing oppression of conflict in the East. 

Claire smoothed her skirt, though it refused to lie flat, and pushed at her curls again. Damn this humidity. Frank’s voice lingered in her mind: appearances mattered, even here. Especially here. She had to admit he was right about that: the neatness he so politely demanded of her seemed effortless in him. His dark hair, stubbornly orderly despite the wet air, was an unspoken rebuke to her own riotous curls. She spotted him before he saw her: Major Frank Randall, posture as straight as his pressed uniform, scanning the crowd with that particular historian’s interest that never seemed to leave him, even at parties. When his eyes landed on her, his expression warmed. His smile was more gentlemanly than eager, but she softened nonetheless. 

“Claire,” he said, taking her hand. “You look, well, you always look well.”

“High praise, Major Randall,” she teased, arching a brow. 

He ordered her a whisky, neat, and together they walked to the lawn where the party had spilled out onto. He knew she hated those sugary cocktails the other nurses insisted on, but never let her drink order pass without a comment about whisky being too rough for a woman. She’d roll her eyes, he’d kiss her cheek, and they’d continue on with the evening. She wondered, not for the first time, if such attentiveness was love or simply habit. Either way, she was glad to have him after months apart while she finished her schooling and he was in pilot school.

Frank nodded toward the knot of officers clustered around a tall man at the center of the throng. “That’s Fraser. New to the squadron. Flew B-17s out of Scotland before they posted him here. Dual citizenship or something of the like…”

Claire followed his gaze. The man was impossible to miss: broad-shouldered, red-haired, and towering above the others. He was in the middle of some story, something about a botched training flight, his voice carrying easily over the music. Scots and their stories. The group roared with laughter. His grin was boyish, open, and disarming. 

“Come, I’ll introduce you,” Frank said and steered her toward the circle. They made space without hesitation. Fraser turned, eyes as blue as seawater shallows, and Frank handled the introduction with clipped precision. 

“James, this is my fiancée, Claire Beauchamp. Claire, Captain James Fraser.” 

“Jamie,” he corrected easily, extending his hand. His palm was warm, grip firm without presumption. The smile he shared was polite, yes, but threaded with something brighter. Warmer. 

“Claire,” she said, returning his smile. “And congratulations on getting the hell out of Europe.”

He laughed, a low and rich sound that caught her a bit off-guard. “Och, ‘twas a close thing. The weather’s colder than the beer, and both of them flat.”

Claire snorted into her drink before she could stop herself, whisky stinging the back of her throat. She coughed, half-choking, and Frank pressed a hand to her back, offering a kerchief with a weary sigh. 

“Really, Claire,” he muttered, just enough for her to hear. 

Mortified, she glanced up only to find Fraser’s eyes bright with amusement, his grin tilted. “‘Tis fine, lass.” 

She hadn’t realized she was still holding his hand until Frank took the other, tugging her toward chairs beneath some palm trees. She let go at last, but not before her gaze lingered on his a moment too long. 

Conversation flowed as the night stretched. Frank, as always, gravitated toward strategy and trading theories and diagrams with interested officers. Claire tried her damnedest to follow, but her attention strayed. Jamie… Jamie, not James – was spinning stories nearby. They were wry and self-depricating and colored with a shade of humanity that pulled his listeners in closer and closer. He teased the younger pilots, accepted their ribbing with an easy shrug, and when Frank offered an interjection, Jamie deferred with quiet respect. 

It was too easy to notice him. Too easy to watch the way his mouth quirked up when he laughed. Too easy to feel the subtle lift in her pulse when his glance caught her from across the circle, as if he’d said something solely to coax the smile from her face. She ducked her eyes and sipped her drink. When she looked back, he was already deep in conversation with someone else. Damn the whisky, it always made her feelings expand. 

Later, when the band drifted into Moonlight Serenade and couples slipped onto the lawn to dance, Frank excused himself to the bar. Claire rose to follow, but a voice from behind stopped her. 

“Let him go. He’ll be back in a moment.” Jamie’s voice. She turned, caught by the warmth in his expression. “There’s no use going up now,” he added. “Yer man just shouted the next round’s on him. Bar’s fair mobbed just now.”

Claire hesitated, then sank back into her chair and kicked off her shoes. The lanterns above swayed gently in the breeze and, just for a moment, the world narrowed. The glow of light, the hum of music, the presence of him beside her in the dark. She tipped her head back against the wood, eyes fluttering shut for just a moment, and let the warm air move across her skin. God, she was tired. 

“You’ve the look of someone who works too hard.” 

She gave a short laugh. “Occupational hazard. Nursing doesn’t exactly lend itself to leisure.” 

“Aye. True. But it suits ye.” It wasn’t flattery, nor the easy line of a man used to charming a different woman each night. It was a simple, earnest truth and it unsettled her more than any compliment had in a long while. 

Before she could answer, the band burst into a quicker tune. The brass lept, the drums snapped, and a new rhythm seized the lawn. It was fast and bright and irrepressible. Jamie stood at once and held out his hand. 

“Come then, Nurse Beauchamp. One dance won’t kill ye.”

She blinked up at him. “I warn you, I’m hopeless at this.”

“Then we’ll be a mighty fine pair,” he said, grin appearing like lightning. His hand was waiting for hers, palm up, broad and sure. 

Against her better judgment, Claire let him draw her into the swirl of dancers on the lawn. The grass was soft under her feet and the lanterns overhead swayed in the tradewinds as though they, too, kept time with the beat. Jamie caught her hands, spun her under his arm, and for the first time in weeks, she laughed without restraint. 

He was astonishingly light-footed for his size, his movement guided more by instinct than by polished steps. His laughter rang out when she stumbled and his hands steadied her at the waist, just for a moment, before she could fall out of step. With every spin of her skirts, the pins in her hair fell to the ground and her cheeks flushed a deeper shade of pink than the Hawaiian sunset. 

The song ended in a flourish and left her dizzy with a racing pulse. Around them, soldiers and nurses clapped and whistled. Jamie bowed like he’d just finished the performance of his life, a few damp curls falling out of place and into his eyes. 

The band slowed to a smoother groove, the sultry strains of a Glenn Miller ballad rising into the air. Couples pressed close again, swaying under the mirroring palm fronds. Jamie straightened, his grin fading into something much quieter. 

“Another?” he asked softly, still holding her hand. 

Her heart stuttered. She could have refused – should have refused – but she nodded. He stepped, just once, nearer to her, and she followed, her breathing a bit too shallow, and the music wrapped around them like a shell from the beach beyond. 

He did not take liberties. His hand brushed hers as he guided her into the rhythm and when it moved hesitantly toward her waist, it rested there so lightly that she could not be certain it was even really there at all. And yet she felt him there, the ghost of his warmth seeping through her cotton dress. They swayed only a few moments longer before Jamie’s hand retreated quickly, leaving her abruptly untouched. 

“Thank you,” she breathed, her voice soft. 

His eyes met hers, deep and calm and so, so blue. “The pleasure was mine, Nurse Beauchamp.” 

Frank's voice arrived like a gust of cold air. “I see I’ve been replaced!” he admonished lightly, the joking easy from his loosened tongue. He was balancing three glasses in his hands. Claire stepped back at once, heat rising to her cheeks. Jamie took a glass from Frank and toasted to Claire and Frank. She downed her whisky in a single sip. The burn steadied her mind but her heart still pounded in her chest. 

Frank slipped his arm around her shoulders, solid and familiar. Yet, as she leaned into his side, Claire could not help but feel the absence of something else. 

She would remember it, and wonder. 

Her barracks were quieter than she expected when she returned. Most of the girls must have gone back with the men for the night. Frank had wanted her to come back to his house (as he often did now that he was granted one since his promotion) but she convinced him that the whisky and heat had given her a headache. Claire closed the door gently behind her, careful not to wake anyone who might already be asleep. The night smelled of salt and hibiscus, heady and warm, and for a moment she leaned against the door frame, letting the cool wood press between her shoulder blades. 

She ought to be exhausted. Her shift at the infirmary had stretched long into the afternoon and the party itself – hours of chatter, laughter, and lots of drinking – should have drained what little energy she’d had left. She sat on the narrow cot and tugged at the few remaining pins in her hair, mind spinning with restlessness. 

The evening replayed itself, detail by detail. Frank’s familiar smile, his steady arm curled around her shoulders. The reassurance of knowing he belonged to her, or rather, that she belonged to him. 

And then… Jamie. 

She tugged the final pin free and her hair tumbled in a dark wave about her shoulders, the cool air brushing her neck. It did little to chase the warmth still lodged lower down her spine. 

Jamie Fraser. His laughter, the way it carried her along, made the fast dance less of a performance and more of a shared kind of mischief. He had steadied her without hesitation, without chastisement, without mockery, his hands gentle and certain. And that smile… so open and knowing. 

But it wasn’t the laughter or the steadiness that unsettled her now. It was that fleeting brush of contact during the slow dance. His hands at her waist, so tentative she might have imagined it. Yet the absence when he withdrew was so sharp, so undeniable, that she knew it could not have been dreamed. 

Claire pressed her palms into her knees, willing her thoughts back into order. She was engaged. Frank was good and loyal and patient. They had begun to build a life already: letters across oceans, promises made, futures mapped. 

And yet, lying back on her cot, she felt the hollow echo of a missing weight. It was no more than the touch of a hand, but it was a loss. She started at the ceiling, listening to the distant music still drifting from the officers’ quarters, wondering. 

Wondering what it might feel like if Jamie Fraser had not drawn back so quickly.

Chapter Text

The hospital always smelled faintly of antiseptic and sea air. Windows stood open to coax the breeze through the long ward, and white curtains fluttered against their ties. Claire adjusted the sheets on a patient’s cot, tucking them in with brisk, practiced hands, and tried to ignore the sweat that clung beneath the collar of her cotton dress. 

The day was already thick with heat, though it was scarcely midmorning. Men had been in and out since dawn: pilots with fevers, mechanics with burns and cuts, clerks pale from a night of drink and the Hawaiian sun. Claire tended to them all. She had taken an oath, and though she was far from home, she had no illusions about what her work meant here. 

It wasn’t wartime, not yet. Hopefully it never would be… but she was needed. That was what mattered. It was all that had mattered when she finished nurse’s training and sent herself off to the nearest Army enlistment office. When the United States sent its military deeper into the Pacific, the Army Air Corps followed, along with a request for nurses. Claire knew some women dreamed of silk stockings and island dances and leis strung around their necks, of romance against tropical skies. For Claire, it had always been simpler: she’d wanted to serve and heal her way through military service. 

She was noting a temperature on her clipboard when she heard her name. 

“Nurse Beauchamp?”

She looked up to find Captain Fraser in the doorway, impossibly broad-shouldered in his olive drab uniform jacket, a slip of paper in hand. He gave her a quick, polite nod before stepping inside. 

“Orders for vaccines,” he said, his Highland lilt softening the clipped words. He’d been sent for all the routine ones – typhoid, tetanus, the works – and Mary was already off escorting another group. Claire found herself with the clipboard with his name typed neatly along the top. 

“Just your luck,” she replied, adjusting the tray of needles. “You get me instead of Mary, and she’s the one with the lighter hand.” She guided him to the treatment room with a smirk. He took up all the space in it, the hum of the overhead fan scarcely enough to stir the air. 

“Och, I’ll survive. I’ve had worse than a wee jab.”

“Take off your jacket and roll up your sleeve, please,” she instructed, taking out the instruments and antiseptic. 

Jamie did as instructed, ever the perfect soldier. He neatly placed his coat on the back of the door and sat down on a metal chair near Claire. Quickly, his sleeve was rolled above the elbow, both forearm and bicep corded with muscle beneath golden, freckled skin. He watched her with a wary eye as she prepared the syringe, the tip glinting in the fluorescent light. 

Claire took a steadying breath. She drew the first measure, pressing the punger to expel the air bubble. This was nothing more than another patient, another officer, just like so many others she’d seen today. 

“Most men flinch at this part,” she said, swabbing his arm. She kept her voice brisk to distract him from the pain, the way she might calm a nervous recruit. 

“I willna flich, but,” he asked mildly, “if I told ye I needed a bit of a distraction?”

Her lips curved despite herself. “I’d say I’m hardly the sort to tell jokes on command.”

“Let's just talk, then.” His eyes were steady on her face. “How did you come to meet Major Randall?”

The question had come without guile, just simple curiosity in that low and lilting voice. She pressed the swab to his arm. 

“Back home in Boston, actually,” she replied. “Our families have known each other for some time. I was finishing nursing school and he’d just gone to flight training in Montana, of all places. We wrote letters at first, just to stay in touch.” She gave a soft smile at the memory and threw the cotton swab in the nearest waste bin. “Airmail romance… it sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it?” 

“‘No, ridiculous,” Jamie replied. “Brave, maybe.” 

She slid the needle into his arm, and he didn’t so much as blink. 

“Brave?”

“To tether yerself to a man’s words on paper. To trust they’ll hold steady, the way he does.”

Her throat tightened. She withdrew the needle, recapped the syringe, and tossed it away. 

“Frank is steady. He always has been.” 

Jamie inclined his head, accepting her words.

Before he could comment on the Major, a siren cut through the silence. 

A shrill wail, rising and falling, unnatural against the soft rustle of palm fronds and crashing ocean waves. An air raid alarm. 

The men in the waiting area scrambled. They were surrounded by a sea of men’s voices overlapping with nervous laughter, though Claire could nearly feel the nervous tremor that ran through them all. It was a practice drill, but every exercise carried the weight of what it was preparing them for. 

Jamie rose at once. The alarm tore through the hospital again, this time with the full-throated urgency of a real threat. Claire’s heart leaped, but she was already moving, boots clacking on the polished floor and clipboard held tight. 

He ushered her toward the basement shelter, quickly checking that the other hospital patients were accounted for. Once inside with the door shut, he took a single moment to glance at her from where she had moved into a corner between unused beds. 

“Sit here,” he instructed, gesturing to a small bench, “and I’ll handle the men.” 

She hesitated only briefly, then obeyed as instructed. She watched as he moved to the nearest group of nervous airmen and, with a measured voice, gave them orders mixed with authority and encouragement. “Check yer equipment. Keep yer eyes sharp. It’s likely no’ more than a drill. Steady now.”

Though he was focused on the men, he would turn toward her from time to time in silent acknowledgement that he was watching out for her. She stilled a little more with each nod. 

When the men had settled into their spots and quiet descended on the room, Jamie returned to her side. 

“Has this happened often?” he asked, voice low. 

“We’ve done them before – the brass wants everyone to stay sharp. Just in case.” 

He gave a curt nod in understanding, eyes glinting in the gloomy basement light. “So it’s all only been for practice here? No real threats?”

“Tonight it is,” she answered, then softened her tone and nudged his arm. “Try not to let it unsettle you too much.” 

His mouth quirked, though the dim light made it more of a shadow than a smile. “I’ve been unsettled before, Sassenach. This is nothing.” He rubbed at the place on his arm where the fresh injection pinched. “This is the warmest welcome I’ve had to a hospital. Needles followed by air rades.”

She arched a quizzical brow at the nickname but let it pass.

“Just routine. We like to keep our pilots on their toes.” He snorted, but said nothing more. 

Trying to find anything to keep the quiet from pressing too close, she said, “Tell me then,” trying for her most casual tone, “how you got to Hawaii? Frank mentioned last night you came to us from the European theatre.” 

He leaned against the wall, head tilted so the line of his throat caught what little light seeped through the curtains. “Before here, I was flying in England. RAF work. Bombing runs, night skies as black as pitch, flak bursts lighting the dark like fireworks. Cold that gets into your bones and never really leaves. Ye count the men who don’t come back, then count again the next day, and just keep flying.” 

Claire’s chest tightened at the honesty. He’d said it without self-pity, but the bluntness carried a hefty weight. She studied him in the half-light. “You don’t sound like you’re from London.”

That earned a low laugh. “Scotland. Aye. Though I’ve papers for both as a dual citizen. My mother was American from North Carolina – even after we moved back to Scotland when I was wee, she still made the best southern pulled pork in the land. My father was pure Highland stock. I grew up with both voices in my ear, though I’d wager the Scots won out wi’out much of a fight.”

“And as for Hawaii?”

He shrugged. “They needed bodies who’d flown the heavies. I had the hours logged, so here I am. A change of air, they said.” 

“That’s quite the change,” she murmured. “Was it by choice?”

“Aye,” he paused, then added more softly. “Though choices are never so simple. England was… heavy. The air itself carried grief and terror. Too many faces gone, too many letters I signed, I wrote the families of my crew. I thought perhaps the other side of the world would give me room to breathe again.” 

The words lingered in the thick air. Claire had the urge to reach for his hand, but clasped her fingers tighter together. 

“And has it?” she asked carefully. “Given you room to breathe?”

For a moment, Jamie didn’t answer. He looked at her, the blue of his eyes as dark as those British skies. Then, with a wry half-smile, he answered, “Some days more than others.”

Claire shifted on the narrow bench. “I suppose I came here for much the same reason,” she admitted. “To serve, to do what I could. I left Boston just a few months ago. With nursing school behind me and Frank doing his duty… I desperately wanted to help. I convinced him that I could be of use, and that I might have a place beside him here, serving along him.” 

Jamie’s gaze softened. “Letters. Aye. Ye said wrote to one another for some time. He was in agreement then?” 

“I suppose he was. He said if I were to come out here, we should be married, and we could figure it out from there. I enlisted my skills and came as soon as I could book a flight.” She smiled at the memory of walking down the stairs from the plane into Frank’s outstretched arms, whoops and cheers bursting around them as he swung her around in his arms. “He had proposed in that letter, and it was just simple words, no fanfare, just…” She let out a breath. “Just a man trusting that his words would be carried on the wind far enough to reach me.”

Jamie was quiet for a long moment. “And reach you, they did.” 

Claire felt a flutter of warmth – and a pang of guilt. This was not the time nor the place. And yet, sitting in the half-dark with Jamie so near, she couldn’t help but let herself imagine it had been different: a declaration of love, a man on his knee before her, no practicality, no war. 

She cleared her throat. “Ultimately, though, it wasn’t love that brought me here. It was duty.”

“And yet, you carry the weight of both.”

Her pulse quickened. She wasn’t sure whether it was the close space, the shadows, or the way his voice had dipped into something that felt almost like concern, but the statement struck her like a rumble of warning thunder. She swallowed. “I didn’t come here for romance, the way some of the other nurses did. I came to serve my country. Frank just also happens to be here.”

Jamie’s gaze lingered on her, steady. Unnerving. “If duty is your shield, I’ll respect it.” 

The all-clear sounded outside. Their shared moment snapped as abruptly as it had begun. Claire stood quickly, smoothing the skirt of her uniform, her pulse hammering in her ears. Jamie rose beside her, composed as ever. 

As they stepped back into the sunlight, the air sharp and bright, the minutes that had passed already felt like a half-remembered dream. Frank was waiting near the veranda of the club. He stood with perfect posture next to a small table strewn with maps with his cap tucked beneath his arm, speaking with another officer about the next training over Maui. The familiar cadence of his voice was grounding and almost reassuring. 

“Claire! Jamie!” Frank called cheerfully as they approached. His smile was warm, but his attention was already drifting back to the maps. “Good drill, I hope?”

“Yes, sir,” Jamie replied politely. His eyes betrayed a flicker of tension as they met Claire’s for the briefest of moments. 

“Everything went smoothly for us,” she said more to her hands than to Frank. 

Frank's convivial tone continued unabated as he detailed the next sortie: flight paths, fuel calculations, radio procedures. Jamie leaned closer to Frank – and by extension, to Claire – to follow Frank’s instructions. How is it that he seemed attuned to her even as his attention appeared to be on the charts? 

He nodded at Frank’s words, asking questions when necessary, reciting answers that were precise and professional. Claire also tried to focus on their conversation, but her mind kept drifting back to the drill. She felt a stab of guilt. She was engaged to a Frank. Frank, so devoted and steady… the memory refused to fade. 

Jamie, for his part, was attentive to Frank, but his thoughts kept wandering back to Claire’s words, her laugh, the tilt of her head. He reminded himself to keep his voice even, his expressions neutral and focused. Duty demanded it. Honor demanded it. 

Frank, meanwhile, remained oblivious to the currents running just beneath the surface. He paused from gesturing at the maps to offer Jamie a question about fuel allocation. Jamie answered crisply, eyes flicking once toward Claire before returning his eyes to the papers on the little table. 

As the meeting ended, Frank straightened with a satisfied nod. Jamie stepped back, letting the daylight and Frank himself reassert dominance. They filed out together toward the lawn. Jamie trailed Claire and Frank, his eyes alert, still holding just enough awareness of her to keep her in view without overstepping. The distance between them was measured, disciplined, but the electricity of what had occurred in the basement lingered in the space between them like a whispered secret. 

Claire walked beside Frank, nodding and commenting about her day. Occasionally, Jamie moved into her peripheral, his profile relaxed. The sunlight was comforting, but despite her effort to relax fully into Frank’s presence, she knew that neither duty or distance could erase the memory of a hand guiding her through the dark. 

Jamie

He walked just behind them, the bright Hawaiian sun burning against his shoulders. The sound of Frank’s animated voice droned on beside Claire. Every step he took felt measured and controlled, but his thoughts were anything but. 

The memory of the hospital shelter clung stubbornly to him. The dim light, the quiet, the way she had talked about Frank and their letters, the way her hands gripped each other tighter. He had kept his distance, and he had respected duty and honor, but he could not erase the weight of her presence from his mind. 

He tried to focus on Major Randall, on the maps and routes and discussion of sorties, but Claire’s laugh echoed in his ears. He caught himself watching the way she leaned into his words, the way the sunlight caught the gold strands of auburn in her dark hair, and reminded himself that this was not the time and not the place. Discipline first, desire second. Always. 

Still, he lingered at the edge of the world, attentive, protective, and careful. Every step measured to keep her within his sight without overstepping the bounds of propriety. 

As Frank’s conversation carried them toward the end of the sidewalk, Jamie exhaled slowly. He would keep to the shadows. He would remain a leader for his men, a protector for his countries, and a gentleman for Claire. He would do his duty. 

For the first time since he’d arrived in Hawaii, he wondered if duty alone would be enough.

Chapter Text

The sun had climbed higher, bleaching the tarmac in sharp light and warm haze. Claire moved along the edge of Hickam Field, clipboard in hand, checking that the makeshift field hospital and communications posts were ready for the morning drill. Today’s exercise wasn’t just a training sortie, it was a full air-raid simulation. The casualties would be simulated, but her role would be real: coordinating emergency response, ensuring first aid stations were manned, and supervising the nurses assigned to the exercise. 

Frank stood nearby, map in hand, speaking with a flight officer about takeoff sequences. Frank didn’t fly as much now that he was the Air Exec, but it seemed he almost enjoyed being on the ground more than up in the clouds. He glanced over at her now and then, approvingly. She returned his gaze with a smile, smooth and controlled, the professional mask firmly in place. 

Her eyes strayed to Jamie. He was moving along the lines of B-17s, speaking to the crews. Engines hummed and clattered as he checked each cockpit, each instrument, each airman. His red curls were falling out of place and glinting in the sunny breeze. 

“Nurse Beauchamp,” he called over the hum of engines, voice stead, “make sure you keep to yer stations. We’ll manage then men here, but in case of an accident, I’d rather see ye safe off of the flight line.”

She allowed herself a small smile. “I’ve got it under control, Captain.” He nodded. She followed his eyes as they swept over her workstations and noted every detail and every nurse under her supervision. 

The men trusted him, but so did she. He could see it in the quick glances she threw toward him as she checked radio lines and prepared stretchers. Even as he gave crisp orders to his fellow pilots – throttle adjustments, formation timing, target approaches – he kept her in his periphery. 

Frank moved to the flight line, reviewing notes and calculations. Jamie answered his questions, careful to main the necessary formality. Frank’s attention often flicked to Claire, still readying her fellow nurses. She would look up to find up, smile, nod, and continue her ministrations. And yet, when her gaze drifted toward Jamie, he felt the sun shine a bit warmer on his skin. 

Claire’s hands moved quickly, noting times and positions on her clipboard, checking in with the nurses. She supervised the setup for simulated casualties, coordinating the signals that would alert the medial staff of losses. Frank approached her side. “How are things going down here?” 

“All ready,” she replied, gesturing to the nurses and communications posts. “Stations manned, radios checked, stretchers staged. We’ll be ready for anything that comes.”

He nodded. “Good. I know you’ll keep everyone on track.”

Claire caught a flicker of Jamie from the flight line. Frank didn’t notice the tension in her chest.

The engines roared to life. He climbed into the cockpit of the lead B-17, calling out instructions to his men over the comms. Every detail was accounted for. For the briefest moment, he imagined Claire moving among the nurses, clipboard in hand, hair falling out from the pins. 

Frank’s voice filtered over the radio with instructions and clarifications, but Jamie’s ears caught only fragments: Claire’s name, the faint click of a pen, the reassurance she gave to nervous nurses. He gritted his teeth and forced himself back to the dash. Discipline. Professionalism. Duty first. Desire second. 

The planes lifted, smoke rising from the exhaust. Jamie’s eyes flicked once toward the field, toward Claire standing beside Frank, and cursed the flutter in his check. Duty demanded focus. Honor demanded restraint. And yet, every second she remained in her sight was a second he cherished in silence. 

Claire stood with binoculars pressed to her eyes, scanning the sky as the B-17s lifted one by one into the air. Radios crackled at her elbow and ground crews mingled around her makeshift desk. The first plane banked into position, engines whining against the bright Hawaiian sun. Jamie’s voice carried clearly over the radio. He was everywhere all at once: in the shadow of the sun, in the whooshing past her ears, in the beating of her chest from the sheer roar of the engines. Everywhere. 

A simulated crash signal went off near the far end of the field and Claire ran with her team toward the staged casualties. Nurses and medics were already in motion, stretchers carried in practiced hands. She barked directions, ensuring everyone moved efficiently. She could feel Jamie in the sky above her, invisible but palpable. She could hear the calm in his tone, the same strong command she felt in her veins when leading her fellow nurses. 

An “injury” was reported and although it wasn’t real, every drill was still urgent. She crouched beside a stretcher, checking vitals, adjusting an IV line, and imagined Jamie’s hand at the yoke, steady, precise, and keeping his men safe in the air. 

Even in the drill, his presence made her hearth both calm and restless. She caught herself glancing upward, shading her eyes. There he was, wings steady, commanding the sky as thought it belonged to him alone. 

The Hawaiian wind rushed past the cockpit, engines still spinning, the formation tight and true. Jamie’s hands gripped the controls, fingers steady, but his mind never strayed far from Claire. The thought anchored him even as he guided his men through the mock target run. 

“Eyes on the formation!” he barked over the radio. “Keep spacing! Check your altitudes!”

His squadron responded like clockwork, but his ears always caught the faintest crackle of the field radio, the subtle signs that field hospital was working as intended. That Claire was there. He could almost feel her presence as surely as the stick beneath his hands. 

One of the younger pilots faltered in formation. Jamie’s voice cut through: “Correct your vector, Thomas. Eyes on the wingman.” The correction was firm but not shaming. Thomas complied instantly. 

Even in the controlled chaos of the drill, Jamie felt the pull of the memory from the bomb shelter, the brush of Claire’s hand on his forearm. Discipline demanded, once again, that he keep his distance, focus solely on the men, on the mission. Calm, cool, and collected, man. But god, she was lighting his thoughts on fire.

The drill wound down, planes touches back onto the tarmac with perfect precision. Claire exhaled, hands still steady as she director her team to clear the simulated casualties and check supplies. Nurses reported in, stretchers returned, radios silenced. 

Jamie landed smoothly on the runway and waited to see his crew out before climbing down to the tarmac. He attempted to smooth his jacket, now wrinkled from being crushed against the pilot seat, and caught her gaze from across the field. Claire smiled faintly, trying to appear entirely professional. He inclined his head ever-so-slightly in acknowledgment of his safe return, and of her hard work on the ground. 

Frank was waiting for him, ready to start the debrief. Claire and Jamie both reached Frank at the same time. He looked up, oblivious to the subtle current than ran between them. “Good work today,” he said. “Everyone performed well?”

Claire nodded. “Yes. Everything went smoothly down here.”

“Fraser, come with me for the debrief.” Jamie fell into step alongside the Major, leaving Claire on the runway watching the pilots fade into the distance. 

Before the war, Frank had studied history. He prided himself on the his ability to notice: trends, patterns, things unseen to most. It was what had made him a solid pilot, too, always seeming to be one step ahead. As he walked away from his fiancée, he began to piece the patterns in her as well. Her desire to be the nurse in charge of today’s exercise on the flight line. The way she’d clicked so effortlessly with the newest pilots. Her eyes glancing toward the hangars when she thought no one was noticing, looking for something where no one else seemed to be searching. Fraser chatted about the exercise and he made note of a small mechanical issue to resolve… and made note of Claire’s newfound interest in her surroundings. 

The hospital was mercifully quiet that week, though Claire found little comfort in the lull. She filled the hours with whatever work she could find: reorganizing medical supplies, polishing brass instruments until her fingers smelled of alcohol, checking every patient twice, then three times, though most men were recovering from nothing more dire than influenza or sprained ankles. 

Frank had left earlier in the week. Washington called him in for a briefing, and she was feeling his absence. His handwriting – neat and always slightly slanting – was all she had of him while he was away, his most recent letter folded neatly in her dress pocket. He’d written that he’d arrived and would come home as soon as he could, that he missed her already, that he loved her. Best to use her free time in service, then. 

Service had always been the point. Ever since she was young, crouched on the side of the road in the rain beside her parents’ broken car, waiting for help that came too late, she’d felt it. She could still smell the gasoline, the acrid sting of smoke and metal. And later, years later, watching helplessly as her uncle – dear, sweet, eccentric Uncle Lamb – withered under cancer’s cruel hand, that feeling grew stronger. The clawing need, a desperation, to do something. To heal. To fight back against unforgiving accidents and illness. 

Nursing had been her start but she had dreamed further. Medical school. Travel. War zones and field hospitals and villages far from maps where she could bring knowledge and relief. She wanted to make herself useful in every corner of the world. To carry her skills like a lamplight. She’d tried to tell all of it to Frank and he’d listened, sure, but not fully. Always with a polite smile, as if her ambitions were charming fancies she would soon outgrow. Over late nights at the club, on the beach, at squadron picnics, she’d shared snippets of her dreams with her new friends. With Jamie. 

She tried to put those conversations out of her head just now. She was doing what she could, at that needed to be enough.

By late afternoon, the heat pressed down even inside the hospital and the ceiling fans did little more than stir the heavy air like a ladle in thick soup. Claire rolled her aching shoulders and decided a brief walk outside might clear her head. She stepped out into the sun, inhaling the fragrances of flowers drifting in from the trees that lined the walk. 

“Nurse Beauchamp.”

She turned. Jamie stood at the end of the path, cap under his arm, the setting sun catching fire in his hair. His height set him apart even here, when most men were dashing in their uniforms. She hadn’t expected to see him so soon, and her pulse gave a traitorous leap. 

“Captain Fraser,” she said, too formally. 

“It’s Jamie, aye?” With a glance at the tote slung over her shoulder, he added, “Still working, I see.”

“I find it difficult to sit idle,” she replied. “There’s always something that needs attention.”

He nodded but did not move on. He cleared his throat. “Frank – Major Randall – asked me to keep an eye on ye while he was away. Said ye’d bury yourself in the wards if no one pulled ye out of here.” 

Claire bristled. “I hardly need looking after.”

“I didna say ye did,” he countered. “But it seemed an excuse to ask if ye’d come to the club this evening. Some of the boys — Angus and Rupert, mostly —  have noticed ye haven’t been around. They asked me to tell ye that there’s music and beer and you’ve earned more than stale air and gauze.” 

For a moment, she nearly refused. But she wanted the distraction. She wanted out of her head. 

“Lead the way.”

The officer’s club was lively when they arrived. The lanterns, as always, swayed in the breeze and a band played something brassy. Jamie held the door and her heartrate pulsed with the music. 

Jamie steered them toward the bar, ordering two whiskeys without needing to ask. She accepted and downed a large sip quickly, the burn offering her some solace. They found a table near the edge of the floor, close enough to see the others spinning about, but far enough to speak without shouting. She laughed aloud at something Rupert had said – something about a Scot trying to explain haggis to a Hawaiian cook – and the sound almost stunned her. She had nearly forgotten what it felt like to laugh so freely. 

Angus dropped off another round before sauntering off in search of some of her nursing friends. 

“I’d steer clear of Gillian, if I were you. She’s too much woman for you to handle!” 

Angus waggled his brows and said, “Sounds like just my type!” before dancing through the crowd, dragging Rupert with him. In the weeks sine Jamie and his crew had arrived, she’d become fast friends with the men over easy laughter and their shared affinity for whisky a malted alcohol.

The band struck up a dizzying tune and more couples poured onto the floor — Angus spinning Gillian madly and Rupert coaxing Mary out from behind her glass of wine. Claire sat back in her chair, her vision of dancers turning pleasantly blurred. Jamie’s gaze rested on her with an intensity she tried not to notice. 

“You’re staring,” she teased. The words were looser, freer than she would have allowed if she had stayed sober tonight. 

“Aye,” he said simply. “I am.” He took a long drink. “How are ye handling the Major being away? I know yer still fairly new to the island.”

She should have changed the subject. Asked about the weather or his favorite color. Instead, the whisky tugged her toward honesty.

“I’m perfectly fine. I’ve always been fine on my own.” Jamie raised a brow in silent question. “I grew up running around archeological dig sites with my uncle, always bouncing from Marrakech to Bombay to Thailand. My parents died when I was young, and my uncle hadn’t prepared for a child. I loved it, though. Truly. It taught me independence and I learned so much from everyone I met around the globe.” 

“That explains yer desire for travel and something more, then. Ye’ve tasted real adventure.” He watched her, and she ignored his stare.

“Do you know what Frank said to me, before he left? He told me he’d prefer I give it all up – nursing, I mean. That once we’re married, it isn’t fitting for a wife, and especially not the wife of an officer. That I should focus less on “traipsing around the globe”, exposing myself to who knows what. At least he says I’m “pitching in during a time of need”, and all that.”

Her voice cracked around the words, anger and laughter jostling together in her chest. “Could you imagine it? Home all day, waiting for him to come home from briefings, with pot roast on the table? I can barely cook Spam!”

Jamie’s mouth tightened. “And what did ye tell him?”

Claire stared into her glass. Slowing. “I told him I’d consider it. What else could I say, really? He’s a good man. He wants the best for me. Women don’t even go to medical school so how much could I even really do—”

“Claire.” It was the first time he’d called her by her name. Not Nurse, or Beauchamp, or Sassenach, or lass. Claire. 

She met his eyes. Fathomless oceans stared back.

“Ye cannot tell me that’s the life ye want. I see how ye work, how much it means to ye. You deserve to do more than make a man’s supper.” The words sliced through her, sharp as the glass she gripped in her hands. Heat rose in her cheeks, either from the whisky or the anger, she wasn’t totally sure. “You’re giving up your dreams for his comfort.”

“And you have the right to say that, do you? You, who hardly knows me?” 

“I know enough.” His eyes held hers, unflinching. “Enough to see ye’d be miserable.”

The noise of the club swelled. The dancers brushedpast their table, laughter bubbling around them. Blood pulsed through her ears. “You think you understand me better than Frank? Better than the man that I chose? You think that a few conversations with me makes you the expert?”

A muscle in his tight jaw flexed. “I think,” he countered, “that Frank doesna see you. Not truly. Not the way ye truly are.”

The whisky made her reckless. “And you do, is that it?”

He leaned in closely across the table. Too close. He gave away nothing but a raised brow a toast her direction. His silence was deafening. Claire pushed back her chair, the scrape lost under the band’s trumpet. Her head spun, from drink or fury she couldn’t tell. “You’re wrong,” she leveled. “You don’t know anything about us.”

She left him at the table, the cool night air striking her flushed face like a wicked slap. 

Chapter Text

The hospital was busier than usual, though Claire wasn’t sure whether the surge of patients was genuine or only seemed so because her nerves were stretched too thin. The hours blurred into one another with a mess of bandaged ankles, a pilot with a split brow, another with a fever that might have been malaria or might have been simple exhaustion. She threw herself into the work, refusing to think about the night before, refusing to linger on Jamie’s face as it hardened in the lantern glow when she’d told him what Frank wanted from her. 

You’re giving up your dreams for his comfort.  

The way he’d looked at her, like she was betraying not only herself but something in him, had left her raw. 

So she worked. She mopped sweat from brows, adjusted IV drips, wrote patient notes until her hand cramped. If she stopped for even a breath, she might think of Jamie again, and the shame of their conversation knifed her clean through. She thought she’d understood exhaustion before, but the past three days had proved her wrong. This was not the exhaustion of her body alone, but of her heart, her conscience. 

She had given Frank her word that she would be at the airfield for his arrival home. She had meant to keep it. Instead, she’d lost herself in the fevered ward, one more patient after another pressing their lives into her hands. 

Frank had stood alone when his boots touched the Hawaiian soil again. When the word came that his flight had landed, a wave of cold rushed through her as she realized what she’d done. By the time she hung up her apron on its peg and hurried through base to the officer’s quarters, dusk had fallen. 

He was waiting. He stood outside, uniform crisp even after travel. His expression was carefully composed but the line of his mouth was thinner than usual. Claire stopped short, chest rising and falling with the remnants of her sprint. 

“You weren’t there,” he said before she could speak. His voice wasn’t raised, but there was a hardness in it she hadn’t heard before. “I stepped off the plane and… nothing. Everyone else had someone waiting. Except me.”

Claire swallowed. “I’m so sorry. I was at the hospital, and there was a flood of cases, and I couldn’t –”

“Couldn’t?” His brows lifted. “Or wouldn’t?”

Her throat tightened. “That isn’t fair. You know my duty there–”

“I know your duty,” he cut in. “And I know I asked only one thing: that you be there when I come home. That was hardly unreasonable.” 

She wanted to protest, to tell him that is was unreasonable, that the hospital needed her, that men could die if she left them for nothing more than a sentimental gesture to stroke his ego. But the words tangled. Guilt pressed at her ribs. She had wanted to be there. And yet, she hadn’t gone. 

“Were you really at the hospital?” 

Her head snapped up. “Why would you ask that? Of course I was. I was just telling you how busy it was—“

He eyed her with calculation. “I know what you said, and I know you’ve been hanging around at the club most nights with your new friends here, and I simply wanted to know if you’d really been working, or spent your time being extra convivial over another glass of whisky.” 

She seethed. “My friends are your friends, too, you know. You’re the one who introduced me to all of them in the first place! How dare you accuse me of—“ 

Frank cut her off before she could get to accusing him of being a fucking asshole. “I accused you of nothing. It was a question.” He shook his head, sighing through his nose. “Claire, I cannot keep coming in second to your work. I need to know you’ll be my wife, not just a nurse-playing-soldier.”

Her blood ran hot. “My work is not a game, Frank. It matters. It matters to me.”

He regarded her with cold steeliness, lips pressed thin, then turned to open the door. “We’ll talk later,” he said with clear dismissal. He turned and shut the door with Claire still on the mat, staring at the chipping paint of a yellow door. 

Later, when only the sound of fellow nurses’ breathing filled her darkened room, Claire lay awake and stared at the ceiling. Her body ached with fatigue, but her mind would not relent. She thought of her parents, gone too soon, and how helpless she had been when they died. Of her uncle, dying slowly of cancer while she watched, powerless. Those losses had carved a truth into her: she could not save everyone, but she would try. She had promised herself she would always try. She would try to make friends with anyone, everyone, because people could be ripped away in an instant. Life was too short. She promised herself to live hers, fully. 

Frank wanted a different promise. One that demanded she put down her duty, he dreams, for the sake of being his wife. She’d told herself that she wanted his stability, not another half-lived life in transit. She’d grown up rootless, pulled from dig to dig with Uncle Lamb, never sure where she’d wake the following week. Frank offered her something different: a home, a marriage, some order in the chaos. 

Beneath it all, she thought of Jamie. Of how he’d looked at her when she spoke of medical school, as though her dream were not just possible but right. The way he had said her name, careful and reverent, like it was a plea and prayer upon his lips, trying to show her just how worthy she was, and how pathetic she was being. How she didn’t need to cut back the wildest parts of herself for someone, anyone, else. 

The guilt of missing Frank’s return flight pressed hard on her chest, but the sharper ache of Jamie’s voice would not cease: You’re giving up your dreams for his comfort. 

She’d tried to cut her shift short the next day. That next evening, the club was humming with its usual clamor when Frank steered her in by the elbow. Claire followed, shoulders tight, as Frank guided her across the crowded room. She pasted on a smile, though her chest still ached. He’d come to her before work that morning to request they “get back in the groove of things” at the club later. She couldn’t expect an apology, not when she had slighted him. She’d agreed. 

“Major Randall.”

Claire’s head lifted sharply. Jamie Fraser was standing by the window, sunset light catching the bronze in his hair. His eyes flicked to hers first – only for a heartbeat, no more – before turning to Frank with the courtesy of a salute. 

“Captain Fraser,” Frank answered, tone clipped but polite. “Good to see you. Back from the sortie already?”

“Aye,” Jamie said. “Yesterday. Your flight was on time, then?”

“Perfectly on time,” Frank replied, hand tightening on Claire’s arm. “Though my fiancée missed the arrival.” His smile held an edge meant for Claire and Jamie both. 

Jamie’s eyes narrowed as he moved from Frank to Claire, quizzical and unreadable. She forced her lips into some shape, hopefully resembling a reassuring smile. 

“I was at the hospital,” she managed. “It’s really my fault, they needed–”

“Always needed somewhere else, are ye?” Jamie said softly, eyes locked with hers. For an instant, it seemed like sympathy… but it held a question. 

“Exactly the problem, Captain,” Frank answered for her. “And sometimes a bit too needed for her own good.” He gave Jamie a curt nod. “If you’ll excuse us. We’ve a table waiting.” He didn't wait for the Captain's response or Claire's goodbye before turning them away.

Claire let herself be steered by a too-tight grip to their seats. She felt Jamie’s eyes on her back until the crowd swallowed her whole.

“It’s good to see you’ve made friends here,” Frank said as he eyed Fraser and his crew, “although I would have expected you to rally around with more of the nurses.” 

“I do – I have Gillian and Mary, and some of the others.” She caught Jamie’s eye, but he looked back quickly to whatever (surely inappropriate) story Angus was telling. “If it bothers you, I could–”

“No, no. I suppose if the choice is you hanging around telling stories with the men about your fascinating life before Hawaii, or holing up in that damned hospital of yours, I’d rather have you here at the club.” He acknowledged a group of men that had just walked in, yelling over the music that they were still on for their card game in a bit. 

“We actually have a fair bit in common, all of us,” she countered. “Rupert used to go to Vermont on vacation with his family as a child, close to where I used to go with my parents, and Angus and I like the same brand of scotch, and Jamie–”

Frank set his glass down with a small splash. “It’s first names. I thought you were always professional, coming here for duty and not socializing.”

God, that patronizing tone. If she were bolder, she might have thrown her drink at him. Instead, she leaned forward, ready to defend herself and her friends. “I’ll have you know–” 

“It’s a joke, Claire.” He took a fast sip, eyes never leaving hers. “You’re on edge tonight, darling, and it isn’t a good look. Perhaps some rest will soothe your nerves. I’ll see you tomorrow.” The men were already gathering around for the next round of cards, and Claire was clearly dismissed. For once, she headed toward the door with pleasure. 

As she walked along the path, Claire’s mind churned with familiar images: the hospital ward swimming with fevered faces, Frank’s cool disapproval, a blue vase she’d once left behind from a store in the name of practicality, Jamie’s eyes fixing upon her own like he could see through every flimsy excuse she could ever tell him.  

Jamie had meant only to fetch a whisky and step outside for fresh air, away from the sound and smoke. He hadn’t expected to see Claire there, arm caught firm beneath the Major’s hand and walking too closely together into the club, her smile tight as a wound being stitched.

She looked so tired. Not from work alone – though God knew she gave every drop of herself to that hospital – but from something heavier. 

When Frank said she’d missed his flight, Jamie kept his expression even, not letting on that he’d known she hadn’t gone. He’d been at the airfield himself, lending a hand with incoming crates of supplies. He’d looked for her. And when he hadn’t found her, he’d known that she was still at the hospital, sleeves rolled up, fighting for men who’d come back in worse shape than Frank ever would from a routine journey. 

Jamie wanted to say so to Frank. To defend her. But Frank’s voice left little room, and Claire – God help him – looked at Jamie as if begging him not to say a single word and make things worse. 

So he had held his tongue, if only for her sake. He had watched her walk away, her back as straight as his during a march, even as her shoulders trembled just that wee bit. 

Later, he told himself it shouldn’t matter. Claire was betrothed, and Frank Randall was his fellow pilot, his superior. Whatever he thought of the man’s clipped tone or his careless grip on her arm, Jamie had no right to interfere. Honor extended past the airfield; he would not involve himself in another man’s (and woman’s) marital affairs. 

She wanted more from life. He knew it, as sure as he knew the weight of a rifle in his hands. More than Randall’s sharp corrections of her, more than a quiet life as a homemaker. She wasn’t meant to just be someone’s wife. 

And if she gave up her dreams for him, for Randall, it would break her. Surely, they both knew it. Maybe that was the Major’s true goal: break her down, erode her, just a bit, for long enough, and she would submit. Lose her adventurous, rebellious, healing spirit. She’d lose herself to him, one chip at a time. 

Jamie shut his eyes, jaw tight, and took another swig of beer. The cool brick on the back of his head grounded him. Their relationship was none of his concern. He came here for a break from carnage, and so far, he was throwing himself into the clutches of a woman he could not have. A different kind of shredding of his heart. He would not let this tear him apart. She had said it herself — she didn’t need tending to, not by Frank, and not by him. 

Claire wrapped her arms around herself as she walked, the ache of too many contradictions pressing down. She turned down the walkway toward her quarters, heels clicking softly against the stone, when she saw him under the lamplight.

Jamie was leaning against a brick wall just outside the warm glow cast by the lights, a shadow outlined against the pale shine of the moon. He had ditched his uniform coat between when she’d seen him last – he now only wore shirtsleeves, open at the throat, hair curling around his face. 

“Ye shouldn’t walk alone this late in the evening, Sassenach,” he said quietly as she approached. 

“I didn’t know you were out here.”

“I waited.” 

It was a simple admission. She searched his face, looking for judgment, but found only a steadiness that seemed to tether her even as she wanted to pull away. 

“You shouldn’t have. If Frank—“

“I dinna care what Frank thinks,” he interrupted. “Ye’ve a right to walk in peace. And I’ll see ye safely to your door.” 

She exhaled a breath she didn’t realize she was holding. Relief. Relief that he had waited for her. Relief that she wasn’t as invisible as she had felt tonight. 

They walked in silence. Her thoughts churned with Frank’s clipped tone, Jamie’s unyielding gaze, her own restless heart. She wanted to ask him why he lingered, that she didn’t need a guard, that she could take care of herself and had been doing it for years. She wanted to tell him that Frank was right about their plans and that she wanted the quiet life waiting for her beyond these shores. 

But the words never came.

Jamie watched her as they walked. Her eyes barely left the sidewalk until he noticed her swallow once, and look straight ahead, a quiet determination etched in the tired lines of her face. She’d talk when she was ready, and not a moment before. He would wait, for however long. But it didn’t stop his mind from racing. Watching her try to diminish herself for Randall, justify his actions toward her, shrink into a shape more palatable when she was here before him, perfectly made… those thoughts beat him senseless.

At her door, Jamie stopped. His eyes searched her carefully, that steady blue cutting through every practiced lie she’d told herself. 

“Ye’re worth so much more than he knows, or cares to admit,” he said at last. ”Will ye be okay this evening, once yer inside?”

She clutched the doorknob like an anchor. 

“I will be.” A nod, more to herself than him. “Goodnight, Jamie,” she whispered, and slipped inside. He saw the first tear roll from her eye before the latch clicked shut. 

Jamie lingered in the hall, staring at the closed door. His hands curled into fists at his sides. He had said too much, or maybe not nearly enough, but he knew one thing perfectly well: Claire Beauchamp was a light not meant to be diminished, not by Randall, not by anyone. 

And he would not stand by and watch it happen. 

Jamie had left his barracks before the sun had cleared the horizon. His boots crunched softly on the packed dirt paths that led towards the nurses’ quarters. The air was thick again this morning, promising that stifling heat would come later, as always. 

He hadn’t slept more than an hour. His bunkmates had dozed easily enough, but Jamie had lain awake, thoughts circling round and round like vultures over carrion. What he’d said to Claire inside the club before Randall’s return haunted him. He had spoken as though it were his right, as though Frank was no more than a name on her beloved letters, as though Claire herself were not free to make her own choices. 

His mam would be ashamed. ( “What gives you the right, Jamie, to speak to a woman that way? And one you call a friend? Just because you’ve flown your missions in the heavens doesn’t make you God himself; You don’t get to pull the strings for her! All you damned pilots and your egos… You may think yourself grown and infallible, but I won’t hesitate to remind you of your place…”) He could hear her reprimands clear as day, and he would deserve them all.

And yet, he could not regret the heart of it. The truth was too thick to swallow. She should not have to douse the fire in her bones for the sake of another’s security. She had been born to do more, to heal, to bring light where there was none. Jamie knew it as surely as he knew the freckles on his arms, given to him by the harsh sun since his arrival. 

Still, the memory of her hurt expression had needled him all through the night. It was that look – not anger, not even disappointment, but resignation – that had driven him from his bed and set him walking toward her in the blue haze of dawn. 

Over a game of cards some weeks before, Frank had mentioned how Claire often rose before the sun to be out with nature. (“She asks me to join her at least once a week, but I’ll be damned if I nurse another hangover while looking for stupid fucking plants.” And he’d had the nerve to laugh.)

The sea spread out beyond the base like a sheet of hammered metal, the horizon tinged with violet and gold. Jamie spotted her there, not far from the path that curved toward the coast. Claire was crouched low among the wild grasses, her skirt brushing the earth, a loose curl blowing softly in the breeze. She bent over a patch of wildflowers; stubborn little things with yellow-white faces that had forced their way through rock soil and salty air. 

Jamie slowed his pace. Something was endearing in the way she studied them, lips parted, as though the world itself had offered her a secret. A woman who had carried loss in the marrow of her bones yet still sought beauty, still touched it with reverence. 

She reminded him of home. Of his sister Jenny, fierce and unyielding as the Scottish hills. Of his mother, who never once shrank herself down for the sake of others. 

And – damn him for thinking it – Claire reminded him of something he had never had and always yearned for: a partner who might meet him not with blind loyalty, but with unquenchable heat. He would not ask it of her, of course. Never. He knew just what it was like to feel pulled by honor and duty, and hers was somewhere else. Her heart was somewhere else.

He cleared his throat softly and aimed for the lightness of the clouds he loved. “Have ye considered enjoying yer leisure time at any normal hour?” 

“Jamie,” she started. “What are you doing out here so early?” She did not rise from her task. 

He swallowed, wishing he could draw from a well of experience. Put him in front of his squadron, the brass, his community back home, and he could spin his words like golden fleece. With Claire, his thoughts crashed like the tide. 

“I came… to speak with you. There are things I need to say. A good many things.” 

Her brows drew together with curiosity and caution. While she continued to rest at her spot among the flowers, he noted with some small pride that she did not tell him fuck off. He smiled a bit at that.

Jamie closed the distance between them slowly. “If I’ve overstepped before, about you and Frank and yer life, I am sorry. It wasna my place to meddle in what’s between ye. I ken that well enough.” 

Claire watched him blankly and nodded once, curtly urging him on. She needed to hear more from him, then. 

“However,” he went on, “I cannot hold my tongue when I see you dimming yerself for anyone else. Claire, you are… ye have a spirit I’ve only seen in a handful of people. My mam. My sister. Women who wouldna bow to anyone’s comfort at the cost of their own souls. A few fellow airmen who aren’t afraid to fight for what's right. And you… Well, ye burn brighter than all of them combined. That kind of passion, it’s rare. It shouldna be silenced. Not by anyone. Not even by the man ye love.”

Her lips parted as if to speak, but nothing came. The air between them was taut, humming like the thin moment before a bomb meets its target.

Jamie’s heart hammered. He longed – good god, how he longed – to reach out, to cup her face, to feel if her skin was as warm as the sun gilding her hair. But he stood rooted, torn by the war within him: the man of honor who would never steal from another man, and the man of fire who knew she’d felt it too, this unspoken fuse lit between them, and could not stop the burn. 

At last, she whispered his name. 

“ Jamie… ”

It was equal parts plea and warning. He took a step closer and outstretched his hand, a silent question on his lips. She reached toward him, rising.

And then it came. 

The first siren tore through the stillness, long and unbroken, a sound so absurd that the very air seemed to hold its breath. 

“That can’t be right.” She tilted her head up to the sky, shading her eyes and squinting into the light. “It’s Sunday. There aren't any drills today.” 

An answer came in the low groan of engines. Too many of them. Far too many. 

Jamie’s blood chilled. “Christ above.”

He seized her hand without thought, pulling her down into the grass just as the first dark shapes crested the horizon and soared over their heads. Planes, dozens of them, black specks swelling into monstrous wings, covered their tropical sun. 

The sirens wailed again, louder, echoing across the base. Shouts erupted in the distance as the first explosion shuddered through the morning, the deafening booms coming from Pearl Harbor. 

Claire’s whisky eyes fixed on the sky. 

Jamie tightened his grip on her hand, her fingers digging into the backs of his own, his eyes locked on an incoming bomber. “Stay close to me.” 

And the world broke open around them.

Chapter Text

“Claire!” 

She had turned, face pale, eyes lifted to the horizon where the planes gathered around the harbor like vultures looking at carrion. 

Jamie dragged her toward the cover of a maintenance shed as the first bombs fell on the harbor. The shockwave hit them both, flinging grit and mud against their skin as they slammed into the metal wall of the shed. Claire clapped her hands to her ears, eyes wild. 

“Listen to me!” His voice was hoarse, nearly drowned out by the roar of engines. He caught her face in his palms, forcing her eyes to his. “Keep to the ground. Crawl if ye must. The hangars and ships will draw their fire – ye stay well clear of them. If ye canna reach the hospital, find the gullies and lie flat. D’ye understand?”

Claire nodded, unable to find breath in her lungs to speak. Jamie’s thumbs brushed her temples and time fractured. For him, for this moment, there was only her: the curls whipping loose around her face, the sudden sprays of dirt streaked across her cheeks, the fearful courage in her eyes. 

“I willna see ye lost,” he whispered. “Not you. Not today.”

Before reason could reclaim his senes, before duty called him away from her and into the enemy’s fire, Jamie bent and pressed his mouth to hers. Hard, searing, desperate. A promise and a farewell all in one. 

Claire paused for a heartbeat. But only one. She was kissing him back, his lips hot on hers and her hands tugging his shirt collar, closer, closer… until a spray of gunfire erupted nearby. Jamie tore free and shoved her, hard, toward the open stretch between buildings. 

“Go, Claire! Run!”

He didn’t look back. He couldn’t. He was already sprinting for the hangars where the B-17s crouched like restless giants, half-fueled, half-armed, waiting for their wings to slice through the ruby red skies. 

Claire

Her breath caught in her throat and the echo of his kiss searing through her as she sprinted toward the hospital, keeping away from the walls of buildings as she dodged. 

Go, Claire! Run!

And god, she RAN. 

The ground was quaking beneath her feet, the air alive with electricity and dust and metal and blood. Men scattered, some diving for cover, others rushing to their stations, their faces pinched with terror. She darted between them. The smoke burned her lungs. 

The hospital loomed head. She threw the doors open and was thrust into a maelstrom of death. 

“Clear the cots!” Gillian shrieked. “We need every space!”

She didn’t need orders. She grabbed bandages, tore strips of linen, threw herself into the masses. A boy barely old enough to shave collapsed at her feet, his arm torn to ribbons and his hand gone. Claire pressed down on what remained of his forearm and shouted for morphine. Her hands struggled to keep pressure, slick with the blood. 

No morphine came. 

No one responded. 

She reached for the lipstick in her pocket. Yanking it free and uncapping it with her teeth, she tried to steady her shaking fingers as she drew on the boy’s forehead: M. Morphine. 

“Please, don’t let me die,” he pleaded with her. 

“You’re not going to die. I have to move on…” he gripped her hand with his one that remained. She paused . “You’re not going to die. Someone will come with morphine soon. You will not die today.” The boy nodded slowly and released her, succumbing to the shock. She continued. 

Another man, eyes rolling white, chest heaving, breathing shallow. She repeated the same words: “You’re not going to die. You’re safe. You’re okay.” Some lies were righteous. A red C on his forehead. Critical. She gave him a hand to help him lie down, and she went onward. 

The next boy — god help him, and her – was the first she could not save. His face was ripped open from hairline to collarbone, his nose broken and bleeding, an entire leg gone, his chest cleaved open to where she saw the outline of his heart beneath his ribs, barely beating. She scrawled an F on his bicep (the only part of him not cut to pieces). An F, for fatal. Bombs fell around her. Planes screamed. Men, screamed. 

Somewhere in the chaos, Jamie was hurtling toward the sky. Somewhere, Frank was coordinating attacks from the tower. Somewhere, both of them might be dead. 

Claire pressed down hard on the wound before her, forcing air into her lungs. She would not stop. 

Not now. 

Jamie

The ground shook beneath his boots, dust raining from the rafters as he tore through the hangar doors. The shriek of engines firing up filled the air, the smell of gasoline unmistakable. Japanese Zeros, black shadows diving ever closer, spit firey death from their noses. 

“Rupert! Angus! Murtaugh! Willie!” His voice cracked through the din. 

The B-17 loomed above them, her belly half-fed with fuel and her guns nearly empty. A few crates  of ammunition lay broken open on the concrete floor. The planes had just arrived during the night before from the mainland after so many of their own had gone down during missions to Japan, then to Germany. They were supposed to spend today refueling and discussing with the maintenance crews and ammunitions were supposed to show up with fresh crates and… no, not today. None of that would be happening. 

“We’re no’ ready yet,” Rupert barked, his hands fumbling with the belts of rounds. 

“No one’s bloody ready, ye fool!” Angus snapped. He hauled himself up the ladder to the tail turret, flinging rounds of ammo up as he went. “Better to die in the air than here, scurryin’ around like rats.” 

Jamie caught Murtagh’s shoulder, dragging up his wary vision. Murtagh, his co-pilot, was overseeing the plane and the crew; He’d have an eye on all the men ”See them all strapped and ready, aye? This’ll be the roughest flight we’ve had yet.”

He only gave a solemn nod, eyes dark, and vanished into the plane. 

With hardly a moment to spare, Jamie turned his head back toward the hospital where he’d last seen Claire, running for her life. The memory of her lips, her wide eyes, his absolutely, truly, unthinkably insane decision to kiss her… they all seared him open.

God, keep her safe. Keep her whole. 

Then he climbed into the belly of the beast.

Claire

The hospital groaned under the weight of the bodies. The air reeked of blood. Of sweat. Of terror. 

Claire’s hands were slick, her apron sodden and deep red. She no longer heard the bombs in distant bursts, only as a constant, deafening heartbeat that rattled the windows and shook the cots. 

“Claire, here!” Mary shoved a man toward her. His eyes rolled in his skull, froth bubbling from his ashen lips. His abdomen was blackened, skin seared by fire. She smeared the lipstick on his cheek: F. 

“W-What does “ F” mean?” Claire tore more bandages. “Claire? Why aren’t you treating him? He needs our help, you can’t just not help! W-we took an oath to…” she was growing more frantic when Claire seized her narrow shoulders.

 “They all need our help, Mary!” The poor nurse shrank. “He’s already dead. He won’t survive. We can’t sit here wasting time. You can either help me put his body down and help someone else, or you can move.” Mary let out a sob, unable to stop staring at the sailor. Claire reached for her hand and tried, desperately, to get through to her as another soldier was dumped at her feet. “There are others that need us. Mark the men, help if you can, and move on.”

Mary’s sobs turned to choked sniffles and she turned with her own lipstick in her hand to find someone, anyone, she could help. 

Claire’s head spun with the noise, the chaos, but her body moved faster than her mind. The only thoughts that rang through the pounding in head were about hands, rags, gauze, and lipstick…

And about keeping a sharp eye on the doors. 

Jamie is up there. Frank is in the tower. Please, God, don’t let them die. 

Frank

The control tower shook with every blast, every explosion in the harbor beyond. Radios were screaming with static, pilots shouting over the crackle. 

“Zeros inbound, eight o’clock–”

“Out of ammo! I repeat, out of ammo! We have nothing to fire with up here!”

“Engines one and three failing. Engine two on fire. Cutting thrusters… oh God, I can’t hold her–”

Frank gripped the edge of the consol until his knuckles threatened to slice through the skin. Sweat trickled down his back. “Get those B-17s in the air,” he barked at the radio operator. “Now. Before the whole bloody lot is destroyed on the ground.” 

The operator’s eyes flicked to him, wide with disbelief. “Sir, they’re not even armed. They just arrived a few hours ago, they haven’t been…”

“It doesn’t matter!” Frank thundered. “We need a diversion. Fuck, anything to get them to stop… just get them up, now!”

A new voice crackled through the radios, thick with Highland burr. James Fraser. 

“Air Exec, this is Fraser. We’re in the air, but we’ve hardly enough ammo to clip their wings. What are the orders?” 

Frank slammed his fists against the console. “You’ll draw their fire, Captain! That’s the fucking order!”

For a beat, only static. Then: 

“Mission received.”

The line went quiet. 

Claire

The first body she stitched that morning was already cold. Her hands didn’t pause – couldn’t pause – as she worked the needle, the skin slack beneath her fingers; he deserved to be buried looking his best. Or, the best she could manage here for a sailor who didn’t deserve to die at the hands of terrorism. There were so many of them: Sailors, soldiers, airmen, anyone caught out in the open when the bombs fell. The hospital corridors were jammed with stretchers. Blood pooled on the floor in slick trails. 

The cries were relentless. Boys screaming for mothers long gone; men sobbing as the morphine failed to dull the agony of burned flesh and missing limbs. 

She forced herslef into the work: clean, cut, stitch, clamp, move on. If she stopped, she would crumble. And if she crumbled… they would die. Die, faster than they already were. 

Every time another man was dragged through the door, her stomach lurched. She braced herself with a soot-streaked face, auburn hair matted with blood. She’d seen planes fall in flames all around her. Any of them could have been him, his crew, her friends. 

“Nurse Beauchamp!” someone shouted. “We need you on triage! More truckloads incoming!” 

She nodded, wiped her bloody hands on the bedsheet of a man already dead, and moved before her knees could give out. 

Jamie

The air was a furnace around them. The bomber rattled with every blast, the concussive force of gunfire hammering through the metal of the plane’s body. Smoke poured into the sky below, the harbor glowing orange and red as if hell itself had cracked open from the cool, blue ocean. 

“Hold her steady!” Willie shouted, gripping the yoke with white knuckles. 

“We’ve got her, boys… easy now…” he watched as planes streaked past, his gut twisting each time one peeled off toward the ships below. Draw them away. Keep them on us, not on them. If he could keep them busy, maybe one less ship would sink into the deep harbor under their feet. 

“Tail’s hit! I’m on my last round of ammo, I don’t know how much more we can take back here,” Angus yelled into the radio at the cockpit.
“Patch what ye can! Keep firing until ye can’t!” Jamie barked back, his voice raw from smoke and shouting. 

Tracer shots lit the sky like needles alive with hellfire. One of the men, he didn’t know which, screamed once, then fell silent. 

“Fraser, we can’t hold her–”

“Aye, we can. We will not give up, not today!”

The plane shuddered, dropping altitude. Jamie forced her back up with brute strength and sheer will. 

“We need to jump, Captain–”

“I WILL NOT.”

He thought of the men below, burning and drowning and dying… and thought of Claire on the ground. If this was to be his final fight, he’d damn well make it count. 

Frank

From the radio tower, the world erupted in fire. 

Frank stood at the wall of windows, headseat pressed to his ear as the sky above Pearl Harbor tore itself apart with thundering engines and exploding bombs. Radios crackled in his hands, overlapping shrieking for backup, for orders, for God himself. 

“Tower, this is My Gal Sal, we’re taking heavy fire, tail’s gone out… TAIL IS GONE–” 

“Get out if you can, My Gal Sal, jump if you–”

“Oh GOD…”

The transmission ended in static. 

Frank’s stomached hollowed out. He’d been a pilot long enough to recognize the sound of man’s last words. 

Everywhere he looked was carnage. Battleships listed at unnatural angles, black plus boiling into the sky. Planes erupted midair, the flaming wreckage cartwhelling into the harbor. The screams of the wounded carried even up here, traveling on the smell of oil fires and the sharp tang of blood. 

“Sir, your orders?” a young lieutenant demanded at his side, voice cracking with fear. 

Frank swallowed. He wanted to collapse, to vomit, to scream… but he couldn’t not here. Not now. 

“Keep them in the air,” he ordered, voice like steel even has his heard pounded. “Every man, every plane. We can’t let them sink another ship.”

The lieutenant nodded and scurried off. 

Frank turned back to the window, jaw tight. He thought of Claire in the hospital, thought of the endless stretchers she must be seeing. And somewhere out there, damn it all, James Fraser was flying straight into the teeth of hell. 

Frank knew. He knew , that the thought of that man dying brought him no comfort, no relief. Only dread. 

He hadn’t allowed the thought before now. Not when Fraser lingered a bit too long in the medical tent after a test flight, not when Claire’s eyes lit up with a quick spark of genuine laughter at something Fraser had said. Not when she integrated so well into the newest group to arrive from London. Not even when Fraser leaned in at the card table, asking questions about their history that went far deeper than idle talk among men. 

Frank had noticed. Every easy glance. Every shift in Claire’s attention. Every unspoken thing that lie open between them. He had noticed, but hadn’t really allowed the thought of what it all meant. Not until now. 

With fire falling from the sky and death circling around, the truth hollowed him out: if Captain Fraser lived, Claire’s heart might already be half-gone. And if Fraser died, his ghost would linger between them forever, a shadow he could never outshine. 

Jamie

He would’ve prayed, if he thought it possible, but God was gone from these skies. 

Jamie’s hands gripped the yoke hard enough to crack his bones, fighting a machine that could no longer obey. Alarms wailed in his ear, shrill warnings drowned out by the rattle of gunfire and the hollow thuds of shrapnel punching through the fuselage. 

“Stay with me, stay with me …” he begged the empty heavens. 

He forced the nose up, dragging it out of its deadly dive, only to feel it shudder again as another burst of fire hit one of the remaining engines. 

Smoke filled the cabin. The acrid bite of it clawed down his throat. He coughed, eyes darting across the dials: altimeter spinning, fuel pressure dropping, hydraulics bleeding out. 

The bomber would never have a chance at a clean landing. They were too low, smoke billowing out, tail shredded by fire. 

“Jesus Christ, they’re firing on us!” Rupert shouted, voice cracked with terror. 

Jamie’s gut dropped. The base hadn’t expected the B-17s. Most of the ground crew didn’t even know they’d arrived in the dead of night. To the boys manning the anti-aircraft guns below, they were just another Japanese bomber diving for the harbor…

“Hold her!” Jamie roared. The plane shuddered under a fresh volley. Metal groaned and omething blew apart behind them. He could only look ahead. His vision tunneled and the ground rushed up to meet them.

Claire

A bomber went down, they said. The call sign looked American. 

Her hand froze mid-mark, lipstick trembling against the cloth of a dying man’s sleeve. Somewhere out there, in the inferno of sky and sea, Jamie Fraser was fighting for his men. And Frank – god, Frank – was fighting to hold them all together. 

And she was, drowning in blood and screams, and praying to a god she wasn’t sure she believed in that the two men who held her heart in such different ways would survive the day. 

Jamie

Silence. 

No engines. No gunfire. Only the ringing in his skull and the stink of fuel. He forced his eyes open to find the cockpit a twisted ruin, glass shattered, and metal bent like discarded paper. 

“Murtagh?” His voice was raw, his throat full of smoke. 

A grown answered him. Then Angus, laughed weakly, emerging with a weak smile even as blood ran down his arm. One by one, the crew stirred, battered but breathing. The jungle had swallowed them whole. The bomber had gone down hard, tearing through trees and snapping trunks like matchsticks before breaking apart against the earth. If his God was real, he’d given them a last-minute miracle: every man had stumbled out alive. Murtagh, Angus, Rupert, Willie. Battered, bloodied, coughing smoke… but alive. 

“Out!” he roared, hauling one of the men, he couldn’t see which, away from the wreckage. “Move, lads, MOVE!” Jet fuel choked the air. It poured from the ruptured tanks and ran in streams over the ground. Over their feet. Sparks hissed from the broken wiring now exposed from the rips in the bomber’s belly. One by one, his crew staggered free, dragging packs and rifles with them. Angus ran with a limp, white-faced, yelling “Still prettier than you, Captain!” as he passed, managing a grin.

There was no time for celebration. The Japanese would have seen the plume of fire and black smoke and could be searching for them. But first, something much worse was about to happen. “Keep moving before ye roast, ye daft bugger,” Jamie half-joked as he shoved each man along toward the edge of a rift.

They sprinted as best they could, stumbling into the dense underbrush. Behind them, the wreck groaned like a dying beast, knowing her time was near. Jamie shoved Murtagh ahead of him, heart hammering as they scrambled down a gully. 

A fireball erupted. 

A tower of pure flame clawed into the canopy of lush trees above, singeing them like twigs in a campfire. The shockwave hurled them forward, dirt and leaves and metal raining down like deathly snow. A million shards of metal from the plane he’d flown a hundred times tore across his back as he hit the ground, slicing through his flight jacket and skin alike. He felt the burn, sharp and blinding, but adrenaline kept him moving. He rolled onto his side, gasping, the taste of blood and smoke in his mouth.

“Captain!” Murtagh’s voice cut through the ringing in his ears and he turned to see the older man’s eyes fixed on him, wide, before Jamie forced himself onto his knees. “Christ, lad, yer back… we need to–”

“We need to grab the weapons and rations from our packs and go. That’s all. We keep moving.” He didn’t have time to evaluate injuries or pain. The Japanese would have seen the plane gone down. In all of their minds, they knew every second they lingered was another second closer to capture. Everything had happened so quickly that morning that there was no way of knowing if the enemy was in the skies, the seas, or everywhere all at once. They couldn’t stay here. 

The men stood and, all too stunned to do anything else, pressed on without argument.

They hiked for the next two hours, the jungle pressing close like endless green velvet curtains in a home they’d be lucky to see again. Sweat soaked through Jamie’s shirt and burned into the open wounds on his back. The men pressed on. Angus stumbled more than once, Rupert slipping under his arm to steady him. By the time the sun began to dip low in the afternoon sky, Angus’s jokes were thin, his breath rattling in his chest. 

“You need to rest,” Rupert urged once, easing him down against a tall tree covered in soft vines. 

“No,” Jamie said sharply. “If we stop, we’re done for. We keep moving.” 

Angus coughed, spitting blood into the leaves. “Listen to the Captain: he’ll drag us all out whether we want to be or not, stubborn bastard.” He gave a strained laugh and leaned his head back against the wall of ivy. 

“Come on, then,” Rupert urged, offering him a hand. But he didn’t get back up. His head lolled, eyes glassy. 

“Angus? ANGUS?”

Jamie dropped to his knees, shaking him. “Stay wi’ us, man!”

Even the jungle held its breath as Angus took his last. 

Willie’s voice was low from over their shoulders where they slumped over the body of their crewmate and dear friend. “We can’t leave him, Jamie. We’ve got to bury him.” 

Jamie’s stomach twisted. He wanted nothing more than to dig until his hands bled, to lay Angus in the earth with a prayer and a dram of the scotch he kept in his flask. But the crack of distant gunfire echoed through the trees and reality crashed down on him like a hammer. 

“We haven’t the time, lad,” he forced out, voice hoarse. “If we stay, we all die.”

Rupert didn’t move as the jungle sighed once more. 

For a moment, Jamie thought the man would swing at him, beg him, tell him we wouldn’t leave… but he rose, fists tight and eyes clear with a blaze brighter than their burning plane. 

“Let’s go, then. Finish what he started.”

Jamie swallowed hard, grief clawing at his thoat. He looked at his friend one last time, lying still among the roots, before turning away. Murtagh silently clapped him on the shoulder, and nodded in quiet salute of their fallen crewmate. “On me,” he said, turning. “We move. Now.”

They moved as one, leaving behind both their brother and the burning wreck of their plane, with staggered steps and bleeding backs, and carrying the impossible weight of a ghost. 

Claire

The hospital was overflowing with blood and smoke clinging to every surface and Claire was sure she’d never be truly clean again. Her hands shook from hours of stitching, splinting, and compressing wounds that never seemed to stop coming. The rhythm of her work was the only thing keeping her upright. One patient at a time. One life at a time. Don’t think beyond the next bandage, the next breath. 

She was leaning over a young sailor when the shout cut through the din. “Claire! He’s here! He’s looking for you!”

Her heart exploded in her chest. He . The word slammed into her like that first physical blow from the bomb. Her mind filled with a glorious image of man: tall, broad-shouldered, auburn hair catching the light in a sky gone to smoke, a lopsided grin, alive, whole. 

Her body moved before her brain knew where to go. She tore the apron from her waist and bolted down the hall, the pounding of her shoes drowned out by the pounding in her ears. 

“Claire.”

He stood in the entrance, streaked with ash, eyes wild with exhaustion but blazing with relief as they found her own. His shoulders sagged as if a weight had been lifted. He was striding toward her, catching her against him with a crushing hug. 

“Thank god,” Frank whispered, his breath hot against her hair. “Claire, thank god – you’re alive? You’re unharmed? Let me look at you.” He was shaking. She felt it in the way his arms clutched at her, his body pressed tight to hers as if he’d feared he’d never hold her again. Some part of her – the part that had been bound to him for years, that loved the man who had courted her with patience and steadiness – ached with relief at the sight of him, too. 

“I though I’d lost you,” he murmured, drawing back to look at her face. His hands cradled her cheeks, rough and trembling. “I saw attacks near the hospital, and I – I thought–” His voice cracked. 

“I’m alive.” She smiled weakly. “And so are you.” She tried to match his urgency, his palpable joy, but it was like trying to light a match under her beloved Pacific sea. 

She tried to feel what she could: gratitude, devotion, a surge of love. Beneath it all, though, was the ith of something she dared not name. 

When he finally pulled back, his eyes searched hers with a sharp and assessing look. “Claire–”

“Frank… Jamie’s crew. Have you heard anything?”

He froze. 

The change in his face was so subtle she nearly missed it, but caught it she did. His jaw tightened and his gaze steeled before her. 

Her voice was sharper this time. “Frank, please. Have you heard anything? Seen anything?”  

“They were seen going down over the island,” he said at last, clipped and measured. He said it evenly, like it was any other report. “Witnesses saw an explosion. No parachutes.” He paused. “There were no survivors.”

The world tilted, and she fell off the edge into the abyss. 

For a few seconds, the words were just nonsense. They had no meaning at all. “No,” She whispered. “No, you don’t know that. Maybe they, maybe they bailed out, maybe–”

His voice was far too calm. “I’m very sorry.” 

Her stomach churned with disbelief and something deeper, darker. “You’re not sorry because you don’t know anything! You don’t know . You weren’t there!” she snapped, her voice breaking on the final word. She was sharp enough now that Gillian turned her head. Frank’s mouth thinned into a hard line, but he wouldn’t argue. Not when even after the world turned to literal hell this morning, he could be perceived as being too emotional, too vulnerable. (“ Image matters, Claire.”) Instead, he let the silence stand heavy around them while his words pressed on her chest until she could hardly breathe. She couldn’t stay here or she would surely shatter like glass. “I have to check on my patients,” she said quickly, voice tight. “Excuse me.” 

She turned, and fled. 

She stumbled into the shadow of a still-standing building, pressing her back against the cool wall, her fingers clawing at the neck of her dress as her lungs seized. She tried to breathe, to force in cool air, but it only came in ragged gasps, shallow and sharp. Everything was blurry, hazy. She trembled so violently that she slid down the wall, crouching low, hands braced on her knees. 

No survivors. 

Her heart raced so fast she thought it might give out entirely. She bent over double, gagging, bile rising in her through until she vomited into the dirt. Her hands clutched at her fallen hair, pulling tight, as if the pain might drive back the panic, the fear, the anger. But it only grew. All of it. Something raw tore from her throat, a scream, a sob, something she never wanted to hear again. Images flashed in her mind, differently this time: Jamie’s body engulfed in flames, his soft burr silenced forever, him, gone forever, gone before– 

“No,” she gasped, rocking forward, tears spilling unchecked. “No, no, no…” She wanted to run, to claw at the sky itself, to beg heaven itself to give him back. Instead, she could only huddle there on the dirty ground, her heart breaking, her chest convulsing with every breath that felt too wrong. 

“MEDIC! We need medics out here, NOW!”

Her head snapped up, strands of the hair she’d been pulling now plastered to her tear-streaked face. A jeep screeched into the yard, headlights blazing. Soldiers and sailors leapt from the back, hauling limp and bloodied men from the bed. Shouts filled the night: “Burns, shrapnel, he’s bleeding out!” 

She staggered to her feet, wiping her eyes, her running nose, and forced herself into motion. One step, two, then she was frozen to the too-damp ground. 

A fall of dark red hair, filthy and matted, head lolling over the side of a stretcher. 

“Jamie.” The name barely escaped her lips, but it was enough. The world snapped back into dizzying motion as they rushed him past her. Battered, bloodied, but maybe still breathing. 

Her hands trembled as she reached for him and snapped with sharp command, “Get him inside, now! Quickly – move!” 

The soldiers obeyed, rushing his limp body past the hospital doors. Claire followed closely behind, ready, her heart pounding. 

And Frank, behind them, had seen the look on her face at the sight of him returned to her at last. 

Chapter Text

The doors burst open and men came through at a run, a stretcher held between them. Claire’s heart slammed into her ribs, knowing, knowing that he lived. The copper glint of his hair, matter now with ash and blood and dirt, but it was still him. Jamie. When the orderlies shouldered through and set him down on the nearest bed, her breath seized. 

He was facedown. 

For a moment, she didn’t understand what she was looking at. Then the light caught, and her world lurched forward with staggering speed. 

He was facedown because there was no other option. His back was no longer flesh, only a ruin of what used to be. Strips of fabric hung in tatters, clinging to skin, shredded by metal. Wounds jagged and raw ran from shoulder to waist; some were shallow and would heal relatively easily, but others cut so deeply she could glimpse the muscle glistening beneath. Blood seeped freely from every slice, soaking the sheets before they’d even settled him. 

Her hands were already on him before she could finish processing the trauma. “He’s alive…” she whispered to no one but herself. 

Mary and Gellie cut the last of his clothes away, and the full extent of the damage revealed itself. Claire swallowed hard, bile stinging her throat. No, there was no time for that, not while Jamie lay open in front of her. She had to work quickly, while the blood was still flowing, when every heartbeat might be his last. 

Her voice rose with every command, clipped and urgent. She pressed gauze to the worst of the gashes, but they darkened crimson under her fingers in mere seconds. Too fast. He’s bleeding too fast. “I’ve got him,” Gellie said, placing a tender hand on her shoulder. Claire turned quickly to look at her friend, nodding, and moved to Jamie’s head while Gellie’s hands replaced her own.

She bent close to his head, strands of her hair falling forward to brush against his temple. “Jamie. Jamie. Can you hear me?” A ragged groan escaped his lips. His face turned fractionally toward her, eyes fluttering. 

“Claire,” he whispered so faintly she thought she might have imagined it. Her breath shuddered out of her and she stroked his too-hot cheek in her thumb. “I’m here. You’re alive.” His lips twitched with the faintest ghost of a smile before his eyes went still once more. “I’m here, and so are you. Stay with me,” she murmured, her throat tight as she pulled the tray closer. “Do you hear me, Jamie Fraser? You stay with me.” With a steadying breath and a solitary long blink, she readied herself for the work ahead. 

Her hands moved with swift, precise determination to physically sew back together the man before her. She stitched and staunched, fighting to save every drop of blood that poured from his broken body. Each pass of the needle became about more than medicine: each puncture, each bandage, became a prayer she was whispering straight into his mangled flesh… live, live, live. 

Behind her, unnoticed until now, Frank stood in the doorway. His face was bloodless, his body rigid, but his eyes never left Claire. 

Not the man broken open on the table. 

Not the gore. Not the horror. 

Her. 

The way her voice softened when she said Jamie’s name, the way she bent over him, shielding him with her whole body, the way her hand lingered on his skin long after the task was underway. Frank’s stomach twisted. He had come here desperate for proof of her, alive and well. Alive and well she was, and she was tethering her life to the man in front of them, begging him to share her breath. If Jamie died here and now, Claire would damn the world and everyone in it. If he lived, she would never look at Frank the same way again. 

Time slipped away. Claire lost herself in the rhythm of stitching, clamping, packing, and binding. Blood soaked her apron, her hands, her hair, where she’d pushed one particularly stubborn curl back over and over again with a stiff wrist. She didn’t notice and didn’t care. Every cut and torn edge of skin felt like a challenge hurled straight at her: prove you can keep him here. 

Once, Mary tried to relieve her, murmuring that she’d been at it for too long, that her hands were shaking. Claire barked back so sharply that the girl flinched and fled. Claire couldn’t stop because if she stopped, Jamie might slip away. 

Her fingers cramped from the effort, but she didn’t truly feel it. All she felt was his pulse when she checked it, ragged but stubborn beneath her fingertips. All she heard was his breathing, shallow but present. 

At last, hours or seconds, she didn’t know – the worst of the wounds were finally closed. His back was no longer made of trenches but of battlefield scars stitched and bound in layer after layer of clean cloth. He was still feverish, so pale, but his chest rose and fell, and she clung to the rhythm like a lifeline. 

She bent once to press her hand against his head to feel his feverish skin. “You’re alive,” she whispered once more. “You bloody stubborn man, you’re alive.” She lingered for just a moment longer before the walls began to close in. The smell of blood, the press of bodies, the endless groans of the wounded, it was all too much. Someone tried to guide her to a chair, but she shook them off and quickly walked toward the freedom of the night. 

The air was still thick with smoke, the stars barely visible through the haze. She pressed her back against the wall and slid down until she was sitting in the dirt, head in her hands. The exact spot as before, but everything else had changed. 

Before she could truly give in, she heard his voice: “Claire.” 

The voice was low and tentative. She looked up through blurred vision to find Frank a few feet away, hands held behind his back, his face unreadable. For a long moment, neither of them spoke. The only sound was Claire’s breathing, still trying to catch her breath. He stepped forward, crouching beside her, hand hovering for just a moment above her shoulder before settling stiffly, touching but not feeling. 

“You saved him,” Frank said softly. “You alone saved him.” The words might have been meant as comfort, but they felt too cold. Nearly as sterile as the bandages she’d wrapped around Jamie’s torso minutes before. 

“He shouldn’t even be here,” she whispered, voice raw. “None of them should. And now–now–” she broke off, swallowing hard. 

Frank’s hand tightened on her shoulder. His eyes searched hers, and for the first time, she realized what he had seen: how she had bent over him, how she had spoken his name, how she had touched his face, begging him to stay, how her heart had split open in that room. 

She knew. And he knew. And neither of them said it. 

Not yet.

Chapter Text

Jamie, Week One, Monday Morning

The world was narrowed to pain, to the sting of alcohol poured into ragged wounds, to the sharp tug of needles and thread, to the tearing ache each time he took a deep breath. His back felt flayed, the skin strung tight and raw. 

And yet, what he remembered most was her: her voice, low and steadying, urging him back from the dark; he press of her hand against his temple, the faint scent of soap and herbs and sweat clinging to his senses in his sleep. 

But the kiss – God help him – the kiss haunted him worse than the wounds. He saw it every time his eyes closed, and they were closed an awful lot lately. He felt the softness of her lips. Her desperation, her fear… her passion. Now, each time, she stood over him adjusting bandages or dabbing at torn flesh, it was there, humming between them like a live wire neither dared to touch. 

He wanted to speak of it. To ask what it meant, what it would mean. He was never awake long enough to ask her. 

Claire, Week One, Wednesday Evening

She kept her hands professional, her face calm. That was the role she knew best: nurse, healer, soldier in white. 

But every time her fingers grazed Jamie’s skin, she remembered the heat of his mouth on hers. She remembered the jolt of her body’s answer and the terrifying truth it revealed. She told herself it was the fear, the chaos, the madness of the attack, and nothing more. She tried to tell herself a dozen lies, and nothing more. Friendship, and nothing more.

When she found herself lingering too long, reveling in the feel of his pulse or grazing the line of his shoulder blade, she made herself pull back from the flame between them. Never play with fire. The ring on her finger from Frank anchored her, pulling her back down into the depths. The steady, dependable depths. She had no right to seek the light. 

Still, her hands felt the loss of heat when she left Jamie’s side each night. 

Jamie, Week Two, Tuesday Afternoon

Strength returned in jagged bursts. He forced himself upright, leaning on the frame of the bed until his vision blurred. Each day, further. Each day, longer. The men – Rupert, Murtagh, Willie – came to see him, to clap him on the knee because his shoulder was too bandaged, to laugh too loudly at a baudy joke in the spaces Angus left behind. Jamie smiled with them, laughed with them, but the grief and guilt gnawed at the hole inside his chest. 

When they were gone, the silence was even more pronounced. Claire moved around him briskly, her skirts a mere whisper. 

At last, when the silence of the night was too much, he broke through the quiet. 

“Sassenach. About before.”

Her hands never stopped moving, and she did not look up. Then, too quickly, she tied off the gauze. “There’s nothing to say.”

It was even, controlled, and calm. And brimming with a barely concealed lie. 

When she turned away, he saw her knuckles turn white as she gripped the sink before shaking them out once, twice, and left the ward without another word. 

Claire, Week Two, Tuesday Evening 

Frank kissed her when she walked in the door to his private residence. He’d been granted the quarters after his heroic work during the attack, and while Claire was glad for the privacy, the isolation and silence became nearly too heavy to stand. Relief flooded Frank’s face every time she came home, as though the hospital might have swallowed her whole while she worked from dusk to dawn on the night shift. The night shift, so she spent as little time at home with Frank as possible.

Frank had told her Jamie was dead. Scolded her for caring. Told her to piece herself back together these past weeks. When the opportunity opened for more shifts during the middle of the night, she signed up without a second thought. Maybe the space of the stars could be enough to bring her crashing back down to earth, to the reality of her life. 

She kissed him back today and tried to match his tenderness. She let him draw her into his arms, his steady heartbeat pressing into her cheek. But her mind was somewhere, anywhere, else. 

On the rocky beach, just after sunrise. Hibiscus swaying in the breeze. Salt in the air. Light the color of copper and gold, warming her from the inside out. Curls that fell free from proper hairstyles and sun-kissed skin teeming with freckles. A smile that rose from one corner before spreading wide with mirth, and eyes that crinkled in the outer corners. Full lips and strong hands that held her tightly against a tall frame. The smell of leather, whisky, and saltwater made her lean in, closer…

The guilt was suffocating. She made the lasagna for dinner (and burnt it), laughed when Frank poked fun at her cooking (again), and held his hand when he reached out for her at night (although that was all the further she allowed before feigning sleep). Every small act of devotion was a betrayal. In the quiet of the night, the echoes of another man’s face would not leave her alone. 

Jamie, Week Three, Monday Morning

The first time he stood unaided, the ward erupted in cheers. Rupert crowed, the younger lads clapped, and Murtagh shook his hand with such strength he nearly collapsed again. Pride burned hot in his chest. Fiercer than the pain, at least. 

Then Claire appeared. She hovered near, hands half-raised as though to catch him if he did indeed start to fall. He could see the battle inside her, clear as day: she was ready to steady him, and terrified to touch him. 

“You should sit,” she said softly. 

“I should walk,” he countered, jaw tight. The men need to see that I’m alright. That if I can do it, so can they. That they will. ”

Finally, she raised her eyes to his. God, how he’d been waiting to look at her again. He’d held the memory of her face close to his on that fateful morning as an anchor to reality, an escape from the pain, for days on end. To finally be seen by her once again was intoxicating. He wanted to give her his heart, to talk about what it was between them, to drag his name from her lips with his own… 

But he straightened his spine and forced another step, past her. 

Claire dropped her hands back to her sides and said, “Don’t be reckless, Jamie.” 

Claire, Week Three, Wednesday after Midnight

The ward fell quiet after midnight, the lanterns dimmed to shadows. She moved between the rows to check pulses, refresh bandages, and fight the weariness that dragged at her bones. 

Jamie stirred in his cot at the end of the row. His face, softened in sleep, seemed younger. She realized she didn’t know his age, just that he was younger than Frank. Younger than she was, too. He murmured something in what she assumed was Gaelic, and though she couldn’t understand him, she felt the words nonetheless. 

Her throat ached. She stood frozen in the half-light from the moon pouring in through the window above his cot. The war, Frank, her vows – none of it existed in that fragile moment. Only Jamie, and the knowledge that her heart was tied to the man asleep in front of her. 

She forced herself to turn away. To go home. To where she’d dream of not sleeping alone. 

Jamie, Week Four, Thursday after Midnight

The orderlies had offered to help him bathe. He’d promptly refused. He’d endured bullet wounds stitched without anesthetic, broken bones reset in the field, and the daily threat of fire in the skies. He’d be damned if he’d let some green lad with shaky hands strip him bare like a bairn. 

But when Claire appeared at his bedside with a basin of steaming water, a cloth draped over her arm, and a look that brooked no argument, Jamie felt the iron of his pride begin to bend. 

“You can’t very well heal with god-knows-how-much grime caked on you,” she said evenly, setting the basin down. Her sleeves were already rolled, her hair tied back, all brisk efficiency. “We’re just doing your back, in any case. To avoid infection. And don’t flatter yourself, I’ve tended to plenty of men in worse states.”

“Aye, Sassenach. But I’m no’ most men.” 

He’d meant it as a joke, but something flickered in her eyes at that – quick, unreadable – before she looked away, dipping the cloth into the water. “No. You’re not.” 

He didn’t know what to do with the way his chest tightened at his words, so he lay stiffly on his stomach and tried to think of every possible adjective to describe Scotland as she wrung out the cloth and leaned in closer. 

The first touch of the damp heat against his skin made him hiss. Not from the pain – though his wound did fiercely protest – but from the intimacy of it all. Her hand moved slowly, carefully, tracing along the ragged edges of bandages before skimming the unbroken flesh of his shoulders. He could feel every drag of the cloth, every brush of her knuckles, as though she branded him with fire instead of water. 

His back, the ruined mess of it, was next. He clenched his fists as she unwound the bindings, and as the air hit his raw skin, he imagined what she must see: shredded wreckage of a man who’d once dared to think himself unbreakable. 

But her hands never stalled. She didn’t recoil, didn’t flinch. She worked with a steady gentleness, sponging away dried blood and salve, rinsing the cloth again and again until his skin was clean. 

“Does it hurt?” she asked, the clipped tone now gone. 

He cleared his throat. “No more than it did before.” A pause, then softer, “It’s… easier, wi’ ye tending to me.”

Her hand stilled for a fraction of a second. He felt the tremor before she moved again, quicker this time, as though to mask the slip. 

The basin water grew cloudy and tinged with pink and brown. She reached for a fresh cloth, still moving across the broad planes of muscle that rose and fell beneath her hand. Jamie had never felt so exposed, so vulnerable, not even under fire. He was half-naked, weak as a bairn, and it was Claire, Claire, whose every touch was searing him, who every glance unraveled him, who was stripping away what little armor he had left. 

She held out a hand to help him move to a sitting position, wrung out the cloth, and pressed it to his chest. When her fingers brushed low across his ribs, his breath hitched. Her eyes darted up at the sound, and for a dangerous heartbeat, she stared at him, assessing, and gave one small smile to herself more than to him. 

She wrung the cloth out and again pressed it to his sternum, brisk now, purposeful. He turned his head, biting back the words that crowded in his throat. 

The rest of the time passed in silence, heavy and thick. When she bound his back again and stepped away, Jamie felt her absence more deeply than he felt his wounds. 

“Thank ye,” he said roughly, once he trusted himself to say the proper words. 

Her eyes softened before she turned to the basin with a small grin. “Try not to ruin all my hard work.”

Claire

The basin of water steamed faintly in the dim light, carrying with it the sharp tang of the ward. She had scrubbed enough men to know the routine, to move with practiced efficiency. This wasn’t her job, and she wouldn’t hesitate to say just that to her commanding officer here… but after the attack, so many of the nurses had needed the time off to recover. So here she was, bathing soldiers, and pretending the next one in her lineup was the same as any other. 

Jamie Fraser sat before her, half-naked, bruised, bandages peeled back to expose his ragged skin. His back was a map of pain and survival, scarred and bloody, but healing. 

She dipped the cloth in the warm water, wringing it out with deliberate force. Her fingers brushed his shoulder, and the heat of him pressed back against her touch. Something stirred low in her chest, and she clenched her jaw against the flutter. 

This was wrong. He was recovering. He’d nearly died . The heat in her touch betrayed her, and the way he stiffened, just slightly, at the touch – god, his body remembered her touch as well – made it impossible to retreat. 

“Does it hurt?” she asked, testing the waters. 

“No more than it did before,” he said, voice rough. Then, almost too quietly: “It’s… easier wi’ ye tending to me.”

Her chest tightened. Easier. The word landed heavier than the bombs that still echoed in her dreams. She swallowed hard, turned her gaze to the water, wringing the cloth again. She’d lingered too long; she could feel it still, a spark crawling along her own arm. The air in the ward was too tight, too hot. Every movement she made – dipping the cloth, pressing it against his chest, rinsing it – carried the same treacherous tension. She worked methodically, forcing herself to focus solely on the task and the care, but the brush of her knuckles against his skin, the rise and fall of his chest, made her pulse thud in a way that was entirely unprofessional. 

When she’d finished cleaning the worst of it and began to rebandage him, she noted the shiver that ran through him. Relief? Pain? She couldn’t say, and she didn’t dare look long enough to ask. She made a joke, straightened her shoulders, and willed herself to leave. 

The heat followed her down the hall, and she realized she’d bathed far more than his back. 

Jamie, Week Five, Early Morning

The ward was quieter in the early morning than it had been in weeks, though it was never truly still. The wounded slept fitfully, some coughing, some muttering in dreams filled with smoke and fire. Claire moved with purpose through the rows, her tray balanced expertly, the smell of medicine and coffee mingling with the morning air. Breakfast. A ritual that no longer felt mundane, not when every day held such fragility. She paused at Jamie’s bed, the look on his face lifting the weariness from her shoulders for a moment. “Captain Fraser,” she said, attempting to keep her tone light, “do you need anything else? Tea, coffee? I can have one of the girls grab you something before I leave.”

Jamie’s blue eyes met hers, sparkling with that mischievous glint she’d come to recognize as trouble. “Coffee would be grand. Could use some company, too.” 

Her brow arched, the admonishment rising, but it was softened by something warmer now. “If it’s company you’re after, the club doesn’t open for some time, you know.”

“I’m recovering, Sassenach,” he said, his voice rough but playful. “And the company of a friend beats the food they bring, if only by a little.” 

Her cheeks warmed. A friend. “You’re shameless.”

“Aye,” he admitted, letting the smirk linger, “but ye knew that from the start.” 

A week had passed since the bath. Three weeks since that electric and tentative touch. She could feel the tension between them coiling tighter than ever, so she’d tried to inch them back into the easy friendship they’d had before. Still, her hands itched with the need to touch him under the semi-guise of care, and his proximity made it nearly impossible to think of anything else. Friendship and healing. That’s all this way, all it could be. 

“Have you managed to annoy all of your nurses yet, or are you saving that unique skillset for just me?” she teased, setting the tray down and perching on the end of his bed. 

“Oh lass,” he grinned, “I’ve saved the very best for ye alone.”

They laughed softly, the sound carrying over the low moans of the warm, filling the space with a rare, stolen lightness. For a while, it was easy: jokes about the men, small teasing, then quiet observations about the chaos of the Pacific. Claire found herself leaning in without realizing, her elbow brushing his. His hand twitched almost imperceptibly toward her, but he stopped. The restraint felt unbearable. 

“And you?” he asked suddenly, voice dipping, serious now. “Ye’ve seen more than most. The fire, the blood, the… carnage. How do ye carry it all?” 

Claire felt the chill of truth crawl over her skin, the pull in her chest that had nothing to do with duty. “I do what I can, and put away the rest into little boxes. There’s a box for men I’ve seen die under my hands. There’s a box for all the letters I gave to the postman. There’s a box for moving across the world, away from Boston. Everything goes in a box, and I put the boxes away in my mind, and I keep going.” 

“I have boxes, too,” he answered quickly. She nodded slowly, allowing him to continue. His gaze lingered on her face, trying to show her he understood. “I’ve a box for my da, who died of a stroke while I was at basic training. I’ve a box for my big brother, who was killed in action in France. I’ve a box for– for Angus…” She did reach for his hand then, and he held on like it was the only thing keeping him afloat, “... and I really don’t want tae have to put this, us , in box, too. To not think of ye. To put ye away, to bury this deep down. But I will stop it all, if ye wish it.” 

He stilled as her thumb brushed his knuckle. “I don’t wish for that.”

The door at the end of the ward creaked open, signaling shift change. She dropped his hand and before he could ask her to stay a moment longer, Claire was floating away on the breeze.

Claire, Week Six, Tuesday after Midnight

The ward was hushed, thick with the sounds of breath and the occasional restless rattle. Outside, the trade winds stirred the palm fronds against the window louvers, a whisper of peace that mocked the air inside. 

Claire moved down the row with her flashflight in tow, checking pulses, tucking sheets, marking charts. She had become a creature of habit here: efficient, methodical, and determined to save lives where she could, as if her routine could keep the chaos at bay. When she came to the last bed on the right, her composure faltered. 

Captain James Fraser. 

Even in sleep, his presence was unsettling. His chest rose and fell heavily, the shadow of pain creasing his brow despite the exhaustion that pinned him down. His hair was damp against his forehead, deep crimson glinting in the faint light. His hand rested on the sheet, palm up, broad and open. 

She reached to check the pulse at his wrist; purely professional, strictly necessary. Her fingers slipped into place, and she warmed through her hand at the touch of his skin. 

He stirred. His eyes blinked open, hazy but aware, and for a moment they looked at each other, caught in the stillness. 

“Sassenach,” he whispered, voice roughened by sleep, “ye flatter me, coming by so late just for some company.”

Claire swallowed, her own heart rate increasing now. “Just my rounds, Captain Fraser. Go back to sleep.” 

His lips curved faintly as though he didn’t believe a single word, and his gaze flicked to where her hand still rested on his wrist, and chose the smallest and most dangerous action he could: he turned his hand, just enough to let his fingers brush hers. Not a grab, not a hold – merely the lightest press of skin to skin. 

The contact was both nothing and everything, too much and not enough. Claire seemed to hold her breath as she suddenly became too aware of how close she stood, of the space between them, of his deep blue eyes calculating the next move like a master of chess. 

A dangerous game, indeed. 

“I should–” she began, but the words broke off. 

Jamie’s eyes darkened, shadowed with the thing they could not name. “Go, then,” he whispered. But he didn’t pull his hand away. He let the choice sit with her, heavy in the dark. 

Jamie

The ward was quiet. Too quiet. The quiet that made a man keenly aware of every sound, every breath, every heart beating too closely to his own. He lay propped slightly on the pillows, finally able to bear the slight pull on his almost-healed scars. The bruises from the crash and hike through the jungle were fading, but the memories kept him awake. Awake enough to notice her before she even came close.
Claire.

The way she moved – quiet, precise, restless – drew his gaze, as always. He’d learned to anticipate her steps, to catch the tilt of her head, the way her eyes flitted across the charts and trays. Even when he was weak, even when the pain wracked him, he couldn’t look away. 

Her hand reached for his wrist as she checked his pulse. Just a touch, fleeting, professional… yet it set fire to his skin. He felt it immediately, the brush of her fingers, the warmth that lingered like a fantasy he had no right to imagine. 

“Sassenach,” he whispered, trying to conceal the need for her continued touch, “ye flatter me, coming by so late just for some company.”

She replied with the practiced calm of a nurse, but he saw the tremor in her fingers as they touched him. He turned his wrist, just a bit, to let the pads of his fingers graze hers. Nothing more than that – not a hold, not a claim, not a promise, just the faintest pressure that he couldn’t resist. 

He saw it in the tilt of her chin, the glance of her eyes—the electricity. The look on her face thrilled him in a way no battle ever had. He let the moment hold, let it sit between them like a fire in the dark. 

“I should–” she began, but the words were lost. 

He wanted to tell her to stay, to touch her properly, to lean forward and… but he reigned himself in. He could only whisper, “Go, then…” and hope she understood the weight behind it. And yet, he didn’t move away. Not fully. Not yet. He let the small connection linger as the spark that would keep him burning long after she left. 

When she pulled back, he exhaled slowly and steadied himself. He closed his eyes for a moment, tasting the memory of her fingers, and cursed the world for putting her there and keeping her away at the same time. 

Claire, Week Six, Early Wednesday Morning

She’d left the ward trembling. Jamie’s words – Go, then – echoed through her chest like a blow. It wasn’t sadness at the dismissal that stung her the most, but the sharp truth that lay underneath. The way he had looked at her, as though he were both reminding her of her promise to Frank and pleading with her to stay by his side. 

Claire kept her steps brisk, hands clenched tight at her sides. The corridor smelled of carbolic and sea salt, the night air drifting in through high windows. She longed for the solitude of her little spot on the coast, for the chance to collect herself before she broke entirely. 

She rounded the corner and stopped short. 

Frank was waiting for her. 

“Claire,” he said smoothly, falling into step beside her as though he’d been searching for her all along. “Come back with me, will you? To my quarters.”

She wanted to say no. She tried to keep walking, to disappear in the sunrise. But something in his tone, or perhaps merely by habit, made her nod. “Of course.”

His quarters were neat and proper—the home of a man who needed everything to be exactly where it belonged. Claire perched on the edge of a chair while Frank poured himself a drink, his movements precise and practiced. 

“I have news,” he began without preamble. “I’ve been reassigned. I’ll be heading to the 100th Bomb Wing. England.”

Her heart lurched. “England?”

“Yes.” He sipped from his glass. “They’ve asked me to serve as the air executive there. It’s dangerous, of course, but I’ll be primarily on the ground, overseeing the flight operations of the pilots.”

Her voice caught. “Is it only you?”

He turned, slowly, eyebrows lifting in faint surprise. “Only me?”

Heat crept up her chest into her neck, betraying her. “I mean, what about the pilots here? Are they going with you?”

A shadow of understanding crossed his face. There was a flash of something in his eyes she didn’t recognize, then a cool mask fell into place. “Ah. Captain Jamie Fraser, you mean.” 

Her throat went dry at his name. 

“No. Not yet,” Frank answered crisply. “I leave in three days. The rest of the pilots will follow by the end of the month.” 

The words hollowed her out. One month. That was all. 

Frank went on, rather matter-of-fact. “They call it “the Bloody Hundredth”, you know. They’ve taken terrible losses. An awful reputation, though in truth their numbers aren’t too much worse than the rest. But the stories… men talk about what it’s like up in those skies.” He shrugged, almost dismissive. “Still, I’ll be safe enough from the ground for most missions. You needn’t worry.” 

Claire bristled. “Safe enough? Frank, it’s the heart of it all. Europe isn’t–”

“That’s precisely why I’ve decided you’ll be returning to Boston,” he interrupted. “Go home, Claire. I’ve called around about some houses for sale. You can pick any one you’d like, granted it has enough room for all the children.” Her head spun. “Build us a home. Make friends with people who exist outside the walls of the hospital. Volunteer for the Red Cross if you must. You’d be far more useful there than chasing about war zones, getting tangled up under my feet.”

She stared at him. “Useful.”

“Yes,” he said, as if it were obvious. “The home front needs steady women. This–” he gestured to her uniform, “this is temporary. Leave the blood and bandages to the qualified doctors. You’ve done your bit.” 

Her jaw tightened. “My bit ? Frank, the men here need me. They need medical providers. The pilots–”

“The pilots,” he cut in, sharp now, “are dying in droves. Don’t delude yourself. Most of them won’t make it past their fifth mission. Nothing you do will change that. The pilots, your friends , your cherished Captain Fraser are already dead.”

She reeled as though he’d struck her. They’d danced around the Captain for weeks now, refusing to talk about what each other knew about the man. 

“Don’t romanticize this, Claire,” he went on, his voice clipped. “You’ll only hurt yourself. Better to put it all behind you and move on. Better to return to what matters.” 

Her hands curled into fists in her lap. He couldn’t see her, not truly. Not her heart pounding with the memory of Jamie’s broken body on that stretcher, not the way her breath had stopped when she thought him dead. He couldn’t understand the way her chest burned now at the thought of Jamie climbing back into the sky, into the maw of those engines and guns. 

All Frank saw was duty, convenience, and sick revenge. A wife to wait quietly and obediently for the war to end, and for the man between them to go to his death. 

She swallowed hard, blinking against the sting in her eyes. Most of them won’t make it past their fifth mission. 

Her mind whispered only one name. 

Jamie. 

Jamie

The office smelled of ink, leather, and tobacco smoke. Maps were pinned to every surface, red markers bleeding across Europe like open wounds. Jamie stood stiff as a ramrod before the desk, his hands locked behind his back, though his pulse hammered. 

Major Frank Randall didn’t look up from the orders in his hands. His voice was clipped, almost detached, as though reading a weather report. “Did you bring your discharge papers?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Any complications?”

“No, sir. Cleared to fly, signed this morning.”

Frank nodded, still looking over some paperwork that crowded his usually tidy desk. “You’re to report with the other crews to the 100th Bomb Wing by the end of the month. I leave in three days to get set up. You’ll follow once the rest of your men are cleared. Use the next month as your R&R because you won’t have time for it once you get across the ocean.”

Jamie nodded, though his stomach had dropped clear through the floor. The Bloody Hundredth. He knew the name, knew the stories whispered in the mess: twelve planes out of thirteen lost in a single day, ten out of fifteen gone in the next mission. That was the kind of slaughter that turned men into smoke before their boots touched the ground. 

He forced his voice to stay steady when he asked, “And what of… what of the families? What’s the plan for those attached here?” 

That earned him a glance – cool, assessing, and smug. “For Claire? I’ll be sending her home to Boston. Best place for her, under the circumstances. She can manage the house, contribute to the Red Cross, and wait out the rest of the war. Once we’ve won, we’ll marry properly. She’ll be taken care of.”

Jamie’s jaw clenched so hard it ached. Taken care of. As if Claire were a fragile glass to be packed away in tissue and hidden on a shelf in some granny’s closet. As if she hadn’t stood knee-deep in blood and oil during Pearl Harbor, barking orders and keeping men alive. As if she hadn’t saved him with her own two hands, hadn’t faced down death more times than Randall himself likely ever would. 

He bit back his words, but one question slipped through. “Does she ken those are yer plans for her?” 

Frank arched his brow. “She does, and she agrees, for the most part. The transition may be difficult for her; she has enjoyed role-playing as a doctor out here. But she’ll accept it in the end when there are children to care for and a home to maintain. She knows her place.”

Rage coursed through his veins. Claire – his Claire, though he had no right to call her that – would never accept being told her place. She was fire and steel, determination and strength wrapped in porcelain. To cage her like that was to smother her. 

He swallowed hard, staring at the papers in Frank’s hands until the words blurred. His chest burned with too many truths he couldn’t speak aloud:

That Claire would fight this plan with everything she had. 

That the thought of her thousands of miles away, or worse, bound to Major Randall in a marriage she didn't want, hollowed him out more than the prospect of flying into hell itself. 

That he was already hers, heart and soul, whether she willed it or not, and no orders in the world could change it. 

Frank slid the orders across the desk with a decisive hand. “That will be all, Captain Fraser.”

With a nod, he picked up the packet and left the office. The surf pounded faintly in the distance, steady as a heartbeat, but all he could hear was Randall’s voice: She knows her place. 

Claire didn't have a place . She made her own. And God help him, Jamie wanted nothing more than to be wherever she chose to stand.

Chapter Text

The mess hall had been dressed up for the occasion, though it still smelled of sweat, engine grease, and the faint tang of antiseptic that clung to every corner of the base. White linens had been spread over the rough wooden tables, the corners fluttering with each draft from the open doors. A few bottles of contraband whiskey appeared like magic, passed hand to hand under the table until the corks popped and amber liquid spilled into chipped mugs. Someone had scrounged a phonograph, and scratchy jazz rose up, tinny and fragile, trying in vain to drown out the ghosts of sirens and gunfire still ringing in everyone’s memory.

To anyone else, it might have felt like celebration. To Claire, it felt like laughing at a funeral.

She sat at Frank’s side, her dress clinging to her skin in the humid evening air, her napkin twisted to ribbons between her fingers. Frank was in his element — back straight, jaw sharp, eyes glittering in the lamplight as he rose to speak. A commanding officer among men, a man who wore authority like a second skin. His voice carried easily across the hall, over the clatter of cutlery and the low rumble of conversation.

“You’ve all heard the rumors by now,” he began, raising his glass. “But tonight I can confirm: I’ve been reassigned. Orders came this morning.”

The room erupted in questions, cheers, groans. Claire’s heart stilled.

“The 100th Bomb Group,” Frank said, smiling tightly, as though the words themselves carried weight. “Thorpe Abbotts, Norfolk, England. The brass call it the ‘Bloody Hundredth,’ but don’t let the name fool you. We’ll prove them wrong. Our men will be the ones to turn the tide.”

The nickname struck Claire like a stone to the chest. Bloody Hundredth. She’d heard whispers in the hospital corridors, the sort of stories that carried on the backs of stretchers. Whole crews gone in a single mission. Twelve planes out of thirteen lost in one day. And Frank stood here, glass raised, as though this were simply another assignment, another notch in his steady climb up the ladder.

“As for Claire—” he glanced down at her, smiling the smile that always seemed to ask for applause, not intimacy. “She’ll be returning home to Boston, where she can contribute to the war effort in safer, more practical ways. Building a home, supporting from the home front. The war needs women like her just as much as it needs men like us.”

The table laughed, nodded. Practical. Safe. Dutiful.

Claire felt heat rising in her chest, but it wasn’t the whiskey. It was fury, contained only by the force of her clenched jaw. Practical. Safe. Words meant to box her in, to make her smaller than she was.

Across the table, she caught Jamie Fraser’s eye. He sat among his crew, his shirt collar undone, hair unruly despite his attempt at neatness. His gaze was steady, calm — but there was a flicker there, too. A spark that told her he saw it. Saw her. Saw the way her hands twisted in her lap, the way her eyes darted to the floor when Frank spoke of her as though she were a possession to be reassigned.

Jamie didn’t smile. He didn’t smirk. He only held her gaze, and for a moment, Claire felt the noise of the hall dim. His eyes anchored her, steadying the fury that burned inside her ribs.

She broke away first, reaching for her glass. The whiskey burned on the way down, but it was nothing compared to the fire building inside her.

The laughter rolled on around her, a careless tide of chuckles and clinking glasses. Claire forced her lips into something resembling a smile, though it trembled at the corners. Inside, her chest felt tight, as though every word Frank spoke cinched another knot around her ribs.

“Boston will be better for her,” Frank continued, topping off his glass with a flourish, commenting to his friends. “She’ll be safe. And after all, what’s more important than having our women prepared to welcome us home? God knows we’ll need something to come back to.”

A roar of approval met his words. Someone banged a spoon on the table. Another toasted “to the women!” The sound grated against her skull.

Safe. Dutiful. Prepared.

Claire wanted to scream. She wanted to stand and shout that she was more than a house and a smile, more than the shadow behind a man in uniform. She wanted to say she’d already seen death up close — that she’d scrubbed blood off her hands until her skin was raw, that she had whispered comfort into the ears of boys younger than herself as they bled out under her touch.

But she didn’t say it. Not yet.

Instead, she gripped the edge of the table so hard her knuckles whitened. Her uncle’s face flashed before her eyes, pale and sunken in the days before cancer claimed him. Her parents’ car, twisted metal in a ditch, smoke curling into a gray sky. She hadn’t been able to save them. Not then. And now Frank wanted her to go home and polish cutlery while boys like Jamie Fraser flew into firestorms with barely enough ammunition to fight back?

She swallowed the bile rising in her throat.

Her gaze flicked back to Jamie. He was listening, jaw taut, shoulders squared. He didn’t laugh at Frank’s joke. He didn’t toast to “the women.” He sat in silence, his glass untouched, his eyes steady as they met hers again.

And in that look — that single, unguarded moment — Claire felt something shatter inside her. Not because Jamie was offering pity, but because he wasn’t. He didn’t look at her like she was fragile, breakable, needing to be boxed away and protected. He looked at her as though he knew she was already burning, and that she could burn brighter still.

“Claire,” Frank’s voice cut across her thoughts. She startled, realizing too late that he’d been speaking directly to her.

“Yes?” Her voice came out clipped, sharper than she intended.

Frank smiled indulgently, a man humoring a woman’s nerves. “I was just saying that once I’m settled in Norfolk, you’ll have plenty of time to prepare for the move. My colleagues’ wives will be thrilled to meet you.”

The words landed like stones. Colleagues’ wives. As though she were a footnote. A possession to be displayed.

Claire forced another smile, but this one cracked, the corners brittle. “Of course,” she murmured.

But under the table, her hands shook with the effort of holding back.

She could feel Jamie’s eyes on her again, steady, unyielding. She dared not look at him — not now, not with Frank sitting inches away, basking in the glow of his own authority. But she knew. She knew he’d seen it: the storm building in her chest, the crack in her facade.

The record player needle scratched, the jazz sputtering into silence for a heartbeat before another record began. It was all Claire could hear above the pounding of her own pulse.

“Plenty of time,” Claire echoed, her fork slipping in her hand. She could hear her own voice, tinny, strained.

Frank nodded as though her agreement were foregone. “You’ll find Boston suits you. It’ll be good for you to reestablish yourself in the community. Wives’ committees, charitable drives, that sort of thing. You’ll be able to contribute, Claire. In the right way.”

The right way.

Claire’s throat tightened. She thought of the hospital — the chaos of the wards after Pearl, the smell of burnt flesh and morphine, the unending stream of boys carried in on stretchers. That had been the right way. Her hands on their wounds, her voice in their ears as they slipped between life and death. That had mattered.

This — this talk of committees and polite conversation in Boston drawing rooms — this was nothing. This was silence dressed as duty.

“I suppose,” Claire said evenly, though her knuckles ached around her fork. “But you’ll forgive me if fundraising teas don’t feel much like service when the boys are still bleeding here.”

The table stilled. A couple of pilots coughed into their drinks.

Frank laughed, a shade too loudly. “Always fiery,” he said, patting her hand with the air of a man soothing a child. “That’s one of the things I admire most about you, darling. But passion needs direction. Order. We all serve best where we’re most useful.”

“Useful?” The word left her like a strike of flint, sharp enough to draw sparks.

“Yes.” Frank leaned back, comfortable in his certainty. “Every man has his place. Every woman too. Yours, Claire, will be at home.”

It was the final straw.

She set her fork down with a deliberate click. The sound cut across the table more clearly than a shout. Her heart thudded, her breath shallow, but she didn’t care. Not anymore.

“Tell me, Frank,” she said, her voice low but steady, “did the men at Pearl Harbor die in their ‘place’? Did the boys screaming in my wards serve best where they were ‘most useful’? Because I’ll tell you, I wasn’t thinking about usefulness when I pressed morphine into their veins. I wasn’t thinking about place when I washed the blood from their faces.” Her chest rose, trembling with the force of it. “I was thinking about keeping them alive.”

The silence that followed was suffocating. No one moved. No one dared.

Frank’s face tightened, a flicker of embarrassment coloring his cheeks. He glanced around the table, then back to her, his smile brittle. “Claire,” he said softly, warning threaded beneath the word.

But Claire couldn’t stop. She couldn’t swallow it back down. Not anymore.

“I won’t go back to Boston,” she said, her voice carrying, calm now in its certainty. “Not to sit pretty and wait for letters. If the 100th Bomb Wing is where they’re sending you, then that’s where I’ll be, too. I’ll go as a nurse. And don’t you dare tell me it isn’t my place.”

The words hung in the air like smoke, impossible to wave away.

Claire sat back, her hands shaking but her gaze unflinching. She didn’t look at Frank. She couldn’t. Instead, her eyes found Jamie’s — just for a moment, just enough to see the quiet fire there, the unspoken acknowledgment that she had claimed something for herself at last.

The room around her exhaled, uneasy laughter returning in fits and starts, the phonograph scratching on. But for Claire, the night had shifted irrevocably.

The walk back from the mess hall was thick with silence. Claire’s shoes tapped against the concrete path in clipped little bursts, her arms folded tight across her chest. Frank strode beside her, his pace brisk, his jaw taut. They passed under the yellow glow of a lantern, shadows stretching long and thin behind them.

Inside his quarters, Frank shut the door with a careful precision that was somehow worse than a slam. He didn’t look at her right away, but when he did, his expression was equal parts anger and wounded pride.

“What in God’s name was that?” His voice was low, sharp. “Undermining me like that. In front of the men.”

Claire peeled off her gloves finger by finger, laying them on the little table by the door. She forced herself to move slowly, deliberately, though her blood thrummed in her ears. “I wasn’t undermining you, Frank. I was speaking for myself.”

His laugh was bitter, incredulous. “Speaking for yourself? Claire, you made me look like a fool. Do you realize what that does to a man in my position? These boys need confidence in their leaders. And you—” He jabbed a finger toward her. “You chipped away at mine with a few careless words.”

“They weren’t careless.” Her own voice sharpened now, cutting through his. “I meant every one of them. I’m not going back to Boston to play the dutiful little wife while men I know—men I’ve nursed back from death’s edge—are being shipped off to fly suicide missions.”

Frank’s eyes darkened. He stepped closer, lowering his voice though the heat behind it only grew. “Do you think I don’t know what these missions mean? Do you think I don’t lie awake at night calculating the losses? That’s precisely why I want you far away from it. Safe.”

“Safe?” Claire’s laugh cracked like glass. “Safe is not living. Safe is watching the world tear itself apart and doing nothing. Safe is hanging up my stethoscope and pretending I never had hands for healing.” She shook her head, voice breaking. “That’s not who I am, Frank. It never was.”

“You’re my wife,” he snapped. The word landed like a shackle. “And your place is with me.”

Claire’s breath caught, fury sparking like tinder. She lifted her chin. “With you, or behind you?” The words pierced, but not as he’d intended. A slow, shivering breath escaped her as she lifted her chin, eyes blazing.

“And I am not your wife.”

Frank blinked, thrown.

“Not yet,” Claire pressed, her voice gaining strength. “And maybe not ever.” The air seemed to buckle under the weight of it. “Don’t you dare use that word like it’s a chain around my neck. Don’t you dare assume me bound when I haven’t spoken the vow.”

The silence that followed was suffocating. Frank’s face shifted—anger, then something colder, harder, almost condescending.

“You don’t understand what you’re asking for. A hospital near the 100th? You’ll see men torn to pieces. Burned beyond recognition. You’ll drown in blood, Claire.”

“I already have,” she said flatly. Her voice carried the weight of December 7th, of the boys she couldn’t save, of the screams that still echoed in her bones. “And I’ll do it again. Because someone has to. Because I can.”

Frank exhaled harshly, dragging a hand over his face. “God, you’re impossible. You’ve always been headstrong, but this—” He shook his head. “You’ll grow out of it. Once we’re home, once the war is over—”

“Don’t you dare.” Her voice rose, trembling now not with fear but with raw conviction. “Don’t you dare tell me I’ll ‘grow out of it’ like it’s some childish fancy. I want more, Frank. I want to be more than someone who polishes silver and pours tea while men die. I want to study medicine. I want to heal. I want to matter.”

For a moment, the air between them crackled with all the things they could not say. Frank’s eyes softened, almost pleading, but there was no understanding in them. Only resignation.

“You’ll matter to me,” he said quietly.

It might have broken her once. It might have been enough, years ago, when grief had left her hollow and Frank’s steady hand had been the only thing keeping her from drifting into nothing. But now… now she saw it for what it was. A tether. A cage.

She turned away, her throat thick. “I’m not sure that’s enough anymore.”

The words left her trembling. She didn’t wait for his reply. She left his quarters with her head high, her chest burning, and a truth lodged so deeply in her bones she could no longer deny it:

Her life with Frank had been built on grief and obligation. But with Jamie—

With Jamie, she felt alive.

The door to Frank’s quarters closed behind her with a muted click, but the words still echoed in her head. You’re my wife. You’ll grow out of it.

Claire’s hands shook as she pulled her gloves back on, clumsy, her chest so tight she could hardly breathe. She didn’t want anyone to see her like this—cracked open, trembling, furious and raw.

She needed air. She needed space.

She turned a corner, moving too quickly, and slammed straight into a wall of solid muscle.

“Christ, Sassenach,” came the familiar, steady voice, warm as it was startled. “Are ye tryin’ to knock me flat?”

Jamie.

Claire’s heart lurched. She looked up, finding his face shadowed by the lantern-light outside. His eyes swept her quickly—assessing, worried—and the way his brow drew together nearly undid her.

“I—I wasn’t looking,” she stammered, brushing her hair back from her face.

Jamie didn’t press. He just stepped aside and offered her his arm. “Come wi’ me. Ye look like ye’d benefit from a bit o’ fresh air—and maybe some sea air before ye collapse into a puddle o’ rage.”

Claire blinked, half-amused despite herself. “I’m not sure how sea air fixes rage.”

“It might not,” he admitted, a sly grin tugging at his lips. “But it distracts ye wi’ the smell of salt, and if that fails, the sand’ll hurt enough to make ye forget why ye were angry in the first place.”

She couldn’t help the laugh that slipped past her. It was fragile, but real. For the first time since the fight, she felt a thread of lightness in her chest.

They walked in silence for a moment, Jamie letting his humor drift between them in little bursts. He joked about imaginary crabs snapping at their toes, about her gloves being perfect for duel-fencing seaweed, and even managed a mock-serious warning about rogue seagulls. With each quip, Claire felt the tight coil of anger loosen, if only a little.

The sand gave beneath her shoes, and the air grew damp with salt. When they reached the line where the tide licked the beach, Claire stopped, sucking in the cool night air like she’d been drowning.

Jamie released her arm and stepped back, giving her the horizon. He knew. Of course he knew.

“I remember,” he said quietly. “The morning of the attack, ye were down here all by yerself. Thought maybe ye could use that space to breathe again now.”

Claire pressed her lips together, eyes fixed on the endless dark sea. “You remember everything,” she whispered.

“Aye,” he said simply.

The surf rushed forward, receded, rushed again, steady as a heartbeat. Claire wrapped her arms around herself, though the night was warm.

“Frank and I… we fought,” she admitted finally. The words were small, but once released, they came faster.

“I’d noticed,” he quipped, and gently elbowed her. “’Twas hard to miss.”

She let out a short laugh from her nose and continued. “Well, we fought more. A lot more. He thinks I belong to him already.”

Jamie was quiet for a long moment, so quiet she wondered if she’d said too much. Then, his voice came, low and rough. “And do ye?”

Claire turned her head sharply, meeting his eyes in the dark. There was no accusation there.

“No.” Her answer was steady, absolute. “I don’t.”

Jamie nodded once, as if that was all he needed. But his jaw worked, and his hand flexed at his side like he wanted to reach for her and didn’t dare.

They stood like that for what felt like forever—two silhouettes carved into the night, the sea stretching out before them. Finally, Jamie spoke, his voice softer this time.

“When I was a bairn, my mam used to say the sea takes and the sea gives. Ye can scream into it, and it’ll take your grief and your rage, and fling them far away. And if ye’re quiet long enough, it gives back peace.”

Claire laughed, broken but real. “Does it work?”

Jamie’s mouth curved, just faintly. “Sometimes.”

She turned back to the ocean, her chest still tight, but loosening with each wave that rolled in and out. For a moment, she let herself lean into the silence, into the rhythm of it, into the presence of the man beside her who asked nothing and offered everything.

This time, when her fingers laced with his, neither of them pulled away.

The ocean whispered against the shore, waves curling and spilling foam over the sand. Claire’s coat flapped in the wind, tugging at her as she walked beside Jamie. She hadn’t meant to end up here, hadn’t meant to seek him out, but the pull was irresistible, a quiet magnet dragging her toward him.

Jamie’s stride was easy, his hand brushing against hers more than once, testing the space between them. He cracked a teasing smile, trying to lighten the weight of the day’s confessions. “Ye ken,” he said, voice low and rough with amusement, “the tide will take us away if we keep talkin’ like this. Or maybe it’ll keep us here, trapped with all our foolish hearts laid bare.”

Claire snorted despite herself, a small laugh escaping. “Is that supposed to be comforting or threatening?” she asked, side-eyeing him.

“A bit of both, I’d say,” Jamie replied, a glint in his eye. “Depends on whether ye want the tide to take ye or the tide to leave ye standin’ on the sand, breathless.”

She felt the pull of his words, of him, and stopped walking. The waves lapped at her boots, the scent of salt and plumeria hanging thick in the air. Jamie slowed, close enough that she could feel the heat radiating from him.

Her hand twitched, uncertain, and then his thumb brushed over her knuckles, a simple, illicit touch that set her pulse hammering. Her breath caught, and she realized she wasn’t pulling away. She looked up at him, searching his face, finding that same flicker of longing mirrored there.

“Jamie…” she breathed, almost a whisper.

“Aye, lass,” he said softly, his voice rough with unspoken emotion. “I ken what we’re doin’… what this is. But I canna stop it. And I ken ye feel it too.”

Claire’s chest tightened. “I do,” she admitted, the words trembling on her lips. “But it might be wrong… everything about this… but I can’t seem to—”

He leaned closer, just enough for the warmth of his body to brush hers. “Then we’ll not speak of wrong, eh? We’ll speak only of what’s real, what’s here.”

The electricity between them surged, and instinctively, Claire reached up, her fingers curling into his palm. His grip tightened, not possessively, but as if anchoring them both to the moment, to the undeniable truth of it.

For a long, suspended beat, they stood like that. The wind tugged at their coats, the waves hissed at the sand, and the world beyond the beach seemed to fade. Claire felt seen in a way she had never known—known, understood, and fiercely desired.

Jamie’s gaze softened, and he squeezed her hand once, twice, grounding them. “Ye ken, the ocean… it gives, and it takes. But right now, it’s givin’ us this.”

Claire’s fingers tightened around his, refusing to let go. “Then I’ll take it,” she whispered. And for the first time in months, she let herself lean into him, into the connection, into the dangerous, thrilling knowledge that she and Jamie Fraser were, for this moment, exactly where they were meant to be.

The waves licked at the sand, whispering over shells and footprints, the wind tugging at their coats and tangling their hair. Claire walked a few steps ahead, boots sinking into the damp sand, heart still hammering from the confrontation with Frank. Jamie followed, slow, steady, as if the rhythm of his steps could ground her racing thoughts.

“Ye ken,” he said, voice low but teasing, “I was thinkin’ of complainin’ to the tide about our state of affairs. Or perhaps I’ll blame it on the wind for blowin’ ye into my path.”

Claire glanced over her shoulder, a ghost of a smile touching her lips. “And what would the tide say to that?”

“Ah… it’d likely shrug,” he said, grin tugging at his mouth. “Or it’d leave us here, standin’ awkward and breathless, telling us to figure it out on our own time.”

Her laughter came unbidden, light and fragile. For a moment, she felt lighter, the weight of Frank’s words and orders loosening just enough to let the sound escape.

They walked in silence for a few more steps, sand soft beneath their feet, until an envelope slipped from Jamie’s coat and fluttered to the ground. His eyes flicked to it, and then to her.

“Ye already know,” he said, half statement, half question.

Claire’s jaw tightened. “Yes,” she said. “I know. England. The 100th. Frank’s orders.”

He exhaled slowly, jaw tight, and bent to retrieve the envelope. “Aye… I thought perhaps ye only heard the assignment part.”

“I know more,” she said, finally meeting his eyes. “I know he wants me to go home to Boston. To… sit back, build a home, wait while men die, while pilots bleed.”

“I’d gathered that as well.” Jamie’s hand brushed against hers. “And are ye going?” he asked, though he already knew the answer from the way she’d stormed at dinner.

Her head jerked up, eyes flashing. “To Boston? Absolutely not. To England? I’ll meet you there. With or without your permission. With or without Frank’s.”

Jamie’s mouth curved into a small, rueful grin. “I’d have it no other way,” he said, voice low, but there was humor in it. “I’ll be glad to know ye’ll be there to patch me up again. Ye always did have a knack for keepin’ me in one piece.”

Claire blinked at him, a small laugh breaking free. “So you admit it’s my fault you have all those new scars to show off?”

He shrugged, still holding her gaze. “Perhaps it’s just my poor judgement. Or ye’ve cursed me with your skill.”

The tension between them eased a fraction, just enough for Claire to reach for his hand. This time, she didn’t pull away. Their fingers intertwined, solid and grounding, electric with unspoken words and shared knowledge.

The sand had cooled under their weight, the tide curling close enough to lap at their boots, far enough to leave them dry. Claire leaned back on her elbows, staring out at the endless stretch of black water, the moon casting silver paths over the gentle waves. Jamie sat beside her, knees bent, hands resting loosely on his thighs, just close enough that she could feel the warmth radiating from him.

“I’ll miss this,” she said quietly, voice almost lost to the whisper of the surf. “The smell of salt in the air. The way the trade winds tease the palms. Even the heat.” She exhaled, a short, bitter laugh. “I’ll miss the warmth. God knows it won’t be the same in England.”

Jamie’s gaze followed hers, soft and steady. “Aye. I’ll miss it, too. But we’ll come back.”

Claire turned her head toward him. “We’ll come back?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Aye,” he said, smile teasing but sincere. “After all this madness is done. When the war is ended, the ocean is calm, and the islands don’t smell of smoke and fear. We’ll return.”

Her chest lifted, a rush of hope amid the exhaustion of her nights at the hospital. “Do you think we’d even recognize it?” she asked. “Hawaii, before everything… before Pearl Harbor?”

Jamie shrugged. “Aye, maybe not. But we’d know each other. That’s enough for me.”

She glanced at him, letting the words settle between them. “I wish things could be simpler,” she admitted, voice barely above a whisper. “Sometimes I think I’ll never get used to it—the waiting, the watching, the wondering if every plane will come back.”

Jamie’s hand twitched, brushing against hers. “We live for the moments we can claim, lass. Even if they’re small, even if they’re stolen between duty and chaos.”

Claire’s breath hitched, a shiver passing through her at the weight in his voice. She turned fully toward him, finding his eyes in the moonlight. “And you?” she asked softly. “Do you—do you find comfort in the stolen moments?”

He let his gaze linger, intense and unwavering. “Aye. But I find more in knowing that yer here. That even when the world is burning, I have ye in my thoughts. That I ken yer near. It… keeps me steady.”

She swallowed, heart thundering. “I keep thinking about what comes next. About England. About Frank. About… everything.” Her hand brushed against his as if by accident, but she didn’t pull away. “I don’t know how to face it all.”

Jamie leaned slightly closer, letting the heat of his body press into her shoulder, though just enough to make her aware of him, not to crowd her. “Ye ken I’ll be there,” he said quietly. “If I could, I’d see ye through every storm, every raid, every blasted day.”

“I know,” she murmured, her fingers tightening against the fabric of his coat. “And I… I’ll be there, too. I’ll be there because… because I can’t seem to stay away. And because I might be able to keep you alive, too.”

Jamie’s lips quirked, half-smile, half-grimace. “Aye, ye do have a habit of interferin’ in my misfortune.”

She laughed softly, the sound mingling with the surf, easing the tension between them. “I call it duty,” she said. “And stubbornness.”

He shook his head, amusement lighting his features. “Ye’ve no idea how glad I am that ye’ve that stubbornness. But it makes things… complicated.”

Claire turned to look out at the water again. “Complicated is one word for it,” she said, tone low, reflective.

Jamie’s eyes softened, a slow smile creeping over his face, relief and longing mingling there. “Aye,” he whispered, leaning just enough to brush his forehead to hers. “Complicated… but all right in the end, I think.”

She drew a deep breath, letting herself feel the warmth of his body, the steady pulse of his heart, the weight of their hands clasped together. For a fleeting moment, there was nothing else in the world but the surf, the sand, and the knowledge that they were together.

Jamie squeezed her hand gently. “We ken the world is cruel enough,” he murmured. “But tonight… tonight, let us have this. Let us remember the ocean givin’ and takin’, but keepin’ us here, alive, and… honest.”

Claire looked down at their joined hands, the tension and fear of the last weeks eased by their closeness. She lifted her gaze, meeting his eyes fully this time, and held his hand without letting go. The waves rolled in and out, the wind tangled their hair, the night stretched long and slow, and for the first time in weeks, Claire allowed herself to feel—truly feel—the hope that they might survive what was coming, together, even if the world tried to pull them apart.

The first blush of dawn was faint on the horizon, a pale wash of pink and gold over the endless Pacific. Claire shifted, rising onto her knees and brushing the damp sand from her uniform. “I should go,” she murmured, voice heavy with reluctant acceptance.

Jamie’s hand closed over hers, firm and insistent. “No,” he said quietly but with a force that made her pause. “We’ve come this far, Claire. I canna let ye walk away tonight without knowin’ where we stand.”

She looked at him, startled. The pull in his voice, the intensity in his eyes—it was more than desire, more than camaraderie born of war. “Jamie…” she whispered, hesitant. “We’ve already—”

“We’ve shared moments, aye,” he interrupted, his thumb brushing over the back of her hand, sending sparks up her arm. “But this… this is more than moments. Tell me, Claire, is it just the fear, the panic, the war that makes ye feel this closeness? Or is it somethin’ deeper?”

Her chest heaved. She swallowed, trying to force calm into her voice, but the words refused to come smoothly. “It’s… more. More than all that, more than I can ever… ignore.”

Jamie’s lips curved, a mixture of relief and hunger. “Aye,” he murmured, drawing her hand closer to his chest. “I’ve felt it too, but I needed ye to say it. Needed to hear it from yer own lips, not just read in the stares, the half-smiles. I needed to hear ye claim those moments for what they are.”

Claire’s heart hammered, the tension of the past weeks—the attack, the hospital nights, the stolen touches—crashing over her all at once. “I don’t… I don’t know what comes next,” she admitted, her voice trembling. “England. Frank. You leaving… Me following… Everything is—”

“Everything’s a storm,” he said gently, cupping her face with one hand, the other still holding hers. “But we’re here now, we’re honest now, and tonight… tonight we choose these moments. These ones. The good ones. We choose to remember them when the world tries to rip us apart.”

Her lips parted, caught somewhere between fear and longing, when he leaned closer, the faint salt of the sea on his skin, the warmth of him grounding her. Their foreheads touched, breaths mingling, the rhythm of the waves syncing with the quick beat of her heart.

Jamie’s lips brushed hers then, soft, questioning, electric. “Ye need not save me, Claire,” he murmured against her lips. “But I’ll not hide what I feel. I’ll not pretend it’s just the war. I want ye, beyond the chaos, beyond the duty, beyond—”

She pressed her lips to his in return, a soft, lingering kiss, and the ocean stretched endlessly behind them, indifferent to the choices of two people caught in the tide of history. When they parted, Claire rested her forehead against his, her eyes shining with tears and resolve.

“Promise me something,” Jamie said, voice low, urgent. “When we go… whatever happens… we write. Even if the world is burning, we write.”

Claire’s lips curved, a wry smile breaking through her intensity. “Aye, we’ll write. But I won’t be sitting idle in Boston. I’ll be right behind you.”

He chuckled, relief and mischief lighting his eyes. “That’s the lass I ken. Bold and stubborn. I’ll be glad to have ye there to patch me up again, though I dinna doubt I’ll try to get myself into trouble faster than ye can manage.”

Her laugh rang out, soft and warm, mingling with the surf. “You’ll never change, will you?”

“Nah,” he said with a wink, squeezing her hand. “And ye’d no want me to.”

Claire paused at the edge of the path, the faint shimmer of the rising sun painting the ocean in pale gold. She turned back, catching Jamie’s gaze still fixed on her, and felt the weight of everything between them settle with sudden clarity. “Jamie…” she began, her voice tentative, hesitant to break the fragile balance they had forged through the night. “What… what are we going to do about Frank?”

Jamie’s eyes darkened slightly, a shadow passing over the warmth she had clung to. He exhaled slowly, leaning against the jagged rocks at the edge of the beach, arms crossed loosely.

The sand shifted beneath Claire’s feet as she took a deep breath, the weight of the coming days settling over her like a tide. She let Jamie’s hand linger in hers for a fraction longer, drawing strength from the steady warmth, before reluctantly stepping back. “I have to get my affairs in order,” she said, voice low but resolute. “Transfers, letters, approvals… I have to make sure I can go. Not just to be there for the men, but… for myself. For us.”

Jamie’s eyes softened, reading the determination beneath her words. “Aye. And ye will. Ye’ve always had the fire to see things through. Don’t doubt that now.” He brushed a strand of hair from her face, lingering a heartbeat longer than necessary, and she felt the pulse of their connection, electric and undeniable.

Claire nodded, swallowing hard. “Once that’s done… I’ll have to figure out Frank. I can’t leave things hanging. He… he’s been a part of my life for so long. And I owe him the truth.” Her jaw tightened. “But he doesn’t get to dictate the rest of my life. Not anymore.”

Jamie exhaled slowly, almost in relief, and offered the smallest smile. “Ye’ll have your hands full, no doubt. But I ken ye. Ye’ll do it. And I’ll be waiting, just beyond the ocean, until ye’re there to patch me up again, if need be.”

Claire let herself laugh softly, the tension in her shoulders loosening. “Patch you up again, huh? You really don’t learn, do you, Jamie Fraser?”

“Aye, I’ve learned enough,” he said with a teasing glint in his eye. “But perhaps I’ll never learn enough to stay out of trouble.”

She shook her head, a smile tugging at her lips, but beneath it, her mind raced with everything that had to be done. Approvals for her transfer, ensuring she had the right credentials and paperwork, and—most daunting of all—facing Frank. She had to tell him that she would not be going home to Boston. She would not live a life dictated by someone else’s expectations. She would choose her duty, her heart, and yes, Jamie.

Jamie’s gaze softened, catching the hint of worry she couldn’t fully hide. “Whatever it takes, Claire… I’ll not let ye go through this alone. Not for paperwork, not for Frank, not for anything.”

She drew a long, steadying breath and nodded. “I know. And I won’t hide from it. I’ll do what needs to be done, and then… then I’ll be with you. No more waiting, no more second-guessing.”

Claire felt the words settle into her bones, grounding her as she turned back toward the path leading to the base. “I’ll get my transfer,” she whispered, more to herself than to him. “I’ll tell Frank. And I’ll come for you.”

Jamie nodded, his smile both tender and fierce, a promise in its depth. “And I’ll be here, waiting, ready for ye. For everything to come. Ye won’t have to live a life you don’t choose, Claire. Not ever.”

Claire felt a spark of relief, though tempered by guilt. “It’s not just about control, Jamie,” she said softly, stepping closer. “He’s… he’s always been here for me. When my parents… when my uncle… Frank was the one I leaned on. I—” She swallowed hard, choking on the memory of loss that had shaped her every choice. “I don’t want to hurt him. I can’t. But I also… I can’t keep giving him the parts of me that belong elsewhere.”

Jamie reached for her hand again, fingers brushing hers in the way that had become their unspoken promise. “Ye won’t be giving him anything that’s not already his. Frank’s done what he could, aye, guided ye, kept ye safe. But this—us—it’s not something he can dictate.

Claire let out a breathy laugh, a mixture of disbelief and relief, and leaned into him just slightly. “And if he does find out before we’re ready? Or worse, tries to stop me?”

Jamie’s hand found hers fully, this time holding it tightly as if he could shield her from all harm. “Then we’ll deal with it together. You’ll not be alone in any of this. And we’ll not give him reason to interfere because we’ll be clever. Subtle. Strategic.”

She arched an eyebrow at him, lips twitching. “Strategic, huh? That’s a word I never thought I’d hear from Jamie Fraser, the man who jumps into the thick of every fight without a second thought.”

He grinned, the flash of humor cutting through the tension. “Even warriors have a plan, lass. Even if the plan is simply to survive the bloody day.”

Claire shook her head, smiling despite herself, then her face hardened as reality settled back in. “We can’t… we can’t just pretend Frank isn’t here. We have to… navigate him, carefully. I won’t be running from him, but I won’t be hiding either.”

Jamie nodded, eyes locked on hers, unwavering. “Aye. We face him when the time comes. But for now, we take care of each other.”

She felt the warmth of his palm, the steady pressure, and let herself be grounded in it. “Promise me you’ll come back. Back to me.”

Jamie’s gaze softened, the humor gone now, replaced by something raw and fierce. “I promise, Claire. I’ll come back. And I’ll find ye, wherever ye are. Hawaii, Boston, England, France, Germany… the ends of the earth if it comes to that. But you, too… promise me ye’ll be careful. Promise me ye’ll come back to me.”

Her hand tightened on his, almost as if by sheer force she could bind him to her promise. “I promise,” she said firmly, her eyes bright with unshed tears. “I’ll come back. And Jamie…” she hesitated, then pressed a finger lightly to his chest. “I’m not yours. I’m don’t belong to anyone. But… I choose you. Here, now, tonight. And I won’t let you go, not while I’m still standing.”

He drew her closer, their foreheads touching, and whispered, “Then we’ll hold on to this for as long as we can. And Frank… he’ll learn. In time, he’ll see you’re no one’s to command.”

The waves whispered against the shore, the first hints of sun casting long golden streaks across the sand. They stayed that way, hand in hand, hearts beating in sync, silent promises echoing louder than any words. Together, they would navigate the storm—both the war raging across the world and the more intimate battles of the hearts they refused to surrender.

And as the morning light grew stronger, Claire finally allowed herself to take one step back, pulling just slightly from his grasp. Jamie didn’t let go. He gave a soft squeeze, a gentle reassurance that he would always be there, no matter the distance or the dangers ahead. “Go,” he said quietly, his lips barely brushing her hair. “But know… we’ll be ready when the world is ready for us. Together.”

The sun broke fully over the horizon, scattering gold and pink across the waves. Claire inhaled, letting the air fill her lungs and steady her racing heart. She had a choice now, and for the first time in months, she knew she would not be choosing out of duty, or obligation, or fear. She would choose for herself—and for the man who had finally shown her what it meant to be truly seen.

Claire nodded her goodbye, the salt-tinged breeze catching her hair, and for the first time in months, she felt a steady resolve fill her chest. She would follow her heart and her duty, wherever it led—toward Jamie, toward her calling, toward a future she would carve with her own hands. And somewhere, she knew, he would be waiting.

Chapter Text

The following night, the air had grown thick and heavy and warm over Hickam Field, the ocean breeze carrying the scent of salt and plumeria through the open hospital windows. Claire sat at the edge of her cot, shuffling papers from her uncle’s estate, checking off lists of all the phone calls she would need to make and letters she would need to send. Every detail was another step toward freedom: her accountant was an old friend of Frank’s from college, the bank account left to her from her parents was at the bank his uncle owned, and the carefully cataloged furniture she’d collected from her travels was currently stored in Frank’s storage unit. So much was still hers in name, but had been absorbed into their shared life over the years. Because their families had known each other for so long, much of their shared history was intertwined. The more she worked to unravel the knots, the more she felt the weight of her own agency returning —a tangible force she could shape into the future she wanted. Every step forward was another step away from a life filled with teacakes and fundraisers back home in Boston. For the past two weeks, she’d been avoiding Frank as best she could: taking every night shift opportunity, working overtime hours, volunteering for beach cleanup, anything to be away from Frank. Before she could think about a future filled with lazy mornings and copper-red hair and coffee that some fresh young soldier didn’t burn, she had to wade through miles of bureaucratic muck. 

Jamie appeared in the doorway quietly, leaning against the frame with that easy, lopsided grin that could still make her pulse quicken even after all they’d endured together. 

“Evening shift treating you well, Nurse Beauchamp?” he asked lightly, trying to draw her out of the seriousness of her planning. 

Claire offered a tired smile. “Someone has to keep the hospital running while you’re off playing the hero.” She tapped a pen against her papers. “And someone has to make sure the world doesn’t steal all of my inheritance while I’m at it.” 

“Inheritance?” Jamie asked. 

“When my parents died, everything they had went to me. But I was too young to manage an account. My Uncle Lamb co-signed an account for me when I turned eighteen. Good thing, too, as he died soon after. Without that account and no one to co-sign, I would have been left with nothing.” 

“But yer settled then? Taken care of, outside of Frank’s means?” 

“Oh, quite. I’m an only child, and my uncle had no children of his own. I suppose that’s the silver lining to being an orphan of an archaeologist, a librarian, and a lawyer: at least you’re left with more money and antiques than you know what to do with.” She tried to shrug off the twinge of sadness with a laugh, but Jamie placed his hand on her shoulder knowingly. 

“It seems they cared for ye very much to see ye so taken care of,” he offered. 

“It would seem,” she replied. Their deaths had been years ago now. Years since she’d vowed to take up medicine in an effort to save more lives than she saw lost.

Jamie stepped fully into the room and crouched beside her cot. “You are so very loved, Sassenach.” He knew what the loss of those she’d loved most had meant to her, and he saw her, met her in her grief. She swallowed deeply and nodded, blinking back tears. 

“I hate to bring it up…” he started, looking to her for permission to continue, “but we should talk about Frank,” he said gently. “Tonight ye’ll have to speak to him before he leaves for England, and I’d rather we both know what yer story is.” 

She sighed, leaning back, and pinched the bridge of her nose. “We know what my story is. I decided not to go back to Boston as he asked, but I will stay here in Hawaii as a compromise for not going to England. My transfer paperwork to England has been approved, but it will not be processed for three months. Frank thinks I’m staying here to keep him happy, but I’ll be biding my time to get my affairs in order before I leave him for good. There is a high turnover rate of execs at Thorpe Abbotts; he should be long gone by the time I arrive in England... With you.” 

Jamie exhaled. “And in the meantime?”

“I untangle my life from his,” she said. “The accounts, the furniture, everything we’ve woven together over the years. I’ll make sure anything that was in my name remains with me, that I’ll pay him anything he’s owed, and I’ll make a clean break. You’ll write to me here and I’ll write to you, and we’ll meet in England in three months.” Her voice hardened on the final part of their plan: “And when your twenty-five missions are completed and you’re safely on the ground, we can finally be free.”

He reached out to brush a loose curl from her forehead. “Ye’ll be careful tonight, when ye talk wi’ him?” he asked quietly, the concern in his eyes evident. 

“I will. I promise.”

He kissed her cheek reverently, as if there was so much more he wanted to tell her, but now was not the time. “I’ll be on the beach tonight. Come find me when yer done, if ye wish.”

The rest of the day arrived with the low hum of anticipation and the sound of engine tests from the hangars. Frank’s presence was as suffocating as ever, his eyes searching hers as if trying to read secrets she had not shared. The air in his quarters was heavy with the scent of cigars and polished wood, a stifling weight that seemed to press down on Claire from all sides. Frank stood near the desk, face shadowed by lamplight, and she could see the hard lines of anger etched into his features. She had known this side of him existed: the edge beneath the charm, the simmering temper when training went astray, the flare when his dart missed the board at the club. She had always believed that with enough patience, enough calm, enough obedience, she could soften the hard edges with her love. Tonight, she realized that the edge had sharpened to a razor’s edge, and it was aimed squarely at her. 

“Before I leave, I need to make sure I understand your plans.” Frank’s voice was low and tight with controlled fury. His trunk lay open at the foot of the bed, clothes folded into precise military lines. The order of it all heightened the chaos rising in Claire’s chest. He had asked her over here with a stiff, formal tone, as though summoning her to a debriefing rather than a private conversation between two people bound by years of history and an engagement ring that felt heavier every day. 

Frank turned from the trunk, hands braced on the desk, and studied her like she was one of his subordinates. “You’ve made your position clear enough,” he said, voice short. “You’ll not come to England in exchange for being allowed to stay on the island. You’ll stay here, buried in your work, or in–” he cut himself off, jaw tight. “So what am I to think, Claire? Truly?” 

She drew herself up taller, chin lifting in defiance. “You’re to think that I’ve chosen myself and my duty to my country. The people here need me. The men who are dying in Europe need me, too, but apparently that doesn’t matter to you. All that matters is that I give in and play house in Boston.” 

Frank’s nostrils flared, a sharp exhale escaping. “Boston isn’t ‘playing house’. Boston is home. It’s where you belong. It’s where you’re safest. Goddamnit, Claire, don’t you see that I’m just trying to protect you?” 

“Protect me? Or control me? Put me in a perfect dress in a perfect house in the perfect life and beat me down until I’ve forgotten myself?” 

The muscle in his jaw feathered. He took two steps closer, his shadow falling over her. “Is that what this is about? Control? Because from where I’m standing, it looks like something else entirely.” He was too close to her, invading her personal space. “It looks like Boston is just what you’re telling yourself to be mad about when really, there’s a six-foot fucking gorilla in the room.” She matched his stare, refusing to back down. “It’s about him, isn’t it?” Claire’s stomach tightened. “Fraser.” He spat it, as though it were a curse. “Bloody Captain James Fraser. Ever since the day he sat with you in that fucking basement during the drill, you’ve been different. Don’t think I haven’t noticed. You look at him like–” His voice broke into a bitter laugh. “Like you’ve never once looked at me. Not since we got here.” 

Claire’s blood roared in her ears. “He has nothing to do with this,” she said firmly. 

“You won’t even name the bastard! He has nothing to do with this?” Frank’s voice rose, sharp enough to cut the air. “Don’t like to me, Claire! Do you think I haven’t seen it all these months? The way you hover near his bed, the way you light up when he enters the room? Fuck, the way he looks at you? All the women here flock toward him, but I know the difference between infatuation and something more. We had that, once, but now he’s taken that away from me. From us. And you’re fucking letting him!” 

She took a step back, but he followed, the space between them shrinking. 

“No,” she said, her voice steady, her anger finding its footing. “Jamie–” she’d name him now, for his honor, “-- has taken nothing from you. You gave me up yourself, Frank. You belittled me, dismissed me, tried to shove me into a life I didn’t ask for. He… saw me.” 

That struck its mark. Frank’s face flushed a violent red. His hands curled into fists at his sides before one shot out and grabbed her arm hard enough to make her gasp. “You are mine, Claire,” he hissed. “My fiancée. My wife-to-be. I won’t let him–”

“Let him what?” she snapped, yanking at her arm but finding his grip unyielding. “Let him remind me I’m not just some extension of you to be looked at? Let him treat me like I have a mind of my own, a purpose of my own outside of your perfect little house? I belong to no man.”

His grip tightened, the pressure biting into her skin, his clipped nails cutting into her flesh. The man who had once been her safe harbor after her parents’ deaths, the man she had leaned on out of grief and familiarity… that man was gone and in his place stood a man consumed by rage, by insecurity, by the need to dominate her, Jamie, and anyone who stood in his way. 

“You will not speak to me that way,” he snarled. “Don’t you dare throw your independence in my face when I’ve sacrificed everything to give you a life! A home! Respect!” 

With a yank, she wrenched herself free. She took a few quick steps back, her voice rising. “Respect?! You’ve never respected me! You’ve tolerated me when I fit into your perfect picture frame, when I played the dutiful girlfriend, the future housewife. The moment I wanted more for my life, the moment I dared to tell you about my dreams, you showed me exactly what you thought of me. And I will never–” her voice shook, but she forced it steady, “--never belong to a man who thinks he can strike me into submission.”

Frank’s breath came hard and fast, his chest rising. For a flicker of a moment, he thought he really would strike her then. Instead, his hand dropped, but his face was still twisted with fury and wounded pride that had nowhere to land. 

“You’ll regret this, Claire,” he said, his tone low and dangerous. “When he leaves you broken, when you realize he's nothing but reckless bravado, like all flyboys are, you’ll come crawling back. You’ve always needed me.” 

Something cold and resolute settled into her bones. “No, Frank. I used to need you. Next time, I won’t be crawling. I’ll be walking forward, without you holding me back.”

She turned, her hand firm on the door handle. She didn’t look back at him – not when he called her name, not when his voice cracked with something that sounded like desperation. She stepped out into the night, the door closing with finality that reverberated in her chest. Her arm throbbed where he had gripped her, but deeper than the ache was liberation. 

The coffin was sealed, and Frank Randall was buried in her past. 

The night swallowed her whole as she stepped outside. The humid air clung to her skin, thick and heavy, but it was nothing compared to the weight pressing against her ribs. Claire didn’t know how long she stood there, her back against the door of Frank’s quarters, her arm throbbing from his grip. The imprint of his fingers burned hot, a reminder of what she had endured at his hands.

She wanted to scream. To run until her lungs gave out. To fling every piece of him into the sea and let the tide carry it all away. Instead, she rooted herself to the sandy grass, chest heaving, her eyes fixed on the distant horizon where the black of night melted into the shimmer of waves. 

She thought of Boston: the life he had sketched out for her, neat as one of his pressed uniforms. A life of polished furniture and quiet dinners, of bridge club and idle gossip with the neighbors, of smiling politely with a baby on her hip, of the radio playing the newest songs while the world raged outside. A prison with lace curtains. He wanted her caged. And tonight, for the first time, she’d admitted out loud what her heart had known for some time: she could never live that way, not even if she’d wanted to. Not with Frank. Not with anyone who mistook possession for love. 

Claire pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes, forcing down the tears that threatened to spill. She refused to cry for him. Not now. Not ever again. 

When she lowered her hand, she saw the faint shimmer of the surf in the distance, the moonlight dancing across the water. Her chest loosened. The beach. The only place that felt like hers. The one place where she could breathe again. 

Without fully deciding, without thinking, the thought of Jamie began to carry her to the waves. 

The sand was cool against her shoes, the tide rolling in with its eternal rhythm, and where the sand met the sea, he was waiting for her. 

Jamie sat alone, knees drawn up, arms looped around them, staring out at the vast black sea. His broad shoulders seemed weighed down by the whole war, by the ghosts that followed his every step. Still, he lifted his head when he heard her approach.

“Ye came,” he said. 

She stopped a few feet away, unsure of what to say. How could she convey the severity of what had happened with Frank? The anger, the bruising, the finality of it all…

“Nowhere else I’d rather be,” she whispered — the truth. 

He patted the sand beside him without looking at her, giving her the space to decide what to say. She lowered herself slowly, the grains shifting beneath her, and for a while they just sat, silent, the crash of waves filling the spaces between them. 

Jamie glanced sideways, his expression unreadable in the pale wash of moonlight. “Ye look like ye’ve been tae hell and back tonight, Sassenach.” 

She huffed a bitter laugh. “Leave it to you and your honesty.” She rolled her eyes, then gave him a small smile. “But yes. Something rather like that.” 

“That bad with Frank?”

The name was like a knife to the gut, but she nodded. She couldn’t bring herself to recount every word, every bruise. Not yet. Maybe not ever. Still, something in Jamie’s gaze told her he knew more than she said. 

He tipped his head toward the horizon. “The ocean, Sassenach. It gives, it takes. Remember? Ye never ken which, not until it’s done. But it never keeps still. Always moving forward.” 

His words settled over her, heavy with meaning she couldn’t yet untangle. Her head was swimming. Slowly, deliberately, she reached across the sand and found his hand. She felt him startle, but not pull away. His palm was warm, solid, rough with calluses of war and work. She wove her fingers through his and held tight, not caring about being reckless. Reckless, what Frank had called Jamie, called her. Reckless, she thought, was maybe not a bad thing after all. 

“I don’t want to go back to who I was before,” she said, voice low. “Before here, before tonight, before… before you.” 

Jamie turned fully toward her then, his blue eyes shimmering like the sea under the moon. He squeezed her hand back, firm and steady, as though anchoring her in place so she didn’t float off into her dreams. He raised her hand to his lips, placing a kiss on her knuckles with a promise of a future she’d only imagined. For the first time since stepping out of Frank’s quarters, she could breathe. 

But Jamie wasn’t looking at her anymore. Nor the horizon, or the stars, or the moon, or anything but her arms and the marks that were turning darker by the minute. His eyes, usually so gentle, narrowed to sharp flames of the hottest fire. His gaze flicked from her arms to her face, and before she could hide them away, he turned her wrists over in his hands. His touch was careful, reverent almost, but the anger that surged through him was unmistakable. 

“Claire,” he said with deadly quiet. “Where did you get these?”

She stiffened, instinctively pulling back. His hand followed, lifting her sleeve before she could stop him. The moonlight revealed the faint red rings where Frank’s fingers had bruised the skin, where his nail had marred her flesh. 

Jamie sucked in a breath, sharp as the finest blade. 

“Did he do this to ye?” His voice was deadly calm. 

“Jamie, I’m fine–”

“Answer me, Claire.” 

Her throat closed. She didn’t want to say it, didn’t want to give it air, didn’t want to relive those moments… but her silence was her own admission. 

Jamie gave a slow nod. He dropped her wrists gently, as though he couldn’t bear to hurt her even by accident, and rose to his feet. It was like watching a hurricane gather just offshore, just before the storm surged. 

“I ken I’ve no claim to ye, not really, not–” he looked at her then, “--not yet. But I’ll be damned if I stand by and let any man lay his hands on ye like that. Not Major Randall, not anyone.” 

“Jamie, please–” Claire scrambled to her feet. “Don’t. I want to move on and put it in the past.” 

His jaw clenched, his voice barely concealing the pure rage threatening to burst from his every inch. “I support ye fighting yer own battles. I know yer strong enough to do it, and I’ll be there for ye when ye do. But this? This… violence? I will not stand for this.” 

He pulled free of her grasp, his strides long and furious as he stormed across the sand. He didn’t look back as she called to him. When she saw that he would not pause to talk it through, she settled back on the sand to wait. She wasn’t worried about what would happen to him when Jamie found him, his sheer size and strength eclipsing Frank's. No, she didn’t worry for Jamie, but feared what would happen in the days ahead. 

The moon was Claire’s only company for the rest of the night, as Jamie didn’t return to the shore. 

Engines rumbled on the flight line, the morning light painting the airstrip in muted golds. Mechanics shouted, the smell of oil and exhaust thick in the air. Pilots filed toward their planes, duffels slung over their shoulders, the war tugging them all forward one step at a time. 

Frank strode across the runway in his pressed uniform, cap low over his brow. His gait was stiff and his jaw set… and his face battered under the brim. His nose was swollen and a bit crooked, one eye was darkening into a deep purple bruise, and his lip was split open and raw. 

The men all glanced, then quickly looked away. No one spoke. 

And no one mentioned the absence of one Nurse Beauchamp. 

Jamie stood among his crew, ready to send off the group of men until their paths crossed again across the sea. He raised his hand in salute as Major Randall passed, his expression that of the perfect soldier. When Frank’s eyes flicked toward the Captain, there was no mistaking the unspoken truth of what had happened the night before. 

Jamie’s salute dropped, his hand falling back to his side. His knuckles were split and bloodied, his fist still at his side. 

The engines roared ever louder, the sky already vibrating with the thunder of war to come. 

The ward was already humming when Claire came off the night shift, the first slants of dawn falling pale through the windows. She pulled the tie from her hair, longing for a cup of coffee and a moment’s silence before sleep. But Gellie was waiting for her near the supply cupboard, arms crossed, eyes sharp with mischief and curiosity.

“You weren’t on the flight line this morning to tell the men goodbye,” Gellie said without preamble, her Scottish lilt teasing. “I suppose you’ve heard, then?”

Claire frowned, too tired for riddles. “Heard what?”

Gellie’s mouth twitched, fighting a smirk. “Your Major, walking off straight to his plane like he hadn’t been laid out in the dirt an hour before.”

Claire froze, her pulse jumping. She tried for composure, but her fingers tightened on the ledger in her hands. “Frank– he’s not mine.”

“Hm. Noted.” She joined Claire in sorting through charts, scratching down vitals. “Anyway, the word is, he picked a fight. Or perhaps the fight found him.” Gellie tilted her head, studying Claire with unnerving precision. “Either way, he came out second best. Though I’d say he deserved it, if what I’ve seen with my own eyes is true.”

The nib of Claire’s pen tore through the paper. 

“You’ll ruin the chart like that,” she drawled. 

Claire sighed and set down the pen. “It’s been a long week, okay?”

“A long week, and a hell of an entertaining one.” Gellie’s smile widened. “Did you know the men in the mess hall are laying bets?” She sipped her coffee, studying Claire. 

“Bets?”

“Frank Randall boarded for England with a bloody nose and lip split like he’d kissed the edge of a propeller, and someone else was seen not long after, nursing his hand with knuckles bloodied raw. Half of them think Frank tripped over his own pride… but the other half think Captain Fraser rearranged his face for him as a goodbye present. Personally, I’m inclined to agree with the latter camp on that.”

“That’s absurd. Jamie wouldn’t–”

“Oh, it’s Jamie, is it?” 

The heat rose in Claire’s cheeks. “Why does it matter what it is?”

“Oh, and mind our own business? Where would be the fun in that?” Gellie leaned in, voice dropping. “We’ve all seen the way he looks at you. Like you hung the moon just to give him light to fly by. And you–” her grin sharpened– “you soften whenever he’s near. Which, for the record, is not your usual style.” 

She stared at the ink blot blooming on the chart, unable to take in a full breath. 

“Don’t look so scandalized.” Gellie threw an arm around her shoulders in a sideways hug. “You’re not as discreet as you think you are, but none of us here are. War strips that out of a person. Makes it plain what matters most, and who.” 

Claire pressed her lips together, trying to hide a small and cautious smile. 

“And besides, I’d rather wager on the two of you than the next poker game. Your chemistry is truly insane; half the couples here could set themselves on fire and still not spark the way you do.”

“Gellie, enough,” Claire said, but the corner of her mouth betrayed her, twitching despite herself. 

“Ah, there it is, a real Nurse Beauchamp smile!” Gellie chuckled, straightening. “Now, I think someone is here to see you about a few bloody knuckles.” She nodded at the familiar shape of Jamie, leaning in the doorframe at the end of the ward. “Just remember: everyone’s watching, whether you want to see it or not. Might as well give them a hell of a show.” With that, she poured another cup of coffee, nudged Claire toward the door, and pretended to get back to work. 

Jamie Fraser stood there, filling the frame in his crisp uniform, his great height at odds with the sheepish set of his mouth.

“Jamie,” she breathed, striding forward, “what in God’s name did you do now?”

He gave her a sheepish, lopsided grin, but the twinkle in his eyes didn’t hide the ache in his fists.

She was scolding him like a child, her hands reaching for the washcloth and antiseptic. “You could’ve broken something—or yourself. Do you even think before you throw yourself into danger?”

Jamie’s jaw tightened slightly, but it wasn’t at her words—it was at the truth behind them. He had already taken mental note: she was angry only at his injuries, not at him for what had happened with Frank. That quiet understanding, the unspoken absolution, twisted something fierce in him.

He held out his hands, letting her examine the damage.

Jamie’s fists had always been meant for work—for heaving ropes on the flight line, hauling timber back at Lallybroch, gripping the yoke of his plane for dear life. Not for breaking bone. Not for blood. Yet when he saw the bruises on Claire’s arms, something ancient and raw broke loose inside him. The taste of blood was copper in his mouth, not his own.

Frank Randall’s head had snapped back at the first blow, glasses flying, but Jamie hadn’t stopped. He couldn’t. Each strike came like thunder, born not only of what he’d seen—the red marks on Claire’s arms where fingers had dug too deep—but of every suppressed fury he carried.

Frank had tried to meet him, fists up, but he wasn’t a fighter. He was all bluster, polished boots, and clipped orders. Jamie had dragged him down into the mud and blood of his own fists, and there, Randall had flailed. When at last Jamie let him go, the other man staggered, nose broken, lip split, eyes wild with rage and humiliation.

He hadn’t said a word. Words would never be enough. He left him standing, fists limp, shoulders heaving, and stalked into the night, knuckles already swelling. But the anger didn’t ease. Not when the wind cooled his face. Not when he forced himself to breathe. Rage at Randall, aye, but deeper than that—at the world that let a man like him put his hands on her, at the thought that Claire had lived years bound to him with no one to defend her. At himself, for not having stopped it sooner.

I’ll never let it happen again. The vow burned like fire in his chest, harsher than duty, fiercer than loyalty. Claire Beauchamp was no man’s punching bag. She was brilliance, defiance, life itself—and he would see her protected, even if it meant painting his soul in blood.

The first blow had been almost clean, a strike meant to warn, to silence Randall’s smug mouth. But when he saw the shock twist into hate, when he heard Claire’s name spat as if she were a thing to be owned, he lost the thin thread of control he’d been holding. He struck again. And again. Until Randall’s face blurred, until the sting of torn knuckles cut through the roar in his head.

When he finally pulled back, chest heaving, Jamie felt the burn of shame coil under the fading surge of triumph. His fists dripped red. He’d done what needed doing—God help him, he knew that—but there had been a moment, in the thick of it, where he hadn’t only wanted to stop Randall. He’d wanted to destroy him. That thought chilled him more than the night air.

Because that hunger—that dark, terrifying hunger—was not the man he meant to be. It was his father’s voice that steadied him, echoing from memory: Strength is for building, not breaking. Protect, lad. Always protect.

And so he’d turned, leaving Randall bruised and broken in the dirt, carrying the weight of both fury and shame into the shadows. By the time Claire pressed the cloth to his hands, he had thought the worst was gone. But her eyes—bright, wet, unyielding—looked at him as if she could see all of it: the violence, the vow, the fear of what it meant.

Her scolding, her fury, cut sharper than any blade. He let her words strike, let them temper the iron in his chest. She was right—he was reckless, stubborn, dangerous when provoked. Yet as he watched her tie the bandages with hands that shook, he also knew he would do it again. Ten times over. A hundred.

“I’ll not stand by,” he’d told her, and it was more than a defense. It was a vow spoken aloud, a prayer and a curse all at once. In the silence that followed, with the night pressing in around them, Jamie admitted the truth only to himself: what terrified him most was not losing to Randall in some fight. It was losing himself to the violence that seethed inside him.

So he clung to the anchor before him—Claire’s hands, steadying his own, her fire meeting his fury. She was the light that pulled him back from the dark, and he would guard her with everything he had, even if the act of guarding left his soul bloodied.

Her hands stilled, and without thinking—without allowing herself to think—she bent her head and pressed a kiss to his bruised knuckles, the faint taste of salt and copper lingering on her lips.

“No man will ever harm you again,” he swore silently. “Not while I’m with ye.”

“You fool,” she whispered, trying to reclaim her balance. “You stupid, stubborn—”

“—Scot?” he offered, the corner of his mouth twitching.

Claire glared, though the sting of laughter threatened. Damn him. He always knew how to bend her anger, how to make her chest lighten when she least wanted it.

She pressed the cloth harder than necessary against his knuckles. He hissed, but didn’t pull back.

His face hardened, humor giving way to fire. “And I told ye—there are battles a woman shouldna fight alone. What he did to ye… that’s no quarrel. That’s a crime.”

Her throat tightened, eyes stinging. She looked down at the wound instead of him. “You might not be mine to claim, Jamie Fraser. But neither am I yours to defend.”

He leaned in then, with a solemn grin. “Yer no man’s to claim, and ye remind us all often enough.” Claire shoved him, and he exhaled from his nose. The grin faded from his face a bit, and his voice turned rough and unshakable as he continued, “But you’re a woman. And every woman deserves to walk unafraid. If I’ve bloodied my hands to remind him of that, then so be it.”

The air between them grew heavy, charged with things unspoken. Her hand faltered on the bandage she was tying, but she did not pull away. Jamie’s heart ached in a way that no physical wound could replicate. He had fought to protect her, and yet that same fight had put him in danger, and he knew the war would put them both in danger again.

He wanted to tell her that the darkness he carried, the violence he had unleashed, would never touch her again — that he would take it all so she never would have to. But the words were heavy, laden with truths too large for the night.

“You’ll make yourself a target,” she whispered, voice low.

“I already am one,” he said simply. “In the air. Every mission. What’s one more?”

“He’ll make this personal, I mean.” 

“It’s been personal since the moment I laid eyes on ye.” His gaze did not waver from hers. “It’s always been… been ye.”

Her chest tightened, a sudden, but welcome, ache. “And do you regret that?” she asked, voice barely above a whisper. 

“Never,” he said. “Not for a moment. What I did last night… it was about keeping ye safe, but it’s more than that…” he hesitated, his eyes flickering down to where their hands had joined. “More than that, it’s because I’ve been yers since the day I met ye at the club. Ye might not belong to me, but I belong to ye.”

Steady breaths would not come. She wanted to say something, anything, that could tell her what he meant to her. Before she could find the words, he finished his answer. 

“I’ll face whatever comes from this,” he said quietly, “But I’ll never regret you.”

The ward shrank around them, the morning light filtering pale through the windows. In the small bubble cast around them, nothing else mattered – just the promise of tomorrow and the bloodied hands and raw hearts from the night before, both now laid bare. 

“We’ll see what happens, but…” she drew a deep breath, “whatever comes, we’ll face it together. Even if it’s hell itself.” 

Jamie’s lips curved into a smile. “Aye, Sassenach. Even if it’s hell itself.”

Chapter Text

Even if it’s hell itself. 

The words echoed in her chest, pounding harder than her pulse. She had no business holding them that close, no right to savor the look in his eyes, the steadiness of his vow. She had no right, but did it anyway. 

The next day passed in another blur or rounds, charts, and clipped orders from the doctors. Beneath is all was that thrum, alive and insistent. Every time she caught sight of his broad shoulders moving across the tarmac, every time she heard his laughter carry from the crew, the memory of his voice tugged at her like an invisible string. By dusk, she’d almost given in to the pull when she stepped out into the warm salt air and found him waiting. 

Jamie leaned against the jeep, one boot scuffed and dusty from the road, his bandaged hand resting easy on the frame. The other toyed with the buckle of his belt in nervousness, fingers twitching with restrained energy. Even with the hard lines of fatigue and the faint bruises from his fight with Frank, he looked like the world had shifted slightly just for him, to frame him for just this moment. 

“Sassenach,” he greeted low and warm, eyes catching hers. “I thought maybe ye’d take a drive with me.”

The jeep rattled along the narrow dirt track that led to the far edge of the base, past the trees and tangled vines that gave way to pale sand, where the tide had pulled back to reveal a wide stretch of beach shining silver beneath a half-moon. Claire leaned back against the seat, taking in the smell of salt and the soft rustle of palm branches, but her attention kept slipping to him: the curve of his grin, the way his shoulder brushed hers just a bit as he guided the jeep along. 

There, at the edge of the sand, was a scene so carefully arranged it almost stole her breath: a checkered blanket lay spread out, edges slightly rumpled as if it had already been claimed by the sea breeze, a few tin lanterns perched in the center with bright candles flickering inside, and a basket full of thick slices of bread, a few pieces of fruit wrapped in cloth, and a flask that gave off a smell far stronger than water. 

“You didn’t!” she said, a laugh escaping her before she could stop it. Her chest warmed at the thought. 

Jamie’s grin widened, boyish and proud. “I did. Stole the bread off the cook, bribed one of the engineers for the flask. Actually, I won it off him during an extra turn at cards and it nearly cost me my dignity… but worth it, all the same.” 

He tugged at the edges of the blanket, smoothing them with a hand that was still tender from the bandaging she had done in the days before. “Even a soldier needs a proper meal and not just the slop from the mess. And a proper lady shouldnae have to eat standing up in the sand.” He winked (or she assumed that was what he did, since both eyes closed for a long blink) and that lopsided grin graced his mouth once more. 

“Jamie Fraser,” she said, shaking her head as she sank onto the blanket, “you are utterly ridiculous.” 

“Aye,” he agreed cheerfully, pouring her a measure from the flask. “And ye love me for it.”

Her eyes snapped to his at the words. There was a panicked flash in his expression, the flicker of awareness at his recklessness. He fumbled with the flask’s lid, screwed on and off with clumsy fingers, and encouraged her to eat, hoping she’d let the phrase pass without comment.

The evening settled around them like a warm and whispered promise. The ocean murmured at the shore, and the air was fragrant. They ate slowly, letting conversation meander from one topic to the next: the impending war, the absurdities of military bureaucracy, the way the moon seemed brighter over the islands than anywhere else in the world, tales of Boston and of Scotland, memories from both of their childhoods. Laughter bubbled up again and again, breaking through the long months of tension and stress, a balm for each of their souls. 

Somewhere between bites and teasing, Jamie’s fingers brushed hers. He traced her knucked with his thumb, slow and deliberate, memorizing the shape of her hand. “Do ye ken,” he started, “that since the first time I saw ye, I’ve thought of naught else but this? Even knowing it was madness.”

Claire’s throat tightened, her heart aching with the knowing that she’d thought of the same. 

“Say the word, and I’ll stop. We can take it slow, or pause it altogether, or throw the whole thing out… but I’m not above begging when I ask ye to stay with me. Tonight, tomorrow, after all this shite with the war is done…”

Her lips met his before she could stop herself. It was not a quick brush born of panic or fleeting desire. It was a claiming, a yielding, a careful but fierce answer that left her trembling and clutching the fabric of his shirt as though he were the only thing anchoring her to the shore. 

The ocean whispered their secrets against the shore in a spray of silver-tipped waves. And for the first time, Claire let herself burn. 

Her lips lingered on his, tasting the tang of pineapple, and for a moment, the world narrowed to nothing but the press of their bodies, the quickening of their breaths, and the rapid beat of their hearts trying to speak without words. 

She hesitated, pulling slightly back, her forehead resting against his. “God, I’m sorry, I should’ve–”

He silenced her with a broad, urgent hand at the nape of her neck, tilting her face back to his. “Dinna apologize,” he whispered fiercely. “Not for this.”

He kissed her back, this time claiming her as his own. It was no tentative brush, no careful testing, it was simple possession and passion and promise wrapped into one. Claire’s hands tangled in his hair, pulling him closer, pressing into the broad chest she’d memorized in fleeting glances for weeks. His hands roamed her back, gripping, pulling, begging the world to vanish around them.

His bandaged left hand drifted along her spine, over her waist, down her hip; the right splayed along the blanket, laying her down, down, down– 

“CHRIST!” Jamie exclaimed, jumping to his feet – well, foot – and holding the other up in midair. A small crab hung by its claw to the arch of his foot. He shook his foot as it if would make the wee crab any less angry, yelling under his breath in a curious mix of Gaelic and frustrated English, and Claire couldn’t stop her giggles. 

“Och, ye wee devil thing! Let go, ye blasted son-of-a–” he swore, spinning in place. The spinning was what did Claire in, doubled over with giggles. The little creature finally released its grip, scuttling off into the sand, and Jamie collapsed back onto the blanket. “I’m glad ye think being attacked by wildlife is worth a laugh, Sassenach.”

She shook her head, still laughing. “I couldn’t help it! The dancing about on one foot was quite a show. Those are the moves you need to show off at the club.” 

“Only if yer the one I’m dancing with.”

“It’s a deal, Captain Fraser.” She held her hand out for a mock handshake, but he took her hand in his gently and gave her a crooked grin and a gentle nod. 

The awkwardness of the interrupted kiss hung between them like fog. The silence of watching the waves roll was intimate, but a bit uncomfortable, as neither were quite sure how to navigate the space between them now. 

Claire was the first to shift, brushing sand from her knees. “Tell me about your family,” she said softly. Jamie’s eyebrows rose in surprise, and then it was his turn to let out a low laugh. 

“How many generations back?”

“Your parents will do.” She settled in, ready for the story he was sure to tell. 

And a story it was: a forbidden love between a wicked man’s much better son and the daughter of a man in politics with influence and a strong name, running away together during the dancing portion of a large party. They eloped that night under the moon, stole away to Scotland from North Carolina, and began building a home with nothing more than a dream, love for each other, and a wish for a family of their own. They created a successful life, at that, with a bustling farm in the Highlands, a load of friends and a community that loved them when their families didn’t, and the adoration of three children: Jamie, Jenny, and William. 

Claire hung on every word. 

“What’s remarkable, though, is the way they love each other. My mother, she’s strong-willed and stubborn, never bending to anyone unless she decides to. But she listened to my father. Not out of obligation or anything, just because she truly wanted to hear what he had to say. I think he was the only person she felt that way about,” he quipped with a smirk. “She trusted him because they spoke the same language of loyalty and purpose and strength and love. And my father, he leaned on my mother in every way that counted. Publicly in the community, at home on the farm, her counsel guided him and he never shied from searching for it. They supported each other, protected each other, loved each other fiercely.” he paused, running a hand along his jaw, his eyes momentarily distant. “It’s inspiring. It makes a man think that love can be more than fire and longing, more than desire. That it can be more than just duty or obligation. That it can be… a partnership. And neither are diminished. That’s what i hope for, one day. True love, the kind that withstands everything the world throws at it.”

Claire leaned forward, her hand brushing on his leg, listening intently as he hesitated, and let her gaze settle on him. 

“And you,” he said quietly, “remind me of my mother, in ways I dinna rightly understand. I hope it isna odd to tell ye so. Yer both so brave, clever, stubborn. Unafraid to speak yer minds.” He nudged her with a soft grin. “But yer equally warm and generous and fierce in loyalty. She’d love ye. My da, too. And Ian – my best friend, my brother in nearly every sense – he’d take to ye instantly. He’d laugh with ye and kept ye safe without yer ever asking for it. And Jenny, my sister, she’s more stubborn than me if ye can believe it, and I ken she’d love to have another girl around.” He exhaled slowly, his voice thick with feeling. He bit back the words that hovered, a confession to close to the surface, and Claire hung on his next words. “I know, I do, that it’s all too much, me layin’ out my family and my life before ye… but I look at ye and see ye in the heart of it all. Ye may not see it, but I can.”

A warmth pooled in her chest that had nothing to do with the tropical air that hung around them. Jamie had shown her more than just his family’s story. He had offered a glimpse of the kind of man he was, the kind of love that surrounded him, the kind of life he longed to build, and the unspoken promise of the place she might hold in it. 

Jamie propped himself up on an elbow, his bandaged hand resting in hers. “Tell me all about you, now.” She inhaled, and began. 

“My parents died when I was young, you remember,” she started. He nodded, encouraging her to continue. “My father – Henry – he was a lawyer. He was brilliant and witty and principled. My mother, her name was Julia, she worked for the post office during the Great War. They met through letters, actually: my father was at the Front and wrote an op-ed about the horrors of war and the continuance of hope, and my mother read one of the letters, and it moved her so profoundly that she actually wrote him back.” She could still remember the way her mother told that story, her father nodding along with the words like he was agreeing with the life he’d been blessed with. You’re still my hope, Julia, her father was whisper into her mother’s hair as he clutched her close, and you’re my light, dear Claire. “And they fell in love. He found her after the war and told her she was the reason he fought to live. They build a beautiful life with me, taking me on trips and to museums, and to places I barely even knew how to imagine.” She paused, her gaze drifting toward the waves. “After all this time of them being gone, what I remember most is my father’s ability to make me laugh and my mother’s songs about the seaside.” 

His gaze softened with the shadow of understanding of what came next for the Beauchamps. “When they died in the accident, everything changed. I went to live my Uncle… actually, live isn’t the right word because we didn’t live anywhere, we simply traveled everywhere. He took me all over the world with his archeological work and I saw the world in ways I could have never imagined. We dug in the shadows of the pyramids in Egypt and I learned how to swim in the Amazon River and I had my very first kiss in a Himalayan village. I finished schooling in the dig pits and… and the world became larger than I’d ever known.” 

Her eyes turned back to Jamie, soft and reflective. “Eventually we ended up in Boston when Uncle Lamb took at post at Harvard. Then he got sick, and he died too…” Jamie’s hand squeezed hers a bit tighter then. “And I was alone. Again.” A solemn nod. “Then Frank reached out. He’d been taking classes under my uncle and I remembered him from when our parents knew each other – his father was in the same regiment as my father in France – and he was safe and steady, and he offered me the chance at not being so alone. I took that chance and now I’m here. I followed a life that was supposed to make sense, and now I’m in the middle of a war with a deadbeat ex-fiance and a tropical island fling.” She tipped the bottle of rum back again, letting it sear her throat, grateful for the excuse to stop speaking. Jamie sat across from her, one knee bent, his eyes never leaving her face. 

“Careful,” he drawled, voice rough but edged with a smirk. “Ye’ll drink yourself blind, and then how will ye manage yer aim when ye’re bandaging me next time?” 

Claire wiped her mouth with the back of her hand a smirk, giving him a falsely-sharp look. “Maybe that’s the whole point, Captain Fraser: if you insist on getting into fights and coming back half-broken, you’ll get whatever sloppy stitches I can manage.”

He laughed low in his chest and shifted closer, stretching his long arm across the blanket until his fingers toyed idly with the flask she held. “Ye think that wee joke will distract me, Sassenach? I asked ye a question and I humbly request yer answer.”

She smiled and toyed with an errant curl tumbling down his forehead instead of making sense of any of the words floating around her head. One hand caught hers by the wrist – firm, and questioning; the other wrapped around the flask of rum. 

“Ye called yerself a woman was a deadbeat ex-fiancé… and me a tropical fling.” His voice hardened on the last word, and he gave the rum a tug until she released it. He set aside, out of reach. “So tell me, Claire. Am I just a fling to ye?” 

“Jamie…”

“No, don’t ‘Jamie’, me.” He leaned in, eyes shap, a crooked smile curling as he added, “Though, it does sound verra fine when ye say my name like that.” 

She huffed, heat rising in her cheeks. “You’re still impossible.”

“Aye,” he agreed easily, “but I’m no’ daft. You don’t look at me like I’m some passing fancy. You don’t kiss me like I mean nothing.” He held her gaze. “So which is it, Sassenach? Am I just a warm body to help ye forget the Major? Or are you going tae admit the truth?”

The truth clawed up and out before she could stop it. “I told you, I’m done with Frank. He showed me exactly what love isn’t. I know what it feels like. I know what it– what it looks like.” Her gaze locked with his, unflinching. “And it’s not him.”

His eyes turned dark. “And me? What am I, to you?” 

“You are– you’re… not a fling.”

He tilted his head, human flashing again as he teased, “Not a fling? Ye make it sound like I’m a bad haircut ye’ll grow out in six weeks.” 

She laughed despite herself, the sound shaky, betraying how close she was to breaking. “You know what I mean.” 

His tone shifted, deep and certain. “You’re afraid to say it, but I will. I’m falling in love with ye, Claire. I have been since that we sat together during that air raid drill. Ye sat down, steady as stone, and I thought to myself, it’s a good thing she’s steady, lad, because yer knees are shaky as sand just looking at her. And I knew ye’d be the end of me right there, all wild curls and hyperdermic needles and talk of duty. And of love.”

Her heart clenched so tight she could hardly breathe. She tried to look away, but he hand slid to her chin, holding her fast. “Say it,” he whispered. “Say this is more than a fling.”

Perhaps it was the rum. Perhaps it was the abundance of stars above, or the weight of his stare, or pounding of the blood in her ears. Perhaps it was all of it and so much more. “It’s more than a fling,” she said with a sharp inhale. “And I’m afraid, because if it’s more than a fling, and it’s real, then it might be…” her voice cracked. 

“Love,” he finished for her, smiling faintly. She nodded, her fragile walls finally crashing down around them. 

He kissed her then with all the hunger and heat of a man who had been waiting for far too long. She melted into him, clutching his shirt, every though consued by the fire of his mouth, the strength of his arms, the truth of what they’d admitted at last. 

She thought she might dissolve into him entirely, until the edges of her body blurred into his and the only thing that kept her tethered was the heat of his hands. One, strong and sure despite the bandages, pressed against the curve of her waist, urging her closer; the other cradled the back of her head, his fingers tangling through her curls as though he couldn’t quite bear to let her go. His mouth moved over hers with a hunger both reverent and raw, a claiming that left her gasping and pliant beneath him.

They tipped sideways onto the spread of the blanket, the fabric sliding and bunching beneath their shifting bodies. Jamie caught himself on his elbow, careful even in the abandon of the moment not to crush her beneath his weight. His shoulders blocked out the stars, the broad plane of his chest pressing against hers, and for a dizzying second Claire thought she could feel the very rhythm of his heartbeat syncing with her own.

She arched into him instinctively, her body answering before her mind could, a silent plea for more, more, more. Her hands explored him with hungry curiosity—up the firm ridges of his arms, across the taut lines of his shoulders, into the heat at the base of his neck where his pulse thundered. He was solid, all strength and warmth, smelling of salt and smoke and rum, his skin damp from the sea air.

His lips left hers only to blaze a trail of fire down her jaw and along the tender hollow of her throat. Each brush of his mouth sent shivers racing through her, heat coiling in her belly, spiraling outward until she thought she might burst from the sheer ache of it. He kissed her as though she were a prayer, as though she were a rainstorm he had been waiting his whole life to be caught in.

“Jamie…” The word slipped out of her, half-plea, half-confession, trembling with want.

He lifted his head, their foreheads pressed together, breath mingling ragged and hot. His thumb brushed her cheek, reverent and tender, though his entire frame shuddered with restraint. She pulled him back down, their mouths colliding again, fiercer, wetter, their teeth clashing before yielding to the deep, consuming rhythm of the kiss. His hand slid along her side, cupping her hip, dragging her tight against him. She felt the hard line of his thigh between hers, the undeniable evidence of his wanting, and the world tilted. Every nerve in her body sang with it, each kiss deeper, rougher, a plea for a future they could finally hope for.

Her fingers found his hand and wove through it, anchoring them together as if to say: don’t let go. He groaned into her mouth, a sound that curled low in her belly, and she tugged him even closer, breath breaking against his lips.

“If we don’t go home soon,” he rasped, his mouth still brushing hers, “I willna be able to stop.”

Her eyes opened, dark, glistening, locking on his. She drew in a shuddering breath. “Then don’t.”

The words fell between them like sparks in dry grass, dangerous and unstoppable. Jamie froze, muscles trembling with the force of holding back. He kissed her once more—hard, desperate, as though he could pour all the wanting he’d been swallowing for weeks into that single touch—and then tore himself away with a ragged breath.

“Christ, Claire,” he whispered, his forehead still resting against hers, his lips swollen, his voice raw. “I want to. God, I want to. But you deserve more than this. More than an old tablecloth on the sand, with sand in your hair and a half-drunk bottle of rum at your side.” He looked at her as though she were both the answer to every prayer he had ever made and the temptation that might damn him.

Claire’s chest constricted, her heart hammering so hard she thought he might feel it against his ribs. The tenderness in his eyes, the aching restraint that matched her own longing—it undid her more than his kisses ever could. She lifted her hand to cup his cheek, her thumb brushing the stubble roughening his jaw.

“Let’s go then, Captain,” she relented at last.

His mouth curved, soft and certain, and he vowed to himsef not to think too hard about what the sound her of voice did to him when she called him Captain (but he would certainly examine that feeling when laying in his bed, alone). When he finally drew back, the stars themselves leaned in close, holding their breath for what might come next in the days to come.

Chapter Text

By the end of that week, the beach had become their own little hideout. Every evening, without fail, they ended up walking side by side along the stretch of sand between the airfield and the sea. Claire had stopped pretending it was a coincidence that they found each other there by the third night. Jamie didn’t bother pretending at all. Each night was marked with peppered kisses, stolen touches, laughter and light  

Each night was also marked by the heavy weight of what was coming one week later for Jamie as he resumed his post in England with the 100th. 

The war never truly stopped. It rumbled overhead in the drone of distant engines, it whispered in the clipped urgency of messages passed from one tent to another. Yet on the beach, the war felt far away. Out there, it was only a hush of waves, the cry of seabirds, and the soft give of sand under their boots. And laughter. God, there was laughter. 

Jamie had discovered quickly that she laughed hardest when he made a fool of himself. Which was why, on the fifth night, he walked half the length of the beach bellowing nonsense in what she assumed was Gaelic until she doubled over in a fit of helpless giggles. 

“Stop, stop,” she gasped, clutching her ribs, “you’ll make me faint!”

“Well, that’ll be an improvement, then,” he said, “since ye look half-dead after all those hours in the hospital. Fainting might mean yer finally getting some rest!”

She threw a handful of sand at him that hit his chest harmlessly but his grin split wide. 

Other nights on the coast were quieter. They traded stories in the hush between waves. Claire spoke of Uncle Lamb and the ruins of Egypt, of sleeping in the shadows of temples while he uncle catalogued hieroglyphs by candlelight. Jamie told her of Scotland: the hills, the rivers, the soft beds of rolling heather. He told her about lambing season, about riding bareback at dawn, about the time he and Ian had gotten themselves locked in the grain loft and nearly suffocated from laughing too hard while they tried to climb out the windows. 

The rhythm of it became a kind of salvation: work, exhaustion, release. Laughter that dissolved into silence, silence that gave way to the ocean’s endless hymn. Sometimes they walked until the base lights were pinpricks far down the beach, and the world seemed reduced to the sound of the waves and the warmth of each other’s nearness. 

Claire had never had a friend like this. Not even Frank, with all his bookish charm and easy intellect, had ever been this… easy. This companionable. This alive. 

On the seventh night, the air felt different. The sky was heavy, bruised with dark blue heaps of clouds, the sea restless in its bed. Far out on the horizon, flashes of heat lightening pulsed behind a wall of dark clouds, silvering the edges of the world for an instant before plunging it back into shadow. 

Claire tilted her face into the wind. It smelled sharp, metallic, as if the island were ready to alight. Her hair whipped against her cheek with the wind, pins pulling loose. 

“Storm’s coming,” she said. 

Jamie followed her gaze, his expression sharpening as he studied the horizon. “Aye. A big one. I can smell it.” 

She turned her head toward him, brow lifted. “Smell it? And what does a storm smell like, exactly?”

He gave her a mock-serious look. “Like the earth before it rains. Like iron before it rusts. Like…” he sniffed dramatically in her direction. “Like you after a long day in the ward.” 

“James Fraser!” she yelled in feigned outrage. 

He grinned at her wickedly. “A compliment, Sassenach. Ye smell like– like work well done. Ye’d be right at place at the farm on Lallybroch.” 

Claire aimed a kick of sand at his shin, but he danced back easily, laughing. “God, you’re insufferable.”

“And yet,” he said, still chuckling, “ye keep turning up for these walks.”

Her laughter softened with his, the sound carried off on the wind, and for a moment, the storm didn’t exist. There were only the two of them, bright and reckless, on the cusp of something just as electric as the sky. 

They walked further than usual, into the stretch of beach where the dunes grew taller, where the palm trees bent under the weight of the rising wind. Claire’s hair had all but escaped its pins now, loose curls whipping around her face. Jamie reached out without thinking, tucking a strand behind her ear. His fingers lingered, warm against her temple. 

She leaned into his touch. He cupped her cheek, callused palm rough against her damp skin. The lantern glow from the base behind them was faint now; here, the world was shadow and stormlight; their faces lit only by the intermittent flare of lightning across the horizon. His eyes, dark and intent, dropped to her lips. Slowly – agonizingly slowly – he leaned down. 

The sky opened up and rain poured down in a sudden, blinding sheet, drenching them in mere seconds. Claire gasped, stumbling back with a laugh of pure shock. Jamie cursed in Gaelic, blinking furiously as water streamed into his eyes. 

“Well, that’s dramatic!” Claire yelled, attempting to wipe the rain from her face. 

Jamie’s grin broke through as he yelled back, “And just when I was about to kiss ye properly!” The storm lashed around them, waves crashing higher now, wind tearing at their clothes, but it didn’t matter. “Come on!” Jamie grabbed her hand, his fingers tight around her. “We’ll drown out here if we canna get a roof over our heads!” The rain pelted them in sheets, stinging like needles. Claire’s hand was locked in his, his grip unyielding as he tugged her up the dunes and across the scrubby grass beyond. She stumbled once, boots slipping in the mud, but he steadied her without faltering, guiding her through the blackness with uncanny surety. 

“Where are we going?” she shouted over the storm. 

“Somewhere with a big enough roof!” The wind tore at them, rain soaking them through, until the hulking shadow of the hangar loomed ahead. Jamie dragged her toward it, shouldered open the heavy side door, and all but pushed her inside before slamming it shut against the roar of the storm. 

Darkness swallowed them whole. 

Jamie fumbled along the wall until he found a switch, and with a metallic snap, a sparse few floodlamps sputtered to life overhead. The vast hangar was suddenly revealed, cavernous and draped in drying parachutes from the rafters, the polished floor shining with the reflections of the night. At its heart, gleaming as though born of the starlight, stood Jamie’s plane. 

It was beautiful. Silver stretched over broad wings, sleek lines catching the light. The rain outside hammered on the metal roof, but the aircraft seemed untouched, as though nothing earthly could mar its grace. The white cloth dangling from the ceiling billowed with the wind. 

Jamie’s hand slid from hers, his expression softening as he followed her gaze. “Aye,” he said reverently, “she’s a bonny thing, isn’t she?”

Claire glanced at him, surprised by the tenderness in his tone. His eyes were on the plane, but his voice had gone low. 

“This one is yours?”

He nodded, stepping closer. His palm brushed the gleaming fuselage as though he might soothe it, claim it. “She’s mine. Has been for months now.” His smile was soft. “Well, mine and the military’s.”

She reached out, fingertips grazing the cool, slick metal. “It’s beautiful. I’ve never been this close to one.” 

Glancing at her sidelong, he asked, “Want a closer look?” Before she could answer, he caught her hand and led her around the nose of the aircraft to the small door beneath the cockpit. He gave her a wicked grin and motioned upward. “Up ye go, Sassenach.”

Claire blinked. “Are you sure about this? What if someone comes into the hangar?”

“Aye, you. No one is scheduled to be in here just now. Since the bombing, the main hangar hasn’t been able to hold the whole fleet of planes, so occasionally one needs to be in the auxiliary hangar, where we are now.” A sheepish grin. “‘Tis just us for the evening, and I’ve a mind to see ye in my place.”

He didn’t want to dwell on the bombing, and neither did she. Shaking her head to rid the thought of that morning, she gathered her soaked skirt and climbed, one rung at a time, until she reached the narrow cockpit. Slipping into the seat, she gasped softly. The world seemed to fall away, the hangar vanishing beyond the curve of glass. The instrument panel stretched before her, dials and switches gleaming faintly in the dim light. Jamie climbed up after her, and she privately assumed it was equally for her safety lest she slip, but also for the view of watching her ascend the ladder. Heat radiated through his wet clothes as he leaned past her to flick a few of the switches. The dials lit up, glowing in shades of amber and green. 

Claire turned her face toward him, only inches away. Her breath caught at the sight of him like this: damp hair curling, shirt plastered to his chest, eyes alive with something raw and unguarded. “What’s it like?” she asked softly. 

Jamie didn’t answer right away. His hand hovered over the yoke, brushing it with care. “It’s like… nothing else in the world. The ground falls away beneath ye, and for a moment–” he broke off, eyes lifting to some memory only he could see. “For a moment, ye’re free. Truly free. No war, no duty, no blood. Just the sky stretching forever and you, alone in it.”

“And you’re not afraid up there?” she whispered. 

His eyes met hers then, clear and unflinching. “I’m always afraid, a bit. But I’d rather die flying free than live chained to the ground.”

Something broke open inside of her at that. All this time, she’d felt chained down. Chained to Boston, to Frank, to being a housewife, to being a woman she didn’t want to be for the sake of someone else’s happiness. She longed to be free. Maybe here, in this cockpit, Jamie would teach her what freedom felt like.  

She hadn’t meant to touch him, but her hand was on his cheek before she’d realized it, thumb brushing the damp curl at his temple. He leaned into it instinctively, his breath shuddering. His hand came to rest over hers, warm and trembling slightly. Then slowly, finally, he bent his head and kissed her. 

It was not the storm-shattered brush of lips from the beach. This was something new entirely – hungry, certain, begging. His mouth slanted over hers with the weight of all the words they had never dared to say, all the nights of laughter and silence and aching want. 

Claire gasped against him, hands sliding to his shoulders, pulling him closer. He groaned into her mouth, a low, rough sound that sent fire rushing through her. 

In the narrow cockpit, there was no space for distance. His thigh pressed against hers, his chest against her shoulder. She arched toward him, and his hand found her waist, holding her to him. Her knees shifted against the edge of the seat, a moan on her lips, and Jamie caught it like a man starved. Claire thought she could drown here against him, gladly, and never think of air again.

Jamie broke away only for a breath, his forehead pressed to hers, to ask her to follow him back down out of the cockpit and onto the hangar floor. “I like havin’ ye up here just fine, but my knees in the dash are none so pleased,” he’d said with a smirk. 

Back on the slick floor, her hands found purchase in his damp curls, pulling him back down into her orbit. He followed without hesitation, his teeth catching her lower lip before soothing it with his tongue. 

Time unraveled. There was no war, no past loves, no uncertain futures. Just the crash of rain against the tin roof, the gleam of dials glowing around them, and the two of them, clinging as if the sky itself might fall between the swaying canvas clouds. One parachute swayed with the weight of them, the fabric brushing Claire’s skin like mist. Jamie chuckled against her mouth when the chute swung a little, their bodies pitched together, and the vibration of his laughter shot through her bones. 

Her hands fumbled with his soaked shirt, dragging it from his shoulders. He hissed with the bandage on his knuckles caught, but did not slow. His chest was bare beneath her palms – the scars, the muscle, the heat – and she kissed his throat, his shoulder, tasting salt and rain, until he groaned her name. 

He worked her blouse open with deliberate fingers, each button fought free with a muttered Gaelic curse. When he finally laid the fabric aside, he stopped, breath caught in his throat, and stared at her as though he’d never seen her, truly, before now. 

“I’ve seen a naked woman before… but ye, Claire, you are…”

“Yours,” she whispered. 

When he lifted her into his arms, her legs wrapped around his waist as if she’d weighed nothing. He carried her deeper into the hangar, past stacks of canvas, until they found themselves cocooned in folds of parachutes cascading from the rafters. He laid her gently atop the billowing silk, the fabric spreading beneath her like an altar, soft as clouds. 

They undressed each other in pieces, frantic and tender all at once. Stockings peeled away, skirts discarded, trousers tossed aside, his chest pressed to hers. 

Jamie’s fingers traced the curve of her waist, his touch sending shivers down her spine. The parachute fabric beneath them rustled with their movements, a soft whisper that added to the intimacy of the moment. Claire arched into him, her body craving more of his touch, more of the freedom he offered.

His mouth found hers again, hungry and demanding, as if he could devour her and still be left wanting. His hands roamed her body, exploring every curve and contour, memorizing her with his fingertips. Claire’s breath hitched as he cupped her breast, his thumb circling her nipple through the thin fabric of her bra, teasing it to a taut peak. At one point, Claire’s fingers caught on the edge of the parachute’s fabric, tugging it around them like a shield from the outside world. They sank lower to the blanket of canvas, holding each other tightly, bodies molded together, the storm a distant roar compared to the tempest between them. Every gasp, every sigh, every pressed forehead and entangled hand deepened the connection, a heady mixture of longing and safety, of fire tempered by tenderness.

She reached for the clasp of her bra, fumbling in her haste to free herself from its constraints. Jamie’s eyes darkened with desire as he watched her, his own breathing ragged. When the bra fell away, he leaned down, capturing one nipple in his mouth, his tongue swirling around the sensitive flesh. Claire gasped, her head falling back, her body aching with need.

Jamie’s hand slid between her thighs, his fingers finding the wet heat of her. She moaned, her hips lifting to meet his touch, begging for more. He teased her, his fingers sliding in and out, building the tension until she thought she might shatter. 

Claire reached for his belt, her hands shaking with anticipation. She needed to feel him, to know that he was as desperate for her as she was for him. Jamie helped her, his eyes never leaving hers as he shed his pants, revealing his hard length. She wrapped her hand around him, her thumb circling the sensitive tip, drawing a groan from deep in his throat.

He positioned himself at her entrance, his eyes locked on hers, seeking permission. She nodded, her body aching with anticipation. He slid into her slowly, filling her completely, stretching her in a way that was both pleasure and pain. They moved together, their bodies in sync, their breaths mingling, their hearts beating as one. They stayed entwined, holding one another as the storm raged, every moment of contact a promise, a reassurance, a declaration that the world could tear apart around them, but this—this closeness, this intimacy—was theirs. The hangar was no longer just a space of machines and shadows; it was a sanctuary, filled with warmth, trust, and the heady pulse of newfound love.

The parachute fabric beneath them shifted and swayed, the soft brush of silk against their skin a sensual caress. Jamie’s movements became more urgent, his hips thrusting faster, deeper as he moaned her name, begged for more more more. Claire met him stroke for stroke, her body clenching around him, drawing him in deeper.

Their climax came together, a rush of sensation that left them both gasping and trembling. Jamie collapsed atop her, his weight a welcome pressure, his heartbeat a soothing rhythm against her chest. They lay there for a moment, their bodies still entwined, the world outside forgotten. The night stretched on in quiet, tender afterglow. Fingers remained tangled, foreheads rested together, and whispered reassurances passed between them. The storm, once a force of chaos, now felt like a lullaby, each patter against the hangar roof marking the rhythm of their hearts. Jamie’s hand stayed pressed against her back, Claire’s cheek nestled against his chest. Neither wanted to move, neither wanted to break the spell, and for the first time in a long while, the war, the base, the rules of duty, and even Frank Randall faded away entirely. 

The storm rattled the hangar doors, wind howling through the cracks, but inside their parachute cocoon, there was only the whisper of fabric and the slower rhythm of their breathing. Claire shifted slightly, and Jamie groaned, rolling just enough to the side to give her space while keeping one arm locked firmly around her waist. His bandaged hand found the curve of her hip, holding her as though letting go would mean losing something irretrievable.

“You’re quiet,” she murmured at last, her voice husky.

He gave a breath of laughter, rough and disbelieving. “Aye. Because if I try to speak plain, I’ll sound like a fool.”

She turned her face toward him, her lips grazing the stubble of his jaw. “I think we’ve already passed the point of foolish, don’t you?”

That earned her a crooked smile, faint in the half-light. “Maybe so. But God, Claire… I never—” His voice broke, and he tried again. “I never thought I’d have this. Not here. Not now. And not with someone like you.”

Her chest tightened, that familiar ache rising again, sharp and sweet. She lifted her hand, tracing the line of his brow, the scar at his hairline, the softness that war and hardship hadn’t taken from him.

“You make it sound as though it’s impossible,” she whispered.

“It feels it,” he admitted, eyes searching hers. “Like a thing I dinna deserve. Like something borrowed from another life.”

She silenced him with a kiss, slow this time, tender where their earlier passion had burned hot. “Then we’ll borrow it,” she said against his lips. “For as long as we can.”

For a while, they lay like that, tangled together, listening to the storm. Claire’s fingers drew idle circles on his chest, and Jamie closed his eyes as if memorizing the weight of her, the warmth, the scent of her damp hair.

“Does it frighten ye?” he asked suddenly.

“What?”

“That this isn’t just… a fling. That it’s more.”

Her throat caught, and she almost looked away, but his gaze pinned her. He wasn’t teasing. He wasn’t afraid. He was offering truth, raw and unguarded.

She swallowed hard, her answer no more than a whisper. “Yes. Terrifies me.”

Jamie nodded, a shadow of a smile tugging at his mouth. “Good. Then we’re even. For it scares the hell out of me, too.”

Silence fell again, but softer this time, like the eye of the storm. His thumb stroked her cheek, her jaw, before he tucked her against him, pulling the parachute silk up around her shoulders as though it could shield her from the whole bloody war. The storm outside still raged, but within the parachutes’ cocoon, there was only warmth, only them.

He pressed his lips to her damp hair, his chest heaving. His voice came low, rough, a confession and a curse all at once.

“Sassenach… ye’ve ruined me. Forever.”

And for once, ruin felt like grace.

Chapter Text

Claire woke before dawn, her cheek pressed to something firm and warm that wasn’t her pillow. For one disoriented moment, she thought she’d fallen asleep in the infirmary again, cheek against a cot rail, before memory rushed in: the parachutes, the lantern light, Jamie’s mouth on hers, his hands, his whispered Gaelic against her skin.

She lay very still, listening. Jamie’s breathing was deep, even, his chest rising steadily beneath her cheek. One big arm lay heavy over her waist, anchoring her like a mooring line. His shirt smelled faintly of machine oil and soap and something uniquely his. She thought of her medical textbooks—tachycardia, arrhythmia—but there was no diagnosis for what her heart was doing now.

“Ye’re awake,” Jamie murmured, voice rough with sleep.

She shifted slightly, tilting her chin up to see his face. He hadn’t even opened his eyes, the bastard. “And you’re pretending not to be.”

He cracked one eye open, giving her a lazy grin. “I was hopin’ ye’d think I was still asleep so ye’d keep watching me.”

Claire snorted, rolling her eyes. “Insufferable.”

He pulled her closer, pressing his nose into her hair. “Aye, but ye’re stuck wi’ me now, Sassenach.”

They left the hangar just as the first light began to edge the horizon. The airfield was quiet, only the distant rumble of a truck and the occasional bark of a dog breaking the silence. The world felt suspended, as though dawn itself was reluctant to break whatever spell had been cast over them. But spells never lasted long in war.

By breakfast, Jamie’s crew had sniffed something out.

“Where’d you disappear to last night, Fraser?” Rupert teased, shoving a plate of powdered eggs across the mess table. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you weren’t in the barracks.”
Jamie, to his credit, didn’t flinch. He took his coffee, raised an eyebrow, and said coolly, “Out walking.”

Claire, entering the mess with her tray, caught Jamie’s glance across the room—quick, sharp, full of warning and amusement all at once. She schooled her features into neutrality, though her lips twitched at the corners. She chose a table on the opposite side of the room, but the connection between them thrummed like a taut wire.

Jamie’s men didn’t miss the flush in their Captain’s ears. They hooted, elbowed, and grinned like foxes around a henhouse.

At the hospital later that morning, Claire found herself scrubbing her hands at the basin, smiling like a fool. Gellie caught her.

“You look positively glowing. Did you finally get a good night’s sleep?”

Claire ducked her head, letting her curls fall forward to hide the betraying grin. “Something like that.”

That night, when the crews gathered outside the club, Jamie found her in the shadows, away from the laughter and smoke of rolled cigarettes. “Ye’ve had folk staring at ye all day,” he said, grinning as he stepped close. “Ye’re terrible at hiding your secrets.”

“I’ll remind you that you’re the one who came back to the barracks at dawn,” she shot back.

He chuckled, low in his chest, and brushed his hand against hers in the dark where no one could see. “Aye, well. If they knew what I’d been about, they’d be jealous.”

She tilted her chin up, bold despite the risk. “Maybe I want them to be.”

Jamie groaned, ducking his head until his forehead touched hers. “God help me, Sassenach, ye’ll be the death of me before the Luftwaffe has the chance.”

Her laugh was soft, full of promise. “Then I suppose I’ll have to save you.”

They didn’t talk about how soon that day might come. 

The day before Jamie left for England, the island breathed differently. The breeze carried the scent of salt and hibiscus as always, but the undercurrent was heavier. Electric. Like the palms themselves were bearing the weight of what was to come. 

They’d agreed to one last walk on the beach before the dawn would steal him away. She found him waiting at the water’s edge. The tide lapped at his boots, the sky painted in late golden strokes as the sun began its descent. Jamie turned as she approached, his hands tucked behind his back. The corners of his mouth lifted when he saw her, but the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Sassenach,” he murmured, brushing a kiss across her brow before they fell into step. The sand was cool beneath their feet, the ocean whispering words neither wanted to hear. 

For a while, they walked shoulder to shoulder, the silence comfortable but undeniably taut with everything unsaid. Eventually, Jamie cleared his throat. “There are things I need to know, before I leave ye here.” 

Claire’s eyes found his. “What sort of things?”

Jamie’s jaw tightened. “Frank. Ye’ve cut him out of your life entirely? There’s no lingering ties – papers, finances, promises – that bind ye to him still? 

She thought back to the last few weeks: phone calls to the mainland, thick manila packets mailed out to Boston, and endless conversations about what came next. Jamie had been by her side as much as possible to provide a steady presence when she called a lawyer he recommended (“An old friend of the family, I ken he’ll be more than happy to help ye,” he assured her before the first call). That friend did indeed agree to help when he heard Jamie’s voice on the line. Ned, his name was, promised that it would be easy to disentangle herself from Frank, as they hadn’t yet married. “It’s done,” Claire answered. “Mr. Gowan said everything is taken care of. It’s all behind me. Frank and I are finished, as far as I’m concerned. Legally, emotionally… any way that matters.”

Jamie let out a breath, but the tension between his brows remained. “And ye’ve arranged yer own travel? Passage to England, to join the hospitals near the base?”

“I have,” she confirmed. “The Red Cross is short on trained nurses. It wasn’t difficult to secure a posting. Once you’ve arrived, I’ll follow.” Anywhere, forever, she almost added. 

He nodded, still staring out at the horizon as if he could see England in the fading light. 

“Why do you sound like you have a checklist hidden in your pocket?” she asked lightly. 

He smiled a bit at her jab, but took a deep breath before facing her fully, the wind catching his hair. “Because I need to ken that you are safe. That ye’ll stand on yer own two feet, wi’ or without me.” His gaze dropped for just a moment before he sought hers once more. “Because if I die before ye reach me, I’ll have failed in the one thing I want most: to see ye taken care of, to see ye live a full life, to see ye happy. I need to know that ye’d be fine, that ye will be fine without me.”

Tears pricked at her eyes as she grabbed his hand. “Don’t you dare,” she whispered fiercely. “Don’t you dare talk about your fate like you already know how the story ends. You will not die, James Fraser. Do you hear me? You will not die. We will survive this war, and when it’s done, we’ll rebuild together. We’ll build a life that is beautiful and hopeful and ours. Ours. So you cannot die on me, because we have a lot of life to live when you’re done.”

She watched his breath come faster then as a tear slipped down his cheek. “Yes, I’m scared,” she continued. “I’m terrified of the war, of what Frank might do when he finds out about us, about how fast this is all moving. But none of that scares me more than the thought of going through my days without you. You’ve become my best friend, the last person I think about before my eyes close with the dark and the first one I remember when they open with the sun. It’s always been you, I think – since the first night I met you. It’s always been you, and it’s me, and it’s us. And I… I love you. I love you. So you’ll not die tomorrow or the next day or any of the ones after, because I love you, and that’s that.”

For a long moment, he stared at her, as if memorizing every curve of her face. Slowly, he cupped her cheek, his thumb trembling as it brushed her skin. “I was hoping ye’d say ye might wait for me…” he nudged her nose with his, “but I love you does so much better.” The kiss that followed wasn’t fevered like the ones in the past but full of slowness, of remembrance, of softness. “Ye ken I love you as well, Claire? Because I love ye, so much I can scarcely breathe.”

Claire leaned into his palm after nodding to acknowledge his steadfast love of her, closing her eyes. The surf crashed around them, and the horizon burned with the last blush of the sun. When she opened her eyes again, Jamie looked almost boyish in his nerves. He swallowed hard, gaze darting toward the sea before returning to her. “There’s something… something from home that I want to share with ye. Ask ye, I mean.”

Her brows knit. “Go on.” 

“In Scotland,” he began slowly, “there’s an old tradition. Handfasting. A pledge between two people, binding them together before God and man. Technically, it’s valid for a year and a day, or more often until a priest can make it official. But the meaning of it, it’s the same. A promise. A vow.” His voice deepened, low and raw. “Will ye… will ye handfast yerself to me, Sassenach? Before I leave?” The air seemed to still. Claire looked out to the ocean, sparkling in the last of the sunlight, considering. “I understand if ye dinna want to. It sounds like an engagement and I suppose it is, and considering everything that happened with Frank, I understand that I am askin’ quite a bit of ye… I’m asking too much of ye… damn it all, what I was trying to explain was…”

“Yes.” 

Jamie blinked, stunned out of his rambling. “Yes?”

“Yes, James Fraser. Yes. I’ll handfast myself to you.”

Another blink. Two. His grin broke like the dawn, broad and boyish, and he fumbled quickly at the satchel he’d slung over his shoulder. From it, he pulled a roll of medical gauze: white, clean, utilitarian, and sacred. 

“It’s no traditional tartan,” he said softly, grin widening, “but I think it’ll serve just the same.”

Jamie gave her a quick explanation of what he was about to do. They knelt together in the sand, hearts pounding, the gauze spread across their joined hands. Jamie wound the strip slowly, reverently, binding their right hands together at the wrist. The gesture should have been clumsy in his large hands, but the care with which he touched her was heartbreakingly delicate. 

“I’m going to speak some words in Gaelic now. Try to repeat them after me.” Claire nodded once before he continued. He took one slow and steadying breath to lose himself in her whisky-colored eyes and smiled. 

“‘S tu smior de mo chnàimdh, anns mo chuilean ‘s tu ‘n fhuil; Bheir mi dhut-sa mo chorp, gum bith ‘n dithis mar aon. Bheir mi dhut-sa slàn m’anam, gus an crìochnaich ar saoghal.”

Claire stumbled through nearly every single syllable of the few lines Jamie had spoken. He’d nodded encouragingly each time she slipped up and grinned widely when she finished, gripping her bound hand with his own. 

“What did all that mean?” she asked. 

“Weel, it’s rather old, and the literal translation to English isn’t quite as poetic, but essentially it means: Ye are blood of my blood and bone of my bone; I give ye my body, that we two might be one. I give ye my spirit, ‘til our life shall be done.”

Tears blurred in her vision as she whispered back, “‘Til our lives shall be done.”

The gauze tightened around their joined hands, the knot sealing the vow. They leaned together, foreheads touching, and kissed once more to seal the ancient words with the oldest covenant of all. 

The sky had bruised violet and gold by the time Jamie guided Claire up the sandy track from the beach. Their hands were still bound loosely in the gauze, though the knot had slipped, trailing soft and frayed between them. He didn’t say much, just glanced down now and then with a smile tugging at his lips, as though disbelieving she was still there, tethered to him. They crested a low dune, and a small bungalow appeared: a wooden cottage tucked among palms, its shutters thrown wide to the sea breeze. Warm lamplight glowed through the slats, flickering gently against the night. 

Claire slowed, curiosity knitting her brows. “Jamie? Where are we?”

He shifted on his feet, suddenly bashful. “It belongs to a friend,” he admitted, scratching the back of his neck with his free hand. “A Hawaiian lad I met a few months ago. He befriended me after I’d signed up for his surfing class…” 

Her eyebrow rose. “You can surf?”

“Oh, God, no,” he answered. “I went once and was such a mess that he’d taken me out for a dram and begged me not to come back for fear I’d kill myself in the waves,” he chuckled at the memory. “He’s a good man, he and his wife. They offered me this place for the night once I’d told them about having to leave. He rents it out to folks needing a getaway. They said my last night here shouldna be spent in the barracks, but under the stars in peace, and I… I didna want to tell ye before, but I’d hoped ye might join me here.”

“You’ve arranged this?”

His grin faltered, nervousness setting in. “Aye, or rather, my friend’s wife did, once she heard of you. I may have let it slip that there was a lass I was in love with here and she – weel – she said it would be a sin to spend our last…” he swallowed, “our special night on the island without proper comfort.” 

He pushed open the door. Claire gasped. 

The bungalow was transformed. The floor was scattered with hibiscus and plumeria, petals bright against the dark wood. A dozen candles sat in mismatched glass jars, their flames dancing warm and low. A fresh quilt covered the bed, hand-stitched with geometric island patterns, and the air smelled like jasmine. It was simple, but tenderly arranged. 

Jamie cleared his throat, suddenly uncertain under her gaze. “It’s no palace, but it’s what I can give ye: a place, for tonight, that’s truly ours.”

She felt the weight of his words: ours. Not the barracks, not a beach half-claimed by warplanes and sea crabs. This was deliberate. Chosen. 

“It’s perfect,” she answered, and meant every word. She really looked at the small house then, taking it all in: flowers strewn over flat surfaces, worn wooden floorboards under the large bed, and a single leather armchair, an ancient kitchen with a small stove and sink, and a small bathroom adorned with fresh (and mismatched) towels. Perfect indeed. 

“I’m going to freshen up–”

“I’ll just, uh, light the–”

Claire stopped Jamie with a hand to his heart. “Breathe. It’s just me.” 

He clutched her hand. “Aye, jes’ you, and yer canny ability to take the breath from my lungs,” he nudged her enough to make her laugh a nervous laugh of her own.
“I’ll be back in a few moments,” she assured him, and disappeared into the bathroom. 

“I’ll light some more candles,” he said, too loudly, to her through that bathroom door, moving too quickly about the room. His hands fumbled with the matches, each strike too hard or too fast, until at last the flames caught. The glow grew warmer, gentler, and he waited. 

In the bathroom, Claire leaned against the door for a long moment, heart pounding. Her reflection stared back from the mirror, candlelight gilding her skin, her hair wild from the sea breeze. She looked like a woman she barely recognized: fierce, unafraid, in love, loved.

She thought of the vow they’d spoken earlier, his hand trembling against hers, the gauze binding them bone to bone, blood to blood. She thought of what tomorrow held: engines roaring, the sky swallowing him up, the war tearing men apart in the cloud, an ocean away. She had bound herself to a man who very well could die before the year was out. And yet, she did not regret her choice. There was something different about James Fraser. Something more true than any love she’d known. He was home after years of wandering. 

When she opened the door, Jamie had lit the last of the large candles and stood waiting, the matches dropping and scattering on the floor.
“Christ,” he muttered as he stooped to the ground and tried to gather them up as quickly as possible, but making a bigger mess in the process. 

“You always know how to lighten the mood, don’t you?” she teased. 

He really looked her over then – the soft glow of candles casting a warm light over her skin. She was a vision, her eyes shining with humor, vulnerability, strength, and love. Love, for him. Jamie straightened, his hands still trembling from the flurry of trying to clean up his mess, but reached out to her. “Ye look beautiful, sorcha,” his voice thick with emotion.
“What does that mean?” she asked quietly. 

“Bright. Shining. Light… hope. ‘Tis yer name in the Gaelic. Ye look like all those things and more.” 

Claire took his hand, her fingers intertwining with his, and pulled him closer. “And you look nervous,” she teased softly, her eyes sparkling with amusement and something deeper that made his heart race. 

Jamie let out a shaky laugh, his thumb tracing circles on the back of her hand. “Aye, well, it’s not every day a man brings his wife-to-be to a bungalow on the beach, is it?” 

Claire’s smile broadened at his declaration of what she’d become to him. “No, it’s not,” she agreed, her voice barely a whisper. It occurred to her that this was all too fast, too reckless, too emotional, too… everything. And she put it all aside at the thrill of being named as Jamie’s betrothed. 

Suddenly, Jamie stiffened. “Is it okay that I call ye that? I don’t have to. I know that being yer own person is important to ye and I would never want to reduce ye to being someone’s, my, wife. With the handfasting, I couldn’t help saying it once–”

“I was thinking that I rather liked the way it sounded, to be called your wife-to-be,” she answered, stepping closer into his embrace. “I will always be my own person… but tonight, it feels very good to simply be yours.” 

Jamie’s gaze traveled over her body with a hunger that was almost reverent, the kind of hunger not merely born of desire but of a man starved for something vital, something soul-deep. Claire felt it as a current in the room, a tension that made her skin prickle before his hands even touched her. His eyes burned with need, yes—but also with love, with awe, as though she were something holy placed before him.

At last, he reached out, his fingertips skimming over the lace at her hip, barely grazing her flesh. Even that slight contact made her shiver, anticipation spiraling down her spine until she thought she might combust beneath his hand. He lingered there, tracing the fragile pattern of fabric, before hooking his fingers into it with a slow, decisive movement. The lace gave way with a delicate hiss, tearing under his strength, the sound startlingly raw in the candlelit hush. Brutal, and yet beautiful—the small, necessary violence of passion, of stripping away every barrier between them.

Claire gasped at the sensation of cool air against newly bared skin, but the gasp quickly melted into a sigh as Jamie’s palms smoothed over her. His hands were large and rough, calloused by work and war, yet impossibly gentle as they cupped her breasts, lifting and weighing them as though learning her by touch alone. His thumbs brushed over her nipples, slow circles that coaxed them into stiff peaks, and the ache low in her belly tightened into something urgent. He bent to her, mouth closing over one tender bud, his tongue tracing circles before he nipped lightly with his teeth. The shock of pleasure made her back arch, pressing herself against him, a soft moan breaking free from her throat. 

Her hands rose instinctively, tangling in his hair, fingers sinking into the thick, copper strands. She held him there, as if she could fuse him to her, as if the act of clinging might delay the inevitable march of time beyond these walls. Her hips moved restlessly against him, seeking, needing, the rugged ridge of him pressing against her thigh, only stoking the fire higher.

He moved downward, his mouth leaving a trail of kisses across the plane of her belly, lingering in her navel before continuing lower. His hands gripped her hips firmly, his thumbs pressing into the soft flesh, leaving marks she knew would fade but never be forgotten. Kneeling between her thighs, he lifted his head and looked at her.

That look—the dark fire of desire mingled with devotion—was almost too much to bear. In his eyes, she saw not only want, but love so vast, so timeless, that it threatened to unravel her. A love that felt like oceans and skies, like something that had existed long before them and would outlast everything else.

Her breath caught as his mouth found her, his tongue brushing delicately at first, tasting her with an almost reverent curiosity. The gentleness undid her, sending shivers racing down her body, her thighs trembling as though she could barely hold herself upright. He teased her, coaxed her, circled her with his tongue, then drew her into his mouth with sudden purpose, the flick of his tongue making her cry out his name. His fingers slid between her folds, stroking, stretching, finding the rhythm of her pleasure and feeding it until she could scarcely think.

She clutched at his hair, her hips lifting against his mouth as if her body had a will apart from her own. The pressure built inside her, a wild and terrifying crescendo, each stroke and flick pulling her tighter, higher, until she hovered on the edge of something vast.

With a sudden, deeper thrust of his tongue, he broke her open. Pleasure crashed over her in great, shuddering waves, her body convulsing helplessly as she cried out, his name a litany, a prayer. The sound filled the room, primal and unguarded, echoing against the walls, a testament to everything they were.

Jamie rose, his mouth wet with her, his chest heaving. His body pressed hard against hers, his arousal urgent, undeniable. He gathered her up into his arms with a strength that startled her, though she surrendered willingly, her legs wrapping around his waist. He carried her to the bed, laying her down with exquisite care, before lowering his weight over her, grounding her with the solid heat of his body.

Then he entered her, all at once, with a single fierce thrust that filled her. She gasped, nails biting into the muscles of his back, the shock of fullness stealing her breath even as it bound them together. A cry escaped her lips, part pleasure, part release, mingling with the low, guttural groan he gave as he sank deep into her.

He began to move, his hips finding a rhythm that was primal yet achingly tender, a cadence that seemed to speak without words: mine, mine, mine. Each thrust carried both hunger and devotion, a desperate need to claim and to cherish in equal measure. Their bodies found each other as though they had been made for this, for this precise joining, this sacred dance older than memory.

Their hands sought each other instinctively, fingers twining together, palms pressed as though in prayer. The gesture was silent but powerful, a vow exchanged without sound: that they would carry each other, stand for each other, even through darkness.

Jamie’s eyes burned down into hers as he moved within her, his face open, unguarded. What she saw there made her throat ache: not only desire, but love in its purest form. A love so consuming it seemed to transcend even the fragile boundaries of time and flesh. His lips found hers in a kiss that was fierce and tender all at once, tasting of salt and fire, of need and promise. It was not just passion—it was declaration, plea, vow.

Her body met his with rising urgency, her hips lifting to meet every thrust, the coil of pleasure winding tighter with each stroke. The crescendo came swiftly, inexorable, terrifying in its intensity. Her cries filled the air as she shuddered around him, the convulsions pulling him deeper into her.

He followed her with a desperate groan, his body seizing as he spilled himself inside her, her name broken on his lips like a prayer, like worship. They clung together, trembling, the room filled with the sound of their ragged breathing, of their hearts hammering in unison.

For a long time, they didn’t move, didn’t speak, lying tangled together, their skin damp, their limbs locked. It was more than exhaustion—it was the weight of something sacred, something eternal, pressing down on them in the quiet afterglow.

Later, when breath returned and the night stretched on, they sought each other again and again. Each time different: sometimes fierce and frantic, as though racing the dawn; sometimes tender and lingering, as though memorizing every inch, every sigh. They made love as though to write themselves into each other’s bodies, into memory, into eternity. When at last the candles guttered and died, they lay entwined in the darkness, the scent of flowers heavy in the air, their bodies still joined, hearts beating as one.

The handfasting had been words and gauze, but this—this was covenant, sealed in the oldest way, eternal and unbreakable. And though the world outside roared with war and uncertainty, in that quiet bungalow, they had made something stronger: a promise that would outlast the storm. A beacon of hope in the darkness of night.

Several of the candles had burned out, the last smoldering embers swallowed by the stars. The tide whispered its steady rhythm in the distance as Claire lay curled up against Jamie, her head pillowed on his shoulder. His chest rose and fell beneath her cheek, the sound of his breathing calm and steady, as though the storm of what they had shared with their bodies and hearts had quieted into this stillness, this fragile peace. 

Her fingers traced idle circles over his ribs. The questions pressed at her lips, unwelcome but insistent. “Jamie?” she murmured at last, her voice nearly lost.

“Aye, my wee vixen?” His arm tightened around her waist, and she jabbed at one of those ribs. She took a steadying breath before asking, “I know what service means to you and how important it is to you… But if you could leave it behind, for this, I mean, would you?”

For a moment, he didn’t move. Didn’t even breathe, it seemed. She felt the question land in him, heavy, sinking deep. His gaze fixed on something outside the window. He exhaled, slow and heavy. “No, I dinna think so. Not even for this.” 

Claire lifted her head to look at him. The answer was firm, not cruel, but it still stung a bit. “No?” 

“Why do ye ask?”

“I ask because… I suppose… Oh, I don’t know.” She huffed out a breath. “If someone told me today that I had to walk away from everything, but I got to have you, well, I think I’d still choose you. Choose us.” She kissed his chest. “You wouldn’t?” 

His blue eyes found hers, steady and unflinching even as they softened. “This war… It’s not one I could turn my back on. It’s no’ some faraway squabble over borders or a minor power dispute. It’s fascism, Sassenach. Men who’d see the world ground beneath their boots, who’d see good folk silenced, enslaved, or worse. If all the lads who believe in right, who believe in freedom, if we all just walked away, who’d be left to stop those who remain?” 

Her throat tightened. The certainty in his voice, the unshakable conviction, was as beautiful as it was terrifying. 

“I ken what it costs,” he continued, softer now, hand brushing over her wrist. “Every day, I weigh the price. But it’s an honor, Claire. To stand against evil, to ken I’ve done my part, for those who cannot. I’d do it again, in every life, no matter how many times I was asked.” His voice caught then, rough in his throat, as his gaze searched hers as though begging her to understand. “But in every life, I’d pray for the same thing: That I’d find you. That I’d find ye and ye’d stand beside me, like you are now, and give me the strength and courage to carry on, whether here or somewhere else, in the skies or on the ground, at war or at home. I’d find ye. Every time, in every life. It’s me and it’s you, in every sky.”

Her eyes burned as she cupped his jaw, thumb brushing over the stubble that bloomed. “Jamie…”

“Dinna think it doesna tear me apart,” he whispered, pressing a brow to hers. “To ken I could have this – you, a home, bains, a life we build together. It’s what I want most in this world. But I couldna live with myself if I abandoned this life, no matter how much I ache for the other.”

Claire swallowed hard, her lips trembling against his. “So you’ll go tomorrow.” 

“I’ll go,” he said, quiet and confident. Then, with a gentleness that belied the steel in his words, “But I’ll carry you with me every hour, every breath. And when it’s done – if God grants me the grace to live – I’ll come back. I’ll always come back to you.”

She kissed him then, slow and reverent, tasting salt – whether from the sea air or her own tears, she couldn’t tell. In that moment, she felt the enormity of the man beside her: soldier, American, Scot, lover, handfasted soulmate. Bound to duty, bound to her. 

Later, Claire would wake to find him sitting at one of the two barstools dotting the kitchen counter, writing. She gently tossed back the covers, revealing her warm and bare body. Jamie quickly scribbled down a remaining few words, hastily folded the paper, shoved it in the breast pocket of his shirt, and rejoined the woman he loved in their bed. Hiding from the world beyond, for a while yet. 

The next morning, the base roared awake with engines. Convoys rolled toward the airfield, headlights cutting through the dawn and mist. The bombers stood gleaming, silver giants waiting to swallow their crews whole. The air was thick with exhaust and men shouting orders, the shuffle of boots on the ground, and the clatter of crates on the tarmac. 

Claire stood at the edge of the field, her Red Cross pinned to her blouse, the gauze from last night wound tightly around her wrist beneath her sleeve. Her fingers touched the knot again and again, as if it could hold him to her. 

Jamie spotted her across the chaos, and for one breathless moment, the whole world shrank to the space between them. He strode toward her, his hat tucked under his arm, the letter he had written for her pressed against his heart in his chest pocket. 

They didn’t speak at first. Finally, Jamie took her face in both hands, his thumbs brushing away the tears she hadn’t even realized had fallen. 

“I’ll write,” he vowed. 

“And I’ll write back,” she whispered. 

“I’ll see ye again before we know it.”

“Soon,” she promised. 

He couldn’t hold back from kissing her – hard and desperate and pleading with her to feel all the things he wished to say but wouldn’t voice. Around them, engines roared to life. They kissed again and again until a shout broke them apart, his name called by the crew. 

Jamie pressed his forehead to hers one last time. “Every sky, Claire. Remember.” 

The engines roared so loudly the ground trembled beneath her shoes. The airfield became a furnace of smoke and sound: men shouting over the din, the whine of turbines spinning to life, propellers blurring into silver discs that chopped the rising sun into shards of light. 

Claire stood just beyond the line of military police, pressed back by a tide of bodies as crews loaded the final gear. The smell of oil and fuel mingled with salt air, acrid and heavy. But all she could see was Jamie. He climbed the ladder into the belly of the B-17 just as he’d done a hundred times before, one long stride after another, shoulders square beneath his flight jacket. Just before ducking inside, he paused. 

Through the haze of exhaust and distance. Their gazes locked. That red hair, glinting cinnabar and copper and auburn, blew in the wind. His blue eyes narrowed, seeing only her. His hand, bandaged still, lifted over his heart. She mirrored him, rooted to her place on the tarmac. Then he disappeared into the plane's dark interior. 

The airfield commander’s arm slashed through the air. Engines roared to full throttle, deafening. The ground shook as the first of the Flying Fortresses began to lumber forward, massive wheels bumping over the uneven runway. One by one, the great silver birds rolled into line, wings stretching wide. Claire’s breath came faster as Jamie’s plane edged into position, its nose gleaming with the blue and white star insignia, its body heavy with gear she wished she could strip away. She clutched at her wrist a bit tighter. 

The plane thundered down the runway, faster, faster, until the wheels left the ground in a spray of sand and smoke. The nose tilted skyward, wings caught the wind, and Jamie lifted into the dawn. 

Around her, the crowd began to thin: wives and sweethearts headed home, nurses and officers went back to work. But Claire stayed rooted to the spot, eyes fixed on the vanishing specks. The ocean breeze tugged at her hair, Jamie’s taste still lingering on her lips. 

Every sky, Claire. Remember. 

The planes were gone. The war had taken them. But her heart – her heart soared with him, wherever he was. 

In every sky.

Chapter Text

Jamie. 

Dear Sassenach, 

If you’re reading this, it means I wasna brave enough to say all of this to your face. Brave enough to fly a B-17 over the bloody Atlantic, aye, but not enough to look into your eyes and tell ye the things weighing on my heart. Cowardly, maybe, but I’ll chance it if it means the words reach you all the same. 

First, I need ye to ken this: ye’ve changed everything for me. I dinna mean only these past weeks, though those have been the best I’ve ever lived, but something deeper. It feels as though I’ve walked my whole life with an ache in my bones and only now, with you beside me, has it finally eased. I’ve laughed more, eaten more, slept more in the short time I’ve had you in my life than in all the years before. Ye’ve ruined me for solitude, though I canna say I’m sorry for it. 

Ye might laugh at me for my “checklists” as ye called them, but I’ll no apologize for those, either. I’ll always want to see ye cared for, even if ye could very well snap my head off for fussing. (Which, by the way, I rather enjoy. The way yer nose crinkles when yer vexed? I’d risk far worse than a scolding just to see it again.)

There’s one thing I’ll regret about the last night I had with ye. Not the handfasting, nor the bungalow, nor the way ye felt curled up in my arms – god, never that – but that I couldna stop time itself to keep us there. 

If I never come back to ye, Sassenach, let me say this plain: ye are my  home. Not Scotland, not North Carolina, not the barracks, not the sky. You. 

Now, since ye’ll no doubt that part a bit (I ken ye well enough), let me leave ye with something cheerier: 

1. Dinna drink all the rum without me. 
2. If anyone asks about the candle wax on yer dress, say you were conducting a very serious medical experiment on a (love) sick man. 
3. And for God’s sake, please dinna fall for a Navy man while I’m away. 

I’ll be waiting for ye in England. 

Your own handfasted fool in love, 

Jamie

Claire

My dearest Jamie, 

If you’ve found this, then good – my plan worked, and you can’t scold me for sneaking things into your kit after you’ve already gone. You’re probably reading this somewhere over the ocean, and I hope it distracts you from whatever dreadful army biscuits they’ve stuffed in your rations. 

First of all, I ought to scold you for your bossiness. Checklists, really? Do you think I’m a damsel in distress? (Don’t answer that. I can already hear the “aye, but yer my damsel” speech brewing in that thick skull of yours.) Still, I’ll allow it this once because truth be told, knowing you worry over me is strangely comforting—maddening, but comforting. 

Secondly, since I’ve already confessed my love for you aloud, I’ll add something else here: I’ve loved you longer than I knew. I realized it while brushing my teeth last night, of all things. I can’t remember a time, even before Hawaii, when you weren’t in my blood somehow. Perhaps it was our first meeting, or the time I went to the Carolina beaches on holiday and felt at peace, or the first time you called me stubborn. In any case, you’ve ruined me for solitude, too, James Fraser, so we’ll have to remain ruined together. 

As for your flying, I won’t pretend that I’m not terrified. I am. Terrified every time I picture the horizon swallowing up another plane, terrified of the lists of names, terrified of how we are again the incredible dark sky. But here’s what terrifies me more: the thought of never having met you. Of letting fear keep me from you. So go, fight your fight, and know that when you land in England, I’ll not be far behind—a few months. 

I’ll keep writing to you and when you come back to (because you will), I’ll remind you that the universe itself brought us together. 

Oh, and if you so much as glance at some barmaid over there, remember: I’ve got sharp surgical scissors, and I know how to use them. 

With all my love (and none of the bossiness, for now), 

Claire 

Jamie 

My own, 

Well, we’ve made it. The sea didna swallow us up, though I’d swear it gave a good try. The men are all half-dead from travel, though the commanding officers bark at us as if we’d just rolled out of bed late for Sunday church: England’s colder than I remember, all damp socks and mist. The hangars are lined up in shades of grey and beige, just like everything else here. Somehow, though, it feels right to be here. I’m glad to get started. 

But dinna fash – I kept yer letter in my breast pocket the whole way. When the clouds broke and the sea stretched endlessly below us, I reread it (though my copilot did give me queer look for smiling like a madman over a bit of paper). Yer handwriting alone warms me better than any coal fire. 

I miss yer sharp tongue (in speech, and in other ways)—even yer scolding. Truth be told, I’d welcome a scoling from ye right about now to hear yer voice. 

I’ll not lie to ye: there’s talk here that turns a man’s blood to ice. The casualty rates, the ones we didna speak too much before, they’re worse than rumor made them out to be. But then I think of you. The way yer hand was steady in mine when ye bound yerself to me. The way yer eyes dared me not to die. And I think to myself, well, if ye can be brave, then so can I be. 

I’ll continue to write as often as I can. Tell me when ye set sail with the Red Cross, so I can count the days until yer boots hit English soil. 

Yours always, 

Jamie

Claire

My dearest Captain Fraser, 

I’m very happy to hear that England hasn’t drowned you in drizzle yet. I confess, I did half expect you to come back across the Atlantic, complaining of the cold, demanding island rum and a warm bed. Now I see I’ll have to provide those comforts when I arrive. 

I’m booked on a hospital ship departing next month. The Red Cross hardly blinked when I volunteered. They’re short of nurses, and I rather think they were relieved I could tell morphine from methylated spirits. I wish the ship were leaving sooner, but it’s the first one passing by the islands. I’ll be in England soon, patching you all up. (Do me a favor, though, and try not to become one of my patients, will you? I can’t promise I’d be at my best with you on an operating table.)

I miss you. More than I thought I would, and I thought I’d miss you horribly. Everything here reminds me of you – the sea, the flowers, even the sand where we walked. Everything has your mark on it. 

Don’t let that go to your head. 

Oh, and for the record, you do look like a madman when you smile over my handwriting. I saw the way you used to read my notes when I’d round on you after the attack. It’s only fair, since I’ve been reading your last letter so many times that it’s gone soft at the folds. If anyone asks, I’ll say it’s more paperwork, but I think my own smile gives me away. 

I’ll see you as soon as I can, Jamie. Try to keep England in one piece until then. 

Yours (but don’t let that go to your head, either), 

Claire

Jamie

My heart, 

I should be asleep. Our mission took us over the Channel and back, and my bones are weary, but I canna close my eyes. 

Flying here is different. The sky feels heavier, if such a thing is possible. Clouds so thick you could almost step out and walk on them. The lads joke, but I can see the worry in their eyes, the way their hands linger on their lucky charms before we climb into the planes. I keep your letter folded in my breast pocket, always. That’s my lucky charm.

I’ll not dress it up: I’m afraid. But I’ve been afraid before, and this time, I’m not afraid to die. I’m afraid of not getting to live. I want to come back and see you, to walk with you, to keep the promise tied around our hands. The fear of not getting that, strange as it is, gives me the courage to keep going. 

Yer voice is in my head. I hear ye telling me to mind myself, telling me I will not die today or the day after, and you know – I believe ye. I do. 

Write me when ye can. If I can see yer words before each flight, I’ll not doubt the wings beneath me. I hope this letter gets to ye before ye board yer ship and if it does, ken I’ll be praying for yer safe journey until ye land on these shores. 

Yours, in this life and the next, 

Jamie

Claire

My sweet husband-to-be, 

(I hope that made you smile as much as I smiled just now writing it.) The good news is that I received your last letter before leaving the island. The bad news is that I didn’t leave the island – yet. The military bureaucracy I’ve had to elbow through to get this far is truly mind-boggling. A week ago, some clerk at the War Office muttered something about my “previous entanglements” and how England would be an “unsuitable posting”. I don’t know what Frank said about me before he left, or what he’s said since, but apparently it’s somewhat unfavorable. Thankfully, Dr. Hildegard was able to reach out and contact a few high-level friends. I haven’t seen that stuffy man who made the comments since, and here’s hoping I never do again or else I shall have some awful words to share in return. 

All that to say, is my departure was delayed while the doctor made his calls. He didn’t shout, but he did speak with some lethal calm I’ve never seen before, and it must have worked because I’ll be on the next ship out. If Frank thinks a few sheets of paper can stop me, he’s sorely underestimated my stubbornness. And my duty. And my love for you. 

If I could, I’d walk across this whole damned ocean to get to you. Since I can’t, I’ll settle for writing to you whenever I get the chance. I hope the mail runs faster than this ship. I’ll be stopping in San Francisco before taking the train to New York, and then sailing to England on the ship. I’m including the address where you can send a letter. It’s the hotel I’ll be staying at before leaving. 

Wishing I could walk on water like God himself, 

Claire

Jamie

My own, 

Before I begin with my normal writing, let me state this clearly: DAMN ALL RANDALLS. Aye, I might not ken them all, but I stand by it. More importantly, I stand by you. Thankfully, I’ve only seen Frank in passing twice since being here. It’s a good thing, to be sure – if I had to converse with the man, now knowing he’s trying to interfere once again, I’d leave him with a few more bruises and another broken bone. Alas, I’ll try to restrain myself. For now. 

I’ve just come from the “club” here. Don’t let the name fool ye – it’s just a drafty hall with warm beer and louder laughter. Still, it serves. Ye’d like it, I think. The men shout their songs off-key, the smoke hangs thick enough to choke a horse, and yet the joy in it feels… desperate, but real. It’s the joy of men who are alive another night. 

That’s the hard part. Not all of us come back. New men constantly fill the bunks, and yet it nearly breaks a man to walk past the spaces where strangers rest where his mates should be. I dinna want to darken yer heart with this, but I promised we’d speak true, always. I keep their names in my mind like a litany so that they won’t vanish into nothing. 

Then yer letter came, folded and ink-smudged from yer hand. Ye dinna ken what that does to me, lass: to think of ye, stubborn and fighting back against that damn man… I could weep with pride. Ye’ll be here soon, and I’ll be the luckiest man in all England when ye are. 

Don’t fash yerself about Frank. He may have had the power once, but he doesna own yer heart. That’s mine, aye? Bound and sworn. 

Be safe on the high seas. Stay away from pirates – I’ve heard the worst ones are the ones with giant height and red hair, looking for a bonny lass.

Yours, ‘til the end of time, 

Jamie

Claire

Jamie, 

You’ll be pleased to hear that I am not seasick. Much. Only occasionally. Mainly in the mornings. Or evenings. Or, really, whenever I stand up. It’s very dignified, I assure you – your handfasted lover clinging to the railings like a true drunken sailor, trying not to disgrace herself in front of the Red Cross matrons. You’d laugh yourself sick if you saw me. 

I nearly didn’t get past the port in San Francisco. Some officious man in uniform waved a file with my name on it and claimed there were “discrepancies” in my authorizations. I told him the only discrepancy was his brain’s failure to keep up with his mouth, and I’d sailed here from Hawaii only to have him refuse to sign some blasted form, I’d start diagnosing him with several embarrassing conditions right there on the quay. He signed. In triplicate. (I, of course, used some gentler language, but that’s the gist. It got the job done.)

Once I get to New York, I’ll be assigned temporary lodging with other nurses bound for base hospitals on the ship. I’ve heard the beds are lumpy, the tea tastes like boiled socks, and the matron is terrifying… but I can live with it. It’s one step (sail?) closer to you. 

When I close my eyes, I see your face the way it looked on the beach, candlelight on your hair, and your wrist bound to mine. I’ve no business missing you this much. It’s only been a few months. Some women may wear jewelry, but I’d prefer the strip of gauze folded into my kit every day. 

Keep safe, Jamie. I’ll be where I’m needed soon enough. And God help anyone who thinks they can keep me from you once I get there. 

All my love from somewhere outside Cleveland, I think, 

Claire

Jamie

My dearest Sassenach, 

We went up again yesterday, and I thought of you the whole way. I dinna ken if that makes me braver or foolish, but it steadied my hands. We came back, but not everyone did. The sight of empty chairs at the mess cuts sharper than any blade. 

The sky is a cruel place, mo chride. Beautiful, aye – sunrise over the Channel, the clouds like fields of snow – but cruel all the same. Ye hold the line with yer crew, ye do everything right, and still the sky chooses who falls. It’s hard not to rage against it. 

And yet, yer letter was waiting for me. You, standing yer ground against some puffed-up officer? Christ, I laughed till the men told me to shut it. They’ve taken to calling ye “The General” though none have met ye yet. Ye’ll fit right in. 

As for me, I’ll not lie. I’m tired. Tired to the bone. But I’m no less certain of why I’m here. Every time I climb into the belly of that plane, I think: this is for freedom, but it’s also for her. For the woman stubborn enough to cross oceans, to fight her way through the red tape and men twice her size. For the woman who bound her hand to mine and said she’d follow, no matter where. For the woman I will spend the rest of my life with. 

When I do make it back to ye – and I will – I plan to hold ye so tight ye’ll think I mean to fuse us into one. Maybe I do. 

Until then, keep me as close as dreams allow. I’ll meet ye there. 

Yours, always, 

Jamie

Chapter Text

The day began in darkness, as it always did. 

The April wind tore across the Norfolk airfield, slicing through coats and wool scarves, biting skin red as men hurried across the half-frozen runway. The earth itself seemed to shiver beneath their boots, the rumble of engines in the distance already stirring awake. Dawn was still a promise, not yet a reality, and the world was bathed in the half-light of charcoal skies and swinging floodlamps. 

Captain James Fraser drew his collar high and squinted against the stinging air. He carried his parachute over one shoulder, the strap digging into the muscle there, the familiar ache oddly comforting. The hangars loomed like dark beasts against the horizon, their hulking silhouettes interrupted by the skeletal towers of searchlights. The acrid smell of fuel already saturated the air, heavy enough to coat his tongue. 

“Fraser!” 

The voice cracked across the yard, sharp and wry, and Jamie turned to find John Grey striding toward him. 

Lieutenant Grey was smaller than Jamie, lean but wiry, his dark hair hidden beneath a winter cap pulled low over his brow. His gloves were tucked under one arm, and a cigarette dangled from his lips, the cherry tip glowing against the pale morning. He was neat and precise, even here – the polished boots, the meticulous way he tied his scarf, even in the chaos of war. 

“You look like a man about to meet the hangman,” John said, exhaling smoke in a sharp plume as he fell into step beside Jamie, “which I suppose is not entirely inaccurate.”
Jamie grunted amusement. “Dinna remind me.”

“Ah, but I must.” John flicked ash carelessly toward the ground. “If I don’t, you’ll forget the stakes, and then where would we be? Half a continent away, with Germans at our backs and nothing but our pride to keep us afloat.” 

Jamie shot him a sidelong look, his lips twitching. “Ye’ve a terrible sense of humor, Grey.”

“And yet, it keeps me sane,” John countered, a small, cool smile tugging at his mouth. 

They walked together toward the briefing hut, their boots crunching over frost-hardened gravel. Other crews filtered in the same direction, men clutching thermoses of coffee. Some were silent and pale, others laughing a bit too loudly with a manic edge that betrayed their fraying nerves. The air buzzed with the sounds of zippers, leather creaking, and coughs muffled into worn scarves. 

Inside, the room was crowded and warm, its scent a mix of sweat, wool, and cigar smoke. A map stretched high across the wall, peppered with pins and string. The mission commander stood at the front, his eyes scanning the assembly of men before him, his jaw tight. Behind him stood Major Frank Randall, pretending to look at anyone other than Jamie. Jamie stared straight ahead, refusing to give him the satisfaction of looking guilty for any crime. 

“Gentleman,” Colonel Barnes began, voice rough from too many smokes and too little sleep. “Target for today is Leipzig. Rail yards. Heavily fortified. You know what that means.” 

A ripple of excitement mixed with unease passed through the room, subtle but palpable. Leipzig meant distance – long hours over hostile territory. Leipzig meant fighters and flak so thick you could walk on it. Leipzig meant some of the men in this room would not be returning. 

Jamie folded his arms, his gaze steady on the map. He felt John shift beside him, the faintest bristle of tension. 

Frank’s eyes were scanning, too often landing on Jamie. 

The commander droned on about flight paths, rendezvous points, the usual grim recital. Jamie absorbed it in silence, his mind cataloging each point, each risk, each unspoken weight. When they were finally dismissed, the room erupted into a cacophony of noise. Men clapped each other on the shoulders, some muttering prayers under their breath, some grinning like fools. 

“Leipzig,” John said flatly, jamming his hands into his gloves. I’d have preferred Berlin. Better sense of taste there.” 

Jamie barked a laugh, short and surprised. “Aye, ye’d want the enemy to admire yer boots while ye dropped bombs on their heads.”

“Too right,” John smirked, the line between jest and sincerity always blurred with him. Then, quieter: “It’s going to be a bad one today.”

Jamie nodded once. “Aye. And we’ll see it through.”

They made their way back across the tarmac, the B-17s lined like slumbering beasts against the pale horizon. Their silvery bellies gleamed under the floodlights, tails marked with bold insignia, propellers already beginning to churn. The sound rose like thunder, a symphony of engines clearing their throats for battle. Jamie’s own plane – Bonnie Lass – waited at the edge of the line, her nose painted with a pin-up girl whose smile was a bit chipped by weather and war. He reached out, patting the cold metal as he passed beneath the wing. “Ready, old girl?” he murmured, low enough for no one but himself to hear. 

John raised a brow. “Talking to her again, Fraser?”

“Aye,” Jamie said without shame. “She’s carried me home every time. She’s earned a word or two.” John gave a small huff, but Jamie caught the flicker of fondness in his eye as he laid a hand on his own fuselage. 

The crew was already assembling: gunners checking their stations, the engineer swearing under his breath at a stubborn latch, the bombardier adjusting his mask. Jamie climbed under the ladder into the cockpit, his breath puffing white as it hit the cold interior. 

The seat cracked as he settled, the leather stiff from the frost. He ran a hand across the yoke, the metal biting cold, and let out a long breath. The ritual was always the same: touch, test, breathe. Each time carried the knowledge that it could be the last flight. 

John climbed into the plane next to his, slipping his headset into place. “Well,” he said, voice almost cheerful through the crackle of static, “let’s see what hell has in store for us today.” 

Jamie’s mouth curved faintly as he adjusted the dials where Claire’s photograph sat pinned to the dashboard. “Aye. Let’s.”

The engines roared, the vibration rattling through his bones, and the Bonnie Lass began to roll forward, her nose lifting toward the pale edge of dawn. 

The runway stretched out before them like a black ribbon, slick with frost. The wheels of the plane jolted over the seams, the engines straining, vibrating through the cockpit until Jamie’s teeth rattled. “Hold her steady.” Jamie’s hands gripped the yoke with practiced precision, his eyes locked on the faint glow of lamps along the tarmac. The plane shuddered, clawing its way forward until… release. The ground dropped away, and the flying fortress lifted into the sky. 

The sensation was always the same: a violent wrench, a leap into the void. For a heartbeat, Jamie felt the weightless suspension, the strange mix of terror and exhilaration. Below, the airfield fell behind them, its lights shrinking. The crew settled into rhythm: intercom checks, clipped words, the steady background roar of engines filling the silence. Jamie adjusted the throttle, the yoke twitching in his hands as he brought her to climb. 

One by one, the other B-17s joined, emerging from the gloom like great winged beasts. To an observer on the ground, it might have seemed graceful, almost an orchestrated dance of machines. Inside, however, each man knew it was fragile, the thin thread between survival and obliteration. 

“Fraser?” John’s voice again, dry but steady. “Remind me, why did I volunteer for this particular brand of insanity?” 

Jamie’s mouth quirked, though his eyes stayed sharp on the instruments. “Because ye thought the Royal Navy would muss yer hair.” 

John snorted, audible even through the crackle of the set. “Touché.”

The higher they climbed, the thinner the air, the colder the world became. Frost gathered at the edges of the windows, delicate as lace. Jamie flexed his fingers within his gloves, the stiff ache setting in. The oxygen mask pressed tight against his face, each breath a hiss. They reached altitude soon enough. England lay far behind, a memory lost in the clouds. Ahead, the expanse of the North Sea yawned open, dark and endless. Jamie cast a glance sideways, catching sight of John’s plane to his right. 

It was strange, the comfort of his presence. He was so different than his friends in Hawaii, his previous crew. John had nothing in common with Murtagh and Rupert and Willie and… and Angus. He was an unlikely friend, but one who steadied him, if only by sharing the weight of all they went through. 

Hours stretched. The monotony was its own torment, the hum of engines the only constant. Men fidgeted at their posts, some silent, some humming scraps of songs to themselves, as though sound could anchor them to earth. 

Then came the call. 

“Flak ahead.”

Jamie’s spine stiffened, stretching under the crisscross of scarring. His eyes darted up, scanning the horizon. At first, nothing. Then… black puffs against the gray sky, blooming like malignant flowers. The first bursts rattled the formation. Shrapnel tore through the air, invisible teeth snapping around them. The plane jolted, her frame shivering with the impact of concussive blasts. 

“Steady now, boys,” Jamie said, forcing his grip firm on the yoke. The flak grew heavier, the sky blossoming with it, each burst a reminder of how fragile their armor truly was — the air filled with the metallic clatter of debris, pinging against the fuselage. Somewhere aft, a gunner cursed. 

“Oh, Christ,” John muttered through the headset, “it’s stopping.” 

“Ye all know what that means. Keep yer eyes out.”

For a moment, it was peaceful flying. A streak flashed past – too close, the whistle of shrapnel slicing air. Jamie’s heart slammed against his ribs, but his hands never wavered. 

More bursts. More jolts. 

Then, as if the sky ripped itself open… the fighters appeared. 

Messerschmitts diving, sleek and fast, their engines a higher-pitched snarl. Jamie caught sight of them through the clouds, sharp silhouettes against the dull sky. The gunners roared to life, the Bonnie Lass vibrating with the staccato thunder of .50-caliber fire. 

The air was chaos. Tracers streaking red, bursts of flak, the sickening lurch as planes twisted and turned. A fortress to the left shuddered, fire blooming along its wing, spiraling down with a scream of crunching metal. 

“Jesus God,” one of the crew whispered over the intercom. 

Jamie forced the prayer away, eyes sharp, yoke steady. John was silent, still to the right. Their gazes met through the window for just a moment, and John gave a slight, grim nod. 

The world was nothing but fire and smoke and the pounding of Jamie’s own pulse. Every second stretched long, longer than anyone wanted. When at last the worst of the fighters peeled away, when the flak grew less furious, Jamie let out a long breath, shoulders aching from the grip he’d held on the yoke. 

But he knew it was only a brief reprieve. Ahead, Leipzig still waited. And the sky was far from finished with them. 

The target appeared through the thinning clouds like a silver scar upon the earth, the city sprawling beneath in the cold, gray light of morning. Jamie’s stomach twisted. The closer they drew, the heavier the world seemed to hang on the nose of the Bonnie Lass. 

“Tighten up,” Jamie barked into the intercom. The formation closed up, each B-17 a fragile cocoon for the men within. Flak clouds bloomed ahead, black and malevolent, as if the earth itself were spitting at them. 

“Good lord,” John muttered into the intercom. “I’d forgotten how it feels to be alive for only minutes at a time.” 

Jamie let out a dry laugh, though it caught in his throat. “Aye, it’s a cruel experience, but it keeps us all on our toes, aye?”

The bombardier’s voice cut through the intercom, tense: “Thirty seconds to drop.”

Jamie’s heart thundered as the ground grew nearer, a quilt of rooftops and smoke and splintered industry. Flak tore into the formation, each burst a potential death sentence. The plane lurched from a near miss, the metal frame groaning, as vibration shook the cockpit. One of the engines shuddered violently, smoke trailing from the cowling. Jamie’s eyes narrowed. The gauges screamed at him: temperature rising, pressure dropping. 

“Damn it to hell,” he cursed, twisting the throttles, coaxing life back into the wounded engine. Sparks flickered from the wingtip as flak shredded a small section of fuselage. 

John’s voice, tight but steady, cut through the alarm. “You okay over there?” 

“Engine one down,” was all he could reply. 

“You’ll get her home, Jamie.”

Thirty seconds were up before he knew it. Jamie’s hands moved in a practiced rhythm, guiding the plane with meticulous precision despite the fire in the engine, the quivering of the airframe, and the chorus of alarms screaming around him. 

“Bombs away!”

The release rattled through the fuselage, a violent shudder as the payload fell into the city below. Jamie exhaled, a breath he hadn’t realized he’d be holding. 

The fighters returned, a flash of dark shapes against the gray, and the crew’s guns erupted. Tracers zipped through the air, the acrid scent of gunpowder filling the cabin. Another engine caught a stray burst, sputtering before regaining rhythm. The plane bucked, pitching violently, her tail swaying like a ship in storm-swollen seas. Jamie felt every inch of her protest against the air, every tremor of the wings beneath his hands. One wrong move, one miscalculation, and it would all end here and now. 

He glanced toward John’s plane and his chest tightened. They had been thrown together in this violent symphony of life and death, and somehow, that bond – forged in fire and fear – was the only anchor he could trust. The sky around them was chaos: tracers everywhere, fighters weaving and diving. Smoke curled from the starboard engine, acrid and choking. Jamie forced the plane level, every muscle straining, every ounce of concentration tethered to the lives of the men within and the fragile wings that carried them on the wind. 

The target unfolded beneath them, jagged lines of industry and smoke rising from streets and rail yards, a city stitched together in grey. From this height, Jamie could see the beauty in the patterns, the poetry of the human hand on earth’s canvas… but beauty and death danced together. More flak rose like black blooms from the ground, exploding into fiery petals that tore at the sky and rattled the steel of the aircraft. 

Jamie’s stomach clenched. “Steady now,” he muttered to himself more than to anyone else, fingers tight, his knuckles pale beneath the gloves. “Easy, easy…”

John’s voice came sharp and steady, a tether in the storm. “Bloody hell, Jamie, think they’ll mind if we file a complaint with Heaven about their welcome party?”

Jamie let out a breath that was half-laughter, half-grimace. “Aye, might need to write it on aerogram paper for posterity.”

Just then, another engine began to stutter, coughing smoke. Jamie’s heart thumped violently. Sparks danced along the previously unmarred wingtip, tiny fireflies of metal against the pale sky. The plane shuddered again, but Jamie gritted his teeth. The oil pressure was dropping. A plane was fragile, but the men inside were fiercer, bound by duty and trust and the unspoken understanding that they were in it together. 

He thought of Claire, then. He glanced at her photo pinned to the dashboard and imagined her waiting for him. The handfasting was still fresh in memory, although beginning to fade a bit at the edges. He could remember the warmth of her hand in his, the scent of her hair, the curve of her mouth in laughter. Those thoughts were dangerous just now, might be a wee bit reckless, but necessary – an anchor to pull him back from the edge of panic. She was reason to survive, to keep the plane in the sky despite the smoke, the flak, the shuddering wings. 

The formation peeled away from the city. Jamie’s jaw ached from the tension. He heard a warning alarm over the headset. “Who’s struggling back there?” 

“Always me, it seems,” John responded over the static. “Right far engine is hit. Holding steady… for now.” 

“Keep an eye on her.” He allowed himself a small, sardonic grin. “We’re lucky the sky hasn’t eaten us yet. But best believe me, it’s hungry today.” 

John chuckled over the radio. “You always find the humor, Fraser, even when the angels themselves are taking names.”

Jamie allowed himself a half-smile, but his eyes were already scanning the horizon, plotting the way home, calculating fuel, gauging the damage. Each second was precious, every beat of the engines might be the last. If they’d taken this much damage already, how much more was to come on the flight home? 

He pictured Claire again: her letters, her laughter, her reprimands, the warmth of her gaze. If he survived, she would be waiting for him. If he did not… he would hope that at least she’d be given his last letter, staying in his chest back in the barracks. But surviving… he would survive. He had to. 

Another burst of flak tore through the sky, closer this time. He tried not to think too hard about the plane in the back of the formation that spiraled toward the earth. He tried not to think about how the gunner didn’t see any white puffs of parachutes. He tried not to think. Tried. Tried. 

Before too long, the English coastline came into view, and above the roar, above the trembling metal, above the fear, he allowed himself to breathe for the first time in hours. The airfield stretched before them, dust rising from the engines as crew scurried to tend the battered planes. Jamie guided the Bonnie Lass down the tarmac, every inch of the plane and her crew screaming about exhaustion. His hands were steady as he cut the engines, the roar fading into silence. The hit engines may have survived, but the firefight had left its mark on the plane, and on him. 

John Grey’s hand clapped him on the shoulder soon after his feet hit the ground. “Home again.” 

“Aye, but barely.” His gaze swept over the rest of the airfield, half-expecting to see his Hawaiian crew among the returning planes. Instead, he sent a quick prayer that they were safe, wherever they were. 

Debriefing followed, sterile and exhausting. Officers barked questions, engines hummed in the background, and Jamie answered as best he could, recounting altitudes, his mind a careful ledger of life and death. By the time the debrief ended, Jamie’s body ached in ways that made sleep feel like a distant fantasy. He wanted nothing more than the simplicity of his cot, the rough sheets under him, and the lull of planes, a white-noise companion to deep sleep and fought-off nightmare. 

John jogged up beside him, blocking his path. “Sleep can wait. Club’s open. Survivors get double drinks.” Jamie groaned and rubbed his face, but allowed John to steer him toward the glow of lights. John pushed open the door of the club and was immediately hit with the scents of whisky, sweat, and tobacco, thick and warm in contrast to the dreary English air. Here at least, the war could be drowned out for a few extra hours in drink and laughter. 

“Ah, there’s our survivors!” Charlie, a new pilot, cheered. Charlie and some of the other new boys were leaning against the bar. “Didn’t think you’d actually make it back in once piece this time, Fraser. Thought we might have to bury you in the mud.” 

Jamie snorted, a rough laugh. “Aye, well… the mud still wants me, but I’m still standing for now. Barely. And ye, John,” he nudged his friend, “Yer not about to hand me the bragging rights for today’s run without a fight, are ye?”

John laughed, lifting his glass in mock solemnity. “Judging by the smoke still coming off both our engines, I think neither of us particularly deserves bragging rights, but maybe a few extra pints.” 

Jamie eased into a stool beside his friend, the music vibrating through the floorboard. Around him, other pilots – some familiar faces, some just shadows from the morning – were swapping stories, their laughter ringing loudly. 

“Did anyone else see the look on the new bombardier’s face when he dropped the payload? Poor kid looked like he wanted to spill his guts!” 

“Ach, give the lad a break, it was his first run!” Jamie joked. The young man in question was taking the ribbing with a smile, if his face was still a bit green from the flight. The men laughed again, banishing the ghosts of the morning. Humor, he knew, was a weapon as sharp as any bullet. 

“Tell me, Jamie,” the bombardier – George – said, leaning closer and lowering his voice, “do you ever get used to it? The climb, the jump, the screaming sounds? Or is it always like staring death straight in the eye and hoping she’s in a generous mood?” 

Jamie’s smile faltered. He had stared death in the eye more times than he liked to count, and each time, it had laughed at him. Tempted him. Promised to claim him, one day. “Aye,” he said slowly. “Ye never get used to it. But ye find small ways to survive it. Ways to keep yer mind from breaking. And ye find good friends to help ye through it.”

John raised an eyebrow, apparently listening in. “Flattery, Jamie? I thought you had a reputation for hard truths. I’ll take the rare compliment, though.” 

Jamie smirked. “Hard truths are for the air. Down here, I’m jes’ trying to keep us all intact.” 

Jamie and George fell into companionable silence for a beat, watching the men around the shout, the women dancing near the band, and the drinks sloshing onto the floor. His mind wandered, as it always did these days, to the Hawaiian crew he’d left behind, scattered across European squadrons, hoping that each of them had landed safely after their own missions. He imagined them here too, laughing, alive, defying the odds, just as he had. The thought warmed him even as the unease of the day’s flights lingered in his bones. 

“Another round?” John asks. “I think we’ve all earned it today.”

Jamie nodded, lifting his glass. “To the lads we’ve lost, and the ones who make it back to tell the tale.” A chorus of cheers followed, the men slamming down their glasses, the whisky burning its way through the tiredness lodged in their bones. For a moment, Jamie felt grounded among his brothers-in-arms, shoulder to shoulder, bound by duty and a shared sense of freedom. 

The door across the room opened then, a chill draft pushing into the warmth of the club. It was Major Randall. 

Frank Randall. 

Jamie’s jaw tightened around the rim of his glass as the officer strode in with that peculiar air of entitlement, scanning the room until he fixed his eyes on the group of pilots. His face broke into a politician’s smile. Thin. Polished. Never warm. 

“Gentlemen,” Frank said smoothly. “Quite the feat today, making it back in mostly one piece.” His eyes flicked, quick as a knife, to Jamie before sliding past him to the others. “Well done. You’ve earned your drink tonight.” 

The table cheered oblingingly, some of the men pounding their fists on the wooden table. Compliments from a higher officer carried weight. 

John muttered under his breath, just loud enough for Jamie to hear, “Bloody vulture, sniffing around like he’s one of us still.” Jamie had learned that Frank moved out of the flying realm altogether after transferring to England and into more covert operations in intelligence. Fitting, Jamie thought, for someone as slimy and secretive as he was. He just nodded at John’s comment, keeping his glass steady, eyes never leaving Randall. 

Frank strolled a bit closer to their table, hands clasped neatly behind his back. “Not all of you, of course, looked so steady in the air as Captain Grey here,” he said lightly, though there was an edge beneath his words. “Some looked, a bit rattled, wouldn’t you say, Captain Fraser?”

The deliberate emphasis on his name was like a match to tinder. Jamie’s grip tightened on the glass. He forced a thin smile, tilting his head. “Aye, Major, the sky does have a way of shaking some things loose, but I assure ye that we can handle anything thrown our way, no matter how inconvenient they may be.” 

The men around them chuckled, taking it for banter, already returning to their drinks and chatter. But Frank’s dead eyes hardened, locking on Jamie’s with a private malice. 

Leaning ever so slightly forward, Frank lowered his voice, meant for Jamie alone. “Not the safest of pastimes, is it? Flying headlong into death. A pity, really… if one were to fall before writing home.” His mouth curled at the edge, a smirk no one else caught. 

Jamie set his glass down carefully, every movement precise, deliberate. Then he leaned in too, close enough that his own voice was only a rasp meant for Randall’s ear. “Say one more word like that, and I’ll break ye in half. Rank or no, uniform or no, I’ll no’ be taunted by a coward who’s never felt the burn of flak or the cold of a cockpit at twenty thousand feet. Do ye understand me?”

Frank’s smile faltered just a fraction, the mask slipping, though he recovered quickly. Straightening, he adjusted his jacket, clearing his throat. “Enjoy your evening, gentlemen,” he said, his voice returning to its public tone. And with that, he turned and strode away, leaving a sour taste in Jamie’s mouth. John arched a brow, watching Randall’s retreating back. “I know you said you had worked together at Pearl Harbor… but is he a friend of yours?”

“No,” he answered curtly. “No friend at all.” Jamie briefly recounted how he was connected to Claire, and how he and the Major had parted. Then men laughed at something else then, the air lightening, but Jamie’s chest burned with the restrained violence of the moment, his mind already turning toward the only person who could steady him again. 

The club was alive with chaos and noise that only men who’d looked death in the face could make. Whoops and hollers rose above the hum of conversation and the clink of glasses. A handful of pilots and crew were elbowing each other, shouting about the “new girls” who’d arrived at the base, daring one another to score a dance or a drink. Jamie let the crowd swirl around him, a careful observer, sipping his whisky and pretending he wasn’t as keyed up as the others. 

“Come on, Fraser!” one of the men bellowed, clapping him on the shoulder. “Grab yourself a drink, a dance, and a girl or two!”

Jamie shook his head, lips curling upward. “I’ve got someone waiting,” he said, eyes lowering to the amber liquid in his glass, pretending the ice and burn were the only company he needed. 

John, ever-perceptive, worked his way back through the crowd and leaned in with a smirk. “Ah, just the man I wanted to talk to,” he said. “How’s Claire doing these days?” 

Jamie’s ears burned. “She’s well, last I heard from her. Should be in New York.”

John pressed, grin widening. “You look like a man half-caught in prayer and half-caught in trouble every time I catch you looking at her photograph.”

He bit back a smile. “She’s… important to me.” 

John leaned back, arms crossed, still grinning. “Important? That’s not what I’d call it. That’s true love, plain and simple. The sort that makes a man look dumbstruck in public, lose himself in his thoughts at the bar, and think the room shrinks to a spotlight when she walks in. I’ve seen all but the last in you when you’re thinking of her.” 

“Ye speak as if ye ken love,” he said. 

“I… I haven’t had it for myself,” he drank slowly. “But I’ve seen the way you look at that photograph. Suppose she walked in here tonight, what then? Could you keep your head, or would we all get to see the formidable James Fraser crumble at the sight of your own Bonny Lass?”

Jamie’s breath hitched slightly, though he gave no sign of it, sipping his whisky with a deliberate calm. But his heart, betraying him, thumped erratically against his ribs. Could he keep his head? Could he remain professional if she – if she – were really here? 

“Well, John,” he said at last, his voice quiet now, “she’s not here, is she? And if she were, I suppose we’d… wait and see.”

John snorted, shaking his head. “A fair answer, but the question is almost rhetorical. I know love when I see it, Jamie. And I have a feeling you’ll know, too, in just a moment.” 

Jamie kept his eyes lowered to his glass, but then a movement at the far end of the club drew his eye. A ripple of color in the shadows, a tilt of the head, a figure standing amidst the crowd. Something about her stance, the way she held herself… he’d seen it before, countless times, in the sand, in a hospital, in a bungalow a world away. 

His glass paused mid-lift. 

John followed his gaze, eyebrows lifting. “Well?” he prompted, a sly grin tugging at his lips. Jamie’s heart hammered, and he set the glass down carefully, as if the whisky could steady him against the storm in his chest. He turned fully toward the figure, and the room seemed to fade around him. Everything was a blur of shadow, light, and smoke. 

“Claire?” he whispered under his breath, as if speaking her name could summon her closer… or shatter the fragile hope he carried in his chest. 

The din of the club faded into background noise. Jamie felt the room shrink around him, his focus laser-sharp on the possibility that the one constant he’d carried all these months, through every flight across hellish skies, was really here. 

He took a careful step forward, every sense taut with anticipation. John’s hand on his shoulder was steadying, grounding him, but Jamie barely noticed. The heat rising in his chest, the almost unbearable thrill of recognition, the electric pull toward her… it was all-consuming. 

And for the first time since he had arrived on these shores, he allowed himself to hope.

Chapter Text

“Claire?”

The name left his lips like a prayer, barely a whisper over the hum of the room. She turned. Or she began to… he could see the shimmer of light in her hair, the curve of her cheek, the way her mouth seemed to part just enough to speak his name… 

And then she vanished. 

The sound came first. The deafening and familiar roar of engines. The echo of a gunner’s shout, the pounding of his own heart. A bright flash, white, blinding…

Jamie jerked upright, gasping, the thin mattress beneath him damp with sweat. For a moment, he couldn’t remember where he was. The roar in his ears faded into the steady drip of rain on canvas and the low rumble of a waking base. The scent of oil and damp wool filled the air. He was back in his cot. Back in the tents at Thorpe Abbotts. 

For a long moment, Jamie sat there with his hands pressed to his face, dragging in slow, uneven breaths. His chest still ached with the echo of her presence, the phantom warmth of her in his hands, the wild and impossible joy of seeing her again. 

But it had been a dream. 

Only a dream. 

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, staring down at the concrete floor as if he could will her into being. The memory of her voice still clung to him like the mist. 

“Christ, Fraser, you’re up early,” came John’s voice, rough with sleep. “You planning to win the war before breakfast, and without me?”

Jamie huffed out a breath. “Couldna sleep.”

John squinted at him in the dark as he rummaged for his boots. “Nightmares?”

“Not exactly.”

John gave him a look, perceptive but kind. “Ah. Her.”

Jamie didn’t answer right away. He reached under his pillow and drew out the folded photograph. The edges were soft from handling, the image slightly faded from time and sweat: Claire, laughing, sunlight in her hair on the Hawaiian coast. 

“Aye,” he said finally. “Her.”

John sighed, pulling on his jacket. “If I had a pound for every man here haunted by a woman back home, I’d have retired by now.”

Jamie smiled, his thumb brushing the corner of the photo. “She’s no’ just any woman, John.”

“As you remind me often enough. Did you know you say her name when you’re dreaming?” Red crept up Jamie’s neck. John let out a soft chuckle and sat down beside his friend. “What was it this time? The dream?”

Jamie hesitated, then nodded, eyes closing. “She was there. In the club. I could see her, feel her. I–” he broke off, shaking his head. “It felt real. Like she was reaching for me, and I woke before she did.” 

John sat on the edge of the cot, expression unreadable. “Dreams are cruel bastards. They give you everything, only to tear it away before morning.” 

Jamie didn’t trust his voice, so he merely nodded. 

The rain picked up outside, tapping softly against the corrugated metal roof. Outside, men were shouting orders, and breakfast tins clattered. The world kept moving, indifferent to the ache of one man’s simple dream. 

John stood, clasping Jamie’s shoulder. “Come on. You’ll feel better with coffee in you. Or at least a bit more human.”

Jamie rose slowly, tucking the photograph back under his pillow. He glanced around the tent, taking an inventory of the physical things he valued most: his flight jacket hanging on the end of the cot, his boots neatly on the floor, the thin roll of family tartan folded and placed in the chest under his bed, a strip of gauze from home placed with her photo under his pillow. He ran a hand over it, feeling the familiar weave beneath his fingers. He didn’t know why his last letter had gone unanswered, but he knew that he should have heard something by now. Perhaps his letter got lost in the flood of correspondence from Europe. Maybe it had arrived, but she’d already departed. Soon, he told himself, they’d find each other once again. Whether it was here in England or in their written words, it didn’t matter to him. 

He drew in a deep breath and straightened, the soldier returning to his body. “Aye. Let’s get on wi’ it.”

As they stepped out into the wet morning, Jamie’s eyes lifted instinctively toward the airfield. For a heartbeat, he thought he saw her there, walking along the tarmac, hair blown by the wind. 

But he blinked, and she was gone. 

The train from London groaned and hissed as it slowed into Diss Station, its brakes squealing. Claire pressed her palm against the cool glass, eyes fixed on the endless expanse of green beyond the window – flat fields, muddy lanes, clusters of trees bowed low under the weight of English mist. She had barely slept two hours the night before. The Red Cross uniform she wore was wrinkled from travel, her boots streaked with mud, her hair hastily tied back (and coming more undone with every passing minute). Still, a strange thrill coursed beneath her exhaustion. Every mile had been carrying her closer to Jamie. England was gray and cold, but it held him, and that was enough. 

A conductor’s shout cut through the air, and Claire gathered her things – a duffel bag with folded clothes, a small leather purse with her identification and money, and a shoulder bag with a few prized keepsakes, chief among them a photo of Jamie and the gauze he had bound around their hands that night on the beach. 

The platform was crowded with soldiers, nurses, and civilians alike, all a swirl of khaki and gray. Claire stepped down carefully, knees stiff from the journey from London. The air smelled of coal smoke and damp wool. She found her escort quickly, a young man stationed at the military base. 

“Nurse Beauchamp? Orders are to report to the airfield at Thorpe Abbotts, ma’am. Got the transport waiting for you and the other girls and I’m ready when you are.” 

He couldn’t have been older than nineteen, his freckles barely visible beneath a film of grime. She thanked him, following him toward the waiting jeep. Every sound – the thrum of engines, the distant planes overhead, the boots on wet concrete – seemed sharper than it should have been. 

She was finally here. 

But Jamie didn’t know. 

He didn’t know she was coming. The last letter she’d sent before departing New York had gone unanswered. She’d told herself it was simply the post – letters were lost all the time in war, especially when they were travelling over oceans. It was merely an error… it had to be. She refused to believe that his following letter would be the one bearing a black seal. 

He was here, and so was she. 

That was more than enough. 

The mess tent smelled of burnt coffee and bacon grease. Instead of toast, sausage, and beans like every other morning, real glass cups held orange juice (even if it had been powdered just minutes before). Ceramic plates were piled high with eggs, real bacon, jam, and clotted cream, and the men… the men were devouring it all. To others, it may have been heaven, but to the men who had been in the most hellish of skies, they saw it for what it was: a last supper. Neither John nor Jamie commented on the meal’s presence. 

John was talking about some new lieutenant, an American from Georgia who spoke with an accent so thick he could hardly be understood, but Jamie only heard every other word. His mind drifted back to his dream. He wondered what she was doing now. Whether she’d slept at all. Whether she’d felt, in some strange way, that he’d dreamed of her. 

“Earth to Fraser,” John said, waving a sausage on his fork. “You’re off in the clouds again, and we haven’t even taken off yet.”

Jamie gave a faint smile. “Just thinking.”

John leaned back, crossing his arms. “I still don’t know how you do it, keeping her face in your head like that. I can barely remember what my own mother looks like some days.”

“That’s the thing. I could forget everything else – the sound of the sea, the feel of home, the taste of my favorite whisky – but no’ her. I could never forget her.”

John shook his head. “You’re a bloody poet. It’s unfair, you know. Some of us barely manage to write a letter without sounding like flunked-out schoolboys.”

Jamie chuckled. “Maybe it’s the Scotsman in me. My da always used to say we’ve got a weakness for the three w’s: whisky, words, and women.” He pushed his plate away, restlessness beginning to stir. The feeling that came between flights, when the ground felt too still. Before John could reply, a shadow fell across the table. Lieutenant Taylor – a slim, wiry man, perpetually spitting some chewing tobacco – stood there with a folder in his hand. 

“Orders to report to the briefing tent,” he said, sliding it across to Jamie. “Maintenance wants another look at the Fortree before you take her up again.”

Jamie nodded. “Aye, thank ye.”

When Taylor walked off, John groaned. “Already? Christ, we just got back.”

“Ye didn’t think this breakfast was just a show of thanks, did ye?”

Jamie unfolded the paper and stared at the print. The names of the crew, the report time, and vague details. It didn’t matter. It all blurred together after a while, just a mix of coordinates and clouds. John watched him for a long moment. “You know, you could take a rest day. No one would fault you for it. You could request some R&R.”

Jamie met his gaze. “Ye think rest would make any of this easier?”

John sighed. “Didn’t think so.”

They sat in silence after that, listening to the distant thrum of engines being tested before the flights. When they finally stepped out into the morning, the rain had thinned to a mist. The airfield stretched before them, gray and endless. Ground crews moved like ants beneath the hulking shapes of the bombers, their engines growling in the fog. Jamie stopped at the edge of the tarmac, his gaze lifting toward the sky. Low clouds hung heavy overhead, the kind that swallowed sound and light alike. He could feel it in his bones – the weight of what came next. 

John came up beside him, hands shoved into his pockets. “You ever think about what you’ll do when this is all over?” 

“Aye. Sometimes. But I try not to dwell on it too much.”

“But?”

Jamie looked toward the horizon. “But I’ll find Claire. Get married in the eyes of the law. Build something quiet. Maybe plant a field. Have a few bairns, God willing. Or maybe I’ll just… breathe.”

John smiled, tilting his head. “You ever think that she’s out there, thinking the same thing?”

“Every day.”

They stood there a moment longer before the call came from the hangar. Another day, another flight, another chance to come back… or not. 

As they turned toward the noise, something caught his eye. Through the haze and the distant hum, he thought he saw a figure standing near the nurses’ barracks – a familiar silhouette, watching the field. His heart stuttered. In a blink, she was gone. Whoever she was. 

“You alright?” John asked. 

Jamie drew in a slow breath. “Aye,” he said softly. “Just seeing ghosts.” But his hand drifted to his chest, where her last letter rested beneath the fabric, and prayed.

The drive out to the base took nearly an hour. The sky hung low, thick with clouds; the countryside was a muted palette of green and gray. The young man, Charlie, perhaps sensing her silence, chatted with the other women in the keep instead. The ladies were thrumming with excitement, all nervous energy and speedy conversation. Charlie spent the drive asking all about their lives back home, what had brought them way out here, and everything in between. Claire half-listened, her thoughts lost in another world. 

She’d imagined this journey so many times that it felt like she was walking through a dream. Every time the road curved, every bend in the hedgerows, she imagined she might see him just around the corner… but every turn only revealed more grey. 

When they finally reached the airfield, she saw it first as a sprawl of shapes rising from the fog: hangars, control towers, rows of fortified tents in the rain. Dozens of B-17s sat waiting on the tarmac, their wings heavy with dew, the glass gleaming. Men were moving everywhere, mechanics in overalls, pilots with their jackets half-zipped, medics carrying supplies from an ambulance that had just arrived. She hopped down from the keep, clutching her papers to her chest, and saw him. 

No red hair, no lopsided grin, no towering height. 

Not Jamie.

Frank. 

He was standing outside the operations building, his cap pulled low against the drizzle, speaking with a group of officers. For a moment, she almost didn’t recognize him. His posture was straighter, his face harder than it had been in Boston or Hawaii. He turned then, eyes catching hers. The sight of him made her stomach clench. It had been months now since she’d last seen him. 

“Claire.”

“Frank.”

He dismissed the men around him with a curt nod and walked toward her, his expression unreadable. For a fleeting second, she saw relief in his eyes… but it vanished like smoke, leaving something much cooler behind. 

“You’ve made it,” he said, voice clipped. “I wasn’t aware the Red Cross was still transferring women overseas.” 

“They were short on trained nurses,” she replied. “I volunteered.”

He smiled faintly, but there was no warmth in it. “Of course you did.” His tone was pleasant enough to the untrained ear, but Claire heard the edge beneath. “You’ll be briefed on some safety aspect shortly,” he continued, glancing down at his papers. “New arrivals are to attend the intelligence orientation first. Then you’ll be sent to medical. We can’t have anyone stumbling around base without knowing where they are…” he met her eyes as he finished, “or who they might run into.”

Frank turned on his heel, beckoning her to follow. She fought the urge to roll her eyes at his continuous assumption she’d follow him anywhere, but walked behind him with the other new nurses to a low building off the hangar. Inside, the air was stale, filled with the low hum of murmuring voices and the scratch of pens on paper. A few dozen new nurses sat lined in rows, notebooks open, while Frank took his place at the front of the room. 

“Ladies,” he began, his voice projecting with practiced authority, “welcome to RAF Thorpe Abbotts. You’ll be serving one of the most critical units in this fight. Pilots come back here from missions over occupied Europe – if they come back at all – and your job is to keep them alive long enough to fly again.” Whispers rippled through the room. Claire’s throat went dry. “You’ll see burns, frostbite, bullet wounds, and more psychological strain than you can imagine. You’ll work long hours, and you’ll do so without complaint. Is that understood?” The women nodded. Frank’s eye flicked toward Claire for a fraction of a second, too fast for anyone else to notice, but long enough to make her shudder. He continued with protocols for safety, what could and could not be shared outside of this air base. It seemed that what could not be shared was practically anything besides what they had at mess that day. 

After the briefing, as her fellow nurses socialized in the stuffy room, she headed for the doorway, desperate for an escape. Desperate for Jamie. She had half a mind to make up an excuse, any excuse, to leave, but Frank’s voice cut through the chatter. 

“Nurse Beauchamp, a word.” She turned again, once again forced to follow up to an occupied corner of the room. “Try not to get too… distracted, during this assignment,” he said quietly. “Emotions run high here. It’s a dangerous place. I’d hate to see you get involved in things you don’t understand, with people you don’t understand, and have these boys compromised because of some wartime fling.”

Her anger flared. “With all due respect, sir, I believe it might be you who needs to remember their place.” 

His smile didn’t reach his eyes. “We’ll see about that, won’t we, sweetheart?” He dismissed her with a wink, turning back toward the group of officers already drawn to the new nurses. 

Claire’s nails bit into her palms as she pushed past the doorway, letting it slam shut. Somewhere outside, Jamie Fraser was preparing for another flight, unaware that she was here on the ground, waiting for him. And she would not let Frank or anyone else stand in her way. 

She’d wanted to head out first thing to find Jamie, but instead was intercepted by one of the doctors, alerting her that her first shift was about to begin. Soon, my love, she whispered, and hoped he could hear.

By mid-morning, she had been assigned a cot in the nurses’ quarters, briefed on her duties, and given her first rotation in the base infirmary. It was everything she’d expected – crowded, chaotic, purposeful. She threw herself into the work, grateful for the distraction. Somewhere on the tarmac, the crews were preparing for another morning mission. She could hear the rumble of engines being tested, the distant laughter of men trying to ward off the night. 

“Fraser! You’re leading the line tomorrow. Hope your bird’s ready!”

“Aye, you better hope ye can keep up!”

Claire froze.

Jamie. Jamie. 

She turned toward the window, straining to see through the rain, but there was only fog and shadow and movement. 

She couldn’t see him. But she knew he was there.

Alive.

Jamie and John sat with the rest of their crews in the briefing tent, waiting for the higher-ups to join them. Across the room, a few pilots were crowded around a radio, all rifling through news article headlines and base-wide news alerts. 

“Anything new?” someone called out. 

“Same as always,” the pilot answered. “Berlin’s socked in. Weather looks foul over the Channel. Oh, and we’ve got new Red Cross nurses. Arrived early this morning.”

Jamie didn’t look up at first. It was John who caught the flicker of recognition. 

“Did he say Red Cross nurses?” he asked with a raised brow. 

“Aye, that’s what he said,” Jamie murmured, distractedly stirring his coffee. 

“You don’t suppose…”

“Dinna be daft. There are hundreds of Red Cross nurses stationed around England these days.” 

“But only one with a name that’s been falling out of your mouth since you arrived here. What was it again? Ah, yes – Beauchamp, was it? I can hardly remember, you talk about her so very rarely–”

Jamie’s breath hitched at the echo of Claire’s last name from across the ro. He couldn’t breathe. 

John’s smile faded. “Jamie?”

He swallowed hard, heart thundering. “Did they say who?”

The pilot with the radio glanced over. “What’s that?”

“The new nurses,” Jamie said, forcing the words to come as casually as possible. “Where did they come from? Has anyone met them yet?”

The pilot shuffled a few papers, pulling a crisp one from the back of the pile. “Uh, it says they’re part of the London unit.” He continued scanning, not looking at Jamie. “Head nurse is Beauchamp, came with a few aides, posted here for medical rotations and field response.”

Jamie went still. The air seemed to vanish from the room. John let out a low whistle. “Well I’ll be damned.” 

Jamie rose, barely aware of his own movement. He stared toward the windows, where the gray morning light pooled over the rain-slick glass. For the first time in months, the world felt like it had turned right-side up again.

She was here.

On this base.

Within walking distance.

John watched him with quiet amusement. “Go on then,” he said, nudging Jamie’s arm. “Go make a fool of yourself.”

Jamie half-smiled. “You think I’ll just walk up to the infirmary like a lovesick bairn?”

“I think you’ve been exactly that for months,” John said, sipping his coffee. “Might as well make it official.”

Jamie was already moving, his jacket half on, when a shadow appeared in the doorway.

“Fraser,” barked a voice. Colonel Barnes stood there, clipboard in hand, his expression grim. “Briefing in ten minutes.”

Jamie blinked. “Sir, I—”

“Orders from Ops,” Barnes said curtly. “You’ve got fifteen minutes to the tarmac. Get your men ready.”

Jamie’s heart sank.

John sighed, pushing back from the table. “Well, there goes your romantic reunion, Romeo.”

Jamie’s jaw tightened. “She’s here, John. Here.”

“And she’ll still be here when you get back,” John said firmly, clapping him on the shoulder. “So don’t go crashing the bloody plane trying to impress her, aye?”

Jamie managed a weak grin. “Aye. I’ll do my best.”

But as he walked out into the cold, the fog rolling in over the airfield, he couldn’t shake the hollow feeling that pressed at his ribs. Every mission carried the same risk — that one wrong hit, one failed engine, and there’d be no “after.”

And today, of all days, the thought of dying felt unbearable.

Chapter Text

John pulled his collar higher and squinted toward the line of bombers, their silhouettes hulking and half-shrouded in fog. The Bonnie Lass sat a plane ahead of the Winged Victory, John’s plane, their nose art already streaked with frost. Jamie was there, one boot on the ladder, head bent toward his navigator. He looked up when he heard John’s voice. 

“Morning, Grey. Looks like we’ve got clear skies and a suicide wish.” 

John barked a laugh, slapping his shoulder as he passed. “You have a funny way of saying good luck.”

Jamie grinned – lopsided and infuriatingly calm – and lifted his thermos of coffee. “Slàinte, and good luck.”

The engines started one by one, coughing life into a rolling chorus that shook the ground. It always began like that: mechanical, methodical, almost peaceful. And it always ended the same way: fire in the sky, smoke, silence. 

They were almost two hours in before the first wave of fighters appeared. The sun had climbed just enough to burn through the haze, laying a hard light over the formation. The bombers flew tight, engines humming in rhythm, contrails like white ribbons behind them. John adjusted his headset and leaned forward a bit. “Formation looks solid. Navigator says thirty minutes to target.” 

“Copy that,” came Jamie’s voice through the static. “Ye sound disappointed, John. Missing yer morning dose of chaos on the ground?”

“Not at all. I rather like my breakfast threatening to leave my stomach.”

Laughter crackled over the comms. The crews were in good spirits – teasing, trading jabs, doing anything to break the monotony of the cold and the fear of what could come. 

“Hey Grey,” Captain Whitney chimed in, “tell your buddy Fraser to quit shaking the damn clouds with that lumbering tub of his!”

Jamie shot back, “Aye, well, maybe if ye could fly in a straight line, I’d no’ have to keep yer arse in line every five minutes.”

They all laughed at that, the sound briefly warming the frost collecting in his veins. The drop was seamless, explosions blooming black and red over sprawling city streets. No one commented on anything but a vague congratulations for a job well done. There was no use thinking about what the bombs had hit besides the target. Not while they were up here.

Then… a flicker on the horizon. 

The first warning came from Jamie. “Fighters, eleven o’clock high.”

John’s vision snapped to the black dots swarming in the distant edge of the sky, moving fast. Too fast. “All crews, eyes up!” he barked into the headset. “Here they come.”

The Luftwaffe hit like a relentless wave. Messerschmitts diving out of the glare, sunlight flashing off their wings.

“Jesus Christ!” John’s tail gunner shouted. “They’re all over us!” Tracer fire streaked past the cockpit, red ribbons of light. The Fortress shuddered, metal screaming under the impact. John gritted his teeth, gripping the yoke tight as the plane rattled. 

“Keep to the formation!” he yelled. “Do not brake.”

Through the haze of incoming flak, John caught sight of the Bonnie Lass once again, holding the line, still steady. Then came the call from Jamie’s waist gunner: “Fraser, I think… I think Mackie’s gone…” 

“Repeat yerself, Williams. What the hell happened?” Jamie's voice shot through. 

“I… it must have been a stray bullet from the fighters, and I turned to say something to him and… and he’s dead, sir.”

John’s stomach lurched at the conversation on a plane ahead. The radio was filled with noise – shouting, static, the sickening thud of rounds returning, tearing through the metal. He tried to keep his eyes on the plane before him, but she was drifting lower now, her left engine belching smoke. 

“Fraser! Report!” 

“Number two’s running hot,” Jamie’s voice came back, strained but controlled. “We’ve got a fire in the left wing.”

“Drop back if you need! I’ll take over the lead!” 

“No.” A pause. John could nearly see Jamie’s saw set on the other end. “We’ll hold for as long as she holds us.”

The sky was a madhouse. Flak bursts so close they rocked the planes like toys tossed into the air. A plane behind John took a direct hit, according to the gunner. It split in midair before John could get a word in to the pilot. The tail spun off in a plume of flames. 

“Christ almighty,” John’s co-pilot whispered to no one in particular. He crossed himself, then put his fingers back to the controls, knuckles white. “They’re dropping like flies out here.”

John forced his attention back to the instruments. “Steady. We’re almost at the target over Berlin.”

But the sky didn’t care about targets. 

The smoke thickened in front of the glass of the Winged Victory. The heat rose. Then came the flash, a burst of light from the Bonnie Lass. 

“Another engine is gone, Captain!”

John’s heart hammered. “Fraser, you’re trailing heavy smoke… can you keep altitude?”

Jamie’s answer was more ragged this time. “We’re losing pressure. Hydraulics are failing. I… I think there’s a fuel leak somewhere. I’m trying to–”

Static swallowed the rest. 

“Fraser, say again?”

Nothing. 

John felt his breath leave him. Jamie’s bomber was sliding out of formation, dipping hard to the left. Flames roared across the fuselage, licking the side gunner’s hatch. One of the propellers seized, sparks arcing through the air. 

“Fuck! Fucking hell… John, I–”

“Fraser! Jamie! – pull up! Eject, damn it!” John shouted. It was useless. 

“Tell Claire…” Static. “Tell her I meant it.”

The Bonnie Lass rolled violently, its wing shearing against the slipstream. Through the fire and smoke, John saw one last glimpse of her: the painted nose art of a woman in flight, peeling under the heat of flames. 

“Look for chutes!” John barked to his crew. To the other pilots still alive. To God. To anyone. “Look, damn you! Parachutes, explosions on the ground, anything!”

But all John saw was a gaping hole where life had been. Nothing materialized. No white blossoms, no flares, no lingering radio sounds, no signs of escape. No signs of life. 

The Winged Victory began a slow, terrifying descent herself then. One wing dipped. Sparks danced along exposed struts. The fire grew. “Ball gunner down!” someone gasps on the radio. John choked, fury and grief coiled tight. He strained for a reply but got only static, and went out to the remaining crew. 

After what felt like a lifetime, the navigator spoke softly, “Flak’s easing. No sign of fighters… we might be through here.”

But John couldn’t hear him. He could still see the flames. The black spiral of smoke curling toward the earth. And he had no choice but to fly far, far away.

John flew through silence back to England. 

The hum of the remaining engines was steady, too steady, a mockery of the chaos that had just torn the heavens apart. His hands were still trembling on the yoke, his brow slick with sweat. Smoke lingered faintly in the cabin – an echo of the fires he’d seen. 

But the worst part was the quiet. 

The radio was dead. 

And James Fraser was gone. 

He’d seen it happen with his own eyes – the blaze, the spiraling descent, the last sliver of the Bonnie Lass swallowed by the clouds. No parachutes. No signals. Just that final, half-strangled sentence: “Tell Claire I meant it.”

Now, as John’s plane droned back across the channel with a third of the fellow pilots that had left that morning, the grief settled in his chest like lead. He’d lost men before, not least of which was the one curled up in his ball turret at that very moment. He’d lost crews and friends and people he’d believed to be invincible. But nothing had ever felt like this. He closed his eyes and for a moment, he was back in the club. 

The air was thick with cigarette smoke and swing music. Jamie was at the bar, jacket immaculate, as always, and grinning at something John had said. They’d both had far too much whisky. Enough to loosen the fear from their limbs, but not enough to fully forget what waited beyond the dawn. They talked for what felt like hours, swirling the amber in their glasses and talking about dreams beyond the skies. 

Jamie smiled toward his drink, watching the liquid in his glass slosh against the sides. “Can I ask ye something?” 

John nodded encouragingly. “Out with it.”

The music swelled around them. A bottle broke against the paved floor, but the air between the men turned softer. Jamie leaned forward, lowering his voice. “If something happens to me up there, promise me ye’ll be the one to tell her. Claire.”

John’s smile faltered. “Don’t start with that. You’ll come back. We both will.”

Jamie shook his head. “No, John. Promise me. You’re the only one here I’d trust with the news. Ye’d be kind, and gentle, and she knows ye. Well, not knows ye, but I’ve told her about ye. She’ll ken what ye say is true, and she’ll listen to what ye have to say. To what I tell ye to say to her, if I canna.”

John stared into his drink, the light catching on the etched glass. “No one wants to make that kind of promise. Don’t make me do it.”

“Then I’ll do it for you,” Jamie said softly and clinked his glass against John’s. “Ye’ll do it for me, and I’ll do the same for you, if ye wish. For whoever is waiting back home.”

John gave a shallow laugh. “There’s no one waiting back home. Besides my mother.”

Jamie frowned, sensing the weight behind the words. They stepped out into the cold air together for a smoke, the club’s music fading beyond the door. A cigarette twirled between John’s fingers. Jamie offered his lighter. The sky above them was cloudless for once, scattered with faint stars. For a long time, neither spoke. Then John said, almost too quietly, “It’s not that there’s no one back home.”

Jamie glanced at him, uncertain. 

“I prefer men,” John said simply. The confession hung in the night. “And the service doesn’t take kindly to the kind of man that says that proudly, so here I am.”

“But ye said it to me.”

“Yes, well, I trust you with my life already. It makes sense that I could trust you with my secrets, too.”

Jamie sobered and looked his friend in the eye. “Thank ye for telling me.” His eyes searched the ground for an answer to a question he couldn’t define. Eventually, he continued, “I can’t imagine that was easy for ye, and I am honored to keep yer secrets.” He paused once more before adding, “And I hope ye ken that this changes nothing for me, for you and I. I am truly glad to call ye a friend, John.”

John swallowed hard and tried to keep tears from falling. “Thank you, James.”

“Is all this why ye keep volunteering for flights?”

John’s twitch of a smile was bittersweet. “If I die up there, at least it’s in service to something greater than me. I’d die in uniform. With honor. It’d be better than those damned Blue Discharges, or being carted off to some institution where they’d… they’d do unimaginable things. At least this way, my death would mean something.” His voice cracked, just slightly. “If men like you die, you leave behind a life. A wife. Children. A name that someone will carry. If I die, I leave nothing. Just the hope that maybe one day… maybe one day, it’ll be different.”

He took another drag and exhaled. “And if that day comes, perhaps I could love someone freely. Find something like you.” The words came out rough, unguarded, and as soon as they were spoken, he flinched. “A love like you and Claire, I mean,” he corrected quickly. 

Jamie reached out and gripped his shoulder, firm. “John,” he said softly, “I ken jus’ fine what ye mean.” A red-hot flush crept up John’s neck, and his eyes kept a firm hold on the trampled grass beneath his feet. Jamie didn’t speak again for a few minutes. “So is it the eyes or the curls?”

John’s head snapped up to meet his eyes. “What?”

“That’s what all the lassies say to me – that I have the bonniest wee red curls, or the most twinkling blue eyes… which is it for you? Maybe it’s my dazzling personality–” The smirk on his face gave away the lightness of his tone. 

“You absolute arsehole. I open up, and I get teased for my trouble,” John elbowed him and chuckled. 

John met his eyes and found only tenderness. Jamie reached for his hand and clasped it in his. “I’ll talk to whoever ye wish me to, to speak yer name until my last breath if ye wish it so someone remembers ye with love… and know I tell ye true when I say that ye canna die. The world would be a far more dim place without ye, John Grey.”

John let out a trembling laugh. “And here I thought you only said things like that to your wife.” Jamie smiled. “Is she your wife? I never had much understanding of the whole ‘handfasting’ ordeal.”

Jamie chuckled. “She’s my wife in every way that matters. Once she’s here, we’ll make it official in the eyes of the law. But I ken she’ll be verra pleased to hear ye call her my wife.” His smile fell a bit. “That’s why this is so important to me. She is… she’s my whole world, John. Ye need to promise me ye’ll look after her if I dinna come back. She’ll likely bite yer head off and tell ye she doesna need a man, and she’s right, of course… but I’ll rest easier tonight knowing yer there if she wants ye. If she needs ye.”

John shook his head. “I couldn’t care for her as a husband should.”

“Oh, she wouldn’t let ye in her bed even if ye tried,” he coughed on a laugh, “but ye could provide for her the way a husband should: with loyalty, with kindness, with tenderness, with help, with talking, with being a home for her sorrows.” John only stared at his mud-caked boots. “She’ll need a friend, John. Someone who willna threaten to cage her. She’s been fighting her whole life to be more than what the world will allow. Ye’ll understand her more than anyone, especially… when I’m not there.”

John hesitated, then nodded slowly. “I promise to find her if you don’t come home. I will tell her what happened and what you want me to say. I will offer to support her – though if your stories are true, that woman sounds like a hell of a force to be reckoned with.” 

Jamie laughed in earnest. “Aye, she is a force. And God, I am lucky to love her.”

He squeezed John’s hand once before letting go. In another life, they might have talked for hours more, but dawn was waiting. 

Back in the cockpit, John’s vision blurred. The ghost of Jamie’s hand was still warm in his. Outside, the sky was bright. Clouds parted just enough to show the pale blue beneath. It was a day Jamie Fraser wouldn’t see. 

He stared out into the distance, toward where the land of the English coast met the sea, and whispered into the static, “For Claire, Jamie. I swear it.”

And he continued toward home, forced to leave James Fraser in his tailwind. 

John sat hollow behind the controls, eyes gritty from smoke and salt, muscles locked in for that half-frozen state between duty and despair. He hadn’t spoken since the last of the mayday calls went dead. The crew knew better than to fill the silence. Each of them carried their own ghosts from that day. 

They made it back on fumes: two engines failing, the tail riddled with bullet holes. The landing strip blurred beneath them as the bomber touched down with a violent jolt, skidding to a halt in a cloud of dust. “Cut engines,” he rasped, then sat motionless for a few moments, the weight of his oxygen mask pressing deep into his skin. 

“Captain?” his co-pilot ventured. “They’re waiting for us.”

John removed his headset and the mask slowly, setting them on the dashboard. His voice came out low and hoarse. “Get the crew checked out. Get Lieutenant Scott’s body out of the ball.”

On the tarmac, men were already gathering. Mechanics, medics, officers. Some were scanning the skies for the stragglers who would never come. Others stared at the returning bombers, trying to calculate who’d made it and who hadn’t. John stepped out into the open air, blinking against the brightness. He looked instinctively toward the sky, remembering too late that it would remain void of what he hoped, prayed, to see. When nothing appeared in the clouds, he joined his remaining crew in the waiting jeep heading toward the post-mission debrief.

The tent was sweltering, filled with stale air and sweat. Every returning crew was herded in, still streaked with soot and oil, their faces ghostly in the harsh light. An intelligence officer – Major Randall, John noticed distractedly – droned through the numbers of the planes lost, targets hit, crew members killed in action. John’s ears rang. Every word sounded far away. 

“And what about Captain Fraser’s plane? Any details?” the Major asked. 

A pause. Papers shuffled. 

“Reported down over the German countryside outside Berlin,” another pilot cut in softly. “No chutes spotted.” 

The room spun, and John steeled himself against the oncoming rush of emotion long enough to sign the flight report. When the meeting broke and the men stumbled out, bleary but shouting for drinks to aid in their distraction, John followed silently. 

The club was packed, just as every night. Someone shouted about being ‘bulletproof’ and John had the acute desire to say something about not being ‘shatterproof’ while slamming his glass into the young pilot’s forehead… but he simply stood at the edge of the crowd, drink untouched. 

“Hell of a cut you got there,” one of the men said to John, pointing to a gash through his right eyebrow. 

“Oh? Yes, I suppose so,” he answered, touching the slice to his skin and flinching. 

“You should head to the infirmary. That’s bad enough, you’ll likely need a few stitches.” 

John nodded slowly, absorbed in thought, and downed his glass in a single swallow. The sun stung his eyes outside, and he cursed the light for shining on him but not on the one who deserved its glow the most. 

The infirmary was too bright. White walls, clean sheets, antiseptic sting in the air. John sat on the edge of the cot, hands slack between his knees, while a medic stitched the gash above his eyebrow. The antiseptic stung, but it hardly registered. He was elsewhere – somewhere above the clouds, in the cold roar of engines, watching smoke bloom from the belly of a falling plane. 

“Next,” came a brisk voice. He looked up. The nurse standing over him was young, though there was nothing naïve in her expression. Her sleeves were rolled to her elbows, hands already gloved, her dark curls pinned hastily back. Her eyes were sharp, clear, and met his with practiced professionalism. “Head wound?” she asked, already examining the gash over his brow. “You’ll need stitches.”

John said nothing, only nodded once. 

“Name and rank? For the paperwork.” She reached for her instruments.

“Captain John Grey.” 

Her hands stilled and her eyes narrowed as if she’d misheard. “What did you say?”

He frowned slightly. “Name, John Grey. Rank, captain.”

The name hung in the air like a struck chord. She froze, a tremor passing through her shoulders. When she spoke again, her voice was softer. 

“You know Jamie.”

John blinked. It took a moment for her words to make sense, to pierce through the gof in his mind. And when they did, he looked her properly for the first time since his arrival. The dark hair, the steady fire set in her bones, the faint freckles from the tropical Hawaiian sun, the whisky color glinting in her eyes. He’d seen her before not in person, but in the photograph Jamie kept tucked above the instruments in the cockpit. The one he’d look at before takeoff, and after every landing. “You’re Claire Beauchamp.”

She nodded once. “Where is he?”

John’s stomach twisted. He didn’t answer. She waited, her expression growing tighter. 

“Where is he?” she demanded of him, quiet and sharp. “You were in the air with him this morning, weren’t you? You came down together?” Her hands were steadily pressing gauze to his temple, the waver in her voice the only betrayal of her fear. 

“Yes,” John said finally, his voice hollow. “We were on the same mission.”

She swallowed, her throat tight. “Then tell me where to find him. Please.”

The needle stung against his skin, but the pain was nothing compared to this conversation with her. Her face hovered inches from his own as she worked, close enough that he could see the shimmer of tears she was refusing to let fall. He wanted to lie. God help him, he wanted to say anything but the truth. But Jamie’s voice was ringing in his head, and the truth was already written in his silence. 

“Tell me, John. I just want to know he’s alright,” she whispered, voice breaking.

He exhaled. “He… he is not alright, Mrs. Fraser.”

Her hand faltered at the name. The needle slipped, nicking his skin. “Don’t,” she said hoarsely, shaking her head. “Don’t say that. You don’t know that. You didn’t see–”

“I did,” John replied softly. 

Her breath hitched. 

“I was flying behind him,” he went on, words coming slowly, as if dragged through deep mud. “There was a lot of flak, and when it stopped, the fighters came, and he was hit and one engine was hit, and then another, and then I heard something about the fire… He didn’t eject.”

“No. You’re mistaken.” She shook her head, as if sheer will could make it untrue. “He survived. He’s strong. He’s always come back.”

John said nothing. 

“Tell me you saw the parachutes,” she pressed. “Tell me he bailed out. Tell me you looked for him.”

“I did look,” he said, his voice trembling. “I didn’t see anything. No one did.”

The silence that followed was unbearable. There was only he faint rattle of a tray somewhere behind them, the murmur of the wind against the window. And then – the sound of her breath hitching, sharp and wet, before she turned away from him, shoulders rigid with the effort of not collapsing. 

John sat motionless, the bandage half-finished, blood still drying on his temple. He wanted to reach out, to say something that could make it less cruel. But there was nothing. He tentatively reached for her… but she was walking away, out the door, as surely as if she’d heard the telephone and not the news that ripped her apart. 

So he sat there, letting her grief fill the air around him. 

Because he had made it back. 

And Jamie was dead. 

Chapter Text

The world was silent. 

Too silent. 

A thin, strangled gasp clawed its way through the cold. 

Snow. 

There was snow. Everywhere. 

Jamie Fraser opened his eyes. The world above him was a blurred expanse of grey, swirling and unfamiliar. He couldn’t feel his legs. Couldn’t feel his hands. 

He blinked. Once. Twice. Then – pain. A ragged breath tore from his lungs. 

He rolled onto his side with a groan, spitting out blood and ash. The air reeked of oil and burning metal. His ears rang with the ghost of engines that were smoldering along the ground. 

The wreckage of his plane lay scattered across a white field, black smoke curling into the sky. The tail was gone. The nose was buried deep in the snow. A wing was twisted like a broken bone, rammed into the frozen earth. 

Jamie pushed himself onto his elbows, every breath a blade. His left arm was useless, slick with blood. His ribs screamed with each movement. He blinked through the haze, trying to piece together fragments of memory: the flak, the shouting, the bullets, the fire, the warning from John: “Eject, Fraser!”

But he hadn’t. 

He looked around at the snow and listened for a distant echo of gunfire. Somewhere to the east, the war was still raging. He pressed a shaking hand against the ground, feeling its sting bite through the fog of pain. 

He was alive. 

For now. 

Jamie turned his face toward the grey horizon and let out a long, shuddering breath – the first of a thousand he would fight for today. Above him, soot drifted down from the sky, soft as wool. He prayed that far away, in a warm, dim room under a dying light, Claire Beauchamp was dreaming of him… not knowing that he still drew breath under a foreign sky. 

He tried to move. His right hand dug into the drift beside him, but when he tried to clench it, something gave way; a snap that made the edges of his vision swim. He looked down and found two fingers bent at impossible angles, the bones broken clean through beneath torn, burned skin. His breath caught, a strangled gasp that turned quickly into a growl at the pain. He pressed the hand against his chest, the throb syncing with the frantic pulse in his throat. For a long time, he knelt there in the snow, head bowed. The wreck crackled softly behind him. Flakes hissed as they landed on the burning metal. 

Then, slowly, he began to crawl. 

One arm, one knee, then the other, dragging himself toward what remained of the fuselage, every movement tore at his ribs. When he reached the cockpit, his stomach turned. Anderson’s co-pilot seat was empty. Further back, he saw them: Mackie, Williams, Harper, Dawson, Smith, MacGillivray, Ellis, Pratt. All of them. All dead. By some God-damned reason, of a crew of ten aboard that Fortress, he alone – if he couldn’t find Anderson – sat in the fuel-soaked snow. 

He reached MacGillivray first. He was barely twenty, freckles still bright against grey skin. Jamie brushed the snow from his face, whispering a prayer: “God, our Father, your power brings us to birth to guide our lives, and by your command, we return to dust. Amen.” He did the same for Harper, for Ellis, for each of them who claimed this now-hallowed ground. He sat back, dizzy. Blood from his hand spattered on the ground. 

Jamie’s head whipped – and he grabbed his forehead from the speed of it – at a low moan from further back in the snow. Jamie would recognize Jacob Anderson’s white-blonde hair from anywhere. He crawled as quickly as he could with his mangled bones to his side. It was hard to tell where he should look first: the leg missing below his right knee, the gash through his cheek to his ear, or at the blood blooming through his jacket. Jamie grasped his hand. “I’m here, man. I’m here.” 

“Hell of a lander, Fraser.”

Jamie laughed or sobbed; he couldn’t tell which. “But yer alive, aye?”

Anderson nodded with a solemn grin. “There’s a letter in my breast pocket, for Annie…”

“Ye’ll give it to her yerself.”

“I won’t,” he replied. “Give it to her for me, okay?”

He nodded and let the tears fall, mingling with the blood surrounding them. “Tell me about yer home,” he asked softly. 

Anderson’s eyes met his, breathing shallower by the second. “It’s up in Ohio. People think it’s only corn there, but–” a ragged breath, “--I grew up with the Amish hills, and black buggies, and berries so sweet they taste like, like candy.” Jamie smiled, nodded slowly. “The house is big and white, on top of, on top of this big hill, and when–” a breath, “when the sun shines down on the hill in the summer, before it all ends for the day…” he let out a slow exhale, “everything is gold.” 

Jamie squeezed his hand and pressed his head to Jacob Anderson’s chest, knowing he would not hear another heartbeat from inside his chest. 

He allowed himself a few moments of grief for the men he would have to leave behind in the snow, but as the cold crept deeper into his bones, the clarity came as well. The smoke would draw the attention of patrols, German or otherwise. He couldn’t stay here. He’d need shelter, warmth, and a plan of action. He looked toward the horizon, trying to gauge the direction to head in. The sun was a pale smear behind the clouds. East was danger. West was home. 

Home was Claire. 

And home lay beyond miles of snow and enemy lines. 

He tore a trip from the unused parachute and bound his broken hand. He let the memory of Claire in this same billowy chute anchor him as he braced against the pain. The staggered upright, swaying. The world tilted, then steadied. He took one last look at the wreck, at the men he’d flown beside and would leave behind. He reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out the small scrap of gauze he’d carried since that night in Hawaii, now getting stiff with age and dirt, and pressed it to his lips. He replaced it next to the letter in the pocket over his heart, the one he’d written before leaving her in Hawaii. The one that was supposed to be given to her if he didn’t come back. Now, instead of just a letter for her, he carried the weight of nine others from nine other men, extracted from pockets just like his. He would make it home for her, for the boys who wouldn’t return, and for the lives they left behind. He would survive, if only to keep his promises. 

He didn’t know how long he had walked. Hours, maybe. Or minutes stretched thin by pain. The sky dimmed from iron to indigo, and the forest was beginning to swallow him whole. The wind moved through the trees like cold death. Each step was a negotiation with his own body. His hand throbbed in time with his heartbeat. His ribs ached with every breath. When he tripped over a buried root and went sprawling into the snow, he didn’t get up right away. He lay there, chest heaving, the taste of copper on his tongue. So this is it, then, he thought. This is how it ends. The forest swam in and out of focus. Smoke drifted from his jacket, faint and acrid. Snow fell on his face, soft as breath, and he let his eyes close. 

The stillness was welcome. 

But the silence changed. 

He opened an eye to find a small white blur rushing through the trees. It paused a few yards away, nose twitching, eyes bright as coals in the half-light. A rabbit. He stared at it, breath shallow. The dawn was coming on slowly, washing the world in the strangest blue. The rabbit twitched, ears flicking toward the horizon, then bounded away. 

He didn’t know how long he lay in the snow after the animal vanished. The forest blurred into contrasting shades of white and brown. The pain in his hand pulsed dull and deep. The cold air pressed against him until he couldn’t tell where his body ended and the air began. The wind had gone still again, a hush so complete it made his heartbeat sound loud in his ears. Through the curtain of silently falling snow, he saw her. 

Claire. 

A figure, distant at first, moving toward him across the drifted field. The air shimmered faintly around her, soft with light. Her hair was loose and dark, lifted in the wind. The skirt of her uniform brushed the snow. She walked as if the cold didn’t touch her at all. 

Jamie blinked hard. For a moment, she vanished. He blinked again, and she had gotten closer, watching him from above. 

Are you alive? 

“Yes. No.”

Her voice came like a ripple through water. You’re far from home, my love. 

He tried to reach his ruined hand to her, but the broken bones refused to close around her. “I’ll find my back way back. Swear it.”

You will. She smiled and crossed her arms. But you won’t if you die here. The light around her shifted; snowflakes drifted through her form, scattering her edges. She lifted a hand as if to touch his face. Warmth spread through – imagined or not, he couldn’t care. For the first time in hours, his breath came easy… until the wind rose again, and Claire blurred before him, stretched like smoke. Come find me, Jamie. With the breeze, she was gone. 

Jamie awoke half-buried in the snow, his body stiff as wood. His thoughts came slow, one at a time, until the ache in his hand reminded him that he was still alive. He pushed himself upright. The horizon was a dull smear of blue. Far ahead, half-hidden behind a line of pines, stood the outline of a stone farmhouse. The roof sagged under the snow and one wall leaned inward as if ready to fall… but it was shelter. 

He limped toward it, boots crunching in the frozen crust. The closer he came, the more ruin showed. The boards were warped, windows broken, and the smoke long gone from the chimney. Inside, the air smelled of damp wood and straw. A mouse scurried somewhere beneath the floorboards. He found a corner with an old blanket stiff with mud and curled himself around it. The wind pressed against the cracked shutters, but he closed his eyes and dreamed of home. 

When he woke, the light had changed. His stomach was twisting with hunger. He spotted a table, overturned, and a basket lying in the corner. Inside, he found three small potatoes, two loaves of bread turned hard as stone and mold as green as moss. He hesitated for only a moment before breaking off he cleanest piece. They tasted of earth and dust, but they filled the emptiness. He wrapped the rest in a bit of cloth, meaning to leave before whoever once lived here returned. His hand throbbed beneath its bandage as he slung his pack across his shoulder and moved toward the door. 

He had just stepped into the threshold when a sound froze him: a small gasp, sharp as the crack of a twig. A girl stood in the doorway, no more than sixteen. Her cheeks were red with cold, her eyes wide, pale, and terrified. 

Jamie raised his good hand slowly, palm open. “Easy, lass,” he said, voice calm. “I mean ye no harm. I was only–” he gestured toward the field beyond the line of pines, “going to leave.” She didn’t move. Her gaze darted to the bread in his hand, then back to his face. He tried again, softer. “Do ye speak French? Français?” No answer. “Anglais?” He took a half-step back. “Ich– ich nicht kampf. No fight.”

For a moment, he held his breath. Until the girl opened her mouth and screamed. 

Jamie cursed and ran. 

He bolted through the door, down the slope behind the house. The snow was deep and uneven, causing his boots to slip on the ice. Behind him came the shouting of men’s voices. He cut through the trees, heart hammering. Branches tore at his coat. He could hear them following, one calling to another, then the crack of a rifle. He wove between the pines, across a frozen ditch, through a tangle of brush. The voices fell back, faint. He risked a glance over his shoulder,

and never saw the shadow step from the trees. 

Something struck the back of his skull, bright and heavy. The world tipped sideways, the snow rushing up to meet him. 

Then nothing but deep, soft black. 

The girl was staring at him, eyes like saucers. She crouched near the doorway, one hand clutching a tattered shawl around her shoulders. Behind her, two men – likely her father and brother, he guessed – stood tense, watching him with sharp scrutiny. Their eyes flicked to his hand, and he winced as he tried to sit up straighter. 

His head throbbed. Pain radiated through his hand and wrist, sharp and unyielding, like fire crawling up his arm. The ribs along his side screamed at every shallow breath. He swallowed, trying to hold himself steady. Every moment was met with his body’s protest, and yet, he had to show them he meant no harm, in case they could be trusted as allies in his escape. He lifted his hand slightly, the same tentative gesture as before, and it shook in the cold, dim light. 

The father muttered under his breath in German, low and rough, eyes never leaving Jamie. The boy stepped closer, inspecting his wounds, his expression unreadable. The girl whispered something, quick and anxious, but no one responded. 

Hours stretched, folding over themselves, the silence broken only by the occasional moan from Jamie or the scrape of boots against the splintered floor. He was never left alone; the father and brother always watched his every move. 

Finally, the father spoke in halting, broken English shaped by hard German vocals. “Where… you… land?”

Jamie’s breath hitched. Pain shot through his ribs as he tried to sit straighter. “I’m not here to cause trouble,” he rasped, voice raw from not speaking. “I am… just… walking,” he gestured with his working fingers. 

The father’s dark eyes never wavered. He nodded once, curtly, to the brother and the boy exited to his bicycle outside, wheels cracking and clattering against the ground as he pedaled away into the mist, disappearing down a narrow lane that twisted through frozen farmland.

Jamie sank back against the wall, letting the tension in his body ebb just slightly. He caught fragments of conversation in German, most notably the use of “Amerikaner” repeatedly. He couldn’t be certain if the word were said with suspicion or awe or fear or disgust. The girl approached him slowly, holding a bowl of warm broth. Her hands trembled as she extended it toward him, and her eyes, dark and wide, held a flicker of something he hoped he misread. He took the bowl with shaking hands, the heat of it burning through his fingers despite the cold. He sipped cautiously, feeling the nourishment seep into his body like lava. The girl rushed back to her father as soon as Jamie held the bowl on his own, whispering words in a language he barely knew. 

Hours bled into the evening, the light waning, shadows pooling like ink across the cracked floorboards. The girl took the muddied blanket from the floor and tucked it around his shoulders, taking care not to touch him. The father did not intervene. He only stood, stoic and silent, eyes scanning the horizon with a wary intensity that left Jamie uncertain. He was not free, certainly. But not a prisoner, either. Not yet. 

The moon began to rise when Jamie was roused by the faint scrape of boots on frozen earth. His eyes fluttered open to see shadows moving in the doorway, tall and disciplined, glinting handguns in the starlight. The girl looked to the doorway and froze, her hands gripping her shawl, and the father’s jaw set into a line so tight Jamie could feel the wire of it even from where he lay. 

Jamie tried to rise, to hold his hands up in a gesture of peace, but the pain in his hand flared so sharply that he hissed through clenched teeth and sank back, the effort of movement a cruel reminder of his current state. He wanted to speak, to explain that he was no threat, to plead in English, in German, in any language he could muster, but before he could, the father spoke first. The soldiers nodded, shook their hands, and motioned for Jamie to stand. He struggled back to his feet and took a single step forward. 

“Kommen sie mit uns. Sie fahren nach Stalag Luft.”

He didn’t have to understand the language to know where he was headed. He would be a prisoner, indeed. 

The door creaked open and Jamie Fraser is shoved into the dimly lit room. His boots scrape against the concrete floor as he stumbles slightly, still disoriented from the journey. His uniform is torn, caked with blood and dirt, and his hair stuck to his brow with grime. The dim light did little to warm the cold that seemed to seep through the walls. 

At the far end of the room, a man in a crisp uniform stood behind a heavy wooden desk. Commandant Schneider. His posture was perfect, his eyes sharp and unreadable. The silence pressed down on Jamie, oppressive and unrelenting. 

“Sit,” the commandant said, his voice even. 

Jamie did not move. He remained standing, shoulders squared, jaw clenched. He had learned early that silence was the shield that kept his men safe. His eyes met the commandant’s, steady and unflinching. 

“You will obey the rules of this camp,” he continued in crisp English with a heavy German accent. “You will rise at reveille, attend roll call, and perform the duties assigned to you. Disobedience will be punished. Attempting an escape will be met with execution. Do you understand?”

Jamie’s gaze never faltered. He took a slow breath, letting the words hang in the air before responding, quiet but firm. 

“James Alexander Malcolm Mackenzie Fraser. Captain. O-394755.”

The commandant’s brow furrowed, perhaps at the lack of the expected protest or plea. He leaned back slightly and allowed a faint sigh to escape his thin mouth. 

“You will be registered. Your personal effects will be inventoried. You may send and receive mail. One letter per week.”

At the mention of mail, Jamie’s heart tightened. Her name flared in his mind, bright and fierce: Claire. He had survived the fall, the fire, the chaos of the skies… and found himself in a new kind of cage. “Paper and pen, if ye please,” he said, voice firm. “I need to write to my wife."