May 1, 1771 May Union Camp

I glanced sideways, careful not to move in case he was still asleep. He wasn’t. He was lying quite still, though, utterly relaxed, save for his right hand. He had this raised, and appeared to be examining it closely, turning it to and fro and slowly curling and uncurling his fingers—as well as he could. The fourth finger had a fused joint, and was permanently stiff; the middle finger was slightly twisted, a deep white scar spiraling round the middle joint. His hand was callused and battered by work, and the tiny stigma of a nail-wound still showed, pale-pink, in the middle of his palm. The skin of his hand was deeply bronzed and weathered, freckled with sun-blots and scattered with bleached gold hairs. I thought it remarkably beautiful.

“Happy Birthday,” I said, softly. “Taking stock?”

He let the hand fall on his chest, and turned his head to look at me, smiling.Aye, something of the sort. Though I suppose I’ve a few hours left. I was born at half-six; I willna have lived a full half-century until suppertime.” I laughed and rolled onto my side, kicking the blanket off. The air was still delightfully cool, but it wouldn’t last long. “Do you expect to disintegrate much further before supper?” I asked, teasing. “Oh, I dinna suppose anything is likely to fall off by then,” he said, consideringly. “As to the workings . . . aye, well . . .” He arched his back, stretching, and sank back with a gratified groan as my hand settled on him. “It all seems to be in perfect working order,” I assured him. I gave a brief, experimental tug, making him yelp slightly. “Not loose at all.” “Good,” he said, folding his hand firmly over mine to prevent further unauthorized experiments. “How did ye ken what I was doing? Taking stock, as ye say?” I let him keep hold of the hand, but shifted to set my chin in the center of his chest, where a small depression seemed made for the purpose. “I always do that, when I have a birthday—though I generally do it the night before. More looking back, I think, reflecting a bit on the year that’s just gone. But I do check things over; I think perhaps everyone does. Just to see if you’re the same person as the day before.” “I’m reasonably certain that I am,” he assured me. “Ye dinna see any marked changes, do ye?” I lifted my chin from its resting place and looked him over carefully. It was in fact rather hard to look at him objectively; I was both so used to his features and so fond of them that I tended to notice tiny, dear things about him—the freckle on his earlobe, the lower incisor pushing eagerly forward, just slightly out of line with its fellows—and to respond to the slightest change of his expression—but not really to look at him as an integrated whole. He bore my examination tranquilly, eyelids half-lowered against the growing light. His hair had come loose while he slept and feathered over his shoulders, its ruddy waves framing a face strongly marked by both humor and passion—but which possessed a paradoxical and most remarkable capacity for stillness.

“No,” I said at last, and set my chin down again with a contented sigh. “It’s still you.”

[...]

Jamie’s free hand rested on my back, his thumb idly stroking the edge of my shoulder blade. With his usual capacity for mental discipline, he appeared to have dismissed the uncertainty of the military prospects completely from his mind, and was thinking of something else entirely. “Do ye ever think—” he began, and then broke off. “Think what?” I bent and kissed his chest, arching my back to encourage him to rub it, which he did. “Well . . . I’m no so sure I can explain, but it’s struck me that now I have lived longer than my father did—which is not something I expected to happen,” he added, with faint wryness. “It’s only . . . well, it seems odd, is all. I only wondered, did ye ever think of that, yourself—having lost your mother young, I mean?” “Yes.” My face was buried in his chest, my voice muffled in the folds of his shirt. “I used to—when I was younger. Like going on a journey without a map.” His hand on my back paused for a moment. “Aye, that’s it.” He sounded a little surprised. “I kent more or less what it would be like to be a man of thirty, or of forty—but now what?” His chest moved briefly, with a small noise that might have been a mixture of amusement and puzzlement.

“You invent yourself,” I said softly, to the shadows inside the hair that had fallen over my face. “You look at other women—or men; you try on their lives for size. You take what you can use, and you look inside yourself for what you can’t find elsewhere. And always . . . always . . . you wonder if you’re doing it right.”

His hand was warm and heavy on my back. He felt the tears that ran unexpectedly from the corners of my eyes to dampen his shirt, and his other hand came up to touch my head and smooth my hair. “Aye, that’s it,” he said again, very softly. The camp was beginning to stir outside, with clangings and thumps, and the hoarse sound of sleep-rough voices. Overhead, the grasshopper began to chirp, the sound like someone scratching a nail on a copper pot.

“This is a morning my father never saw,” Jamie said, still so softly that I heard it as much through the walls of his chest, as with my ears.

“The world and each day in it is a gift, mo chridhe—no matter what tomorrow may be.”

I sighed deeply and turned my head, to rest my cheek against his chest. He reached over gently and wiped my nose with a fold of his shirt. “And as for taking stock,” he added practically, “I’ve all my teeth, none of my parts are missing, and my cock still stands up by itself in the morning. It could be worse.”

Cap 58 HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU ~the fiery cross

Jamie & Claire Fraser + cozy & safe in bed O U T L A N D E R ↳ Requested by @gotham-ruaidh

7 seasons and counting… 

Jamie & Claire

Outlander 5x11 "Journeycake"

Jamie x Claire | 5x08 “Famous Last Words”

Day 11: Favorite Marsali scene

This scene with Marsali and Claire just made my heart smile so much. I love seeing Marsali say out loud that she thinks of Claire as her own Ma.

Another one of my favorite scenes with Marsali is her own wedding date. Her personality really shows in that scene with Fergus and Jamie giving Fergus his name is just magic. That scene almost made it as my favorite Fergus scene.

My Favorite Seasons of Outlander, In Order

This was EXTREMELY difficult, but I look forward to hearing your thoughts!

1. Season 2 - Full of adventure, danger, and suspense. Best sets, best costumes. That. Red. Dress. BEST SUPPORTING CHARACTERS! The plot twist about Mary’s baby-daddy. The Duke’s Beheading. That one transition scene when Claire steps off the plane/boat (you know the one). Jamie and Claire are powerful. I’ve been to Versailles myself, so probably a little biased. 10/10 Season.

2. Season 1 - The O.G. Season. The time-traveling and it’s costumes and sets are amazing. I’m a sucker for acquaintances to lovers trope. The Wedding. Full English Breakfast. THE RECKONING. Jamie and Claire becoming the power couple we all love. So much plot, so many episodes, yet not many fillers. Perfect blend of developing romance, history, and jaw dropping moments at every turn. Last two episodes hurt too much though. 9/10 Season.

3. Season 6 - The plots in this season are (chef’s kiss). Following the book to the letter! So much suspense, action, adventure. Jamie’s devotion to Claire is powerful yet soft. Lots of Domestic Frasers screen-time. FERGUS AND MARSALI. Love to hate the Christies- ready for Season 7 to reveal them. Season finale is the best one so far!! Ether got a little annoying, and season too short for obvious reasons, though. So 8/10 Season.

4. Season 5 - Sam’s new wig takes the cake. I’m finally starting to like Brianna and Roger. The big house is fantastic. IAN MY BOY. Jamie praying to Dougal. The Beardsley house felt like a horror movie. The Ballot of Roger Mac sent be back to Season 1- my new favorite episode in the entire series. Bonnet made me mad- strung that out too long. A few too many filler episodes for my taste. MURTAGH NOOO!!!!!!!!! Still amazing though, 7/10 Season.

5. Season 3 - Disliked the season’s first half, sucked to see Jamie and Claire apart. Culloden was well done though. Could happily skip episodes 2-5. A MALCOM SAVES THE DAY. “Leg-Hair”, Geneva, and Geillis- WHY SO MANY EVIL WOMEN THO? The entire trip to the West Indies, bravo. Loved these adventures. Turtle Soup and Squeaking Noises were gifts. The drowning boat rescue and the musical score attached was dramatic perfection. 4/10 first half, 8/10 second half = 6/10 total Season.

6. Season 4 - Do I really need to explain? Lots of filer episodes, ugh. Lack of Jamie and Claire intimacy, ughhh. Sam’s wig, UGH. ALL THE SHIT WITH ROGER AND BRIANNA’S IMMATURITY UGHHHHH. I miss Scotland. Lord John gives this season bonus points, and so does that warm bath scene, but otherwise, 3/10 Season. I don’t watch any of this at all, really.

Roger finding out Jemmy is his biological son 😭 😭 😭 One of my favorite scenes in the book too.

Although, I will always love Roger for loving and treating Jem as his own years before he found out the truth. He's one happy and proud Papa Bear 🐻

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart

Helen Keller

Wednesday 100: Thanksgiving Double Feature

Grateful

Claire was cleaning her instruments when she realized it was the fourth Thursday of November. She hadn’t thought about Thanksgiving in quite some time; were they in the 1960s, she and Bree would have made a small meal to celebrate. Here and now, they had their whole family and Claire was more grateful than ever. So, she asked that Mrs. Bug and Lizzie go all out with dinner that day. She sent Ian on a turkey hunt, Marsali helped clean the bird while Fergus chased the children, and Bree and Roger were in charge of decorating the table with wildflowers.  

***

Thankful

Claire told Jamie the tradition of Thanksgiving and as he sat at the head of their table, he knew exactly what he was thankful for. The room was loud — Marsali and Bree were sharing the latest Ridge gossip, Fergus and Ian were exchanging lewd jokes, and Roger was telling the children the story of the first Thanksgiving (save Germain who chose to partake in his Papa’s conversation instead). Jamie never took his eyes off Claire and her gaze held him in return. How long had they dreamed of this? Her eyes shone with satisfaction and he prayed they always would.

“You thought you were dying when we brought you up here, didn’t you?” I asked. My voice sounded more bewildered than accusing. It took him a moment to answer, though he didn’t look hesitant. It was more as though he was looking for the proper words. “Well, I didna ken for sure, no,” he said slowly. “Though I did feel verra ill.” His eyes closed, slowly, as though he were too tired to keep them open. “I still do,” he added, in a detached sort of voice.

“Ye needna worry, though—I’ve made my choice.”

“What on earth do you mean by that?” I groped beneath the covers, and found his wrist. He was warm; hot again, in fact, and with a pulse that was too fast, too shallow. Still, it was so different from the deathly chill I had felt in him the night before that my first reaction was relief. He took a couple of deep breaths, then turned his head and opened his eyes to look at me. “I mean I could have died last night.” He could, certainly—and yet that wasn’t what he meant. He made it sound like a conscious— “What do you mean you’ve made your choice? You’ve decided not to die, after all?” I tried to speak lightly, but it wasn’t working very well. I remembered all too well that odd sense of timeless stillness that had surrounded us. “It was verra strange,” he said. “And yet it wasna strange at all.” He sounded faintly surprised.

“I think,” I said carefully, keeping a thumb on his pulse, “you’d better tell me just what happened.” He actually smiled at that, though the smile was more in his eyes than his lips. Those were dry, and painfully cracked in the corners. I touched his lips with a finger, wanting to go and fetch some soothing ointment for him, some water, some tea—but I put aside the impulse, steeling myself to stay and hear. “I dinna really know, Sassenach—or rather, I do, but I canna think quite how to say it.” He still looked tired, but his eyes stayed open. They lingered on my face, a vivid blue in the morning light, with an expression almost of curiosity, as though he hadn’t seen me before.

“You are so beautiful,” he said, softly. “So verra beautiful, mo chridhe.”

My hands were covered with fading blue blotches and overlooked smears of buffalo blood, I could feel my hair clinging in unwashed tangles to my neck, and I could smell everything from the stale-urine odor of dye to the reek of fear-sweat on my body. And yet whatever he saw lit his face as though he were looking at the full moon on a summer night, pure and lovely. His eyes stayed fixed on my face as he talked, absorbed, moving slightly as they seemed to trace my features. “I felt verra badly indeed when Arch and Roger Mac brought me up,” he said. “Terribly sick, and my leg and my head both throbbing with each heartbeat, so much that I began to dread the next. And so I would listen to the spaces between. Ye wouldna think it,” he said, sounded vaguely surprised, “but there is a great deal of time between the beats of a heart.” He had, he said, begun to hope, in those spaces, that the next beat would not come. And slowly, he realized that his heart was indeed slowing—and that the pain was growing remote, something separate from himself. His skin had grown colder, the fever fading from both body and mind, leaving the latter oddly clear. “And this is where I canna really say, Sassenach.” He pulled his wrist from my grip in the intensity of his story, and curled his fingers over mine. “But I . . . saw.” “Saw what?” And yet I already knew that he couldn’t tell me. Like any doctor, I had seen sick people make up their minds to die—and I knew that look they sometimes had; eyes wide-fixed on something in the distance. He hesitated, struggling to find words. I thought of something, and jumped in to try to help. “There was an elderly woman,” I said. “She died in the hospital where I was on staff—all her grown children with her, it was very peaceful.” I looked down, my own eyes fixed on his fingers, still red and slightly swollen, interlaced with my own stained and bloody digits. “She died—she was dead, I could see her pulse had stopped, she wasn’t breathing. All her children were by her bedside, weeping. And then, quite suddenly, her eyes opened. She wasn’t looking at any of them, but she was seeing something. And she said, quite clearly, ‘Oooh!’ Just like that—thrilled, like a little girl who’s just seen something wonderful. And then she closed her eyes again.” I looked up at him, blinking back tears. “Was it—like that?” He nodded, speechless, and his hand tightened on mine. “Something like,” he said, very softly. He had felt oddly suspended, in a place he could by no means describe, feeling completely at peace—and seeing very clearly. “It was as if there was a—it wasna a door, exactly, but a passageway of some kind—before me. And I could go through it, if I wanted. And I did want to,” he said, giving me a sideways glance and a shy smile. He had known what lay behind him, too, and realized that for that moment, he could choose. Go forward—or turn back. “And that’s when you asked me to touch you?” “I knew ye were the only thing that could bring me back,” he said simply. “I didna have the strength, myself.” There was a huge lump in my throat; I couldn’t speak, but squeezed his hand very tight. “Why?” I asked at last. “Why did you . . . choose to stay?” My throat was still tight, and my voice was hoarse. He heard it, and his hand tightened on mine; a ghost of his usual firm grip, and yet with the memory of strength within it. “Because ye need me,” he said, very softly. “Not because you love me?” He looked up then, with a shadow of a smile.

“Sassenach . . . I love ye now, and I will love ye always. Whether I am dead—or you—whether we are together or apart. You know it is true,” he said quietly, and touched my face. “I know it of you, and ye know it of me as well.”

He bent his head then, the bright hair swinging down across his cheek. “I didna mean only you, Sassenach. I have work still to do. I thought—for a bit—that perhaps it wasna so; that ye all might manage, with Roger Mac and auld Arch, Joseph and the Beardsleys. But there is war coming, and—for my sins—” he grimaced slightly, “I am a chief.” He shook his head slightly, in resignation. “God has made me what I am. He has given me the duty—and I must do it, whatever the cost.”

“The cost,” I echoed uneasily, hearing something harsher than resignation in his voice. He looked at me, then glanced, almost off-handed, toward the foot of the bed. “My leg’s no much worse,” he said, matter-of-factly, “but it’s no better. I think ye’ll have to take it off.”

The fiery cross

endless gifs of the frasers - 14/∞

Okay I accidentally started watching Outlander, wish me luck

Never My Love

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More B&W shots of Caitríona from Carlo Paloni

2019 BAFTA Scotland Awards

2016 BAFTA Scotland Awards

Remember how Carlo Paloni captures black & white beauty at the BAFTAs?

"If Tryon wants his Scot, I'll give him a Scot."

Day 2: Favorite Season 4-6 Episode

This was an extremely tough decision. There were so many episodes I did love and some I didn't. Many of the episodes I had favorite scenes but overall the episode was meh.

I decided upon The Fiery Cross, Season 5 Episode 1. I read a lot on the reddit group that people do not usually like this episode and while I can understand their opinions there really isn't a part of this episode I dislike.

For 2 seasons I waited to see Jamie Fraser put his kilt on again. It was akin to waiting through 10 seasons of Smallville just to see Clark Kent put the Superman suit on but that wish was never fulfilled unlike Jamie Fraser showing us once again the King of Men that he is. The first time I watched this episode, which was probably about a year ago (yes I am new Outlander fan) I remember very distinctly cheering out loud seeing Jamie Fraser in his kilt and full highland dress. This scene alone is in my rewatch queue often.

Seeing Brianna and Roger have a proper wedding was so sweet after all of the turmoil they endured since they came to the 1700's. I loved seeing Jamie be the proud Da and making sure she had something, blue, something new, something old, something borrowed and of course her sixpence for her shoe.

Claire being able to be present and be apart of the wedding was also very fulfilling to watch. This is something that Claire never thought she would have once she decided to come back to Jamie. I love seeing the Frasers get their happy moments and memories among the chaos.

This episode aided me in falling in love with Tim Downie as an actor. He portrayed Governor Tryon perfectly. I look forward to any scene that has him in it. As much as I love McDonald in subsequent episodes, Governor Tryon is my favorite British officer aside from Lt. Jeremy Foster from Season 1 & 2, that is if one had to choose a favorite British officer.

Having Roger finally claim Jemmy as blood of his blood and bone of his bone was a perfect addition to this episode. I know we find out that Jemmy is his son further into the season it was nice to see Roger claim him. Other notable scenes to add would be the tongue twisters, seeing Lord John drunk sitting next to John Quincy Meyers and the wedding night with crying Jemmy was definitely comical and made me chuckle remembering what it was like to have a baby in the house.