Chapter Text
Well, that went well, I suppose. After all, I had little knowledge of ocean travel, let alone what to anticipate. Perhaps that was neither the time nor place for contemplating my philosophical theories. Needless to say, keeping myself company with my alter-ego— Janna Barnard— was not a good idea. Getting locked up in jail for a week before escaping was another mistake along the road.
I don’t know how the fuck I screwed myself over this badly. I mean, I’m not that irresponsible, just a bit of klutz. So I’m lost. If I’m not physically lost then I’m certainly lost in the head.
Though there were matters that needed to be settled. Firstly, where in the world I am. Secondly, how I plan to get out of here and there were far too many variables that had already been corrupted.
“Are you lost, lassie?” asked a red-haired Scotsman. Clearly, he knew what the hell he was doing.
“Why are you talking to me?!” I snapped. What kind of grown man just walks up to a kid and starts talking?! When the fuck is that ever acceptable? What kinda shit is this?!
“Umm… because it’s coming on night and you’re alone… how old are you?”
“I’m young enough to be your daughter! I'll thank you to leave me alone."
"Feisty wee bitch," he muttered. I looked up at him, him significantly taller than myself. I hate tall people.
"Well if ye don't want my help, I'll just leave ye to yourself." He turned to go back down the boardwalk, quite prepared to forget completely about me. Dammit! He had won and I wasn't even aware that it was a competition. No! I absolutely could not allow him to just leave. Come on bro, I've been through hell and back and I was not willing to allow him to prove my ineptitude.
"Wait! Where the hell are you going?!" I demanded, falling behind him, even though I was running at full speed. Curse my stupidly short legs! I grabbed at his hair, reaching far above my head to reach the locks of red hair.
He turned suddenly, hand reaching down to a hilt at his side. He was prepared to kill me! Well, I grabbed at a knife of my own, still smeared with blood, I was also prepared to kill him, mind you though, I don't think any of his family would be partial to the notion of that; whereas my death would mean nothing. No one would mourn me.
"Lass, unless you want something, you're wasting my time, and I'll kindly ask you to leave me alone," he said tartly.
“Who did you say you were?” I muttered. I knew his name, I was no idiot— or at least not nearly as much as everyone had come to believe. Red-headed and alarmingly, no, annoyingly tall— what the fuck is it with these fictional characters needing to be ten feet tall?! Come on bro, can I not get a casually short female lead who runs around in crocs and smokes weed!?
“I didn’t,” he answered, hand still touching the blade at his side. “But then again, neither did you.” I stared blankly at him. Thinking frantically as to if I would indeed tell him my name or create some false bravado.
“Jamie, I thought you were joining us at the tavern.” She was a tall woman— go figure!— with pale skin and dark hair, silver bits shining off the evening light. She, as I gathered, was his wife, and seemed kindly enough. Though, this was America— all be it, America in the 18th century— no one can trust America at any time period. It’s a good thing I’m Canadian; I pass as an American if need be and get to legally be a citizen of the single best country ever.
Brought back from my pleasant day dream, I looked up— because I certainly had to look up— to find Jamie and Claire still looking down at me. Rather than bothering with Jamie, I turned and directed my attention to Claire, smiling sweetly as a way to convince her that I am great.
I reached out a hand first, thinking it practical and formal. I suppose Claire was from a more industrialized time, but the 21st century is a completely different nightmare and everything I had done thus far— etiquette wise— was a pitiful guess.
“Belle Lancaster,” I introduced, mentally deciding where I would go from there. My original plan had already been fucked by being here in the first place. All I had wanted was a casual walk in Alberta, so now because of some… piece of rock, I’m here.
I was old enough to marry but without prospects or the will to get past biting my future-husbands finger off, so I wasn’t likely to get one anyways. I had heard of the couple while conducting my casual eves-dropping, sitting discreetly in the corner of the captains quarters. In truth, I would have much prefered to return to Canada— the matters of needing a boat were a simple mis-identity and being shipped off to Italy as a prisoner of war, good times.
“Do you mind telling us what it is you seem so in need of our attention for?” Jamie asked sharply, I saw the funny anger in his face, flushing slightly, or maybe it was his wife’s hand stroking up and down his arm.
“Umm… well,” I began casually, trying to present myself in a good— though brutally honest— light. “Two months ago I was in Canada, because that is where I live, and you typically stay in the country that you live in.”
“Canadian, eh? I was wondering about yer accent,” Jamie said nonchalantly.
“Do not mock me,” I said slowly, through my teeth and staring intently at him. His wife merely slapped his arm, directing her attention back to me.
“And then we went on a casual day trip and shit.” Jamie’s eyes shot wide, Claire’s didn’t change the slightest, though I saw a smile touch her lips, slightly as though ashamed of her amusement.
“And I live— lived— in Canada. Literally nothing happens in Canada! We don’t even own Alaska. You dirty Americans own it, and because you do it’s significantly uglier!” I stopped abruptly, realizing that perhaps this was a place that my opinion was not welcome. “And then there was the whole thing with the stones— you’d know,” I addressed Claire, now wide-eyed with interest. “Except when I was just going to casually return to the hell that is the twenty-first century— oh I shiver at the thought of it…”
“Travelling through the stones? Yes, it is awful.”
“No, that was nothing. Actually— though after that I was sold into slavery due to misidentification for three months— my mental health has scarcely been better. The pandemic is absolute chaos.”
“Pandemic? Would you be so kind as to tell me what that is, Sassenach?”
“Even I’m not sure what she’s talking about,” she addressed me then.
“Oh,” I said emotionlessly. “Hmm… it would be best to simply say that it’s a world-wide disease but I’m quickly realizing it’s more of a test of darwinism, though the strongest don't always survive because it’s a viral infection and so the people who don’t get vaccinated are just killing the rest of us. Oh, it’s also got some shit to do with supply chain shortages. It really is a nightmare.” I shrugged helplessly, really not caring at this point. “I much prefer the brutalities of this century to the other, it hurts less on the inside.”
“You did want me for something, did you not?” Jamie asked, changing the conversation's direction yet again. I looked up at him, mentally trying to explain how I wanted their protection and their help in exchange for what I knew about them, stories written about them as the main characters in a novel uniquely disguised as fictional people who had indeed existed. “I don’t really… want anything— per say.” Distracted from thought, I began to methodically crack my knuckles, but trying to keep my eyes off the genetically impossibly tall Jamie, with a fucking scary glare.
“How old did you say you were?” Claire butted in, her kindness sufficiently met by a displeased glare from Jamie that she simply rolled her eyes at. She had evidently put up with his bullshit far longer than anyone else had, and had a great amount of control over him, perhaps scarier than him.
“Uh, I’m fifteen,” I muttered, trying desperately to sypher out what the fuck was going through Jamie’s head. Claire’s was obvious enough and I paid enough attention to notice it.
“Though I’m evidently short, so you may have been inclined to believe that I was around twelve.”
“Given your behaviour I’d be inclined to believe you were five,” Jamie jested, though I was less than thrilled to be insulted and retorted sharply back, “given your appearance, I’d be inclined to believe you were eighty-one.”
He stared at me, mouth gaping, to which Claire successfully saved the day yet again. “Why don’t you come along with us, if only for a night or two?”
She pulled from holding Jamie’s arm and gestured that I walk at her side instead. Jamie walked, rather against his wishes, behind us, but I turned to say one thing back to him, proceeding down the street walking backwards.
“I think you’ll find you don’t want to insult me,” I said simply, turning back to Claire’s side.
“Sassenach, have you heard this wee bitch? She just threatened me!”
“Jamie, she’s half your size and a third your age, get a grip of yourself.”
They had booked a single room in the tavern, Jamie having business in town and Claire more than happy to tag along. Honestly, their mushy cushy relationship was almost repulsive but I was indebted to them for their kindness when I had nothing but an attitude to give in return. Even with their kindness they remained strangers, strangers I had read about in great detail— rather against my own wishes— but still strangers.
I was finishing dressing a wound on my knee when the two walked in, finished with their dinner below and coming to rest for the night before the vigors of the next day. The firelight was a pain in the ass to work by, but it worked well enough.
“What have you done to yourself there, Belle?” Claire asked; of course she did, she being a physician could only wonder and look at the slightest of wounds with a keen interest. My own mother had shown me no emotion remotely similar, instead ending up the one who inflicted the injury, my father never doing much better. Claire’s motherly meddling beginning to show gave me an odd hollowness at being cared about for once.
“Ah, nothing, just a scratch.” It was. Though it hurt like a bitch, superficial scratches like that usually did and I had been covered with them at one point or another. Give it a week and it would heal up completely fine, a few days if one had polysporin on them.
Despite my protest and attempts to bandage it quickly so that she couldn’t strategically insert herself into tending to it.
“How did you do this?” she asked, poking and prodding as any surgeon would.
“Nasty thing,” Jamie remarked, looking over her shoulder. It seemed he was quick to forgive, for he had his same bright and annoyingly cheery smile plastered like shit on his face. “Don’t worry though, my wife will tend to it and you’ll feel better once she’s done.”
The “wife” in question looked up and smiled back at her husband. Okay, maybe they weren’t that gross together but still her poking at very tender and red flesh made me like her slightly less, it also made me nauseated which was no pleasant feeling.
“Ugh” —I sat back, trying to get my leg free from her death-like grip but she firmly clutched the knee, not permitting any farther motion because of the sheer pain of it— “grass— well actually, astroturf burn before I left."
“But you came here months ago, it must have surely healed up by now unless it were infected,” she added, rather to herself than either me or her husband who seemed intrigued; I didn’t blame him, he was usually the patient and not often given the opportunity to watch her in action.
“Oh, it was— a few times too,” I muttered. Finally done with putting up with her shit, I pulled her hand from my knee, giving it back to her, and unconsciously rubbing the unaccustomed red marks. Evidently stubborn— or nearly as stubborn as myself — she grabbed the knee once more, examining it critically and holding it in a death-like grip so that I couldn’t move even with my general strength.
“Jamie, would you get my medical kit,” with her I knew it was more of a statement than a question, and Jamie, having lived with her for ten years— though married for thirty— knew his place and to do as told in matters such as these.
With the medicinal equipment at hand, she forced me from my content spot by the fire to the edge of their bed, Jamie taking a content position behind his wife, watching her activities. He seemed almost disgusted by the inflamed and pus-filled wound, though the thought of him being disturbed was absolutely hilariously ironic.
“What are you going to do about the lass’s knee, Claire?” he asked, leaning over her shoulder and watching as she proceeded to poke and prod the wound.
“It’s a wonder you’ve been able to walk on this, it must hurt fiercely,” she muttered, more to herself than to any of the two of us in the room. Then she looked up at me and off the knee in question. “It’ll need disinfection— you understand that right?”
“Do you think I’m an idiot— clearly Jamie does,” I said tartly. “Anyways, I did know that— that’s why I came to you, I’ve read your biography; though it’s disguised as fiction. I knew whatever happened I needed to find you— not just for my knee but because of everything that’s going to happen.”
She stared at me dumbstruck; each of the couple struggling for words and sense of the situation, even I wasn’t sure what I was saying; most things didn’t seem to make sense to me at present, whether circumstance or the growing pain of my knee that seemed to absorb my every thought.
“Very well then,” Claire said, breaking into everyone’s uncertain thoughts; “lie down and relax your knee and we’ll get on with this, why don’t we?” She directed her attention to Jamie, who was standing behind her, evidently bothering her to some degree. “It will hurt, why don’t you sit behind her— rest her head on your lap?” He seemed neither inclined to do so and neither was I, nor was I in any position to put up with it. I sat up suddenly, quite prepared to protest.
“He will do no such thing!” She looked at me, this time not caring and nodded solemnly.
“Very well then, it’s your funeral,” she answered tartly.
She was right. With neither alcohol strong enough to numb the pain or some paralytic, Claire proved right, as I quickly came to understand her almost always to be. She had sharp instruments but I had knees scarred by dead tissue, and it took a great amount of her own strength to penetrate the flesh, all of which did nothing to help the pain of it. Her squeezing pus from the wound did nothing to help either, and I could do little to suppress my own pain beyond pressing my face into the blankets. Yep, death seemed much preferable just then, but that wasn’t an option either.
I did my best not to cry out, though it felt little better than shoving a hot iron up ones ass hole, and when pain superseded my stubbornness, I couldn’t muffle my screams any longer; unfortunately, for everyone in the room, “fuck” was not a favourable thing to shout. Once finished with dead bolting the door, Jamie sat down behind my head, taking it in his lap and smoothing the hair from my face, wet with sweat of anger and annoyance.
“There you are, lass, rest your head against me,” he whispered softly, petting my hair as a way of affection. Claire continued her ministrations with a sense of ease; her shoulders seemed suddenly less tight and a smile creased her lips when she glanced up and met eyes with Jamie.
Eventually, dwindling close to sleep and effort disappearing as night took its dark hold, I fell asleep, no longer bothering with holding up a facade, and felt Jamie lift me from their bed, placing me softly on my waded quilts by the fireside. I heard them continue to talk into the long hours of night but there came a time when what they talked about— matters in which did not include my name— I thought best to leave them to their privacy.
I woke before them the next morning, neither able to sleep nor entirely trusting either of them to watch over my sleeping form. While I had taken their hospitality simply out of desperation and I owed them greatly for that generosity, they were more strangers to me than I was to them. Where I could slit each of their throats in the dark depths of the night, so could they. Granted, they were pleasant sleepers; Jamie had a gentle smile on his lips and Claire curled tight to the warmth and security of his sleeping figure. Regardless of this, I dressed quickly and left the room without so much as a creak of the floorboard.
After gathering the clean breath of air, early in the morning and still cold enough to feel heavy in my chest, I smiled to myself. This was a fucking bad place to exist. America. My arch nemesis. And if that weren’t bad enough, colonial America to boot. Um… I also don’t really know if that’s the right era to write; if I had not mentioned the matter before, I am bullshitting most of this because it has taken too much effort on my part to get here in the first place, let alone fact check everything— anything. It was a bad place to be but when the world was still quiet and the moon rose high in the sky, stars just starting to be absorbed by the breeching sunlight, it almost looked like home. Calgary was home, but I didn’t even think that hellhole had been developed yet. Still, I missed home; my brother the most, I think. No one seemed intelligent enough to have any length of conversation with me, and Jamie knew seven languages— probably more. But being from where I was, it left me feeling oddly empty inside.
“There you are,” Claire said in her usually straight-forward and kind mannerism. Nonetheless, I would have much prefered to be left behind for the darkness to consume me. Ah, I like the sound of that.
Suppressing the urge to roll my eyes, I turned back to her, evidently now dressed and ready for the endeavours of the day. She was annoyingly cheery and I was annoyingly pissed off. Placing my hands behind my back so that I could crack the knuckles in my irritation, I forced the most tedious smile.
She raised a single brow but I walked— or attempted to walk— past her. She grabbed my elbow. Under the circumstances I was actually mildly surprised that I was able to walk but then again compartmentalizing can take you many places. Obviously not intending to allow her a moment to let her trap me in some tight emotional corner, I tried again to walk past her; this time, instead of grabbing my arm, she lifted a single leg and hit it against my knee, swollen and still seeping with blood— again, I should not have been walking on it. Recoiling from the slight touch of a foriegn object against my severed knee, I collapsed to the ground, feeling the brimming of tears. Not tears because I’m a baby, but because it fucking hurt.
“Good. You’re little better than Jamie, all stubborn and pig-headed,” she said in a firm, clean tone.
“Is that the best insult you can come up with?” I retorted smuggly, perhaps against my better judgment.
“We’ll have a lovely discussion about your attitude on the way to Fraser's Ridge.” I gulped involuntarily at the thought of being chastised by that woman. “As of this moment— and for a side note, I have no clue how Jamie and you do not like each other more, you’re just like one another— what is your problem? Why are you so determined to prove that you’re not weak? Neither of us doubt it for the record— but you seem so angry, why?” Hell if I knew. One day I was angry, the next I was sad, why my head was organized in this complex array of thoughts, I couldn’t rightly say. Though, what I did know was that it had started three months ago, when I… when I— when it happened.
Claire was still waiting patiently for me to answer. I rather admired her patience, a virtue I myself did not possess. I hesitated with my thoughts, not entirely sure what I planned to say, how I wanted to organize my words best so that she would understand but not be as concerned about my current state as I was.
“Don't I have a million valid reasons?" I said sharply, feeling the breaking of my voice in small fragments of pain, spasming through my throat and threatening the all-daunting severing of sanity to a state only reachable once there. "I'm not angry because there's no one to be angry with and nothing really about— you know how old I am, right? Fift— fifteen. I don't belong here. I don't know anyone. I can't… trust anyone. I'm smart but not enough to be here. And I ca— can…" I had at last reached the point of ultimate separation from life and had fallen simply into pain, as though it were a mild concept to endure. Claire saw this and instantly stepped forward, holding me tight against her. It was neither an act out of circumstance but rather tenderness and understanding, she had been here before but she had been a woman. I was no more than a child, new to the rigors of the world. I had no one to tenderly nurture me into the pain of everyday life, but she seemed to almost fit the hole, or just enough to lessen the ache of the void left behind from the world I had left only months ago.
"I know, I know. Shh, it's going to be all right." Who was she to assure me that matters would be "all right"? I knew she was well aware of the fault in her words based purely by the apprehensive look written just beneath her face, but I smiled, reassured for a moment.
What I didn’t tell her, a secret I trusted no one with at present— especially that of a medical practitioner— was that I knew something more had happened, but I had hit my head at some point and didn’t know what it was. The thought of forgetting some potentially life-altering detail sent a thrill of fear up my spine.