Chapter Text
Leaning over his saddle, practically flattening his body against the horse’s neck, Pero Tovar coughs so hard that his eyes water, black spots dancing in his vision and he feels lightheaded. Spittle and blood flying into the dirty rag he has pressed against his mouth. The bitter winds howl around him, slicing through the openings in the armor and cutting him to the bone. He needs shelter, he needs warmth, but honestly at this point – he’s praying for death.
The cottage in the distance is barely a dot on the horizon, stone walls and thatched roof blending into the gray skyline. There is barely a trail for his horse to follow, but the squawk of a chicken catches the beast’s attention and that becomes the direction to move in. The cold is moving in and the rains have been heavy, making his horse’s hooves squelch in the mud with each step, but the noise barely reaches him. If he could focus his sight, Pero would see the figure of a woman in the distance carrying a basket of vegetables from somewhere just out of sight.
The grip on his reins loosens, weak and shivering. He had thought the desert was cold, but this is frigid. The sodden under layers under his leathers are keeping him soaked. “Shit.” He hisses, right before another cough wracks his body. Claiming his breath and making his eyes close from the force. In the middle of a particularly harsh and painful cough – he slides off the side of his horse to land into the wet mud less than one yard from shelter.
If you were to curse the universe for dropping an ill man on your doorstep, it would be disingenuous. There is nothing to be gained from cursing something that is an inconvenience for you but a mercy for this sick man. There may be no better place on Earth in this particular time for this man to be deposited, given the fact that doctors in the year 1005 tend to lean toward treatments like leaching and bleeding and consulting astrological charts to determine which humours are responsible for the patient’s afflictions.
Quickly setting your basket out of reach of the chicken, you reach up to stroke the horse’s matted mane. Animals don’t seem to be any different here and now than the ones you grew up with, so at least this horse is something of a known quantity. “Go to the river.” Pointing in the direction of the forest line, you pat the horse again and nudge it onward, knowing the creature understands you better than it could hope to understand any master, but still it hesitates and knickers uncomfortably. “I will look after him,” you promise softly. “Go and drink.” To the man in the mud before you, however, you click your tongue and shake your head. He looks awful. Gaunt and exhausted and probably as contagious as anyone you’ve ever dealt with before. Thank goodness for vaccinations. “You are lucky to be alive, I think.”
Consciousness comes in waves for Pero. Flashes of incoherent scenes. Eyes, or a lone startling eye, focuses on him while the rain beats down on his face. Then the sensation of being dragged across the wet ground. I’m dying. He thinks. Not even cold and they are stripping my body for anything of value.
“Do you always complain like this?” The man – knight, warrior, sellsword, whatever he is – has been moaning and groaning since the second you touched him, only stopping to cough or call out curses in an accent so thick that you’re not quite sure if it’s his speech or just the dialect that you don’t understand. The blood speckling the corners of his mouth made you pause, but after rearranging the scarf on your head to cover your mouth and nose, you simply carried on. Strains of disease are different here, you’re not ignorant to that, but you’re continuously aware of cleanliness in a way that the people around you are not. The threadbare blanket you can spare to lay him on in front of the fire inside your cottage will be useless now that it has been touched by sickness, but he needs it more than you do. “If you make nothing but noise, I will simply bleed you into sleep.” The threat is empty, mostly because you doubt he hears you and you would never bleed anyone in the first place, but also because you do not know if he would understand you even if he could.
Pero shudders, caught in memories of the monsters at the Wall. The horrific bloodshed and carnage of the monsters that had come from the canyons to devour entire legions of men and women. Watching over and over as William and Lin Mae are caught and torn to shreds by the hungry, ravaging beasts while he is helpless to stop them. “Stop!” He cries, reaching for his sword only to find it not at his side. “Stop!”
“I won’t hurt you, traveler.” His distress is obvious, but the way you keep your own mild temper in the face of all of the hardships in your life is to simply continue about your business, and you do so with a little chatter for yourself to keep things interesting. After all, being away from the life you built has definitely given you something of a hermit-like existence except for the occasional animal that finds itself by your side. “I have no interest in hurting you. In truth I have little interest in you at all but fate has deemed that we should cross paths.” Though you may cross paths, you do not wish for your own to end, so you’re going to unbuckle the multiple blades he is wearing and put them far out of his reach. The last thing you need is for him to act on some random, violent hallucination he might have while you’re trying to take care of him.
Settling down, Pero’s eyes still don’t open. Dry and cracked lips part and another painful cough consumes him. Making his entire body shake and his lungs feel as if they are coming up through his mouth. Still, he doesn’t wake up, burning with fever.
Tuberculosis is not so unfamiliar to you, that you cannot identify a man suffering with it. White plague is what they call it here, or consumption, or even wasting sickness. You had watched an entire family perish in its all-consuming grasp when they were too far gone for even your particular brand of half-futuristic medicine and half-natural treatments to save them, and this man has nearly that same look about him. “Another day or two and I would be burying you, I think,” you tell him aloud, knowing that he is too far in his feverish throws to understand you. But that does not stop you from tearing a corner off the blanket where he now lies to dip into a small bowl of precious, clean water to wipe the blood and dirt from his face. “Let me see you.” Not because you expect him to be anything to look at, but because if the disease has clouded his eyes then it is too late. What you find there, however, is far more than you bargained for. There is no sickness in the traveler’s eyes, no milky film or terrible look of bloodshot fear, but a long scar cutting his left eyelid down to the cheek.
The force of your gasp nearly knocks you clean off your feet – your own hand drifting up to trace the same scar in your own flesh. Air leaves your body all at once, leaving you to stare at the stranger in front of your cooking fire in unabashed confusion. Your hands seek out the other marks, pulling at his clothing to reveal the silver whisper of a gash on his left shoulder. The deep puncture in his right arm. If he is who he appears to be, he will have countless marks on his back from a beating you received in the stocks a few years ago. He will have the marks of a thousand battles marring his flesh. You dive for the cabinet across the room – the place where you store some tools of your trade as a healer in this time. Personal protective equipment in this time is very different, but you still have a mask and gloves to wear with contagious patients. Apparently you’ll need that mask for more than one reason this time. If he survives the peak of the infection, you don’t want him seeing your face. Your scars. Knowing what you are to him. How the fuck would you explain your story to him if he did? Would you even bother? You had really never thought about it. It had never been a possibility that you considered before right this second.
“So that’s how it’s going to be, huh?” You huff quietly, returning to his side when you feel like you can breathe again and shaking your head at the traveler’s mysterious appearance. The mysterious world at large has seen fit to lead him to your doorstep when he is most in need, and you will not fail him. Maybe he is the reason you ended up here in the first place, and isn’t that a terrifying idea for you to ponder. Reaching for your cauldron, precious stream water is poured inside along with precisely chosen herbs and roots from your stored collection. However it is in your power to help him, you will. You just have to hope that it’s enough.
Pero is a boy again, hanging on the edges of his mother’s tatty skirts as she goes about her chores. A time where he was happy, his life relatively simple. “Un día encontrarás a la mujer que lleva tus marcas, Pero. Entonces ella será con quien pases tus días.” One day you will find the woman who wears your marks, Pero. Then she will be the one you spend your days with.
Pero’s scowl is instantaneous. “No, mamá. Pasaré mis días contigo. Me haré rico y te compraré hermosos vestidos.” No, mama. I will spend my days with you. I will become rich and buy you beautiful dresses. He insists, although he has no theory of how that would happen. The wooden coin used to buy a loaf of bread was precious to him. Still, he clings to his mother and listens to her tell him grand stories about the universe’s plan to bring a woman into his life, one that he was destined to love and make a family with. “Mamá.” Pero mutters, shaking under the thin blanket, his teeth chattering.
“There are no mamás here, traveler.” It is interesting to hear what he calls out from inside his sickness – no longer wanting something or someone to stop and now yearning for his mother as so many men and children do when they fear their end. “But think of her if she gives you comfort. I will not stop you.” Thyme, mallow root, mint, and a small knob of ginger from the crop you’ve been cultivating for over two years now will not taste of anything kingly or delicious when it has seeped into the water in the cauldron over the fire, but it will begin to ease him slowly. Likewise, the large stone mortar under the window of your cottage will be an essential tool to help him, once you have collected the ingredients for the anti-inflammatory paste you’ll rub on his forehead and into his joints to relieve their pains. That will have to wait until his fever passes. Until you’re sure he’ll survive.
Groaning, Pero continues to have flashes of different periods of his life. Burying his mamá and leaving home, unable to bear the heartache he saw in his papa’s eyes. The old man just seemed to give up his will to live when his soulmate had passed. He promised to send coins home, but his father hadn’t lasted a year. Alone in the world, he had drifted and sold his sword, fighting had always been something he was good at. Without his dear mamá’s gentle voice, he had become harder, more ruthless and it improved his skills. Meeting up with William Garin, begrudgingly forming an alliance and eventually a friendship with the man. Only to end up turning around and going back to the wall with him and witnessing his marriage to Lin Mae. Setting off once more, alone again.
******
The traveler’s fits last a week. Tonics, ointments, healing pastes, and potions depleting your stores and sending you out to forage again and again to make sure he has enough. Leaving him alone doesn’t sit well with you, but in order to push him past the worst of his infection and to attend to his horse – as well as look after your own animals – you must leave him under the watchful eye of the cat that has lived by your side and done your hunting since almost the day you arrived in this time. Seven long years and she has been your constant companion. Binx will come and fetch you in the woods if the traveler takes a turn – she has done it for other ill men before.
His eyes open, slowly, and he feels that he has been in a fog. Bleary eyed and seeing a black blob in front of him. Blinking and reaching for his waist, only to find that he is naked and his dagger is missing. Slowly his vision comes into focus as he tries to move back. Yellow eyes watch him. A cat, nearly as still as a statue is perched on a stool, hovering over him. “Where–” His eyes feel heavy again and he’s helpless to stop them from closing again.
The cat tilts its head, meowing loudly before leaping off of its perch and barreling out the cracked-open front door of the cottage to retrieve you. She leaves behind a cup of steeped herbs that is still barely warm and a small cup of barley porridge that you made sure to leave out in case he woke while you were out. After no less than a week without food, he will surely be starving.
This time when he sleeps, his body isn’t wracked with tremors, and he actually doesn’t dream. His body lays still and his breaths are slow and even. For the most part, he’s just in darkness.
Out by the stream, with two full buckets of water and that basket that never seems to leave your side, you’re cleaning the dirt from another batch of mallow root in the clear water when your sleek, black companion cries out from a few feet away. She trots up to your side and bumps your elbow with her head, telling you to come home in that way that only she can. “Alright, Binxy. Okay.” The nickname is used in times of affection and exasperation, and right now you wish she could carry one of your buckets home for you. The cottage seems a much longer walk than it is when you have so much to tote. But if the traveler is awake – or worse, on his last breath – there is no time to waste.
The door creaks open, making him stir, sensing the light coming through the doorway and the fresh air breezing over his skin. Still he doesn’t wake up again, sighing softly and settling back down.
“He lives.” There is only the barest trace of surprise in your voice, and you pick up the molded leather mask from the work table by the door to protect yourself after setting down your load. Not having the same prudish attitude toward nudity that most others in the middle ages seemed to, you had stripped him of his filthy clothes and left him in one of your own clean tunics – washing his things in the river and setting them aside for when he stopped sweating through his layers every night. Which he finally has. He seems distressed at not being in his own clothes, but at least he is no longer caked in mud, blood, bile, and everything else. “Can you hear me, traveler?” After listening to enough of his cries and mumbling, you decided that his accent sounds Spanish, but Medieval Spanish isn’t exactly the same dialect that your neighbors spoke back in St. Augustine, so you’re not even going to attempt to use the small amount you know.
A voice pricks at his consciousness, stirring him again. A woman’s voice, clear and strong. Pero turns his head to the sound and grunts, his tongue heavy and his mouth dry. Eyes still refusing to open as sleep wants to continue to claim him.
“Hear, yes. But maybe not understand.” Kneeling on the floor beside him, you pick up the cup of water that had been steeped with herbs and gently touch his shoulder. You don’t want to cause him any pain, but he needs to focus if he can. “Drink this.” A calm and direct order, but it is certainly an order. He will never get his strength back if he doesn’t eat and drink what little you have to share with him.
When the water touches his lips, Pero starts to greedily gulp it down, thankful for the relief it would provide. Until the bitterness hits his tongue. “Bleagh.” He pushes it away. “The water is rotten.”
“He speaks.” The sarcasm and amusement lacing your voice is clear as day behind your mask. “It is not rotten, traveler. It is for healing. Drink.”
He huffs when the water is shoved back in his face and his lashes flutter, finally opening when he reluctantly starts to drink again.
“Good.” Only when he has drunk the entire cup do you rock back on your heels, studying him intently for a moment. Through his scraggly beard and long hair, it has been hard to see the man underneath. Except, of course, for his scars. Not that you even want to know what he really looks like under months of facial hair and an unintentional mullet. You can’t tell if it would be better or worse to be attracted to his face – seeing him naked wreaked enough havoc on your celibacy streak. “Can you tell me your name, traveler?”
Pero looks up at this figure over him in confusion for a moment before he realizes that there is a mask over the stranger’s face, hair covering one of the eyes. The lone eye that stares at him is sharp, intelligent. For some odd reason he doesn’t feel in danger, although that could be due to the fact that this person, this woman, obviously cared for him. “Pero.” He croaks out. “Pero Tovar.”
"Pero Tovar.” Repeating the name is heavy on your tongue, but something about it is almost lyrical and pleasant. Definitely Spanish. You knew you could place the accent. “You are lucky, Pero Tovar.” You tell him, picking up the bowl of porridge from nearby to spoon some up for him. “It appears you will survive.”
“Is there a choice?” He grumbles before opening his mouth in mostly self-defense before you shoved the spoon into his lips.
You raise an eyebrow at him, knowing he can’t see the smirk on your face under the mask. “I could have left you in the muck and shit outside my door to let you die.” You tell him honestly.
Pero huffs and swallows the porridge. “I suppose I should thank you, señora.” He nods. “Gracias.” His throat is raw from the coughing, but it starts to ease up slightly from water and whatever you have mixed into the porridge.
“What is gracias?” Is it the most basic Spanish in the world that even people who don’t know more absolutely understand? Yes. But the average villager in this part of Europe in this age of no education and minimal travel wouldn’t speak this language. It would raise more questions than are worth answering for you to not pretend you don’t understand him. Instead you focus on trying to feed him. Finding his lips is slightly harder as he moves about and speaks, but concentration is the key. Losing the use of your left eye had taken your depth perception along with it and though it had been some time since the attack, your ability to judge distances still isn’t fantastic. Spending all of your time with a fast-moving cat does help, but this Pero Tovar moves differently from your small companion.
“Thank you.” He amends in the common English you are speaking. Apparently you don’t know his native tongue, but that is fine with him. “It is Spanish. It means thank you.”
“Pero Tovar is a Spaniard?” Deciding that conversation takes precedence over food at this moment, you set the spoon back in the small bowl holding his porridge and look down at him. “Then I was right to call you traveler.” There is an unshakable urge to learn about him. Anything about him. You’ll take whatever morsels he offers up. After all – you never, ever, considered the possibility that you would meet your other half out here. You would be stupid to let it just pass by.
“Where am I?” He groans as he shuffles to his elbow, his weak body protesting the small movement. He’s not felt this weak in…well, ever. It was irritating, he never likes to show weakness, even when he was dead tired and ready to collapse.
“Dol-de-Bretagnac is half a day’s ride south.” As his voice gets more use, it loses a bit of its rasp and his accent is beginning to become clearer – it’s similar to some you have heard before but not quite the same, making you wonder where else he has traveled. “We are in Brittany, Pero Tovar. A small village that does not see many travelers, so it is curious that two of us found our way here.” France in the year 1005 is nothing like the cottagecore aesthetic you used to dream about. At least northern France isn’t. Maybe if you had made it down to Provence you would feel differently about the whole thing, but as it is, life is hard and the beauty of the forest doesn’t quite seem to make up for it ever.
“I was visiting someone.” His brow furrows. “Letting them know their son was not returning.” He had visited William’s mother, bringing her news of his marriage and a few keepsakes that William had wanted to give her. Refusing her offer to stay and ventured out once more to figure out where he was going next.
“I am sorry to hear that.” Presuming, from the state of the world, that whomever he was delivering news of is dead, you simply shake your head. “I hope you were not unjustly blamed for his loss.”
It’s surprising and a little amusing that this stranger would think him innocent. Not many people would have done the same. He shakes his head slightly. “Bastard isn’t dead, though not from lack of trying.” He grumbles, thinking about the stupid shit William had done. “He married at the Wall and chose to stay.”
“A friend, then?” To carry news of a marriage for who knows how long only to call the man a bastard? They must have been close. Best friends. Brothers, even. “It must have been a mighty wall to entice him to stay.” The way he says the Wall makes you think he means the Great Wall of China, but surely he hasn’t traveled that far.
“It’s larger than you can imagine.” He tells you. “But the woman was his reason for staying. She is— fearsome there.” He chooses his words wisely, even though you can’t possibly know of her. “Fool.” He scoffs, even though he had been jealous when William had looked at Lin Mae with love and commitment. They weren’t soulmates – that he knew of – but the man had left his entire life behind to be the general’s husband.
“Many men are fools for love.” You observe, finding yourself surprised at the dull ache in your chest that his words produce. From the derision he clearly holds for love or for marriage, it is maybe better that he has not seen your face. Doesn’t know that it is his soulmate who nursed him back to health over these last agonizing days. He would probably resent you, or dislike you on principle. And that isn’t something you care to face. Not in this time or the one you came from. “Your friend is not alone in his folly.”
“No.” He agrees on that, certain that he would never meet his own soulmate. The only reason he knows he has one is because of the mark that everyone in the world thought was his. His eyes scan the cabin and then back to you. “Your husband is very generous to allow you to care for me.”
“Pfft.” Waving one hand derisively, you shift in place beside him and reach to pet your cat. “It is only Binx and me here. Unless you count the hen outside. But it has always been Binx and me.” The clever cat’s loyal nature made her your constant friend, which you suppose might be a very good thing now that you know what your soulmate thinks of love. At least you will always have some companionship.
His brow rising in surprise, his eyes roam over the space again. There is a shelf along the back wall, filled with bottles and jars of every shape and size. Herbs hanging from the rafters and filling the cabin with an earthy scent. Now that he is looking, there is not any evidence of a man present. “Then you are a very brave woman.” He hums, spotting his sword and leathers piled in a corner. He’s as weak as a newborn babe, but it was still dangerous for an unwed woman to have a man in her house. Especially for so long.
“Or foolish, depending on what opinion you take.” It would be more accurate to say despised, but you doubt he has any interest in your story. For now you shift backward, studying him for a long moment before you speak again. “How do you feel?”
“Like shit.” Pero grunts, sitting up a bit more and groaning. “But I am not coughing so hard I thought I would faint like a maid.” He moves slowly and his entire body feels as though he has been beaten. The sickness must have gotten worse than he realized.
“That would be the rotten water.” The comment had amused you then and now it downright makes you laugh. “Your clothes are clean, Pero Tovar, but you will not be strong enough to wear your armor for some time. I’m afraid you may be stranded in Brittany for the winter.”
He frowns at that announcement, thinking about the precious few coins he has. It is a rare soul that will bed down a mercenary for the winter and often the price is exorbitant unless it is a lord he will be fighting for come spring. “Damnit.”
“Have somewhere to be, do you?” Men are men. That is a universal fact of life. They are the very same here in Medieval Brittany that they were back in the States in the twenty-first century. And he may have some typically manly thing like a whore in some far off village that he was hoping to make it to before the chill set in. Certainly not a wife, considering his remark about his foolish friend.
Tovar grunts and gives a shrug, nowhere in particular to be or go if the truth were told. He had no plan beyond William’s parents. His concern was finding shelter for the winter, perhaps something to do while his sword stayed idle. “My horse?” He asks suddenly, wondering about the fate of the animal.
“In much better shape than you,” you tell him honestly, though the animal had badly needed attention as well. “Sheltered.” The beast had taken well to the not-quite-barn where you had previously kept a goat before the magistrate claimed it as taxes. “There has been grass enough, but I’ll have to go to the village to get a load of hay before the first frost.”
He frowns in confusion, not quite comprehending your meaning. After all, kindness was something rarely found in his life. “I will be out of your hair before then.” He promises, motioning to his clothes. “Take what coins you believe are fair for caring for me.”
“If I did that, you would have no coin left for the tavern in the village.” While you have no intention of forcing him to stay under your roof, you do know full well that the tavern keeper will take him for everything he’s worth well before the thaw. He will be lucky not to be kicked out into the street or have his horse taken as forfeit. A sick man deserved to be treated and helped. Your sick soulmate deserved not to be deprived of all he had by the person who was meant to care for him. You rock back on your heels, moving away from him to stoke the fire. “Stay or do not stay. But I will not take your coin.”
His frown deepens, not understanding. “You mean for me to stay? Here?” He asks, nodding again. “Ah, the hay.” He decides. “You have a barn for me to bunk down in.” It would be cold, but as long as his horse was cared for, he could lay beside the beast to keep warm. “I will help with chores in return for a pile of hay to sleep in.” His word isn’t worth much, but he would keep it in this case. You had saved him, after all.
“I mean I will not force a man to catch his death of cold after saving him from white plague.” Honestly, there is a hollowness left behind in your chest at the idea that the world gave you a soulmate who thinks so little of love, so you’re glad to have kept your mask on. He doesn’t know who you are to him. And he never needs to. He does, however, deserve one warning. “Only know that if you choose to remain here, the village may not welcome you.”
“They don’t accept outsiders?” He huffs, wondering why you are being cagey. He glances around again, as if there is a piece of the puzzle missing.
“No.” You push to your feet, scooping Binx up from her perch on the edge of your nearby work table and scratching the base of her head while she purrs happily. “They do not accept me.”
He wonders if you are a whore. While every man in the village would go to one, they are shunned by those same folks in daylight. He shrugs, caring little what others think of him. “No matter.” He decides. “I will kill anyone who takes issue with me.”
“Not without your strength. You’ll be lucky to pick up your sword.” Motioning to the bowl of porridge you left beside him, you move across the single open room of the cottage you have lived in for three years now and set Binx down in the windowsill in favor of picking up a bit of darning that needs doing. Stockings with holes will only invite more sickness come the winter time. “Start with your spoon, Pero Tovar. That is where strength begins.”
Pero snorts, huffing slightly at the mothering tone that you have taken with him and glances over at you. He will refuse to admit that it makes warmth flare in his chest, reminding him of his own sweet mamá when he was ill as a boy. “That thing is staying on your face then?” He asks as he picks up the spoon, hating how right you are. He is weak.
It doesn’t have to. You know that. The tuberculosis vaccination you had the year before everything went to hell should protect you for at least another two years. But if you remove it, he will see your eye. The scar that adorns both of your skin from a viscous attack that destroyed half your sight as well as deforming you. “Yes,” you decide, swallowing the bitterness in the thing. No matter that it will hamper your already limited sight. “It stays on.”
He nods, thinking that it’s odd, but not the oddest thing he has dealt with over the past year. He swallows another bite of the porridge. “What is your name?” He asks.
Debating lying to him for a moment, you end up telling him your real name. Not what the villagers holler at you. Not what your old mistress had called you. But the name you actually consider your own. Perhaps if nothing else, you can hold on to the sound of it in your soulmate’s thick, melodious accent. “But most call me Sassenach.” It had been downright amusing, the first time it happened. The name coming with your sudden appearance in this time – albeit in a different place. Your complete and utter hyperfixation on the Outlander tv show and book series leading you on that whole debacle of a vacation and the terrifying reality that the Callanish Standing Stones at Craigh na Dun actually are a portal through time. It had made you laugh with so much disbelief the first time one of the highlanders actually used that name for you – now it was basically a nickname.
He repeats your name and nods to you once more in greeting. “Gracias for saving my life.” He huffs, a small cough coming out, but nothing like it had been.
It should not warm you through to hear that from him. Healing is what you do – at least is has been since you got here. Your basic twenty-first century anatomical, biological, and medical knowledge combining with the basic herbal healing that the ladies in your coven had shared with you and turning you into some kind of medieval white woman. Yet to have saved him is an entirely different thing. At least, your heart thinks so. Which is fairly fucking annoying, if you say so yourself. “How do you answer ‘gracias’?” You ask softly, continuing to pretend you don’t understand him. “Say that you are welcome?”
“De nada.” He answers softly, wondering why you wish to learn the language he has spoken since birth. Although he had learned some Chinese when he was at the Wall.
You nod, looking down at your darning with far more concentration than it merits. You have never had any talent with a needle, and even the simplest tasks require double the concentration that it would cost anyone else. It is surprising, the way your chest aches, and you hate it. “De nada, Pero Tovar.”
A silence falls between you, Tovar taking slow spoonfuls of the hearty porridge and looking around the cabin. It was larger for just a woman. He wonders if your father had died recently or if this was a cottage you had moved into. The thick stone and wattle kept the wind out, although he could see some light up in the thatching overhead. You would need some roof work to be done before the snows come in. He hates working on roofs, falling is never his favorite thing to do, but it’s the least he could do to repay your surprising kindness.
“Your horse,” you ask after the pause, as Binx settles comfortably in your lap. “Does he have a name?”
Pero looks up from the bowl, frowning slightly. “Horse.” He tells you, wondering why the hell he would name his horse.
“Right. Of course.” It nearly makes you laugh, the way he looks completely confused by the question, and you scratch your cat’s little head affectionately. “This is Binx. She will come when she is called. And fetches well. And also hunts small game occasionally.” The clever feline has graduated from chipmunks and field mice to squirrels and rabbits, and while the notion of skinning and dressing your own animals made you a little sick at first after a lifetime of supermarkets, you have had to adjust. Meat is expensive here, unless you procure it yourself, and you’re not exactly going around with a shotgun looking for big game.
He sends you another confused look and glances at the cat. “Gato.” He mutters to himself, never really paying much attention to the creatures. Why would he ever call one? Calling his horse, yes. But calling a cat?
“No.” Thank fuck you’re wearing a mask, it muffles the sound of your amused snort perfectly. He seems mildly offended that you would impose a name on the sweet, fluffy girl and it’s the first good laugh you’ve had in ages. “Binx.”
“Gato.” He mutters again, pointing at the feline. “Cat.” He explains, remembering that you don’t speak his tongue.
“You are Pero. I am Sassenach. She is Binx.” It’s probably much funnier to you than it should be, but she’s sitting so proudly and purring so happily in your lap that it just makes you that much more amused.
He’s never heard of a name like that before. He’s heard a lot of names, but it’s making him search for meaning. Instead of asking, he just grunts and shakes his head. A second later, curiosity gets the best of him. “Sassenach?”
“It means ‘outlander’.” You explain, feeling an odd kind of nostalgia pang for the old way of explaining the word. ”It’s from that new show Outlander!” You used to exclaim to anyone fool hearty enough to ask about the thing that would make you light up from the inside out. You would launch headlong into an explanation of Claire’s time travel from the 1940s into the 1740s via a Stonehenge-like installation of stones near Inverness in the Scottish Highlands. The very place that you and your best friend had gone on vacation now seven full years ago. Excited and giggling, the two of you had reached out and touched the center standing stone at Craigh na dun, and moments later you had found yourself feeling that same sensation of sickening falling that Claire describes as reminding her of a car wreck. Though your arrival was not as traumatic as hers in other ways, the revelation that the magic of the Stones was real had been…troubling. No matter how many times you touched, poked, punched, or slammed the flat of your hand into the rock? Nothing happened. You were stuck. With your best friend nowhere to be found. A group of travelers passing by had granted you passage in their party, and thus began your life of wandering travel and passing off your twenty-first century knowledge as healing, the same way Claire does in the story. Though, at least she was a war nurse. You didn’t have that kind of credential going for you. “When I arrived in this part of the world, it was the way the villagers referred to me.” The highlanders had been kind in many ways and not at all in others, but when you left them you had taken the name with you as a shield against the unknown. Of course you did not know the customs or the language. You were just a Sassenach. An outsider. No matter where you went.
He mulls that over in his mind and looks around the cottage again with a more critical eye. “Bruja.” He decides, figuring that you spooked the religious and simple people in this village. He had learned from his travels that people feared what they did not understand, and they did not understand the things they feared.
Thank god for the mask hiding your face from his discerning eyes. You know that word as a practicing Wiccan woman in a predominantly Hispanic city, and even though your neighbors never say it with the same kind of derision he just did, it’s very obvious that he now understands exactly what the people in this time think of you.
You don’t answer him and again he is reminded that you don’t speak his tongue like William did. “They think you are a witch.” He shovels another spoon of the food into his mouth, a little bit of strength returning and his hunger overpowering any lingering fatigue. He needs to eat to heal, he knows that and while the food is bland, it’s filling.
The hope that not answering him would entice him to drop it is clearly in vain, and you carefully look between Binx in your lap and the Spaniard in front of your fire. “Yes,” you murmur finally. “That is what the people here call me.” For years now. And for reasons that have very little to do with the ointments and poultices you dole out to paying customers.
“Idiots.” He huffs and rolls his eyes. “If the cock crows and shit falls from the sky it is an omen and not someone emptying the chamber pot.” He doesn’t care what people call you, they’ve called him plenty of things over the years. Most of them true, but he only took offense to the one who asked if he fucked his mother. That man died and the question was put to bed.
Exhaling a breath you didn’t realize that you had been holding, you nod once in agreement. “It is not their fault that so many of them lack education,” you reason. He speaks multiple language and has traveled greatly, so you are inclined to think that he is at least minimally literate which is much more than the majority of people in this time and place.
“Education is for rich lords and ladies to sit on their asses and get fat while their people starve.” Another spoonful of porridge shovels its way into his mouth, swallowed before it hits his tongue and he snorts. “They like them ignorant and superstitious. The men to break their back or give their lives and the women to cook their meals or lift their skirts like a whore.”
“Some would call you educated.” The fact that he doesn’t seem voraciously excited about the existence of prostitutes like most men you’ve met in this time surprises you, but it’s rather a good surprise. “You speak more than one tongue. Have travelled the world. That is more knowledge than most have.”
He shrugs, not denying it but his travel was for necessity. For survival. The wooden spoons scrapes the bottom of the bowl as he gets every drop of the porridge.
“Give those to me. You’ll have more to eat later.” You instruct, putting your stocking aside to reach for the bowl and spoon. You’ll wash them thoroughly and boil them to sanitize them because being safe is far better than being sorry when your houseguest has tuberculosis. “Try to rest, Pero Tovar, your body needs it.”
Pero grunts, huffing at being ordered to rest like a child, even though he’s already starting to lay back down. “Don’t turn me into a toad while I sleep, Sassenach.” He warns you. “Or I will believe you to be a bruja.”
“I shall try to restrain myself.” The joke is full of as much sarcasm as teasing, and you get up from your chair to pour water into your cauldron to sterilize his things, grabbing the cup he drank from along the way. Cauldron. The one you had at home was plastic and decorative, filled up with an LED light that turned the smoke from the miniature smoke machine to a sickly neon green. It was silly, and sat in your window every September and October for the entire month along with other choice Halloween decorations. But here? Here it is a tool. A stereotypical one, but useful nonetheless.
******
He sleeps for hours; the deep, heavy sleep of a man who has been sick. Moving little and not dreaming. Instead he lays like a stone in your floor, snoring softly as the fire crackles away in the hearth.
Barley porridge for dinner includes some mushrooms, wild leeks, and some dandelion greens pulled up from the forest bed, along with some chunks of rehydrated rabbit meat from what’s left of the catch that Binx brought in a week ago. You had cured half the animal with salt in the sun to preserve it, knowing that when the traveler came to, he would need the protein for strength. It’s past dark when he wakes and you are sitting with a lit candle at your work table with dried herbs on a wooden trencher and a mortar beside it. In this instance, what the villagers called witchcraft, you called a spice mix. Just because food is basic is no excuse for it to be bland.
Pero wakes up with his mouth watering. He had learned to love fragrant foods in the East, the flavors of the food that he had were like none he had ever had before. Whatever you have cooking smells different but equally delicious.
“Returned to the world, I see.” For reasons you can’t quite comprehend, teasing him feels good. Natural. A bit comforting, if you’re honest. And probably it has more to do with being soulmates than anything else, but you’re still going to enjoy it. It seems like the last time you teased anyone besides Binx was years ago. Before things changed.
Pero coughs and sits up slowly, growling as he does. He is still not completely himself, but he does feel better. Able to respond naturally to the teasing, although if it had been William, he would have tossed a dagger towards him. Bastard always caught it though, so it was more of a game.
“No witty reply?” You raise an eyebrow at him, forgetting that he can’t see you behind the mask that covers most of your face.
He snorts. “Hard to be witty when I am gathering my strength to take a piss.” He needs to get on his feet and shuffle outside, believing that you would be none too happy if he just pissed on your floor - earthen or not.
“Here.” The clay bowl by the door is your attempt at a chamber pot, and you bring it over to him easily. “Let’s save standing and walking until tomorrow, eh?” You don’t want him getting to his feet only to lose his balance from dehydration and malnourishment. “Piss and then eat, if you can stomach it.”
“I— I’d kill for some water.” He admits, throat and mouth dry. He’s slightly relieved that you have the bowl handy, although he hesitates to make sure your back is turned. He might have no manners around men, but you are a woman and obviously a good one.
“I made you some more tea.” He may have termed it rotten water earlier, but it will help him heal a little faster. And this time you were slightly kinder about the flavour. “It has honey this time. So it will taste better.”
His brow lifts, knowing very well how precious honey is. Often times it is hard to find and even harder to get without injury. He had a childhood friend die when they had tried to harvest some honeycomb for their mothers when they were about six. He had spent hours in agony before passing. “You would waste honey on a stranger?”
“Your throat is raw from weeks of coughing.” When he pushes the bowl away you just let it sit in front of the fire, assuming that he will need it again well before you do. The cup of tea and bowl of enhanced porridge are set down beside him for when he is ready to take them, but you are careful to go back to your stool this time. Sitting beside him, treating him too sweetly, anything along those lines could be misconstrued as an advance – and while he was sleeping you had resolved not to make it seem like you were too interested in him. At least not sexually. The fact that he is staggeringly attractive does not enter into anything. “It will soothe you and help you heal.”
“Thank you.” He knows that you don’t have to do anything, you could have let him die, but you didn’t. He picks up the tea and sniffs it, wrinkling his nose slightly but his thirst outweighs his distaste for the drink and he takes a large sip.
“I’ll go to the village tomorrow to fetch hay.” Having already eaten your supper and given Binx a few scraps of this and that, you settle back again to stare into the fire. “Cold was hanging in the air today.”
“If you aren’t well liked in the village, won’t they cheat you?” He asks, draining the rest of the tea and reaching for the bowl after setting down the cup.
“They may not like me, but they are also mostly afraid of me.” You admit with a shrug. “I just mumble a few words to myself that they do not understand and suddenly everything becomes a very sensible deal.” Typically what you mutter under your breath are the names of ethnic take out dishes that you used to eat with relative frequency. Things like ekmek kadayifi and tom kha gai and pasta e fagioli typically had villagers quaking in their slippers.
He chuckles, admiring your stiff spine. “I will give you coin for the hay.” He tells you. “You wouldn’t have to buy it otherwise.”
“That is far.” It’s a reasonable thing to agree to, knowing that if you are to provide for him through the winter it will deplete your stores and cost coin down the line.
Grunting when the porridge touches his lips, he stares down at it in delight for a moment before he starts to shovel it in his mouth. It’s hot this time and the savory taste and the small shreds of meat in it are just what he needs. Quickly inhaling the entire bowl and sighing softly when the spoon hits the bottom.
“Careful.” Despite the warning, there is an audible smile in your voice. It’s good to see a voracious appetite in him, and there is no small amount of satisfaction that settles in your chest at being able to take care of your soulmate. Even if he has no idea. “Not too fast. You’ll make yourself sick.”
Pero huffs, sure that he wouldn’t let this meal leave his belly. Not even if he had to clamp his hand over his mouth. “The honey helped that drink but your well is gone.” He tells you. “Or you have a dead animal floating in it.”
“It’s from the stream in the woods.” Death is such a pervasive part of life here that sometimes you truly do forget about it. Or else maybe you try to forget.
He grunts again and scraps the bowl clean and shoves the last spoonful in his mouth. He will check upstream later on to make sure that nothing is in the water. There is no way that your little weeds in that cup made it taste like that.
Collecting his empty dishes, you drop them in the cauldron to clean and boil again, wishing you could actually give him antibiotics for real instead of having to relying on the small amount of good that things like honey, garlic, and thyme will do for him. “If you keep eating well and drinking, you should be up and about again soon.”
He knows that he will have to rest some more, he feels it, but it also chaffs. He’s used to doing what he wants and nothing less. His things are in a neat pile near him and he lifts the blanket over him, curious to find out if you had completely stripped him down or if you had left him in the threadbare drawers he wore.
“You needed washing,” you tell him flatly, wondering if he’s one of those people who considers cleanliness a temptation or an indulgence. That outlook never quite made sense to you, and he doesn’t seem uptight or prudish, but you never know.
He grumbles in agreement, knowing that he hadn’t wanted to strip down and wash in the cold stream when he was coughing so badly. “As soon as I can stumble to the stream, I will wash.”
“Look more closely, Tovar.” Shaking your head slightly, the trace of an amused smirk graces your lips. “I washed you. White plague would have run off with you in your sleep with all that muck and blood on you.” At the very least, he definitely would have ended up with a secondary infection.
At first he doesn’t remember the muck, doesn’t remember falling off his horse. “Mierda.” He hisses, scowling at his weakness and his cheeks burn at the idea that this woman cleaned him. “Thank you.” He huffs gruffly, knowing he must have been far gone without waking and threatening you.
“I have seen far worse.” And if you never have to dress another broken bone for the rest of your life, you will be very grateful. At least Pero Tovar had been in entirely one piece when he fell – literally – into your life. “If you wish to cut your hair or clean your face, we will go to the stream when you are stronger.”
Right now, it’s the last thing on his mind and he wonders what you mean by ‘far worse’ when you washed him. “I can deal with it.” He assures you, feeling like a burden right now and it’s not a feeling that he enjoys.
“Good.” Leaning back, your shoulders touch the stone wall behind you and you let out a small sigh. “It has been a long day,” you hum, mostly to yourself, but look over at him in front of the fire. Binx is curled up mere inches from the hearth to enjoy the heat, and you cannot blame her. In time, she will climb up onto your small bed with you to spend the night at your side like she always does. “Sleep if you can. I should do the same.”
His eyes follow you as you move around the cottage, another log on the fire and banked so it would burn all night long. A thick, sturdy piece of wood slides into place over the door, barring it from the inside. He doesn’t have the heart to tell you now that one good shove against the door would snap the braces on the logs keeping the wood in place. Whoever had installed it had never had their door broken down obviously.
It is easy to feel his eyes on you even if you aren’t looking, but soon enough you’re tucked into your small bed and turned to face the wall, only removing the molded leather mask from your face once you’re sure he can’t see what it was hiding. Pero Tovar never needs to know. In fact, you don’t even know what good it is for you to know. You don’t belong here. You never have. Always an outlander wherever you go.