😉
[June 29, 2023]
"What do you have there, young lady?"
Mandy spins, hiding her hand behind her back – not as quickly as Germain would, but gracefully enough. Yet Granny asks pointedly, "Off to tend a patient, are you?"
Sighing, Mandy drops her innocent look and holds out the Pinard horn. "Grandda says one of the mares isna breathing right. I'm checking her heart."
Granny raises an eyebrow but smiles. "I suppose your grandda and I are both lucky to have such an able assistant."
"Oh, aye," Mandy says confidently. "He says I'm braw."
"To the stables, then," Granny says, and takes her hand.
❤️❤️❤️
I see what you did there linking Granda, Mandy and the horses. 🥹😭❤️
Jamie and Bree saying goodbye at the stone circle
Outlander 7x02
AO3
How do I even go about this? How do I tell you all you need to know? All I won’t be around to tell you? So much is left unspoken despite all the advice I have given you over your life.
I can see you reading this, with a chuckle. You are probably recalling all I said to you. All the little pieces of motherly wisdom. Don’t go outside with wet hair. Always carry money for cabs and pay phones. It is easier to tidy as you go. Don’t get fat. All this and so much more I have already said.
So, my darling Brianna, let me say this. I love you. You are and shall ever be, the best part of me. I regret nothing I have sacrificed for you and would do it all again.
You have his strength and stubbornness. They will serve you well. Be open to love but not a fool. Let no man treat you any less then the magnificent woman you are.
My daughter, I will miss you terribly. Don’t grief for me. Picture me alive and ever so happy.
AO3
“Enough!” His shout startled her and her nursing son. Both jumped.
“Frank, what in the world?”
“It is bad enough that you didn’t give him a bottle as an infant like I said. But now, he can walk for goodness sake’s! And still at your breast. It is unseemly.”
She soothes her year old son back to feeding before addressing Frank. “It remains good for him. You see how strong and healthy he is.” A braw lad, Sassanach. You are doing well, she hears her true husband say in her head and has to stop herself from smiling, “that has a lot to do with what he is getting from my milk. “
“How much longer will you allow him to be attached to your breast?” He is still glaring, his hands on his hips. She simply glares back.
“As long as he will have it.”
“You would have him coming home from kindergarten and asking for a drink?”
She rolls her eyes. “Bloody hell Frank! No, nor would he. Most children self wean by 18 months to two.”
“Where are you getting those statistics from as most decent women in this day don’t …” He gestures to the nursing boy with disgust.
“You know perfectly well were I get them from.” They stare at each other until Frank breaks eye contact, “a shame. A man jealous of his own son.”
“What?”
“Brian here is where you want to be. It just won’t happen Frank.”
“You are my wife Claire. If I want you in bed, bed is where you will be!” he thunders. Brian comes off the nipple and starts to cry. “Christ!”
She rocks him soothingly against her. “Try it. You will regret it. I learned a lot in that time, including self defense.”
“I have no time for this. I am late to a meeting with my student assistant.”
“Have fun Frank.” Her tone tells him she knows exactly what goes on in those meetings.
“What else do you expect Claire? You aren’t being a true wife to me.” He slams out the door. Brian lays hiccupping against her.
“I am sorry, my love. Father and I shouldn’t fight in front of you.” She rocks him to sleep while thinking of other fights, fights that wouldn’t end with Jamie running after another woman.
Lallybroch
“He will be one now, or close to it. Is he walking yet? Talking?” he muses aloud as he sits at the table. Jenny listens as she trims up his hair. “I see Janet and Michael and try to picture Brian. Silly, I know. He could look like Claire or myself. I wonder if this Frank is treating her right, her and the lad.”
“Or lass?” his sister says as his red locks fall across the floor. “She could have a lass.”
“Aye, I just always picture a lad.”
His sister chuckles. “Men usually do.”
She and Ian were shocked when Murtagh brought him home, severely injured, without Claire. After getting him healed ( a time that none of them like to think about), he told them all. Starting and ending with the Stones. Things that hadn’t made sense before, suddenly did. Not that it was easily accepted. They are Scots, after all, and came to know the truth of it. That hadn’t kept Jenny from fussing at him, asking why she and her child were sent away.
She still wonders. On days like today when he longs for them so, she longs to shake him again and ask him.
Fergus comes running in. “Auntie Jenny, Mílord! Redcoats!”
They know what to do. Jamie is ushered down to the priest hole, expanded to be livable for him. Jenny dusts the red hair off her while Fergus sweeps it away. She goes to greet her guests.
gotham enjoying ur shares after each new ep. that last scene when claire initiates sex but ends up emo breaks down instead .. what was it in the bk bc i didnt keep any except bk 9 :( would u share a bit when u have time xox
It was in A Breath of Snow and Ashes (chapter 98, "To Keep A Ghost At Bay"), but in a slightly different context.
It takes place in an inn in Wilmington, shortly after Tom sacrifices himself for Claire - and before Roger and Brianna and the children go back.
Claire similarly initiates intimacy with Jamie - and similarly pulls away. She is so torn, feels so guilty, for Tom's sacrifice to save her.
“Who is it that ye see, Claire?” he whispered. “Can ye tell me?”
“Frank,” I said, fast, before I could change my mind. “And Tom. And—and Malva.” My chest heaved, and I felt that I would never have air enough to breathe again.
“I could—all of a sudden, I could feel them all,” I blurted. “Touching me. Wanting to come in.” I rolled over, burying my face in the pillow, as though I could seal out everything.
Also keep in mind that this is still not too long after Claire's abduction and trauma at the hands of the Browns...so she's still processing that, too.
The scene plays out differently in that Jamie comforts Claire, helps soothe her and calm her down. Helps her mind find peace.
“Let them come, and grieve them, Claire,” he whispered. “And when they’ve gone, I’ll take ye home.”
I do have to say that I much prefer how this conversation played out in 07x02. For one thing, it takes place at Jamie and Claire's home - in their bedroom, their most intimate space. Claire is processing Tom's sacrifice, of course - but more importantly, coming to terms with the loss of her daughter and son-in-law and grandchildren.
Which gives Jamie the space to open up to her - having just seen William for the first time in many years - and share his own grief at losing the MacKenzie family, and so many others in his life.
He mentions Faith - which always makes my heart shatter.
He helps shoulder her grief by sharing his own grief. He honors Claire's vulnerability by trusting her with his own vulnerability. And he gives her the comfort that nobody else can.
I love A Breath of Snow and Ashes - but the series' interpretation is so much more powerful. Much more true to who these two people are, and their shared sorrows and joys.
