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desertduality · 3 months

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gigs phasmo but the ghost is just confused mumbo jumbo

physically unable to write a snippet so here's a whole oneshot AKJSDKJ I hope you like it!! Personally I had a ton of fun lmao

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The house was nice, as far as haunted locations went. The flowers out front were dead, sure, but that was probably on account of their caretaker being dead as well.

The neighbors had been the ones to call this address in, claiming that although the owner of the property had died quite some months ago, lights frequently turned on and off in the house. The police had been by several times to check for intruders, and had come up empty every time. Finally, some desperate neighbor had given in and called paranormal investigators.

So there they were, Impulse pulling up on the curb just as the sun dipped below the horizon. Prime ghost hunting time, for some reason; Scar hadn’t really paid attention to the science and research when he’d signed up for the job. Besides, the other three had all that handled quite nicely. Scar was just along for the ride.

“Scar, you know what you’re doing?” Impulse asked, grabbing a flashlight off the wall and clipping his walkie onto his belt.

“Sir, yes sir!” Scar quipped, scanning the gear for his usual fare. “One paraba-dolical microphone coming up.”

“Grab a thermometer, too,” Impulse suggested, clapping him on the shoulder on his way out of the van. “Let’s try to keep this one clean! The company is running low on cursed items with resurrection abilities.”

“I know for a fact we’ve made the biggest dent in that,” Skizz’s voice crackled out of the walkie, changing to a slight echo as he presumably walked in the house.

“Why do you sound proud of that?” Grian asked, speaking into the radio as he grabbed a salt canister. Scar snickered, reaching over him to grab the thermometer.

“We’ve got a record going, man! No one can stop us!”

“You have to admire his positivity,” Scar said brightly, clicking his flashlight to make sure it worked.

“Yeah, I guess he’s got that going for him,” Grian replied, giving a short wave as he left the van. “See you on the inside, Scar.”

Scar gave a jaunty wave, doing one last check on his equipment before starting after him. A voice cut him off before he could leave.

“Did anyone check the name?” Impulse asked, and Scar turned around to squint at the corkboard, eyes catching on the top.

Huh. Interesting.

Scar clicked the talk button on his walkie. “Looks like… Mumbo Jumbo?”

There was a long pause, and Scar almost thought they had missed it somehow. Then the response came.

“Scar,” Grian said, sounding tiredly amused. “If you can’t pronounce it, don’t just make something up.”

“No, It— It literally says Mumbo Jumbo,” Scar replied, glancing up to double check. “Don’t make me waste a photo to prove it. I will, you know I will.”

“Don’t, Scar,” Impulse jumped in, so quickly that the start of his sentence cut out. “We believe you.”

“Get in here before I come and drag you, Face,” Skizz chimed in, and Scar rolled his eyes with a chuckle, stepping out of the van.

The house was warmer than the air outside, so Scar took that as a sign that someone had gotten to the fuse box. He wandered around with the paradabolic microphone for a few minutes, watching closely for big leaps in the readings. Eventually, Impulse called out from upstairs, claiming that he’d found the room. Scar hurried towards him, making it there just in time to watch him set up the video camera, fiddling with the tripod and muttering complaints about its stability.

The room was a bedroom, a large bed against one wall and a shelf full of dead plants on the other. Everything was covered with a thin layer of dust, but that was pretty usual. Obviously no one had been keeping up with the cleaning.

“Anyone done spirit box?” Grian asked, and Scar jumped and whirled around, finding him in the doorway. Grian giggled, and Scar huffed.

“Not yet,” Impulse said, finally getting the tripod to settle. He looked over at them. “Want us to leave?”

“Not really,” Grian grumbled, starting to power up the spirit box. “But yes.”

Scar walked out of the door and Impulse followed him, closing it and leaving Grian in the room alone. Immediately, they heard the telltale singing introduction of Grian beginning to ask questions. The rest of the house was quiet. So far, everything had been entirely unremarkable.

“I’m going to go grab D.O.T.S and a book,” Impulse spoke suddenly, starting to walk away. “Maybe you could start grabbing some stuff for a polty pile?”

“Sure, will do,” Scar said, and started picking up objects from the table in the hallway. A lot of picture frames and spare wires, for whatever reason.

Grian opened the door to the room just as Scar arrived with his arms full, and Scar tilted his head at the odd look on the other’s face. His eyebrows were furrowed and he was wearing a faint frown.

“What’s wrong?” Scar asked, curious. Normally, Grian came out of a spirit box session with wide eyes and immediately ran to the van. This was out of character.

“I think…” Grian started, contemplative frown getting more pronounced. “I think the ghost apologized to me.”

“...huh?”

“I asked where it was,” Grian said, spirit box slack in his hand. “And then it said something, and then I screamed, and then it— I could have sworn it said sorry. Like, for scaring me.”

“Oh,” Scar said, tilting his head. “Has that happened before?”

Grian shook his head slowly, staring at the spirit box for a minute before exhaling forcefully. “Let’s just keep going,” he said, shoving the device in his pocket. “We still have a job to do.” Then, into his walkie: “We’ve got spirit box, guys. One thing down.”

They kept doing their jobs like they normally would, but none of them could quite shake the sense of something being different.

Usually, the haunted locations they visited had a foreboding sort of feeling to them. They get in and out of those places as soon as possible, the feeling of imminent danger settling on their shoulders like a heavy jacket. There was none of that, here. It was obviously haunted, but it still just felt like... a house. It didn’t feel malicious at all.

Impulse put a book down, and writing appeared a few minutes later. Just a single sentence, asking if they would water the plants on their way out.

They laid down D.O.T.S and stayed out in the van for a while, eventually seeing a tall, hazy figure pass quickly through.

They caught ghost orbs on the video surveillance.

Impulse took the Ultraviolet flashlight and found fingerprints on the side of the video camera, like the ghost had been curious about it.

The salt Grian had placed on the ground was smeared and scattered, almost as if the ghost had slipped on it instead of stepped in it.

“If we discovered some new type of ghost,” Grian said eventually, muffled through his own hands covering his face, after hours of pouring over the conflicting evidence. “I am going to be upset.”

“None of this makes sense!” Impulse complained, flipping through the research journal that Scar had never touched. He was scowling at the pages like they’d personally offended him. “It won’t even hunt!”

“He seems kinda friendly,” Scar said, staring at the steady line of the EMF reader on the screen. “The poor guy just wants his plants watered. I don’t even have the heart to tell him that it probably wouldn’t help. Those things are dead dead.”

Impulse’s head thunked down on the table in front of him. “We’re so fired.”

In the silence following that statement, Skizz burst into the van, holding an object aloft in celebration.

“I found it!” Skizz yelled triumphantly, the wrinkly figure of the monkey paw clutched in his hand. “It fell behind some boxes. I told you it was here.”

“Oooh,” Scar said, rushing over in excitement. “What should we wish for?”

“A quick death?” Grian said flatly.

Scar waved a dismissive hand. “I’ve had too many of those. It gets kind of boring, believe it or not.”

“Let’s just wish to see it,” Impulse said, heaving himself up from his hunched position by the monitor. “We’ve done everything else we could do, let’s just do it.”

“Sure, why not,” Grian said, shrugging. “Let’s go out in a blaze of glory, then.”

“That’s the spirit!” Skizz laughed, and together the four of them marched back into the house.

The room was exactly as they’d left it, and Impulse took a moment to turn off the D.O.T.S. Then they stood in a loose circle, tense and determined. Whatever was happening here, it would be over soon. One way or the other. Maybe the company wouldn’t even bother to bring them back, this time.

Skizz held the monkey paw aloft, dim light casting dramatic shadows on his face. “I wish to see the ghost!”

A finger on the monkey paw cracked and groaned as it bent down, and a chill swept across the room, quick and encompassing. Their flashlights flickered, and then died, leaving them in complete darkness. For a long moment, the only sound was their chorus of quick and shaky breathing.

When the lights turned back on, Scar was face to face with a ghost. A ghost that looked equally as startled as he was.

Scar yelped and stumbled backwards, tripping over the open book on the ground and hurtling towards the bed. The ghost — a tall man with dark hair and an absolutely wonderful mustache — lunged forward and reached out as if to catch him, eyes wide and panicked. To be fair to the dead man, it absolutely would have worked if his hands were still a tangible thing; As it were, his attempt at grabbing Scar to keep him upright was rather rudely foiled by his outstretched hand passing right through Scar’s flailing arm.

Scar hit the bed with a grunt as various cries of alarm sounded out around him, light bouncing around the room haphazardly as the sound of clattering reached his ears; someone had dropped their flashlight, apparently. Scar laid on the bed and stared at the ceiling, dazed.

“Oh gosh! I’m so— I didn’t mean to pop in like that, I—”

Scar looked up just in time to watch a crucifix fly through the air and pass harmlessly through the ghost’s head, hitting the wall with a thud and falling gracelessly to the floor. The ghost yelped and ducked — much too late, not that it mattered, anyway — and Scar’s gaze next landed on Grian, still standing there with his arm extended in a throwing motion, hand empty and eyes wide.

“What was that gonna do, G?!” Skizz asked hysterically, fumbling for his camera, accidentally snapping a picture of his own face and swearing when the light blinded him.

Impulse had knocked over the tripod in all of the chaos, and was now frantically attempting to set it back upright. The ghost — Mumbo Jumbo — turned his anxious eyes on Scar, who for once was struck speechless, jaw slack.

“Are you alright, mate?” Mumbo Jumbo asked, hands fidgeting together. “I didn’t mean to scare you, but— Well, you summoned me. There’s only so much to be done for that.”

With everyone else still scrambling about the room, Scar allowed himself a few seconds to process things. Most ghosts they’d come across — all of them, actually — had been nothing less than murderous and bloodthirsty. The cordial ghost of a perfectly normal man was not something they had been trained for, but that didn’t exactly mean that it was impossible. Sure, maybe it had come way, way out of left field, but Scar prided himself on rolling with the punches. He pushed himself up from the bed with a sheepish, charming smile.

“It’s all good,” Scar said, bright and friendly. “For sure our fault, we summoned you and got surprised when you showed up. Kind of rude of us, I think. Your mattress is super comfortable, by the way.”

Mumbo Jumbo blinked, as if surprised by the onslaught of words, a confused little furrow appearing between his brows. “Thank you?” he said, glancing behind him at the bed. “It was…expensive.”

“I mean, hey! We spend a lot of our lifetime in a bed, right? Might as well shell out some cash for quality.”

“What are we doing?” Grian asked quickly, almost like he was talking to himself, hands pressed to his head in utter bafflement. “This is insane, what is happening.”

“Grian! Don’t be rude,” Scar admonished playfully, then turned back to grin at the ghost. “Mumbo Jumbo, right?”

The man nodded faintly. “Just…Mumbo is fine.”

“Sweet! I’m Scar,” Scar said, and then started pointing to his friends, all standing stock still in various stages of shock and confusion. “The rude one who throws stuff is Grian, that’s Impulse by the window, and over there is Skizz!”

“Nice to meet you?” Mumbo said, glancing around nervously. “I would offer to shake your hand, but…”

“God, this is weird,” Skizz blurted, eyes still wide but starting to relax his stance. “You do know you’re dead, right? We never actually get to ask any of the ghosts we meet.”

“Oh, I— Yeah, I’m well aware,” Mumbo said, laughing a little. “You’ve met other ghosts, then?”

“We’re ghost hunters,” Impulse said, and now that the shock was fading, Scar could see a spark of excitement in his eyes. “But I mean— We’ve never met any like you.”

“Mostly they want to kill us,” Grian said, stepping up next to Scar. “Are you sure you don’t want to kill us?”

“I don’t think I know how, much less want to,” Mumbo said, glancing out the window. “Did someone call you to find me? I’ve been trying not to scare anyone, but I suppose the lights might’ve done me in.”

“Yeah, that was pretty much what tipped them off,” Scar said apologetically. “A few too many weird things happen and boom, here we are.”

“What happens now?” Mumbo asked, chuckling nervously. “I mean, you found me. Job done, yeah?”

“Usually we figure out what type of ghost it is and the company sends out a specialized team to evict it,” Impulse answered, brow pinched in thought. “But normally that’s for safety reasons. You don’t seem like a threat. No offense.”

“Oh, none taken.”

“Can I ask how you died?” Skizz asked, eyes alight with curiosity.

“Skizz,” Grian hissed. “You can’t just ask people how they died!”

“I was just wondering!”

“No, it’s— it’s fine,” Mumbo stuttered, and Scar had a feeling that if ghosts could blush, he would be doing it. “I… fell down the stairs.”

Scar nodded solemnly. “Could have happened to anyone.”

“So what are we actually going to do about this?” Grian asked, vaguely gesturing at the room. “It feels like it would be wrong to kick this guy out of his own house. He’s not really causing trouble.”

“Yeah, I— I do like my house,” Mumbo interjected, awkward smile on his face. “I’d rather stay, if that’s alright.”

“Someone’s bound to move in eventually, you know,” Skizz said, pitying frown on his face. “There’s already a for sale sign in the yard. The new owners might not be super ghost-friendly.”

Mumbo’s shoulders slumped, a dejected look on his face as he frowned at the floor. Scar felt a pang of sympathy grow in his chest, and he glanced out the window at the rows of houses down the street.

It really was quite a nice neighborhood.

“...You know,” Scar started, gaze drifting over to Grian, a slow smile forming on his face. “Our lease is almost up.”

Grian looked over at him, eyes already resigned, and sighed.

Scar laughed, grinning, and Mumbo slowly smiled back.

#this let me practice my ability to write silly fun things AKSJDKJ it was a blast actually :]#thank you for the prompt anon!! I hope i brought your vision to life aksjdk #goodtimeswithscar #gtws #grian #skizzleman #impulsesv #mumbo jumbo #my writing #writing request #now that this is finished i am going to go to bed <33 #might post this on ao3 later but rn i'm tired <3

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flyinghome-againstthewind · 1 year

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I posted 1,381 times in 2022

That's 660 more posts than 2021!

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I tagged 1,004 of my posts in 2022

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#i also like to joke that i technically have a psych minor bc i met all of the requirements for it i had just transferred schools in between

My Top Posts in 2022:

Beside the Seaside: Ch 3

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previous chapter

1944

Claire Randall had been to France when she was young, had seen the lush green countryside and walked the streets of Paris, but she had long since been unable to reconcile her memories of another world with this one. She stood in the heart of what had once been a bustling city but was now reduced to rubble. The British army had set up a field hospital within the ruins of a cathedral, and Claire had grown accustomed to the way the steady sound of distant gunfire echoed off of its remaining half-walls. She lifted her head from tending to a soldier to see one of her fellow nurses, Marion, shuffling a wounded man into the tent.

“Have you seen him out there?” Claire asked. Marion shook her head and turned her own attention to her patient.

“You looking for your boy?”

Her gaze returned to the soldier, who was grimacing through the question. Corporal Thompson would be alright, she thought, but there was little she could do for his pain while cleaning and stitching up his wound. Besides, perhaps, a bit of a distraction, which he seemed to be looking for. Claire gave in, though it was the last thing she wanted to talk about.

“He’s not my boy, he’s just…”

He was Fergus, eight-year-old charmer and perpetual pain in her arse. As soon as she got her hands on him, she was going to throttle him.

“Maybe not,” Thompson conceded, “but you look out for him, don’t you? Everyone always sees you two together, anyway.”

The man’s assessment of her and Fergus brought her up short. She paused in her treatment and stared at him, the urge to defend the young scamp rising steadily to the surface. “He needs a little looking after, whether he wants it or not. He doesn’t have anyone.”

There were few who came through this camp without learning Fergus’s story. The boy was already an orphan before war broke out, but when his city’s inhabitants evacuated, including the staff and wards of the Catholic orphanage where the boy was said to have been a resident, Fergus was left behind. Some said he stayed behind on purpose, for Fergus truly was the life of the camp and ran wild through it without the supervision of the nuns, but most believed he’d just been overlooked in the chaos. By Claire’s estimation, Fergus had been here with the army for at least two years now, moving with them in the encampment, and living off of the kindness of others. He’d been “stationed” here longer than Claire had, and even with the entire camp as his personal playground, she saw very quickly that no one was really caring for Fergus. Even the details of his story had become a bit muddied without someone there to safeguard it; for instance, she was never clear on whether this very city had been his home or if the army had picked him up on their way through to it. Fergus himself was squirrely on the details, in no hurry to return to the nuns.

“Funny kid, that Fergus,” Thompson went on, hissing on occasion but otherwise quietly bearing the pain. To some of the soldiers, Fergus was nothing more than a pet, a source of entertainment, as though they couldn’t see the humanity in a small, lonely child. Claire was starting to get the distinct impression that Thompson fell into that category and grit her teeth as she neared the end of her stitching. “I wonder what will happen to him when this ends. If this ever ends…”

Claire felt her stomach churn. Where would Fergus go when the army left and no one returned to the rubble of his former home? “There’s got to be another orphanage somewhere that would take him.” But even as she spoke the words ‒ for a perfectly reasonable solution ‒ she hated the thought.

A bomb blast echoed in the distance and Claire’s eyes shot to the entryway again.

“So where’d he run off to?”

Claire bit her cheek to keep from screaming. She could be sympathetic to the man’s need for distraction, but this conversation was starting to make her want to pull her hair out. She was already worried sick over Fergus, and Thompson’s careless questions weren’t helping.

Mercifully, she caught her name being spoken and her gaze flitted toward the voice. It was Sergeant Harris, whom she was friendly with. He was a bit older than the rest and one of the few men Claire didn’t feel like she needed to keep her guard up around to ward off unwanted advances ‒ apparently a wedding ring didn’t mean much in wartime to most people.

“Fergus?” she asked, unable to keep her voice from wobbling. Just yesterday the boy had said he wanted to be a real soldier, and when he’d gone missing this morning…

“Yes, come see, Nurse Randall. He’s alright, but he’s all shook up.”

She ran out of the medical tent, quickly scanning the area for him. And when her gaze rested on him, the vice grip on her heart finally slackened. “Fergus!”

He looked up as she approached him, his expression a little dazed, and he seemed at that moment so much younger than his eight years.

“Oh, Fergus, you little wretch!” She clasped the boy to her heart and heaved a sigh of relief. He became boneless in her embrace, sinking into her.

“Milady,” he murmured. It was Fergus’s teasing nickname for her ‒ after their introduction at the camp, she’d ruthlessly dressed down a soldier for not paying attention to her presentation on preventing trench foot and Fergus had witnessed it. He had said she’d looked the part of nobility in that moment for her command over the men, and so he’d called her Milady ever since, always with a devilish glint in his eyes ‒ or at times he said it sarcastically when she turned her attention to fussing over him.

But just then, he sounded so small, so lost in the dark, and Claire didn’t know what else to do but clutch him tighter to her. “Are you alright?”

She pulled back just enough to look at him, framing his dirt-smudged face in her hands. God, she hoped that was only dirt.

“I k‒ I killed a German soldier, Milady.”

Her eyes grew wide. “Don’t tell me that,” she said in a breathless whisper.

“H‒h‒he was not with the others. I thought he might be a spy. He didn’t see me and I‒ I had a knife. I struck him.”

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65 notes - Posted November 6, 2022

chapter 26: the best by far is you

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Previous Chapter

Summary: An exploration of Claire & Jamie’s story if their firstborn had lived and they had the chance to be parents together of wee Faith Fraser before the Battle of Culloden.

Chapter 26

“Do you think it’s strange,” Claire asked him while Brianna was tucked against her breast as she nursed, “that Murtagh hasn’t once held the baby?”

Her tone suggested that she did think it was strange, regardless of Jamie’s thoughts on the matter. “Och, I’ve told ye before, mo nighean, he’s scared o’ bairns when they’re that small. Thinks they’re too fragile and likely to fall apart in his arms.”

Claire’s brows furrowed together. “Well, sure, he didn’t go near Faith until she was at least seven months old, but I thought… I mean, he’s been wonderful with her ever since.”

“Aye, she’s no longer a wee babe now is she?”

Claire rolled her eyes. “So, he won’t go near Brianna until she’s hearty enough that he’s not scared to hold her? When she’s half a year old? Is that what you’re saying?”

He couldn’t help the smile that tugged at his lips. “Sassenach… he loves our bairns. He’d protect them with his life. Ye ken that well. And aye, someday when Brianna is hearty enough as ye say, I’m sure he’ll hold her, if that’s yer worry.”

She shook her head, exasperated by the notion, and glanced down at the baby in her arms. Brianna’s arms and legs flailed as soon as Claire looked at her, wriggling with joy. Jamie’s heart melted at the sight. Such a sweet wee thing, their Brianna.

Claire’s finger traced the contours of the babe’s soft, round face. “Well, that simply won’t do, will it, Bree?”

----------

Claire cornered Murtagh with the baby while he was in the sitting room, lounging in one of the chairs and none the wiser to her scheming. Jamie sat nearby and watched the event unfold with nothing short of amusement, as Claire simply lowered the baby into Murtagh’s lap before there was an opportunity for the older man to escape.

Murtagh went rigid with fear, his arms stiff and awkward around the baby. “Nay‒ I‒ Claire!”

“Don’t make such a fuss. She’s sleeping.” Claire straightened, settling her hands on her hips, surveying the two unlikely companions with a smile. “There, see? Nothing to be afraid of.”

Murtagh looked as though he might argue that point, still holding Brianna with a delicateness as though she were a loaded pistol, poised to go off at any moment.

And with that, Claire spun and walked to the other side of the room to help Fergus with his lessons. Murtagh turned sharp eyes on Jamie. “What the devil is all this about, then?”

Jamie’s gaze flitted over to Claire but she wasn’t looking. He suspected she would be stealing glances this way, though. “I think,” he began softly, “that she worries ye won’t… bond with Brianna, if ye dinna hold her.”

“Christ,” Murtagh muttered under his breath.

Jamie held a hand up placatingly to his godfather. “She sees how ye are wi’ Fergus and wee Faith, I think she just wants to make sure ye care the same way about the bairn, too.”

His godfather made a disgruntled sound. “If she thinks this is the way to do it…” he grumbled. “Fer Christ’s sake, of course I care about the bairn.”

“I ken that, but…” Jamie’s gaze dropped to the sleeping babe in Murtagh’s arms, so small and helpless, and his heart wrenched. He understood the deeper reason that Claire was so unsettled about Murtagh and the bairn. “Anything could happen, ye ken? We have three bairns now, and with all that happened in the last year, just trying to keep our family together… Claire cannae help thinking about the worst… what would happen to the wee ones if we weren’t‒” He swallowed roughly, shrugging a little. Claire wasn’t the only one who couldn’t help thinking about that. Any parent would.

“Aye, I ken yer meaning fine.” Murtagh looked down at the baby then too, still appearing stiff as a poker as he held her, but the older man’s expression softened. “Christ, though… did she think I would leave the bairn and keep the others?”

“I dinnae think she feels that way now, seeing as ye havenae tried to pass the baby off to me yet,” he said with a grin.

Murtagh grunted his displeasure. “I would if I wasnae so nervous she might roll out o’ my arms when I tried.”

Jamie huffed a laugh. “Ye’re doing fine, a ghoistidh. And while I have ye at my disposal,” he teased, earning another sharp look from Murtagh. “I’ve been meaning to ask ye… what yer plans are from here. If ye want to go back to Scotland or continue on wi’ us.”

Murtagh simply stared at him until Jamie was shifting in his seat under his gaze. “First Claire and now you? Och, ye wound me, Jamie.”

“I didnae want to presume. That’s why I asked.”

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67 notes - Posted March 9, 2022

Beside the Seaside: Ch 1

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next chapter

Summary:

The Second World War has ended but returning to their lives from before the war proves difficult for many. For widower Jamie Fraser, the physical and psychological scars he now carries threaten the peaceful life he wants to provide for his young daughter. In an effort to start over fresh, he moves them to a coastal town in the Highlands and buys a seaside inn.

Claire Beauchamp returned from the war with an orphan in tow, intent on adopting the boy and starting the family she and her husband had longed for before the war interrupted their plans. But in gaining her son, she loses her marriage and now must cobble together some sort of life for just her and Fergus. To try and mend their fractured relationship, she takes her son on an extended stay in the Scottish Highlands.

November 1945

He had the car drop him off at the end of the lane rather than Lallybroch’s doorstep. Stood there for a minute with his bag thrown over one shoulder and his uniform growing damp under the steady rain.

It had been raining the day he left Lallybroch, and it gave Jamie a strange sense of no time having passed between that day and this one, even though everything about his life had changed in those five years. Yet Lallybroch looked the same. The heavy stone walls built by his ancestors had stood for two centuries and it heartened Jamie to see the place untouched by the destruction of war. The walls of it, at least.

His feet felt leaden with every step that brought him closer to his home. He wasn’t ready for who he would see. He wasn’t ready for who he wouldn’t see here ever again. And while he’d carried some of these losses for three years now, he hadn’t been home without them yet. It would be real, inescapable, the moment he stepped foot inside.

Jamie had hardly passed under the archway of Lallybroch before the bellowing of several dogs inside the house announced his presence. Ready or not, the front door flew open, and there was his ma. His throat constricted at the sight of her, and he’d all but blinked and she was in front of him, throwing her arms around his neck.

“Oh, my lad! My son,” she sobbed into his neck, her voice nearly drowned out by the heavy rain.

Ye’re a braw lad, son.

The words came to mind of their own volition, a memory triggered by his return. Not spoken by his mother, but his father on the day Jamie left for training. His da had driven him to the train station after Jamie had said goodbye to everyone else, giving Jamie a prolonged moment with Brian Fraser. But the entire drive and all through waiting for Jamie’s train, the two of them hardly spoke. What was there to say in such circumstances? Brian had fought in the Great War, and he’d hoped to spare his own sons from such a fate. That was no secret to Jamie, and he’d already witnessed Brian’s quiet grief when Willie left months before. Knew that his own leaving was twisting the knife further in Brian’s gut. So they’d stayed quiet. When the train pulled in and began to fill with soldiers, Brian had clapped Jamie on the shoulder and, when Jamie moved to hug his father, had kissed his cheek, something he hadn’t done since Jamie was a boy. “Ye’re a braw lad, son,” he had said, giving Jamie’s shoulder a wee shake. When his father spoke again, his voice was thick with emotion. “Make sure ye come back home.”

Jamie felt his chest tighten with the memory and his arms squeezed around his mother. He had done as Brian had told him ‒ he had come home. But not before he could see his father alive again, now dead and buried in the Lallybroch family cemetery. Those words became the last thing his da ever said to him, and among his long list of regrets in life was the hour that Jamie wasted in silence with him on that day.

“Oh, my Jamie,” his mother was saying now. She pulled back to look at him, framing his face in her cold, wet hands. His jaw tensed.

Ellen MacKenzie Fraser had always been the stubborn pillar of strength in their family but in the last six years, she’d had to weather more than a fair share of grief. She looked more frail than he’d ever seen her before, and that left a cold feeling in his chest.

“Jamie!”

His gaze lifted to the doorway to find Jenny rushing down the steps, clutching her round belly ‒ he hadn’t realized she was pregnant again, hadn’t seen word of it come through in any of his letters from home.

He opened one arm to embrace his sister, bringing the three of them together. The unwelcome thought came as he held them; they were the last three Frasers standing, their family gone by half in the space of a bloody war.

“Och, it’s pouring buckets out here!” Jenny fussed. “Come inside and get warm.”

He picked up his bag from the ground and followed Jenny in, his mother’s hand on his back the whole way, like she needed to touch him to know he was real.

Stepping inside Lallybroch felt like stepping back in time ‒ everything exactly as he remembered it from before. He half-expected to see his father and his brothers when he rounded the corner into the sitting room, so inseparable were they in his memories of this place.

Instead, he caught sight of another familiar face. “Ian!”

“Good to see ye, Jamie.” His best friend strode across the room, his gate completely changed from the confident ease with which Ian used to carry himself. Until he saw that, Jamie had almost forgotten. Ian’s prosthetic leg wasn’t visible under his trousers, but to anyone who had known him before, his uneven strides were a dead giveaway.

Jamie embraced his friend ‒ his brother-in-law now too, he reminded himself ‒ and noticed Jenny then corralling a small boy towards them. “This is our wee Jamie,” she introduced with a proud smile. “This is your uncle, mo cridhe,” she said to the boy, “the one you’re named after.”

Jenny and Ian’s son was scarcely more than 3 years old, and he smiled shyly up at Jamie. His namesake. He had known this; Jenny had written to him with news of his first nephew while Jamie was nearly on his deathbed. At the time, it had been a comfort. Another reason to make it home. But now, looking down at the wee boy, all Jamie could think was that if his nephew had been born a few months later, he would be Willie’s namesake instead, or their father’s ‒ as he ought to be. Not saddled with Jamie’s name. Not when Jamie had done nothing for this boy to be proud of.

“Hello, laddie,” he said with a slight nod.

There was a gentle touch at his elbow and he turned to find his mother at his side again. “Someone else would like to see ye.” She nodded towards the doorway opposite them, and Jamie’s gaze flitted over to see a girl of six years of age in place of where he had left a wee babe. His stomach twisted into knots. She looked so much like her mother, it gave Jamie the strange sense of seeing a memory come to life right before him.

He skirted slowly around the others and paused six feet away from where his daughter stood. And lowered himself slowly to one knee.

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76 notes - Posted October 4, 2022

the best by far is you: chapter 25

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Previous Chapter

Summary: An exploration of Claire & Jamie’s story if their firstborn had lived and they had the chance to be parents together of wee Faith Fraser before the Battle of Culloden.

Chapter 25

Jamie didn’t know what hour of night it was when Claire was finally given a chance to rest, after having been helped into a clean nightgown while the bed was stripped. The baby was bundled up and sleeping soundly in her cradle, the exhaustion from the last 24 hours having caught up with both mother and babe. He paused at the door, gaze flickering between the slumbering forms of his wife and their wee lass, heart in his throat.

Some small part of him was scared to step outside this room, to leave them even for a moment, lest he find out that the last several hours were nothing more than a dream.

But somewhere down the hall, there was someone waiting up for word of the baby, and Jamie wasn’t so cruel as to make him wait until sunrise.

So he slipped out into the hallway, vacant but still dimly lit with candles along the wall. Not long ago, there had been a flurry of activity in these halls. After the birth, a maid had spread word to the rest of the household that a baby girl had been safely delivered, including ‒ Jamie was sure ‒ to wherever Jared and Murtagh had settled in to drink their whiskey in the tense silence of men unsure of what to do with themselves while a woman labored. And just shortly before Jamie’s trek, another housemaid had helped Mother Hildegarde and Marie to their guest chambers for the night. But even while it was quiet now and the rest of the household seemed to sleep, Jamie knew one person was still up, who had been missed while the joyous news was spread.

They would’ve assumed the children were sleeping, but having been the boy on the other side of this conversation, Jamie was intimately acquainted with the fear that kept a son from sleeping no matter the hour. The relief and gratitude and joy that he got to deliver different news to his own son was almost enough to bring him to his knees there in the hallway. That he should be so fortunate to still have all of them with him…

He opened the door to Fergus’s room and the soft light from the hallway spilled into the pitch black room. Two small bodies were under the covers but only one stirred and bolted upright, expectant of a visitor.

The light caught the tracks of tears on Fergus’s face, his expression already taut with worry. “Maman?” he croaked.

His word landed like a punch in the gut. Jamie should’ve come sooner, should’ve found a way here immediately to put this boy’s fears to rest.

“She's alright. Oh, a balach, it’s alright,” he murmured, moving into the room as Fergus drew his knees up to his chest and buried his face, the sound of his smothered cries filling the room a moment later.

“Dinna fash yerself, laddie.” He perched on the edge of the bed, reaching over to rub Fergus’s back. “Dinna weep, mon fils, it’s alright,” he murmured soothingly, even as he knew Fergus needed the release of those tears for all the time he’d sat here in the dark fearing the worst. He cried for the relief of it all.

“Can I see Maman?”

“Aye, of course ye can. She’s sleeping just now though and we shouldnae disturb her. She’ll want to see ye when she wakes, so how about in the morning?” And maybe Fergus, with his fears put to rest, could find a few hours of sleep himself. The boy nodded half-heartedly and wiped his face with his palm before resting his cheek on one of his knees with a sigh.

“Ye’ve another baby sister,” Jamie told him softly.

“Oh,” Fergus startled, as if he’d forgotten for a moment what all of this was about. “And she’s alright?”

“Aye, she’s bonny,” Jamie beamed, and the corners of Fergus’s mouth curved upward. “She cannae wait tae meet ye.” He smoothed down some of Fergus’s short, riotous curls. “She’s so very wee and all worn out from making her appearance, though, so she’s getting some much needed rest as well,” he added, hoping it would be enough to convince Fergus that he might as well get his own precious few hours of sleep in the meantime.

He tucked Fergus back under the covers, murmuring reminders that he had a papa and maman who loved him very much and two wee sisters now who adored him, and he would see all of them when he woke up. Jamie sealed his words with a kiss to the boy’s head. His gaze went beyond Fergus to where Faith was still curled up under the blankets, snoring softly. A lump rose in his throat.

The greatest joys of his life…

His eyes burned with tears as he turned and quietly left the room, shutting the door behind him. And when he slipped back into the room he shared with Claire, he found her and the babe exactly as he left them. His waking dream was completely undisturbed.

He did fall to his knees then, and on his tongue was a quick and reverent prayer of gratitude to the Almighty that this should be the life that he was given, the life that was restored to him.

----------

They slept in fits and starts, fumbling through a once familiar rhythm but with a precious new life. Claire’s eyes squinted open against the early light of morning ‒ the realization that it was already morning had her sleep-addled brain rebelling against the thought ‒ and stared at the empty space in bed beside her.

Her first thought was the baby; she didn’t hear a thing, so why had she awoken?

She shifted in bed and felt every muscle in her body screaming at her in protest. God, it felt like she’d been hit by a car ‒ a thought she’d have to keep to herself when others asked her how she was feeling. Jamie had fetched the baby every time she woke during the night so that Claire wouldn’t have to get out of bed, but even with that consideration, she was still tired and sore all over. It was different than how it had gone with Faith, she realized. With Faith, it had been flashes of terror and a race to save them both. Hardly felt like the labor itself had lasted longer than a minute for all that Claire could remember of it. But with this baby, Claire had labored for almost a full day ‒ and both body and memory could remember every second of it.

Then she heard it ‒ the soft squeaking grunt of a newborn, not quite a cry. Her head lifted from the pillow and swiveled, but the baby wasn’t in her cradle. No, instead, her gaze settled on her bare-chested husband sitting up in a chair with the baby pillowed against him, hardly visible to Claire beneath her blanket. Jamie’s eyes were closed, his head resting on the back of the chair, and she would’ve thought he was asleep if not for the steady rhythm of his fingers gently tapping the baby’s back. He must’ve heard her movement as his eyes opened then and found hers.

A lump rose in her throat, for no other explanation than she couldn’t help the swell of affection for them both, the sight of them so perfect she could weep. “Why are you all the way over there?”

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77 notes - Posted January 29, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

the best by far is you: epilogue

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Summary: An exploration of Claire & Jamie’s story if their firstborn had lived and they had the chance to be parents together of wee Faith Fraser before the Battle of Culloden.

Epilogue

June 1750

His wife was still buried under the covers while Jamie moved about the room on quiet feet and got dressed in the soft light of dawn. He reached for his boots, the final article of dress, and caught sight of Claire’s hand rising out of the mess of blankets ‒ reaching out toward him in silent request.

He stopped in his tracks. Straightened back up.

“Don’t get up yet,” she said, her voice still heavy with sleep. “Stay in bed with me.”

His chest tightened and he let out a gentle sigh. “Aye.”

He crawled back onto the bed, fully-dressed save for his boots still, and molded his body against the curve of Claire’s. She let out a sleepy hum when he nuzzled into her wild hair and kissed the back of her neck. There was a time when he might’ve denied her request, felt the need to rush off to the responsibilities of farm life. But he knew now that all of that would keep ‒ for a little while at least ‒ but Claire and the bairns would not.

There was something in her touch, the way her hands clasped tightly over his, keeping his hold on her there, that told him her thoughts were running in tandem with his, reaching the same destination. He held her tighter still, turning his face into the crook of her neck and murmuring all that was in his heart to her, some bits in Gaelic but he thought she knew well enough now to understand his meaning if not the words themselves.

His eyes opened with the soft creak of their bedroom door opening. Of course, he could put off the work of the day for a bit, but the bairns didn’t always give them the same reprieve. “Sleep a little longer, Sassenach,” he whispered against her neck before leaving a parting kiss there. “I’ll get up wi’ her.”

When he rolled over and swung his feet out of bed, he caught sight of the impish wee lass in the doorway, bouncing on her toes already at the prospect of their recent morning routine together.

“Dood morning,” she sung to him, her eyes alight with joy, as he swiftly pulled on his boots and ushered her back through the doorway.

He swung Brianna up into his arms and closed the door behind them. “Good morning, m'annsachd.”

He stepped across the hall and poked his head into the nursery, knowing he would find Faith under the blankets still. Brianna was their only early riser now.

He let Faith be and knocked on Fergus’s door to get him up and moving for the day. Brianna was a warm weight against his chest, waiting patiently until Jamie headed down the stairs with her to the kitchen. A fire had already been started in the hearth, letting Jamie know Murtagh was up and about.

“I can make the parritch, Papa?”

Papa. That was who he was to Fergus, and to Faith, he was simply Da, but Brianna was growing up hearing both names for Jamie and used them interchangeably. Jamie didn’t mind — she’d likely settle on one or the other eventually, and it had never really mattered what his children called him, only that they were his to raise and love and guide.

“Aye, we’ll make it together.” He kissed her soft cheek still flushed from her sleep, and moved about with only one hand free to start on breakfast. His wee Brianna encumbered the process more than helped, but no one else in the household possessed Brianna’s early morning cheerfulness ‒ besides perhaps himself, as Claire often pointed out in mild annoyance ‒ so he got on just fine with the lass as meal preparations were started.

Jamie finally set her down just as Murtagh walked in through the kitchen backdoor.

“Murtagh!” the wee thing cheered and ran to him, throwing her arms around his legs. It was the kind of reaction that would make one think she hadn’t seen her beloved Murtagh in ages. It had been only a matter of hours, most of which she’d slept through. The older man grinned and reached down to smooth her hair, still wild from her sleep. She turned her face and kissed his trouser-clad knee before letting him go.

“Come eat yer parritch, Brianna, and let poor Murtagh come inside.”

“Och, she’s fine,” Murtagh protested, but still herded Brianna towards the table.

With a certain knack for timing his entrance at the moment food was ready, Fergus stumbled out into the kitchen then, silent and sullen and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He sunk into a chair at the table and Jamie wordlessly passed him a bowl, smothering a rueful smile. They’d learned not to engage Fergus too heavily in the morning during this season of his youth.

Claire appeared too, dressed and hair up in place, though a weariness beyond physical exhaustion still lingered in her eyes. She bent to kiss the top of Fergus’s head and then joined them at the table.

There was only one Fraser missing, so Jamie headed up the stairs for the nursery.

“Up ye get, Faith.”

She was still sleeping, but she’d stay in bed all day if they let her. So he scooped her up and carried her down to the kitchen. She was getting older ‒ six already ‒ but Faith was still such a slight thing that Jamie didn't think twice about carrying her around as he always had.

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87 notes - Posted May 19, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #considering i only started posting Beside the Seaside in Oct of this year #I'm v tender about the fact that 2 of the chapters are in my top 5 posts like you guys have been so supportive of my new fic baby 🥺🥺🥺#thank you friends! 💕#i love it here and i love all of you giving you all a lil forehead kiss MWAH #also screaming over the fact that ‘🥺🥺🥺’ is one of my top tags aksjdks #I really do resonate with that akskfjjsks

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