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imagineclaireandjamie · 7 years

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I don't know if this is the right place to write that... What if Brianna goes back in Voyager and not Claire? How would the print shop scene turn out? Imagine that pls.

Mod WTT also wrote A Flurry of Green and Red Part 1 and Part 2 a while back on her personal blog. Be sure to check those out too.

Mod Lenny

Brianna stood across the street from the print shop keeping to the shadows and watching. She adjusted her hat where part of her braid was pinned up––assisting her breeks and height in concealing the truth of her gender. The glass window at the front of the shop was cloudy but she could tell there were two figures inside.

She couldn’t approach him until he was alone. She wasn’t even sure he was there––it was possible neither of the men was him. She used the time to work out what she would say but nothing seemed like the right way to start. Eventually she gave up and simply willed either of the men to leave.

Suddenly there was movement inside and she panicked momentarily at the thought that the two men might leave together. Instead a short, stout man––who in no way fit the description her mother had given her––emerged from the door and muttered to himself as he waddled his way down the street.

Checking to be sure that the way was clear, Brianna took a deep breath and crossed to the door. Should she knock? No. It was a shop. People must stop in all the time… though she hadn’t seen anyone enter the shop in the hours she’d been watching (had it even been hours, or was that just her imagination too?).

She pushed the door open and started as a bell overhead rang.

“Is that you Geordie?” a weary voice called from the back of the shop.

She could see a tall man standing at the press, his back to her. It might be him––he was certainly the right build––but she couldn’t be sure unless she saw his face.

He straightened when she failed to respond and in the movement some sunlight from the window caught in his hair and she gasped. It had to be him. His hair was the same color as hers.

“I uh… I’m not Geordie,” she called to him. He leaned to glance over his shoulder at her briefly. “I’m actually looking for someone,” she continued as she eased her way deeper into the shop.

He finally turned the full way around and she felt herself flush as his eyes narrowed and he stepped towards her.

“Ye’re a lass,” he observed plainly, crossing his arms over his chest.

“My name is Brianna. I’m looking for Jamie Fraser,” she told him as clearly and volubly as her nerves would allow.

At the mention of his name Jamie froze. Brianna started scratching her scalp through the knitted bonnet. Her braid slipped loose.

“Ye’re… Brianna,” he said slowly and quietly, his accent twisting the syllables and giving them a new emphasis.

“Brianna Ellen, actually,” she told him with a weak smile. “Mama…” she trailed off as she watched a flash of pain seize his features.

“Claire… aye, she would… Is… How… She told ye the truth then?” he managed to ask in a strangled voice.

“Only a few months ago,” Brianna explained. “We… she… that is… We found out that you––that there was a chance you were still… and Mama… she had to know for sure so we looked and… It said Alexander Malcolm but Mama she knew… she knew it was your handwriting…” Brianna rambled and fidgeted under Jamie’s gaze as he processed who she was and what her presence meant.

“Do ye need a drink, m'annsachd?” he finally asked, reaching out tentatively to touch her arm and still her pacing. Brianna froze at his touch and he hastily withdrew his hand and awkwardly clearing his throat. “I ken I could.”

“What was that you called me just now?” From the gentle way he said it and the redness flooding his face that it was probably some form of endearment.

“Ah… it’s… It means ‘my blessing,’” he confessed. “I ne’er thought I’d see or ken ye… my… daughter. Ye were safe? You and yer mam? While ye grew, ye had a good home and… ye had what ye needed?”

“Of course,” Brianna said with a dismissive laugh that surprised Jamie. It took a moment for his reaction to sink in for Brianna but by the time it did he had let out a strangled laugh of his own before dissolving into tears.

Brianna was left speechless and unsure as she watched Jamie lean against the counter with one hand while the other covered his face while he quietly cried.

“I’m sorry,” Jamie said as he struggled to regain control of himself, wiping his eyes and standing straighter. “It’s… I’m fine. I’ve… wondered so many times––prayed every day––that the two of ye were together and safe and… Ye’re just…”

Whatever had been holding Brianna back before vanished. She ran to Jamie and threw herself into his strong arms.

“Mama’s missed you––I never even realized how much until she told me everything and we started looking for you,” she told him quietly, her chin resting on his shoulder, her arms tight around his neck.

“Claire!” Jamie started and pulled back from Brianna. “She wouldna have let ye come through on yer own. Is she all right? Is she––”

“She didn’t,” Brianna reassured him. “She was worried about leaving me behind to come find you herself. I was… I was afraid she wouldn’t go so I… I went through myself to be sure she would. There was no way she wouldn’t follow me to make sure I was all right.”

“So she’s out there alone?” Jamie’s face drained of color and he grew shaky on his feet. Brianna had a firm grip on his arms to steady him.

“She won’t be too far behind me,” Brianna remarked trying to calm herself as well. His obvious fear had sparked a worry in her chest. She hadn’t thought twice about the dangers her mother might face in pursuing her; she’d only been concerned with facing her own fears, most of which had centered on meeting her real father as opposed to any possible threats on the road from Inverness. “She has more experience in this time than I do and I made it here just fine.”

Jamie moved to the back of the shop to hastily pack up what he couldn’t leave out and gather a few tools that might prove useful in a fight if necessary. “I’ll no be able to rest knowing she’s out there and might come to harm,” he said slipping a sizeable mallet through his belt and then wrapping a knife in a scrap of cloth and doing the same.

“Wait, you mean you want to go looking for her?” Brianna asked confused. “But you could go right past her or go out the city one way while she comes in another. Wouldn’t it be better to just stay put?”

Jamie moved with a frantic energy that, having been released, would not allow for re-containment.

“I canna stay here and just wait now I ken she’s close,” he told Brianna, his fingers drumming restlessly against his thigh.

Brianna stepped forward and took his hand in hers. “She’ll come. It’ll be easier for her to find us here than for us to find her out there.”

Jamie nodded, blinking and breathing deeply to calm his nerves. “Ye came right to the shop,” he observed, his mind finally beginning to piece together the details of Brianna’s own arrival.

“We came across a manuscript for an article you wrote. Mama knew your handwriting and when she saw the reference to A. Malcolm… she knew it was you.”

“You were looking for me?” The thought of this girl who looked like him but spoke with Claire’s authority and self-possession––his daughter––looking for him… “How exactly did ye go about that in yer time? I ken some of the writing I’ve printed here might last… but I’m no important enough to––”

“Everyone leaves something behind,” Brianna interrupted then flushed. “You just have to know what you’re looking for.”

She began explaining how Roger had discovered Jamie’s initial survival at Culloden before going into their larger search.

“From everything Mama told me about you when I heard the Dunbonnet story, I knew it had to be about you,” she said at one point.

Jamie reached over and pulled the hat from her head. “Aye, ye’ll ken there’s no easy way to hide hair like that.” He ran a hand over his own head to where it was tightly plaited.

Brianna smiled pulling her braid over her shoulder and tying the fastening leather thong tighter. “Now I get why so many people stared at me and Mama and Daddy. It never occurred to me to wonder about things like where I got such red hair from until after Mama told me everything.”

The bell over the door rang and they both looked up half-expecting disappointment in the form of Geordie.

“Bree!” Claire exclaimed running to embrace her daughter. “How could you go and do something so reckless? You might’ve ended up anywhere. Poor Roger was worried sick and nearly came after you himself. If he had I might never have known what you’d done.”

“I’m sorry, Mama,” Brianna apologized into Claire’s shoulder, her mother’s heavy cloak muffling her response. “I was afraid you’d chicken out, that you’d be too reluctant to leave me behind.” She pulled back to look at her mother’s tear-stained face only to find Claire’s cold and shaking hands pressed to her cheeks, holding her head in place for a thorough examination. “I figured you would come after me and then you would have to see him.”

“Claire?” Jamie’s voice broke.

Claire’s gaze slid past Brianna to where Jamie stood behind her.

“Jamie.”

Brianna watched with tears in her eyes as her parents slipped into a tight embrace. Losing themselves in each other they forgot their audience and the scolding she deserved for her irresponsible actions. There would be time for that and for so much more in the hours and days to come.

#bettyadinnye #;mod lenny #featuring: bree #alternate universe #canon divergence

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