𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐖𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐁𝐞 | 𝐉𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐞 𝐅𝐫𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐫 ✅

1 - Our Babbling Brook

June 1738

"Sing me a song of a lad that is gone

Say could that lad be you?

Merry of soul he rode on a day

Across the lands to Skye..."

I hummed the next verse, carrying on with my needlework as the sound of the babbling brook at my feet soothed me. The birdsong around was an added chorus to my song, and I continued on.

"Give me again all that was there,

Give me the sun that shone!

Give me the eyes, give me the soul,

Give me my lad that's gone!"

The blue eyes which had one matched the now-faded ribbon tied around my wrist swam into focus before me and I blinked several times, willing them and the tears that always followed away.

I opened my mouth for the next verse, but someone spoke before I could continue. "That's a right bonnie verse ye've got yerself there, Eira," Jenny plopped down beside me, "reckon it's one of the nicest I've heard. Where'd ye learn it?"

I shrugged, something completely unladylike and yet I didn't care because I had picked it up from Jamie - who, on more than one occasion, had taken a throttle for me because of it.

"Something the girls sing," I told her. Jenny didn't very often venture into the village because her father thought it more proper that she stay at the house and learn to be a lady, but I had no such restrictions put on me. My mother had died in childbirth the year before, and so had the baby. My father, overcome with guilt and getting her with child and sorrow at their deaths, had turned to drink. Other than Jenny and occasionally Laird Broch Tuarach (when he was at home long enough to see Jenny and me), I had nobody at Lallybroch, and so I could do as I liked when I liked. I quite enjoyed the freedom, but I would have loved somebody to dote on me the way that Brian Fraser doted on his daughter.

Jenny and I sat in amicable silence for fifteen minutes or so, her watching me stitch and me watching the brook more than my needlework. I was a natural at it, and all of the girls in the village envied me for my ability to keep a straight, tight stitch without even looking.

"Ye'll have to do the work on my wedding dress."

"Ye're getting married?" I asked her in surprise, looking away from the water and to my friend, who was five years older than me and twenty years old.

She nodded, "aye, one day."

I settled a little. "Do ye have a groom in mind, yet?" I teased her.

"Ian's a braw lad, is he not?"

"Ian Murray?" I echoed in surprise, remembering the lad who would, as well as Jamie, run after Jenny and me up the hills of Lallybroch. She nodded.

"But -"

"Well if ye're to marry my brother, then why shouldn't I marry his best friend?"

I blushed a deep red and laid my needlework on the rock at my side. "I'm not marrying anybody." I told her, "I'm much too young."

"I've known girls marry a year older than ye."

"I've known widows a year younger than ye."

Jenny frowned. I felt bad for my comment and so we sat in silence for a minute and more until she sighed. She burrowed about in the pockets of her skirt and brought out a piece of paper, a scrawl on the front that I recognised.

"Is that -?"

Jenny nodded and handed me the envelope. It had her name on the front, but Jamie had written to me through her the entire time that he was away because he didn't think that his father would search her post as he might have done my own - which also went to Lallybroch instead of my own little cottage.

She smiled at me, leaning over and kissing my temple softly. "I'll leave ye to his words." She paused, "and ye must teach me that song."

I nodded, "I will." I promised. Jenny picked her way across the rocks of the brook and crossed, going back through the bushes of the forest and to the house.

I unfolded the letter from Jamie, immediately feeling closer to him just for reading the words that he had written.

Eira,

I write to you with the news that we have both been waiting for - I leave for home on the second of next month, and will arrive within the fortnight. Scotland is vast and beautiful, but I shall be glad to be home and amongst the beauties of Lallybroch - Jenny not included. I will see you soon, Mo Chridhe, don't forget me before then.

Entirely devoted to you,

James Fraser

I smiled as I read the letter through several times and then clutched it close to my chest, feeling for the first time in two years like I could smile because I had something to look forward to - Jamie would be home in just three weeks, and he had not forgotten me... in fact, it seemed like time had made the heart grow fonder - it certainly had for me.

Since Jamie had left, I had started my courses and my body had changed. I had not only grown several inches (I now was five and a half feet tall), but I had breasts - and large ones at that - as well as what Brian Fraser called a 'womanly charm' in my eyes and smile.

Mr Fraser had, since my mother's passing, taken up the role of my father, and had taken me in as his second daughter in some ways. He paid for tutors for me and had even lent me a dress of Jenny and Jamie's mother when he had held a dinner at Lallybroch a few months previously when guests had taken up the spare rooms in the house. He paid for my clothes, dancing lessons, and had converted the spare room between Jenny and Jamie's rooms into a room for me. I truly felt included.

Elated, I stood up, retrieving my needlework from where it had sat beside me, and trod the path that Jenny had done previously, hastened to make it to Lallybroch and start making preparations for Jamie's return in a few weeks. I wanted a new dress to greet him, and I wanted his favourite dinner to be waiting for him. I would have the servants dust his room and clean his bed, and ensure that there would be fresh flowers in the vase by the window in his room for him upon his return.

Everything would be perfect for Jamie, and I would make sure of it.