𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐖𝐞 𝐂𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐁𝐞 | 𝐉𝐚𝐦𝐢𝐞 𝐅𝐫𝐚𝐬𝐞𝐫 ✅

42 - Two Jamies

One Week Later,

25th September 1743

Eira Fraser's POV

From my window, I could see the entrance gates of Castle Leoch. I remembered when Ian and I had ridden in through them. I sometimes watched people come and go from my room, sometimes holding wee Jamie as I did so. I was doing this now.

I recognised Dougal at the front of the party. I didn't wait to see anybody else before barrelling downstairs, clutching wee Jamie tightly.

In the courtyard of Leoch, the men from the party who had gone to meet Jamie and Murtagh were just climbing off of their horses. I had made it from my room in record time. Dougal saw me and grinned, but I barely caught the movement. Instead, my eyes landed on one red haired man.

"Jamie!" I cried as I ran across the courtyard, being very careful not to slip over, "Jamie!" I called again. He turned and the second he saw me, his eyes widened and a smile spread across his face. I reached him, only noticing the woman on his horse when I reached him. "W-who are y-you?" I asked her.

Jamie reached up and put his hands on her hips, lifting her from the horse's back and placing her beside him. She was wearing only her underwear - why was there a woman on my Jamie's horse, and why was she clad only in her undergarments?

"Claire Beauchamp." She replied, holding out her hand for me to shake.

I didn't. "A sassenach?" I asked Jamie in disbelief, taking a step back from her. "Jamie, why is she here? And why was she on yer horse?"

"She needs some help, Mo Chridhe." He sounded tired. He began to unsaddle the horse, "just like ye did when ye arrived here." He took a step closer to me and peaked around the side of wee Jamie, stopping when he saw his face. "Is that...?"

I couldn't be angry with him. Not when I hadn't seen him for over a year. "Yer son." I handed wee Jamie over to him and smiled at the two of them together, a sight which I had thought I would never get to see, "James Brian Thomas MacCraig Fraser."

Jamie looked over the moon. He kissed wee Jamie's nose and the baby giggled.

In that moment, I saw that I was no longer the most important thing in Jamie's world. I was no longer the thing that he loved the most... and that was okay.

I turned to Claire, "I'll find ye something to wear, if ye'd like?"

I trusted Jamie, and if he said that Claire - Mrs Beauchamp - needed some help, then I would help her all that I could, just as Jamie would, I was sure.

"Thank you, but I'm afraid that your husband needs attending first." She paused at my worried expression, "he has a musket ball wound that needs tending to, and a barely mended dislocated shoulder -"
I sighed, "aye, of course he does," I turned to my Jamie, "come on, Jamie, mistress Beauchamp needs to tend ye."

"Claire," she smiled at me.

"Claire." I corrected myself. "Jamie, do ye think ye can carry wee Jamie up to the room? I s'pose ye'll be wanting to sleep for a while before dinner."

He nodded, looking again at wee Jamie, who was reaching out and pulling at his father's cravat and the rest of his clothes, "aye, I'll manage with the wee lad for a while."

I smiled at the sight, "this way, then." I led the two of them up to my room.