seventeenfortythree | ♥️ a way to stay

How can that be? Yet she can believe it, from him, and it does something to her.

"Well. It's good you've wanted me, and trusted me enough to come to me when injured. And... run away with me, now."

Jamie looks at her truthfully.

"I do trust ye, Sassenach. I trust ye wi' everything, because it feels right, as though I should be."

"And it's not the potential brain damage speaking?"

She's half joking.

He chuckles quietly. "Ye seem verra set on there something being wrong wi' my brain, Sassenach."

She breathes out, amused.

"Sorry. I just don't... want you to regret anything, Jamie."

Jamie's steps falter, and he pauses to look at her.

"I'm no' ever going to regret ye, Claire. Ever. Whatever time we have together, I'm no' going to regret it."

He assumes she still wants her family that she was trying to get back to. "I want to make ye happy in the Colonies, no' to wish ye'd chosen to go home, instead," he finishes quietly.

"Then we want the same thing. You want me happy, and safe. I want you happy, and safe. And... it seems to me that we both also believe we're capable of providing that. Right?"

She brushes her thumb over his knuckles. Maybe she just needs to hear that reassurance.

Turning to look at her, Jamie cradles her face now in his hands, eyes soft.

"I will take care of you. And in return, ye will take care of me. Ye make me laugh and smile, and I think I make ye at least a little happy. So, aye. Aye, we're capable, Claire. You and I, together."

Jamie believes every single word of it.

If he only made her a little happy, she doesn't think she'd be here with him. Claire puts her hands over his before she steps forward to kiss him.

"You make me happy."

That's the best thing she could have said, and he smiles into their kiss.

"I want to make ye happy, always. I will."

She kisses him again, and again.

"We're--never going to make it to town, if you don't stop distracting me."

He grins again and finally continues walking.

"Do ye ken anythin' about the Colonies, Sassenach? Is there any place a wee bit like Scotland?"

"A bit," she admits. "There are a lot of Scots in the Colonies. The Carolinas, if I recall correctly. But it's a different land entirely, though also very... green, if that helps."

Can't know too much, now.

He hums in thought, thumb tapping her hand as they walk. "The Carolinas, ye say?" he muses.

"I suppose we'll have to see where we land," he surmises, kissing her hand softly. "We'll find home, I ken it." It breaks his heart to leave Scotland, but he has to. He knows it.

Home. It's a strange concept, and stranger still now that it seems to involve this man, but she nods.

"At least you'll be free."

"Dinna ken what that feels like, truly, anymore," he admits. "No living in stables, to be sure I hope," he says with a small, cheeky grin.

"Well," she begins with a lift of her brows, "That depends how fortunate we are."

But she might not mind living in stables with him.

He'll work to be sure they won't live in stables.

"I promise ye'll no' sleep on less than a bed once we arrive in the Colonies." Jamie's thumb moves over the back of her hand, trying to be reassuring.

Claire shakes her head.

"Jamie, I don't mind if I must. I don't need that to be promised to me, really."

He's never met a woman so unfussy, except Jenny, and it makes him smile softly.

"So, tell me what I do need to do, to please ye."

Kiss me again, she wants to say, but really, they need to make it to a room.

"Not much, Jamie."

He pleases her just by being himself.

He smiles and it's pleased and shy simultaneously.

"Then I hope I never have cause to disappoint ye," he decides, kissing the back of her hand before the scenery begins to give way to buildings less spread out, heading into town.

That smile is dangerously charming. He has no idea.

"Have you been here before?" She asks, as it becomes more of a town than wilderness.

"Aye, once, wi' my da to receive my Auntie Jocasta when she arrived for my mam's funeral. 'Tis been a long while, now, though. She died when I was a wee lad."

He knows she's never been to Scotland (he assumes) so he asks a different question. "Have ye taken many ship voyages, Sassenach?"

More plans than ships, but. "Yes. I traveled often, with my uncle," she offers as a way of explanation. "Mostly when I was little."

"Hopefully there's some proper meals to be had. You need to eat more than bread and cheese."

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