closed.

[1743]

Who: Jamie + Claire
Where: Their room
When: 10/27
Rating: PG-13? I guess?
Summary: Event shenanigans
The Story:

When he wakes up that morning with his arms around his wife, there's nothing that strikes Jamie as being amiss at all. They're both still unfortunately trapped in Wonderland, but they're together as they've always been. He wouldn't have any idea that there's an event, that anything has gone terribly wrong.

So, as he starts to awaken, he kisses her shoulder tenderly, humming as he breathes out her name.

Comments

[beautifullies]

Claire has been in Wonderland now for a year and a half without Frank. There are nights she dreams he's with her and it's so real that she has to hell herself in the mornings that it isn't. She's alone, and she has always been alone. So, she expects the feeling of arms around her to fade. When it doesn't and there's a kiss, for a fleeting moment she thinks it's her husband, but then there's an unfamiliar voice and her eyes fly open, body launching itself out of bed.

Where the hell was she? And why was she naked in another man's bed?

"What in Christ's name is going on?" She recognizes him as a resident of Wonderland, but it's never been this; as desperately as she hates being alone, she's never thought once about sleeping with someone else in Frank's absence.

[1743]

Jamie is just as startled as she is, though for an entirely different reason. What's gone wrong? How can his wife not know him?

"Claire..." He frowns deeply, reaching out a hand to her. "How can ye not know me? What madness is this?"

[beautifullies]

"Oh, I bloody well know who you are, but this is taking it too far. Christ, I'm a married woman," she shouts, realizing now that the room she's in certainly isn't her own and she frowns deeply at him.

"How did I get here, from my room to yours?" She's looking for her clothes and when she doesn't find her dress she lets out a frustrated noise, sheet covering her and walking to his closet to pull something out.

[1743]

He's so confused, not understanding why she's acting like this at all. Instinctively, he tries to step closer to her.

"Claire...I am yer husband. How do ye not ken that?"

[beautifullies]

The clothing she pulls on before she even answers him is not what she normally wears in Wonderland, what she's worn, always, because clothing - corsets and all - from Jamie's time always felt more like home to her. NO, She pulls on black trousers, a cream colored sweater, and faces him again.

"I don't know what this is, or why you believe we're married, but I can assure you, we are not."

[1743]

There's an urgent worry in his mind that she'll simply walk out of this room and he'll never be able to pull her back, so in his mind, if he can at least keep her in this room to talk, he can fix this.

Rather than being overbearing in any way, Jamie simply takes a breath and calmly speaks. "Claire," he says her name so softly, looking right at her and searching her eyes. "Can we speak a moment? Please." He gestures to the table in the middle of the room - the room that looks exactly like their room at Lallybroch. And when he sits, he looks up at her, hoping she'll join him.

"My last memory is of kissing you last night, falling asleep wi' my arms around my wife. You. I canna explain what's happened, but my only memories are of being married to ye, Claire."

[beautifullies]

Studying his face, she lets out a breath and relents; she isn't sure why, she's livid, but she does sit. And when she does, when her hands are in front of her on the table, there is only one wedding band - a gold one.

"I've been married to Frank Randall for the past twenty years, and I would never do anything to betray that. Even being here as long as I have been."

She has no idea what those words might do to his heart, to the man's soul, but for her, they're the truth and he's a stranger.

[1743]

"I wouldna ask that of ye, either," Jamie assures her. Though he wants to scream that this is all wrong, he can't fault Claire for the gaps in her memory. Whatever's happened isn't her fault at all, and he has to be respectful of what she does remember.

"But in my memories, I've been married to you for twenty years, Claire."

[beautifullies]

She stares at him like he's mad, but still, she hasn't left. "Clearly, Wonderland has done something to us," she says with a deep frown as she stares at him. "I know of you, but we've never spoken aside from a few pleasantries. I patched you up once down in the clinic."

But she's here, and she was naked in his bed. She knows him well enough to know he didn't bring her here against her will. Which means she was asleep here the night before.

"Hold on a second," she says, suddenly frowning. "You're...from the 18th century aren't you? It's not possible that you and I have been married for twenty years, unless you're saying we've been here together."

[1743]

"Ah, but it is, Claire," he counters her statement, trying to decide how to even explain it in a way that she'll believe. "What ye told me of yer journey - you'd passed through time thanks to a set of magic stones at Craigh Na Dun in Inverness. That brought ye to me, many years ago. I canna explain how it was possible," he says firmly, hoping she doesn't ask him for an explanation because he has none beyond that.

[beautifullies]

Claire's forehead creases - she's doing a lot of frowning in this conversation. But now she's just puzzled as she thinks back to her second honeymoon.

"...Frank and I went to Craigh Na Dun to watch the local women perform a druid ceremony. The sun rose and we left. I was going to go back the next day, but I stayed in, reading, instead."

She'd made a choice, to not go back to the stones, one different than the choice that led her to Jamie to begin with.