double dating } closed

[beautifullies]

Who: Claire & Jamie Fraser, Bree Randall, Steve Rogers, Juliet O'Hara
Where: The Fraser Residence
When: 4-5
Rating: D for dinner party??? It shouldn't get that crazy.
Summary: Jamie and Claire host a dinner date.
The Story:

When Juliet and Steve arrive, they'll be ushered into Jamie and Claire's room that magically looks as close to Lallybroch (minus the second story) as she and Jamie could get it. There's electricity of course, but they rarely use it save in the bathroom and in Brianna's connected room. Introductions are made before Claire leads everyone to the dining room.

She doesn't cook, not well save for a few things, so the supper this evening - pot roast with potatoes and carrots, dinner rolls, a salad and good wine (and whisky) - is all Wonderland provided but homey and comforting.

After supper is done, Claire serves dessert in the parlor (a pound cake with light lemon frosting and coffee or tea--or more whisky) and they mingle and talk, sometimes as a group, and sometimes in smaller one-on-one conversations.

[ ooc: instead of all of us going one at a time, set up your own top levels at will and tag around! ]

Comments

[holyshihtzu]

"That's terrible."

Horribly romantic, too. Juliet can't imagine giving up everything she knew for a relationship. She hadn't even managed to make it work with her college boyfriend when he wanted to stay in California and she went back to Miami. Giving up her own time for that? It was either completely insane or real love.

Watching them interact, though, it is clearly the latter. Mostly.

"But he was okay?"

[beautifullies]

There's probably a fair bit of insanity, it's okay.

"More or less. He was in hiding for a long while, then prison, then had to live as an indentured servant, but eventually," Claire says, exhaling. "Eventually, I was told by a young historian that Jamie likely lived. With twenty years between us and Brianna's blessing, I went back in time again to see for myself."

Not knowing if he'd moved on, if he loved another. She just had to find him and figure out the rest later.

[holyshihtzu]

"Twenty years."

That was a long time. For Juliet, twenty years was still over a third of her life. She can't imagine hanging onto a love that long, or taking the chance to chase it again, if it meant giving up everything she knew.

"What happened when you found him again?" She knows she's prying, but Claire has always seemed open about things and really, it was all terribly romantic. And Juliet loves a romantic story, especially if it's real.

[beautifullies]

"He saw my face and fainted," she says with a laugh, but it's fond and warm, and she gets serious again after that.

"It...took a lot of work; we'd been apart longer than we'd ever been married. We had to learn one another again, but what it was between us when we were younger, it never went away."

Claire is grossly in love with Jamie Fraser, and it shows.

[holyshihtzu]

Juliet stares at her with wide, dreamy eyes. She's a romantic at heart - Juliet loves love, whether it's the new honeymoon kind or the old and weathered kind. Whether it's her love or someone else's. Human connection is what makes the world go round, and she only hopes she'll be lucky enough to find a love like that someday, too.

If she hasn't already.

"I'm so glad you found your way back to each other. It's really... It's beautiful."

[beautifullies]

There's so much that makes their story wonderful, but so many horrifying things have happened in between. It's the fabric of their life, but it's messy.

And maybe Juliet wouldn't think it was as beautiful if she new Claire left Frank with no intention of ever seeing him again--her husband before ever meeting Jamie.

"What Jamie and I have hardly even sounds real. I've tried to understand it, to rationalize it somehow. If not for the living proof of Brianna all those years Jamie and I were apart, I'd wonder if it'd been real at all."

[holyshihtzu]

"It's like a romance novel."

Juliet knows it hasn't been all rainbows and hearts for the two of them--that much is obvious--but she would have no idea as to how bad it's gotten. What matters most of all, though, is how they managed to find each other despite the odds.

"I've had a few boyfriends, but I'm not sure I've ever experienced anything like that before."

[beautifullies]

"You'll know it when you have it," she supplies, though she knows that can be a frustrating answer.

"I didn't always have this with Jamie. Keep that in mind. I never wanted to marry him. I ran away from him. But one day, I think it was after he'd been caught up in a duel and could have died, I looked at him and realized I couldn't lose him."

She hadn't known it was love then, just that something had shifted.

[holyshihtzu]

Juliet doesn't know it yet, but she will have it, back home and possibly even in Wonderland. Back home might be slightly more surprising, considering she has no idea she's already met the man that she'll marry - and that he annoys the hell out of her.

"Well, I'm definitely a long way off from considering marriage," she confesses, leaning back in her chair. "I'm not anywhere close to being ready for that."