Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

We’d barely put John in a lateral position when bile shot out of his mouth. His stomach was quite empty to begin with, and the spasms eased fast, but the exertion left him shaking and panting.  

“It’s all right, John. Try to breathe deep and slow for me, will you?” I said, rubbing my hand along his spine to comfort him and to keep him from rolling on his back just yet. Standing over him, Jamie, William, and Ian joined me in a chorus of encouragement that echoed in the night. 

Cries of joy followed when John's eyes fluttered open, heavy and unfocused. 

"What is he saying?" William asked as I washed John’s face with a wet cloth. 

I leaned my ear close to his mouth to listen. “Don't let them, I think."

"Don't let them do what, papa?"

"Promise… you won’t… let ‘em…" John whispered as intense shivers seized him. Perplexed, I lay him in a supine position and tucked him under a blanket. 

"Why is he shaking so much?" Ian asked. "It's nah that cold, Auntie."

“I’m not certain…” I replied while John, eyes half closed, kept on mumbling. 

"He's nah speaking to us, Sassenach. But at least, he's speaking. Canna be bad, can it?"

"No, it's not bad at all," I said as I put the back of my hand on John’s forehead. He was running a slight fever. It was nothing alarming considering that we were thinking about his funeral just a moment ago. 

Jesus H. Rosevelt Christ… Maybe for the first time in my life, I was truly and utterly baffled. I thought again about Nayawenne’s prophecy, wondering if I had somehow convinced John’s soul to stay on Earth, but dismissed it almost in the same breath. I’d seen enough patients waking up after surgery to know that John was struggling with the mental and physical aftereffects of anesthesia waning in his system. The singular issue was that no substance in this century could induce a state of apparent coma like this. Unless someone from the future had administered a strong anesthesia agent to John. But who? Aside from the guards, William, the Judge, and... 

Dr. Johnson. It must have been–could only have been–him. The man had helped us save John, after all. And I knew for a certain fact that if I were trapped in the eighteenth century without the man I loved, I’d be drinking through my days as well. It was the most likely explanation. 

Wendigo Donner and his fellows, now Johnson... Exactly how many travelers were currently living the birth of the United States trying to change the past in the hope of a better future? 

That question had the potential to keep me awake at night, but for now, it wasn’t anywhere close to the top of my priorities. John was my main concern. His pulse was strong and fast, but his breathing was uneasy to the point of being painful. He likely had bruised or broken ribs. “Help me prop him up,” I said, lifting him in a sitting position with so much ease that it scared me. But at least, his breathing improved. 

"Well, the good news is, I think he's out of danger,” I said once we’d installed him as comfortably as possible, with bags and pillows supporting him. “William? Will you give me a cup of water, please?” 

Startled by the freshness against his dehydrated lips, John opened his eyes again, and gazed at me, blinking in an obvious effort to make my face come into focus. 

"It's me, Claire," I said while he sipped the water, hoping he'd recognize my voice. 

“Shit…” 

I chuckled. Not exactly the word I was expecting, but then, patients waking up from surgery couldn’t be held responsible for whatever came out of their mouth either. And John was indeed running a fever on top of it. That alone could explain his confusion.

"Ye're safe, ye wee bugger," Jamie said with an affectionate snort as he squeezed John’s left shoulder. 

John swiftly turned his head toward Jamie then closed his eyes tight, clenching his left arm against his chest with a wince of pain. 

“Let me see your arm,” I said, my concern rising again. A broken bone shouldn’t cause a fever but John was malnourished, and that made him more vulnerable to infection. 

But as I gently grabbed his wrist, John pulled it closer to himself and kicked the blankets away.

“Don’t…” he said, rolling on his side again but lacking any strength to avoid falling. Jamie caught him and pushed him back up against the bags.

“Let Mother Claire see what’s wrong with your arm, papa,” William said as Jamie held John’s shoulders to keep him steady. “I've always heard him say that his arm could guess the weather with a stunning precision since it was broken during a battle. I just didn't know that the battle was with you.” 

John lifted his eyes toward William. "Tom…" 

"Your old valet? What about him?"

"Pi…char’... oh, God no..." John suddenly squeezed his eyes shut, his breathing becoming more erratic.

Jamie let out a gasp of mixed surprise and pain as John twisted in his arms and elbowed him into the crotch in an attempt to free himself from his grasp. Curses in Gaelic reverberated in the night, along with promises to break bones if John didn’t become more reasonable. Threats that had little chances of success since nobody had ever calmed down by being told to calm down.

“Sassenach!” Jamie called. He was holding John tight against him, circling his body with his strong arms, but stretching his neck out of the way as John tried to headbutt him. 

How long could John hold this struggle in his state? I wondered as Ian took a hit to his nose. 

“Try not to put pressure over his ribcage,” I warned as William crashed back next to the fire, kicked in the shoulder. Ian threw all his weight on John’s legs as they struggled to keep him on the ground. 

“Bloody hell…” I muttered, reaching for the bottle of ether in my medical bag. I was wary of sedating John again, especially since I didn’t know what Johnson had administered to him. But John didn’t give any sign that he would snap out of his panic attack any time soon. Not soon enough for his own sake or ours, in any case.

As John fell limp in Jamie’s arms, we collectively exhaled a sigh of relief.

“Rabid badger, you said?” William muttered, favoring his shoulder, looking distraught for a second before rage fired back in his eyes. “If I get my hands on that Tom Pilchard, whoever that might be, I swear I’ll–"

"Break yer hand, that’s what ye’ll do," Jamie interrupted, lying John down carefully before getting up. "Tom Pilchard is the name of a cannon, not a man."

"A cannon?" William asked incredulously.

"Aye, a canon. It exploded near him during a battle in Germany, a long time ago. Almost killed him, from what I was told by Quarry and wee Tom Byrd while we...” Jamie’s voice trailed off as he limped toward the fire and crouched stiffly to put a few more sticks in it. 

“While you what?” William asked. 

“Arh… that’s another long story. But like for what happened in Germany, I doubt it has anything to do with Richardson and his current situation. Next time he awakes, ye might want to give him a moment for him to realize where he is before touching his arm again, Sassenach.”

I nodded, raking my hand in my hair and exhaling deeply, still feeling a bit shocked by John’s violent reaction. How could I have missed it? I’d seen the scars on his chest and arm, although I remembered being quite indifferent about them at the time. John was a soldier and, as such, had fought in numerous wars. War killed and maimed. War left scars, visible and invisible. John had just woken up in the middle of one, and I couldn’t help but feel angry at myself for making it worse. 

Pushing those useless feelings of culpability aside, I kneeled next to John again and, after checking that he was unresponsive, proceeded with my examination. 

“His arm is not broken,” I said as I joined the three men around the fire a little later. “I cannot rule out a hairline fracture, but there’s no swelling or inflammation.” 

“Why did he react like he did, then?” William asked.

“I don’t know for certain, but surviving a cannon explosion sounds like a dreadful experience.” I turned toward Jamie. “You were the one who knew him back then. Did he seem to you unusually temperamental or displayed any odd behaviours?”

Jamie’s shoulders tensed as he considered my question. His mouth opened, and he seemed about to say something. Then, his shoulders sagged and he shook his head. “Bloody bugger…” he whispered before letting out a snort. “Odd, you ask? Aye, ye might say so, I guess. As for losing his temper… aye, he did that too, at one occasion at Helwater, but he wouldna want me to share any details of it, and to be honest wi’ ye, I dinna want either.”

"So, he was your friend,” William said, “Even if you were a..."

"Jacobite. Aye. And he was my friend, even if he was a redcoat."

William exhaled deeply and gazed at the flames rising high above the logs. "In that case, the reason I haven't heard you claim even once that he is not what he confessed to be in that letter, if only to defend his honor, as his friend... I guess it's because…” William raised his eyes to look at Jamie’s. “It's true, isn't it?"

Bloody effing hell… Jamie and I had expected the question for some time now, but we hadn't agreed on what to reply yet. Turned out, we didn't have to.

"What importance does it have to ye that lord John's a two spirit man?" Ian asked as he came back to sit by the fire with us. 

William’s brows shot up. So did mine. 

"A what?" Jamie asked.

"T'is nah somethin’ shameful to have two spirits for the Indians. Quite the contrary. T'is a great gift from the Creator to have both a male and a female spirit in one's soul. As a matter of fact, I think ye're one of them, Auntie Claire, 'cause ye do a man's work, ye being a surgeon, and ye curse like a man too, if you pardon me saying so. T’is nah yer fault, though. And it wouldna be healthy to keep yer male spirit from expressing himself. But for love, t'is yer female spirit that talks, like for his Lordship. That's why ye ended up marrying each other, even for a brief time. ‘Cause all yer four spirits were looking in the same direction."

Jamie coughed up to cover his embarrassment as I was quite unable to dart a look toward him. 

"Ye're all right, Uncle? I swear I'm no insulting Auntie. T'is a true honor to be like her and for a one spirit man to love her whole speaks for the bravery and strength of yer own soul.” 

"Is that how Indians see homosexuality? Having two spirits? Like twins?" I quickly asked to keep Ian from digging himself further into that hole as Jamie’s face was glowing dangerously red with no assist from the embers in the fire. 

Ian shook his head. "Twins look alike, think alike, love alike, like the Beardsleys. Two spirit people have both male and female eyes to see the world, so they can understand it better than most of us. We're the crippled, ye see, having only one set." 

"Like the yin and the yang," I said, admiring the clarity of the Native Indian's vision of the complexity of the human nature. 

"I dinna ken what is ying or yan, but what I ken, though, t'is barbaric to hang two-spirits people for their gift. And ye were speaking of torture earlier? T'is torture to them to deny them to be able to be whole. Some can go totally mad, ye ken, sick, even die." 

"So it's true," said William sadly.

"Well, doesna matter how many spirits inhabit your stepfather's body," Jamie said, "He's a good man, a good friend, and I ken he was a good father to ye."

“Uncle Hal must have known too. They're so close to each other that I was certain when I was young that they could read each other's mind. But how did Richardson know?" 

Jamie's brow furrowed deeply and a long, growling curse in Gaelic escaped his lips. "John wasna the target of all this conspiracy. The Duke was. And like ye said, it's no secret that those two are close. Anyone going after the Duke would ken the best way is through John. Does the name Twelvetree mean something to ye?” 

William shook his head. 

"Anyone in London ken there's bad blood between the two families, although most of it happened before ye were born."

"How bad?" William asked.

Jamie snorted. "As bad as duels can get." 

As if war wasn’t violent enough, duels, now. Why should I even be surprised? Knowing John’s notion of honor and bravery, I had, in fact, no difficulty imagining him involved in such dreadful events. 

"The Twelvetrees brothers were three. I was told that the duke killed the first one in a duel over a personal matter. I was there when John killed the second over a muddy business of treason, murder, and espionage. But the thing that matters to us right now, is that the man accused John of being a sodomite.” 

"He knew?" William asked, distressed.

"T'was an easy insult to throw and most probably, nobody took it seriously since the accusations of treason against his person were far more damaging."

"But assuming that man knew. He could have said so to his second, for starters. Do you happen to remember the man's name?"

Jamie's eyes squeezed as he searched his memory. "I ken a Dr. Hunter was there but he wasna Twelvetree's second..."

"Denny?" Ian asked, surprised.

Jamie quickly shook his head. "Nah. Another Hunter, older. I dinna ken if they are related, but John was scared out of his wits that the man would cut him in pieces to study anatomy if he died. Made me swear I'd bring his body safe back home if such a case arose. Twelvetree’s second, he was military. A Captain... Honey."

"Never heard the name," William said. "Do you know anything else about him? Which regiment he was part of?"

Jamie slightly shook his head. "What I recalled is that after the duel, the Twelvetrees name was disgraced. I dinna ken there's anyone in London who has more reasons to hate the Grey brothers than the last standing brother. Would make sense he’s the man behind Richardson, is what I say." 

"And how Richardson knew Papa's weakness."

"It's nah weakness, lad," Ian said with an irritated tone. "It's just who he is. Like ye being a bastard is no weakness from yours. Merely a fact ye've got to live with."

The day had been grueling enough for such words, and by the redness of his face, William didn’t have much self-control left in his Fraser’s blood. I put my hand on his arm. "What Ian wants to say, It's that John couldn't choose his preference in the matter no more than you could choose the color of your eyes."

“Nobody dies from having blue eyes,” William muttered, fists clenched.

"You need to go back to London to warn your uncle. He needs to ken that his brother’s alive and safe, and also that the last Twelvetree is more likely the one behind all this.”

William nodded. “Tomorrow, as we reach the fork for Salem, I'll go North for Norfolk–”

“No,” I said, my heart making a leap in my chest. “I… heard there was a blockade. No ships are going in or out from any port in the region.”

“Well, then, I’ll go South to Charleston. There are still ships bound to––" William paused as I stared at the darkness with alarm.

“What is it?” Jamie asked, standing up slowly.

“I just saw… something move under the branches over there.”

Without making a sound, Jamie, Ian, and William rose to their feet and spread out in the darkness surrounding our camp, while I retrieved a knife from my medical bag and moved nearer to John. 

Perceiving my presence at his side, John opened his eyes. I gently squeezed his right shoulder to get his attention and placed a finger to my lips. To my relief, he was oriented enough this time to understand my directive. He remained calm as he looked at me and at the trees above him, then he closed his eyes and fell asleep again. 

Jamie came back a few minutes later. “Whatever ye saw, Sassenach, left,” he said, his limping more pronounced. 

William walked out the bushes near the river. "We didn't see anything either.”

"Could have just been a deer, Auntie," Ian said, trying and failing to reassure me. 

An animal would have made a racket and my shadow had been silent. Listening to my own thoughts, I suddenly realized that maybe I was more exhausted than I thought.

"Or it was my imagination. Sorry about this," I replied, putting the knife in my pocket, just in case it wasn’t my imagination. 

Jamie's hands close on my shoulders. I leaned my head against his chest, welcoming the strength of his arms around me and the warmth of his body against my face. I stood there, breathing the intoxicating smell of earthy leaves and burning wood that permeated his clothes. “How’s your knee?” I asked as he suddenly put some of his weight on me to lower himself to the ground with a groan.

“Didna feel it all day… but t’was a long day, Sassenach.” 

“Let me put a bit of ointment. It’ll help.” Not waiting for his authorization, I grabbed his leg and gently stretched it before him, rolled down his stocking and his breeches up just enough to expose the kneecap. While I massaged his leg, his gaze turned toward John. “It makes me sick to my stomach to see him like this, Sassenach…” 

John was awake again, although awake was a bit of a generous term. William had put a bowl of stew on his lap and the spoon in his hand that, after some encouragement, John slowly and shakily brought to his mouth, much like an automaton. 

"He's exhausted. I doubt he had much to eat for the last month. At least." 

"I ken what starvation does to a man's body. Worse has been done to him.”

“I think he’s been heavily sedated,” I whispered to Jamie. “The deep coma he was in when we found him and his symptoms when he woke up are characteristic of someone being given a strong dose of an anesthesia drug.”

Jamie’s brow furrowed even deeper as I revealed my suspicions about Dr. Johnson. 

“He wasna tortured, then?” Jamie said, relief showing on his face for a brief second before he read my doubts, that according to the Geneva convention, denying sufficient food and beating a prisoner of war–which in some way, John was–in itself was torture. “Sassenach?”

“Except for what was done to him in Wilmington? I don’t know.” It was the truth. One year was a hell of a long time to spend alone, locked in a cabin on board the Palas. “Even if Richardson treated him better than the prison guards, solitary confinement is a form of torture. Besides, I still don’t believe John willingly wrote his confession.”

“Neither do I…” Jamie whispered, his gaze lingering on his son plaiting John’s hair, trying to give him back a sense of dignity, even if John didn’t seem to be aware of his surroundings at the moment. 

Holding the bowl on his lap, he was staring at the fire, eyes wide open and brows drawn. 

There was no coming to terms with the fact that life was inherently violent, regardless of the era or location, and I had not yet encountered a person who had been entirely untouched by evil, however minor. And in John’s dark, expressionless gaze, I could see the hovering shadows of the demons that haunted our own lives. 

There was nothing I could do to heal those invisible wounds, but at the very least, I needed to know what they were in order to not to make them worse for John, like I’d inadvertently done with his arm. Despite all the moments we’d shared along the years, I realized that I knew very little of his life. We hadn’t been married long enough to know each other's most intimate memories and deepest wounds. 

Maybe Isobel Dunsanny, if she were still alive, would have been able to help him better than me. After all, he’d married her after his return from Germany from what I’d understand. Which, after second thoughts, would definitely qualify as odd for John.

Christ… No wonder he couldn’t feel anything when she died. His mind was acting to protect him from more than her death… and he’d come to Jamie for help instead. To reconnect with himself. Only to face my hostility...

Looking at the blankets I’d piled on top of John to keep him warm, I now wondered how many layers of trauma he’d piled in his life. I was beginning to have enough of an idea to realize that I would need to be careful in the next few days, maybe even weeks while he recovered physically from this ordeal. And despite our desire to know what had happened to him, that started by restraining ourselves to seek those answers directly. 

It was a singular thing, love. Over the years, my love for Frank had gradually waned, sometimes transforming into a darkness that bordered on indifference at best, and despise at worst, eventually settling in a complex mix of deep and bittersweet affection. My emotions towards John were growing in the opposite way. Moving from feelings of disgust and jealousy to indifference, then gratitude, friendship, and now, I had to admit to myself, something even closer, a sense of brotherly love, albeit one that had been incestuous in a moment of turmoil. I didn’t know if I could help him go through what was happening in his life. But as far as family love went, I would be here for him.

 "I can't leave him. Not like that," William said as I kneeled next to John to help him eat a bit more. "If I go now, it won't be for six days, like the time when he caught the measles. It might be six months before I can travel back to the colonies. Perhaps even longer with this goddamn war." 

As William put away the brush in his bag, and took out one of his shirts, sniffing at it to check its cleanliness, it struck me how young he still was. No matter how complicated their relationship had become in the last couple of years, it was painfully obvious how much he still needed John. 

"This land has brought nothing but death and suffering to my family. I wish we'd never come here. Mama Isobel would still be alive, and papa would be safe in London with her. They didn't deserve this," he said while we put John into clean clothes. 

"No, they didna," Jamie replied, his voice breaking as we gently lay John and tucked him under the blankets. 

William grabbed the soiled and torn clothes and tossed them into the fire. As he stood there, head bent and shoulders shaking, Jamie limped to his side.

"I'll keep yer stepfather safe. I give ye my word, mo mhac," he said, putting his hand on his son’s neck and pulling him into an embrace.