Chapter Text
She had been in Scotland before.
Before the bomb went off, and the computers had crashed. Before the riots and the curfews and the massacres. Before the electricity was turned off and public services faded into memories.
Before.
When she had been young, and thought that marriage and love coexisted with obedience and developing a polite-you’re-in-company-persona. As it happened, polite people didn’t survive bombs and riots.
And so Claire Beauchamp Randall was on her own. She had somehow wandered the length of the country, past the rock with SCOTLAND carved proudly upon it, into the glens of the Borders.
The past week had seemed almost enjoyable. It had not rained and she had managed to find some bread. She had seen no soldiers and no aircraft passed overhead. The few other desperate souls on the road had passed her by. One look at her would convince anyone that she had nothing for the taking. Compared to the standards set by the first few weeks of this strange new life, it was positively boring.
As she had wandered through blitzed city streets and scorched country lanes, she had learned to walk with her eyes downcast and her shoulders hunched. Drawing attention to yourself was dangerous. Fear began to rise inside her now as she realised she was on an open road. Spying a thicket of trees, she pushed aside the hedgerows and undergrowth, praying that her drab green overalls would provide camouflage.
She felt safer as the trees grew thicker. The birds of the forest were chirping and singing. There was the occasional rustle of leaves or ripple of branches in the wind. The evening sun peeked through the canopy of leaves and she suddenly realised how exhausted she was. An hour’s rest, and then onwards, to find a place before dark.
Claire never heard the footsteps surround her. She was oblivious to the voices which softly discussed her. She slumbered through the racket of a camp being set up. It was only a loud laugh which startled her awake. She sat bolt upright and would have screamed, were it not for the gag around her mouth. A pair of astonishingly blue eyes looked directly at her.
‘And who are you, lass?’