Chapter Text
The ringing phone startled Claire from sleep. She looked to the clock and saw it was only noon - Frank would still be at the university and Brianna should be at school. The phone was still ringing. She shoved the blankets aside and hastened to the nearest phone in Frank’s study. It could be the hospital with an update on Mr. Henderson’s condition - or Brianna’s school regarding some disciplinary issue or she could be in the nurse’s office, sick.
“Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ,” Claire exclaimed as she knocked a folder from the cluttered desk to get to the phone before the caller hung up.
“Hello?” she asked into the receiver.
There was a gasp on the other end of the line before it went dead. That had been happening from time to time - again. But Claire was too tired to bother thinking about what Frank might or might not be up to. He had a week-long conference coming up at the end of the month and she was working extra hours at the hospital and trading shifts so that she could take the whole week off - just her and Brianna, though of course, Bree would be in school for some of that time. Still, with all the sacrifices Frank had made to be there for Brianna while Claire was in medical school, she wanted to make the extra effort.
She longed to return to bed but needed to clean up the mess - if she left it, Frank would know she’d been in the study and would ask why and then she’d have to talk about the hang-up and that was not a conversation she was ready to have.
Luckily, she’d only knocked over one folder so all the photographs, Xeroxed pages, notes, and letters belonged together. Turning the pages over to align them properly, she recognized a letter from Reverend Wakefield and smiled.
Roger and I were able to locate the documents you wished. The church would not allow us to remove the register in question from their archives but they did permit us to photograph the page you were interested in - those are included here and I must apologize for the poor quality, the names as you see are visible however. We proved luckier with the prison archives as they were eager to demonstrate their new toys - those pages are also included.
I must say, this project of yours has really done wonders for Roger. He’s become quite obsessed with tracking this man down and now talks of pursuing history at university. If you don’t mind my asking, would you perhaps agree to correspond with Roger on the subject as he continues weighing his options - he’ll be applying in just a few short months and I think picking your brain will give him - and I hardly need add, me - some peace of mind.
I’m sure we’ll be in touch if there are any other favors you need - or if Roger manages to find further traces of this Fraser fellow. Just don’t forget to give us a credit in whatever book this is you’re compiling.
Reggie
Claire’s blood froze in her veins. She carefully set the page aside and swallowed before picking up and examining the pages more closely. A jotted down local legend about a man who hid in a cave for years after the ‘45 before being imprisoned by the English. It wasn’t definitive but it did sound like something he would do. Records from a place called Ardsmuir with Jms. MacKenzie Fraser and Brock Turac faintly visible. Her breath caught and tears filled her eyes. She sat hard in Frank’s chair as she looked through the rest of the pages. She couldn’t make out what the next pages she held were exactly, the word Helwater stood out along with a familiar looking deed. She turned over the photograph. The Reverend was right; the quality was poor. But she’d recognize her handwriting anywhere. The marriage register she and Jamie had signed along with the contract Ned Gowan had drawn up.
She traced the letters of Jamie’s signature. After all these years, there he was on paper.
Wait. She turned to the legend. It was after the Rising, after Culloden. The prison records were from the 1750s too. That couldn’t be right. Could it?
It was too much for Claire to process at one time. The dates - they couldn’t be right. But if they were… there was a nagging possibility trying to claw its way to the front of her mind but her attention was distracted by other facts.
Frank had been looking for this information - but why? He’d said he didn’t believe her - no, that wasn’t quite right. He had tried to explain that she was confused, traumatized, that her mind had put the facts into this explanation because it was easier for her to ‘process’ than the truth. His insistence had grown more forceful as her own persistence continued until she’d finally dropped the subject altogether. She told herself it didn’t matter whether he believed her or not - none of it would bring Jamie back. She had promised Jamie that she would see their child safe so that was what she focused her energy on - what little of it she had in those early days.
But obviously there had been some part of Frank that had believed her or he wouldn’t be looking for Jamie now. Was it simply curiosity that had him searching for Jamie? Was he trying to get a feel for the man her daughter resembled so closely? Or was there something more to it? What was his plan? What did he mean to do with the information now that he had it?
Anger began to build in Claire as one part of her brain played with numbers while the other side wormed its way along the familiar, frustrating paths of Frank’s reasoning. Glancing at the date on Reverend Wakefield’s letter - it was several months old - it was clear that Frank had been sitting on the information for a while. There was no reason to expect he’d suddenly decide to share what he’d found.
Suddenly the pieces fit together. The dates in the documents - the latest one was from early 1757 and dealt with Jamie being paroled to a place called Helwater - eleven years after the Rising failed. When she returned through the stones, she’d learned that time in the twentieth century had marked her absence, passing in equal measure to what she spent in the eighteenth century. Presumably, it was doing so now for those she knew who had survived the battle - which apparently included Jamie. Brianna was turning fourteen in just a few weeks. She knew better than anyone that a lot could happen in the three years following that recorded trace Jamie left… but there was a chance. More chance than she had ever thought to hope for.
Something woke within her, stoking the embers of her anger into flames.
Frank.
He had lied to her about so much more than she ever suspected. He’d believed her and kept quiet; he’d found Jamie and kept quiet; and he had almost certainly come to the same conclusion regarding the possibility that Jamie might still be alive in the past - that there was a chance she might be able to find him in more than just dusty records. And he was purposely keeping it from her.
Claire slammed the folder back onto the desktop and began pacing. She would confront him - about the hang-ups, about Jamie. She wouldn’t stand for it. From the moment she made Frank that promise about keeping the truth from Brianna, she knew she’d regret it - she’d again told herself it wouldn’t matter, that keeping the truth about the stone and the truth that Frank wasn’t her father were equally pointless, that all they would do was confuse her. But Brianna had aright to know and if there was a chance she could travel through the stones, if there was a chance Jamie was still alive, he had a right to meet his daughter.
She took up the folder again and left Frank’s study headed for the kitchen - he always entered the house that way. Arriving in the kitchen, she noticed the clock on the wall. Brianna would arrive home before Frank. She needed to tell Brianna the truth but she needed more time to figure out the right way to do it. There would be no way to have a calm conversation with Frank on the subject so even if Bree went right to her room to do her schoolwork, she’d hear them and investigate. There also wasn’t a lot of time between Frank’s usual arrival and when she needed to leave to return to the hospital for her shift.
The air went out of her and the familiar ache for Jamie clutched her chest, stronger than it had been in years - time had dulled the sharpness of it but in less than an hour the scar tissue had been cut away, the wound reopened.
Claire made her way back upstairs to Frank’s study and carefully replaced the folder. She needed more time to process what she now knew but she didn’t want anything tipping him off to whatever she decided to do - her hurt demanded that he feel the full force of everything she felt and an idea was beginning to germinate. It would take some time to arrange but she had the motivation to pull it off.
She decided to get ready for work early so she could leave as soon as Frank returned home - the less time he had to examine her glass face, the more time she had to construct a sturdier facade behind which she could induce her blossoming plan to grow and bear fruit.