Chapter Text
Prologue
The years after Culloden were not years at all, but something hollow and shapeless, as if time itself had lost its meaning. Jamie Fraser had survived the battle, though at times he wondered if the word “survived” was the right one.
He worked when he could, hid when he must, and endured when there was no other choice.
Scotland had changed, the Highlands had changed, and he, too, had changed into something quieter, heavier.
The one thing that had never changed was the ache of her absence.
Claire.
Her name lived in the silence between his breaths.
At night, he would close his eyes and remember the warmth of her hands, the fierce light in her eyes, the way she had said his name as though it were both a long memory and a prayer.
Sometimes he wondered if he had imagined her entirely, or if perhaps grief had fashioned a woman out of longing and loneliness, but no dream could have been so vivid. No dream could have broken his heart so completely.
For years, he had avoided the stones. Craigh na Dun stood not so far from where he sometimes found himself wandering, yet he had never dared to approach them again. The last time he had seen them, Claire had vanished through them like mist in the wind.
She was back to her own time, to a world where he did not exist.