Dreams

The whole Scene:

It was a mir­ror, not a minia­ture. My cheeks were flushed, and my lips trem­bled as Frank’s fin­ger gen­tly traced the edge of my jaw, the grace­ful line of my neck. The tears welled in my eyes and spilled down my cheeks as I heard his voice, still lec­tur­ing, as he laid down the minia­ture, and I stared upward at the tim­bered ceiling.
“Undat­ed. Unknown. But once… once, she was real.”
I was hav­ing trou­ble breath­ing, and thought at first that I was being smoth­ered by the glass over the minia­ture. But the mate­r­i­al press­ing on my nose was soft and damp, and I twist­ed my head away and came awake, feel­ing the linen pil­low wet with tears beneath my cheek. Jamie’s hand was large and warm on my shoul­der, gen­tly shak­ing me.He snort­ed briefly, not quite a laugh.
“Well, I’ll no say I’m not wicked jeal­ous of the man,” he said rue­ful­ly, “because I am. But I can hard­ly grudge him your dreams. Or your tears.” His fin­ger gen­tly traced the wet track down one cheek, then blot­ted it with the handkerchief.
“You don’t?”
His smile in the dim­ness was lopsided.
“No. Ye loved him. I can­na hold it against either of you that ye mourn him. And it gives me some com­fort to know…” He hes­i­tat­ed, and I reached up to smooth the rum­pled hair off his face.
“To know what?”
“That should the need come, you might mourn for me that way,” he said softly.

I pressed my face fierce­ly into his chest, so my words were muffled.
“I won’t mourn you, because I won’t have to. I won’t lose you, I won’t!” A thought struck me, and I looked up at him, the faint rough­ness of his beard stub­ble a shad­ow on his face.
“You aren’t afraid I would go back, are you? You don’t think that because I… think of Frank… .”
“No.” His voice was quick and soft, a response fast as the pos­ses­sive tight­en­ing of his arms around me.
“Hush, lassie. Hush! You’re but dreaming—I’m here.”
I turned my face into the warmth of his naked shoul­der, feel­ing the tears slick between cheek and skin. I clung tight­ly to his solid­ness, and the “No,” he said again, more soft­ly. “We are bound, you and I, and noth­ing on this earth shall part me from you.” One large hand rose to stroke my hair. “D’ye mind the blood vow that I swore ye when we wed?”
“Yes, I think so. ‘Blood of my blood, bone of my bone…’ ”
“I give ye my body, that we may be one,” he fin­ished. “Aye, and I have kept that vow, Sasse­nach, and so have you.” He turned me slight­ly, and one hand cupped itself gen­tly over the tiny swell of my stomach.
“Blood of my blood,” he whis­pered, “and bone of my bone. You car­ry me with­in ye, Claire, and ye can­na leave me now, no mat­ter what hap­pens. You are mine, always, if ye will it or no, if ye want me or nay. Mine, and I wilna let ye go.”
I put a hand over his, press­ing it against me.
“No,” I said soft­ly, “nor can you leave me.”
“No,” he said, half-smil­ing. “For I have kept the last of the vow as well.” He clasped both hands about me, and bowed his head on my shoul­der, so I could feel the warm breath of the words upon my ear, whis­pered to the dark.
“For I give ye my spir­it, ’til our life shall be done.”

Claires Dream of this Scene

The whole scene:

In more recent years, with the resump­tion of some­thing resem­bling a nor­mal sched­ule, I had begun to dream again. The usu­al kinds of dreams, whether night­mare or good dream—long sequences of images, wan­der­ings in the wood of the mind. And I was famil­iar with this kind of dream, too; it was com­mon to what might polite­ly be called peri­ods of deprivation.Usually, though, such dreams came float­ing, soft as the touch of satin sheets, and if they woke me, I fell at once back into sleep, glow­ing dim­ly with a mem­o­ry that would not last ’til morning.This was dif­fer­ent. Not that I remem­bered much about it, but I had a vague impres­sion of hands that gripped me, rough and urgent, not woo­ing but com­pelling. And a voice, near­ly shout­ing, that echoed in the cham­bers of my inner ear, along with the sound of my fad­ing heartbeat.I put my hand on my chest over the leap­ing pulse, feel­ing the soft full­ness of my breast beneath the silk. Brianna’s breath caught in a soft snore, then resumed its even cadence. I remem­bered lis­ten­ing for that sound when she was small; the slow, ster­torous rhythm of reas­sur­ance, sound­ing through the dark­ened nurs­ery, even as a heartbeat.My own heart­beat was slow­ing under my hand, under the deep rose silk, the col­or of a baby’s sleep-flushed cheek. When you hold a child to your breast to nurse, the curve of the lit­tle head echoes exact­ly the curve of the breast it suck­les, as though this new per­son tru­ly mir­rors the flesh from which it sprang.Babies are soft. Any­one look­ing at them can see the ten­der, frag­ile skin and know it for the rose-leaf soft­ness that invites a finger’s touch. But when you live with them and love them, you feel the soft­ness going inward, the round-checked flesh wob­bly as cus­tard, the bone­less splay of the tiny hands. Their joints are melt­ed rub­ber, and even when you kiss them hard, in the pas­sion of lov­ing their exis­tence, your lips sink down and seem nev­er to find bone. Hold­ing them against you, they melt and mold, as though they might at any moment flow back into your body.But from the very start, there is that small streak of steel with­in each child. That thing that says “I am,” and forms the core of personality.In the sec­ond year, the bone hard­ens and the child stands upright, skull wide and sol­id, a hel­met pro­tect­ing the soft­ness with­in. And “I am” grows, too. Look­ing at them, you can almost see it, stur­dy as heart­wood, glow­ing through the translu­cent flesh.The bones of the face emerge at six, and the soul with­in is fixed at sev­en. The process of encap­su­la­tion goes on, to reach its peak in the glossy shell of ado­les­cence, when all soft­ness then is hid­den under the nacre­ous lay­ers of the mul­ti­ple new per­son­al­i­ties that teenagers try on to guard themselves.In the next years, the hard­en­ing spreads from the cen­ter, as one finds and fix­es the facets of the soul, until “I am” is set, del­i­cate and detailed as an insect in amber.I had thought I was well beyond that stage, had lost all trace of soft­ness and was well set on my way to a mid­dle age of stain­less steel. But now I thought that Frank’s death had cracked me in some way. And the cracks were widen­ing, so that I could no longer patch them with denial. I had brought my daugh­ter back to Scot­land, she with those bones strong as the ribs of High­land moun­tains, in the hope that her shell was strong enough to hold her togeth­er, while the cen­ter of her “I am” might still be reachable.

But my own core held no longer in the iso­la­tion of “I am,” and I had no pro­tec­tion to shield me from the soft­ness from with­in. I no longer knew what I was or what she would be; only what I must do.For I had come back, and I dreamed once more, in the cool air of the High­lands. And the voice of my dream still echoed through ears and heart, repeat­ed with the sound of Brianna’s sleep­ing breath.“You are mine,” it had said. “Mine! And I will not let you go.”

All rights for the Pic­tures go to the right­ful own­er Starz/​Sony

and EW (for the J&C Pho­to in the last edit )
Quote and Excerpt by Diana Gabal­don from “Drag­on­fly in Amber“
I own not­hing but the editing