Nightmares

The whole Scene

The night was cold, and the down quilt had slith­ered off onto the floor, as was its sneaky habit, leav­ing only the thin woolen blan­ket over me. I rolled over, half-asleep, reach­ing for Jamie’s warmth. He was gone.I sat up in bed, look­ing for him, and saw him almost at once, sit­ting on the win­dow seat, head in his hands.“Jamie! What is it? Have you got headache again?” I groped for the can­dle, mean­ing to find my med­i­cine box, but some­thing in the way he sat made me aban­don the search and go to him at once.He was breath­ing hard, as though he had been run­ning, and cold as it was, his body was drenched with sweat. I touched his shoul­der and found it hard and cold as a met­al statue.He jerked back at my touch and sprang to his feet, eyes wide and black in the night-filled room.“I didn’t mean to star­tle you,” I said. “Are you all right?”I won­dered briefly if he were sleep­walk­ing, for his expres­sion didn’t change; he looked straight through me, and what­ev­er he saw, he didn’t like it.“Jamie!” I said sharply. “Jamie, wake up!”He blinked then, and saw me, though his expres­sion stayed fixed in the des­per­ate lines of a hunt­ed beast.“I’m all right,” he said. “I’m awake.” He spoke as though want­i­ng to con­vince him­self of the fact.“What is it? Did you have a nightmare?”“A dream. Aye. It was a dream.”I stepped for­ward and put a hand on his arm.“Tell me. It will go away if you tell me about it.”He grasped me hard by the fore­arms, as much to keep me from touch­ing him as for sup­port. The moon was full, and I could see that every mus­cle of his body was tensed, hard and motion­less as stone, but puls­ing with furi­ous ener­gy, ready to explode into action.“No,” he said, still sound­ing dazed.“Yes,” I said. “Jamie, talk to me. Tell me. Tell me what you see.”“I canna…see any­thing. Noth­ing. I can’t see.”I pulled, turn­ing him from the shad­ows of the room to face the bright moon­light from the win­dow. The light seemed to help, for his breath­ing slowed, and in halt­ing, painful bits, the words came out.It was the stones of Went­worth Prison that he dreamed of. And as he spoke, the shape of Jonathan Ran­dall walked the room.

And lay naked in my bed, atop the woolen blanket.There had been the sound of hoarse breath­ing close behind him, and the feel of sweat-drenched skin, slid­ing against his own. He grit­ted his teeth in an agony of frus­tra­tion. The man behind him sensed the small move­ment and laughed.“Oh, we’ve some time yet before they hang you, my boy,” he whis­pered. “Plen­ty of time to enjoy it.” Ran­dall moved sud­den­ly, hard and abrupt, and he made a small invol­un­tary sound.Randall’s hand stroked back the hair from his brow and smoothed it around his ear. The hot breath was close to his ear and he turned his head to escape, but it fol­lowed him, breath­ing words.“Have you ever seen a man hanged, Fras­er?” The words went on, not wait­ing for him to reply, and a long, slim hand came around his waist, gen­tly stroking the slope of his bel­ly, teas­ing its way low­er with each word.“Yes, of course you have; you were in France, you’ll have seen desert­ers hanged now and then. A hanged man loos­es his bow­els, doesn’t he? As the rope tight­ens fast round his neck.” The hand was grip­ping him, light­ly, firm­ly, rub­bing and stroking. He clenched his good hand tight around the edge of the bed and turned his face hard into the scratchy blan­ket, but the words pur­sued him.“That will hap­pen to you, Fras­er. Just a few more hours, and you’ll feel the noose.” The voice laughed, pleased with itself. “You’ll go to your death with your arse burn­ing from my plea­sure, and when you lose your bow­els, it will be my spunk run­ning down your legs and drip­ping on the ground below the gallows.”He made no sound. He could smell him­self, crust­ed with filth from his impris­on­ment, acrid with the sweat of fear and anger. And the man behind him, the rank stench of the ani­mal break­ing through the del­i­cate scent of the laven­der toi­let water.“The blan­ket,” he said. His eyes were closed, face strained in the moon­light. “It was rough under my face, and all I could see were the stones of the wall before me. There was noth­ing there to fix my mind to…nothing I could see. So I kept my eyes closed and thought of the blan­ket under my cheek. It was all I could feel besides the pain…and him. I…held to it.”“Jamie. Let me hold you.” I spoke qui­et­ly, try­ing to calm the fren­zy I could feel run­ning through his blood. His grip on my arms was tight enough to numb them. But he wouldn’t let me move clos­er; he held me away as sure­ly as he clung to me.Suddenly he freed me, jerk­ing away and turn­ing toward the moon-filled win­dow. He stood tense and quiv­er­ing as a bow­string just fired, but his voice was calm.“No. I will­na use ye that way, lassie. Ye shall­na be part of it.”I took a step toward him, but he stopped me with a quick motion. He turned his face back to the win­dow, calm now, and blank as the glass he looked through.“Get ye to bed, lassie. Leave me to myself a bit; I’ll be well enough present­ly. There’s naught to wor­ry ye now.”He stretched his arms out, grasp­ing the win­dow frame, blot­ting out the light with his body. His shoul­ders swelled with effort, and I could tell that he was push­ing against the wood with all his might.“It was only a dream. Jack Ran­dall is dead.”

All rights for the Pic­ture go to the right­ful owner Starz
Quo­te and Excerpt by Diana Gabaldon from “DiA”
I own not­hing but the editing