Other side of the battle

Today I want to introduce edits from my dear friend Swietjes Outlander (on twitter @SwietjesO). A wonderful scene in book and show …

Jamie wait­ed until they were out of earshot. Then he yanked me around to face him. He was clear­ly furi­ous, on the verge of explo­sion. I felt my own wrath ris­ing; what right did he have to treat me like this?
“Sulk­ing!” he said. “Sulk­ing, is it? I’m using all the self-con­trol I’ve got, to keep from shakin’ ye ’til your teeth rat­tle, and you tell me not to sulk!”
“What in the name of God is the mat­ter with you?” I asked angri­ly. I tried to shake off his grip, but his fin­gers dug into my upper arms like the teeth of a trap.
“What’s the mat­ter wi’ me? I’ll tell ye what the mat­ter is, since ye want to know!” he said through clenched teeth. “I’m tired of hav­ing to prove over and over that you’re no an Eng­lish spy. I’m tired of hav­ing to watch ye very minute, for fear of what fool­ish­ness you’ll try next. And I’m ver­ra tired of peo­ple try­ing to make me watch while they rape you! I din­na enjoy it a bit!”

“And you think I enjoy it?” I yelled. “Are you try­ing to make out it’s my fault?!” At this, he did shake me slightly.
“It is your fault! Did ye stay put where I ordered ye to stay this mornin’, this would nev­er have hap­pened! But no, ye won’t lis­ten to me, I’m no but your hus­band, why mind me? You take it into your mind to do as ye damn please, and next I ken, I find ye flat on your back wi’ your skirts up, an’ the worst scum in the land between your legs, on the point of takin’ ye before my eyes!” His Scots accent, usu­al­ly slight, was grow­ing broad­er by the sec­ond, sure sign that he was upset, had I need­ed any fur­ther indication.
We were almost nose to nose by this time, shout­ing into each other’s face. Jamie was flushed with fury, and I felt the blood ris­ing in my own face.“It’s your own fault, for ignor­ing me and sus­pect­ing me all the time! I told you the truth about who I am! And I told you there was no dan­ger in my going with you, but would you lis­ten to me? No! I’m only a woman, why should you pay any atten­tion to what I say? Women are only fit to do as they’re told, and fol­low orders, and sit meek­ly around with their hands fold­ed, wait­ing for the men to come back and tell them what to do!”
He shook me again, unable to con­trol himself.

“And if ye’d done that, we would­na be on the run, with a hun­dred Red­coats on our tail! God, woman, I din­na know whether to stran­gle ye or throw ye on the ground and ham­mer ye sense­less, but by Jesus, I want to do some­thing to you.”
At this, I made a deter­mined effort to kick him in the balls. He dodged, and jammed his own knee between my legs, effec­tive­ly pre­vent­ing any fur­ther attempts.
“Try that again and I’ll slap you ’til your ears ring,” he growled.
“You’re a brute and a fool,” I pant­ed, strug­gling to escape his grip on my shoul­ders. “Do you think I went out and got cap­tured by the Eng­lish on purpose?”
“I do think ye did it on pur­pose, to get back at me for what hap­pened in the glade!”
My mouth fell open.
“In the glade? With the Eng­lish deserters?”
“Aye! Ye think I should ha’ been able to pro­tect ye there, an’ you’re right. But I could­na do it; you had to do it your­self, and now you’re tryin’ to make me pay for it by delib­er­ate­ly putting your­self, my wife, in the hands of a man that’s shed my blood!”“Your wife! Your wife! You don’t care a thing about me! I’m just your prop­er­ty; it only mat­ters to you because you think I belong to you, and you can’t stand to have some­one take some­thing that belongs to you!”
“Ye do belong to me,” he roared, dig­ging his fin­gers into my shoul­ders like spikes. “And you are my wife, whether ye like it or no!”
“I don’t like it! I don’t like it a bit! But that doesn’t mat­ter either, does it? As long as I’m there to warm your bed, you don’t care what I think or how I feel! That’s all a wife is to you—something to stick your cock into when you feel the urge!”

At this, his face went dead white and he began to shake me in earnest. My head jerked vio­lent­ly and my teeth clacked togeth­er, mak­ing me bite my tongue painfully.
“Let go of me!” I shout­ed. “Let go, you”—I delib­er­ate­ly used the words of Har­ry the desert­er, try­ing to hurt him—“you rut­ting bas­tard!” He did let go, and fell back a pace, eyes blazing.
“Ye foul-tongued bitch! Ye’ll no speak to me that way!”
“I’ll speak any way I want to! You can’t tell me what to do!”

“Seems I can’t! Ye’ll do as ye wish, no mat­ter who ye hurt by it, won’t ye? Ye self­ish, willful—”
“It’s your bloody pride that’s hurt!” I shout­ed. “I saved us both from those desert­ers in the glade, and you can’t stand it, can you? You just stood there! If I hadn’t had a knife, we’d both be dead now!”Until I spoke the words, I had had no idea that I had been angry with him for fail­ing to pro­tect me from the Eng­lish desert­ers. In a more ratio­nal mood, the thought would nev­er have entered my mind. It wasn’t his fault, I would have said. It was just luck that I had the knife, I would have said. But now I real­ized that fair or not, ratio­nal or not, I did some­how feel that it was his respon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­tect me, and that he had failed me. Per­haps because he so clear­ly felt that way.“You saw that post in the yard of the fort?” I nod­ded short­ly. “Well, I was tied to that post, tied like an ani­mal, and whipped ’til my blood ran! I’ll car­ry the scars from it ’til I die.

If I’d not been lucky as the dev­il this after­noon, that’s the least as would have hap­pened to me. Like­ly they’d have flogged me, then hanged me.” He swal­lowed hard, and went on.“I knew that, and I did­na hes­i­tate for one sec­ond to go into that place after you, even think­ing that Dou­gal might be right! Do ye know where I got the gun I used?”

I shook my head numbly, my own anger begin­ning to fade. “I killed a guard near the wall. He fired at me; that’s why it was emp­ty. He missed and I killed him wi’ my dirk; left it stick­ing in his wish­bone when I heard you cry out. I would have killed a dozen men to get to you, Claire.” His voice cracked.
“And when ye screamed, I went to you, armed wi’ noth­ing but an emp­ty gun and my two hands.” Jamie was speak­ing a lit­tle more calm­ly now, but his eyes were still wild with pain and rage. I was silent.

Unset­tled by the hor­ror of my encounter with Ran­dall, I had not at all appre­ci­at­ed the des­per­ate courage it had tak­en for him to come into the fort after me.

He turned away sud­den­ly, shoul­ders slumping.
“You’re right,” he said qui­et­ly. “Aye, you’re quite right.” Sud­den­ly the rage was gone from his voice, replaced by a tone I had nev­er heard in him before, even in the extrem­i­ties of phys­i­cal pain.“My pride is hurt. And my pride is about all I’ve got left to me.” He leaned his fore­arms against a rough-barked pine and let his head drop onto them, exhaust­ed. His voice was so low I could bare­ly hear him.
“You’re tearin’ my guts out, Claire.”

Some­thing very sim­i­lar was hap­pen­ing to my own. Ten­ta­tive­ly, I came up behind him. He didn’t move, even when I slipped my arms around his waist. I rest­ed my cheek on his bowed back. His shirt was damp, sweat­ed through with the inten­si­ty of his pas­sion, and he was trembling.
“I’m sor­ry,” I said, sim­ply. “Please for­give me.” He turned then, to hold me tight­ly. I felt his trem­bling ease bit by bit.
“For­giv­en, lass,” he mur­mured at last into my hair. Releas­ing me, he looked down at me, sober and formal.
“I’m sor­ry too,” he said. “I’ll ask your par­don for what I said; I was sore, and I said more nor I meant. Will ye for­give me too?” After his last speech, I hard­ly felt that there was any­thing for me to for­give, but I nod­ded and pressed his hands.

“For­giv­en.”

a scene after this Bat­tle added to the show (not from the books)

All rights for the Pic­ture of Claire go to the right­ful owner Starz/​Sony
Quotes and Excerpt by Diana Gabal­don from “Outlander“
Edit own by Swietjes Outlander and the last edit by safer-place.de