Pain of Separation

This is Part I from the Scene, when Jamie real­izes that he is not dead, and the sep­a­ra­tion of Claire becomes conscious.

The whole Scene

While he had always thought of Pur­ga­to­ry as a gray sort of place, the faint red­dish light that hid every­thing around him seemed suit­able. His mind was clear­ing a bit, and his pow­er to rea­son was com­ing back, if slow­ly. Some­one, he thought rather cross­ly, ought to see him and tell him just what the sen­tence was, until he should have suf­fered enough to be puri­fied, and at last to enter the King­dom of God. Whether he was expect­ing a demon or an angel was uncer­tain. He had no idea of the staffing require­ments of Pur­ga­to­ry; it wasn’t a mat­ter the dominie had addressed in his school­days. While wait­ing, he began to take stock of what­ev­er oth­er tor­ments he might be required to endure. There were numer­ous cuts, gash­es, and bruis­es here and there, and he was fair­ly sure he’d bro­ken the fourth fin­ger of his right hand again—difficult to pro­tect it, the way it stuck out so stiff, with the joint frozen. None of that was too bad, though. What else? Claire. The name knifed across his heart with a pain that was more rack­ing than any­thing his body had ever been called on to withstand.

If he had had an actu­al body any­more, he was sure it would have dou­bled up in agony. He had known it would be like this, when he sent her back to the stone cir­cle. Spir­i­tu­al anguish could be tak­en as a stan­dard con­di­tion in Pur­ga­to­ry, and he had expect­ed all along that the pain of sep­a­ra­tion would be his chief punishment—sufficient, he thought, to atone for any­thing he’d ever done: mur­der and betray­al includ­ed. He did not know whether per­sons in Pur­ga­to­ry were allowed to pray or not, but tried any­way. Lord, he prayed, that she may be safe. She and the child

 Some Moments later

The thought of her this time cau­sed only a wave of ter­ri­ble lon­ging. God, to have her here, to lay her hands on him, to tend his wounds and cra­dle his head in her lap. But she was gone — gone away two hund­red years from him — and thank the Lord that she was! Tears trick­led slow­ly from under his clo­sed lids, and he rol­led pain­fully onto his side, to hide them from the others.Lord, that she might be safe, he prayed. She and the child.

Would he find Claire at once when he died, he won­de­red? Or per­haps, as he expec­ted, be con­dem­ned to sepa­ra­tion for a time? In any case, he would see her again; he clung to the con­vic­tion much more firm­ly than he embra­ced the tenets of the Church. God had giv­en her to him; He would res­tore her. For­get­ting to pray, he instead began to con­jure her face behind his eyel­ids, the curve of cheek and tem­ple, a broad fair brow that always moved him to kiss it, just there, in that small smooth spot bet­ween her eye­brows, just at the top of her nose, bet­ween clear amber eyes. He fixed his atten­tion on the shape of her mouth, care­fully ima­gi­ning the full, sweet curve of it, and the taste and the feel and the joy of it.

Both suf­fer so much dur­ing their sep­a­ra­tion..Claires Pain 

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