Sacrament

The whole Scene:

Jamie snort­ed, but laughed a lit­tle too. “Aye. It’s no ver­ra easy to be six­teen, is it?”
“So you did help that girl Laoghaire because you felt sor­ry for her,” I said, when I had recov­ered my com­po­sure. “You knew what it was like.”
He was sur­prised. “Aye, I said so. It’s a lot eas­i­er to get punched in the face at three-and-twen­ty than to have your bum strapped in pub­lic at six­teen. Bruised pride hurts worse than any­thing, and it bruis­es easy then.”
“I won­dered. I’d nev­er seen any­one grin in antic­i­pa­tion of being punched in the mouth.”
“Could­na very well do it afterward.”
“Mmh.” I nod­ded agree­ment. “I thought—” I said, then stopped in embarrassment.
“Ye thought what? Oh, about me and Laoghaire, ye mean,” he said, divin­ing my thought. “You and Alec and every­one else, includ­ing Laoghaire. I’d have done the same if she’d been plain.” He nudged me in the ribs. “Though I din­na expect you’ll believe that.”
“Well, I did see you togeth­er that day in the alcove,” I defend­ed myself, “and some­body cer­tain­ly taught you how to kiss.”
Jamie shuf­fled his feet in the dust, embar­rassed. He ducked his head shy­ly. “Well now, Sasse­nach, I’m no bet­ter than most men. Some­times I try, but I din­na always man­age. Ye know that bit in St. Paul, where he says ’tis bet­ter to mar­ry than burn? Well, I was burnin’ quite bad­ly there.”
I laughed again, feel­ing light-heart­ed as a six­teen-year-old myself. “So you mar­ried me,” I teased, “to avoid the occa­sion of sin?”“Aye. That’s what mar­riage is good for; it makes a sacra­ment out of things ye’d oth­er­wise have to confess.”

I col­lapsed again.
“Oh, Jamie, I do love you!”
This time it was his turn to laugh. He dou­bled over, then sat down at the road­side, fizzing with mirth. He slow­ly fell over back­ward and lay in the long grass, wheez­ing and choking.
“What on earth is the mat­ter with you?” I demand­ed, star­ing at him. At long last, he sat up, wip­ing his stream­ing eyes. He shook his head, gasping.
“Murtagh was right about women. Sasse­nach, I risked my life for ye, com­mit­ting theft, arson, assault, and mur­der into the bar­gain. In return for which ye call me names, insult my man­hood, kick me in the bal­locks and claw my face. Then I beat you half to death and tell ye all the most humil­i­at­ing things have ever hap­pened to me, and you say ye love me.” He laid his head on his knees and laughed some more. Final­ly he rose and held out a hand to me, wip­ing his eyes with the other.
“You’re no ver­ra sen­si­ble, Sasse­nach, but I like ye fine. Let’s go.”

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