Still a whole Man

The whole Scene:

He was des­per­ate­ly thin still, but the shoul­ders were broad and straight beneath the rough fab­ric of the novice’s habit, and the grace of his strength was return­ing; he sat solid­ly with­out a tremor, back straight and legs curled back beneath the stool, the lines of his body firm and har­mo­nious. He was hold­ing his right wrist with his sound left hand, slow­ly turn­ing the right hand in the sunlight.
There was a small pile of cloth strips on the table. He had removed the ban­dages from the injured hand and was exam­in­ing it close­ly. I stood in the door­way, not mov­ing. From here, I could see the hand clear­ly as he turned it back and forth, prob­ing gingerly.
The stig­ma of the nail wound in the palm of the hand was quite small, and well healed, I was glad to see; no more than a small pink knot of scar tis­sue that would grad­u­al­ly fade. On the back of the hand, the sit­u­a­tion was not so favor­able. Erod­ed by infec­tion, the wound there cov­ered an area the size of six­pence, still patched with scabs and the raw­ness of a new scar.

The mid­dle fin­ger, too, showed a jagged ridge of pink scar tis­sue, run­ning from just below the first joint almost to the knuck­le. Released from their splints, the thumb and index fin­ger were straight, but the lit­tle fin­ger was bad­ly twist­ed; that one had had three sep­a­rate frac­tures, I remem­bered, and appar­ent­ly I had not been able to set them all prop­er­ly. The ring fin­ger was set odd­ly, so that it pro­trud­ed slight­ly upward when he laid the hand flat on the table, as he did now.
Turn­ing the hand palm upward, he began to manip­u­late the fin­gers gen­tly. None would bend more than an inch or two; the ring fin­ger not at all. As I had feared, the sec­ond joint was like­ly per­ma­nent­ly frozen.
He turned the hand to and fro, hold­ing it before his face, watch­ing the stiff, twist­ed fin­gers and the ugly scars, mer­ci­less­ly vivid in the sun­light. Then he sud­den­ly bent his head, clutch­ing the injured hand to his chest, cov­er­ing it pro­tec­tive­ly with the sound one. He made no sound, but the wide shoul­ders trem­bled briefly.

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“Jamie.” I crossed the room swift­ly and knelt beside him, putting my hand soft­ly on his knee.
“Jamie, I’m sor­ry,” I said. “I did the best I could.”
He looked down at me in aston­ish­ment. The thick auburn lash­es sparkled with tears in the sun­light, and he dashed them hasti­ly away with the back of his hand.
“What?” he said, gulp­ing, clear­ly tak­en aback by my sud­den appear­ance. “Sor­ry? For what, Sassenach?”
“Your hand.” I reached out and took it, light­ly trac­ing the crooked lines of the fin­gers, touch­ing the sunken scar on the back.
“It will get bet­ter,” I assured him anx­ious­ly. “Real­ly it will. I know it seems stiff and use­less right now, but that’s only because it’s been splint­ed so long, and the bones haven’t ful­ly knit­ted yet. I can show you how to exer­cise, and mas­sage. You’ll get back a good deal of the use of it, honestly—”
He stopped me by lay­ing his good hand along my cheek.“Did you mean…?” He start­ed, then stopped, shak­ing his head in dis­be­lief. “You thought…?” He stopped once more and start­ed over.
“Sasse­nach,” he said, “ye did­na think that I was griev­ing for a stiff fin­ger and a few more scars?” He smiled, a lit­tle crooked­ly. “I’m a vain man, maybe, but it does­na go that deep, I hope.”
“But you—” I began. He took both my hands in both of his and stood up, draw­ing me to my feet. I reached up and smoothed away the sin­gle tear that had rolled down his cheek. The tiny smear of mois­ture was warm on my thumb.
“I was cry­ing for joy, my Sasse­nach,” he said soft­ly. He reached out slow­ly and took my face between his hands. “And thank­ing God that I have two hands. That I have two hands to hold you with. To serve you with, to love you with. Thank­ing God that I am a whole man still, because of you.”
I put my own hands up, cup­ping his.

hands

All rights for the Pic­tures of Jamie and Claire go to the right­ful owner Starz
Excer­pt and Quo­te by Diana Gabal­don from “Outander“
I own not­hing but the editing
Heike Ginger Ba Written by:

|Human|Woman|Mother|Wife|Friend| Photographer| Blogger| |TV-Junkie|Photoshop-Beginner|Art-Lover|Cologne-based|Outlander-addict |Sherlockian |TWD-devoted

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