The Reunion

The reunion after 20 years ( Voyager)

“I want—” He stopped and swal­lowed, still hold­ing my hand. His fin­gers found and touched the sil­ver ring once more. “I want ver­ra much to kiss you,” he said soft­ly. “May I do that?”
The tears were bare­ly dammed. Two more welled up and over­flowed; I felt them, full and round, roll down my cheeks.
“Yes,” I whispered.
He drew me slow­ly close to him, hold­ing our linked hands just under his breast.
“I have­na done this for a ver­ra long time,” he said. I saw the hope and the fear dark in the blue of his eyes. I took the gift and gave it back to him.
“Nei­ther have I,” I said softly.His hands cupped my face with exquis­ite gen­tle­ness, and he set his mouth on mine.
I didn’t know quite what I had been expect­ing. A reprise of the pound­ing fury that had accom­pa­nied our final part­ing? I had remem­bered that so often, lived it over in mem­o­ry, help­less to change the out­come. The half-rough, time­less hours of mutu­al pos­ses­sion in the dark­ness of our mar­riage bed? I had longed for that, wak­ened often sweat­ing and trem­bling from the mem­o­ry of it.
But we were strangers now, bare­ly touch­ing, each seek­ing the way toward join­ing, slow­ly, ten­ta­tive­ly, seek­ing and giv­ing unspo­ken per­mis­sion with our silent lips. My eyes were closed, and I knew with­out look­ing that Jamie’s were, as well. We were, quite sim­ply, afraid to look at each other.Without rais­ing his head, he began to stroke me light­ly, feel­ing my bones through my clothes, famil­iar­iz­ing him­self again with the ter­rain of my body. At last his hand trav­eled down my arm and caught my right hand. His fin­gers traced my hand until they found the ring again, and cir­cled it, feel­ing the inter­laced sil­ver of the High­land pat­tern, pol­ished with long wear, but still distinct.
His lips moved from mine, across my cheeks and eyes. I gen­tly stroked his back, feel­ing through his shirt the marks I couldn’t see, the rem­nants of old scars, like my ring, worn but still distinct.“I’ve seen ye so many times,” he said, his voice whis­per­ing warm in my ear. “You’ve come to me so often. When I dreamed some­times. When I lay in fever. When I was so afraid and so lone­ly I knew I must die. When I need­ed you, I would always see ye, smil­ing, with your hair curl­ing up about your face. But ye nev­er spoke. And ye nev­er touched me.”
“I can touch you now.” I reached up and drew my hand gen­tly down his tem­ple, his ear, the cheek and jaw that I could see. My hand went to the nape of his neck, under the clubbed bronze hair, and he raised his head at last, and cupped my face between his hands, love glow­ing strong in the dark blue eyes.
“Din­na be afraid,” he said soft­ly. “There’s the two of us now.”

Later.….….…..

He rolled to one side, shift­ing his weight care­ful­ly so as not to squash me, and lift­ed him­self to lie face-to-face with me.
“Nor me, my Sasse­nach,” he said, and kissed me, very light­ly, but lin­ger­ing, so that I had time just to close my lips in a tiny bite on the full­ness of his low­er lip.
“It’s no just the bed­ding, ye ken,” he said, draw­ing back a lit­tle at last. His eyes looked down at me, a soft deep blue like the warm trop­ic sea.
“No,” I said, touch­ing his cheek. “It isn’t.”
“To have ye with me again—to talk wi’ you—to know I can say any­thing, not guard my words or hide my thoughts—God, Sasse­nach,” he said, “the Lord knows I am lust-crazed as a lad, and I can­na keep my hands from you—or any­thing else—” he added, wry­ly, “but I would count that all well lost, had I no more than the plea­sure of havin’ ye by me, and to tell ye all my heart.”

“It was lone­ly with­out you,” I whis­pered. “So lonely.”
“And me,” he said. He looked down, long lash­es hid­ing his eyes, and hes­i­tat­ed for a moment.
“I will­na say that I have lived a monk,” he said qui­et­ly. “When I had to—when I felt that I must or go mad—”
I laid my fin­gers against his lips, to stop him.
“Nei­ther did I,” I said. “Frank—”
His own hand pressed gen­tly against my mouth.Both dumb, we looked at each oth­er, and I could feel the smile grow­ing behind my hand, and my own under his, to match it. I took my hand away.
“It does­na sig­ni­fy,” he said. He took his hand off my mouth.
“No,” I said. “It doesn’t mat­ter.” I traced the line of his lips with my finger.
“So tell me all your heart,” I said. “If there’s time.”

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