Chapter Text
Day Dreams
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*****
He should’ve been wildly out of place with his flaming, red hair and Fraser kilt...but he wasn’t.
Harvard Medical School’s quadrangle courtyard was covered in a vibrant, green grass that reminded me of the rolling hills of Scotland. The old architecture of the Armenise Medical Research Building seemed a perfectly reasonable place for James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser to be visiting…
Except it was 1953 and Jamie Fraser was no time traveler.
Yet, there he was...standing not twenty feet away. The pained look of longing in his eyes echoed through every line of his face.
I looked to my left where Joe Abernathy was sitting only moments before reading a passage from our neurology textbook. But Joe was gone. Everyone was gone.
Except Jamie...and me.
I closed the book in my lap and set it aside. When I stood, my feet felt suddenly uncomfortable in their shoes. I wasn’t wearing my 1950’s pumps any longer. In fact, I wasn’t wearing any of my modern clothes. I was in a wool dress, complete with stays and a bum roll.
I must be dreaming.
I looked up to Jamie again, afraid he’d be gone in my momentary glance away. He was still there, still watching. I took a step down toward the courtyard, toward my husband, and I nearly fell. I wasn’t at the Armenise building any longer...I was walking down a hill of grass…
A large tower shaded me from the sun just to my left. It was Broch Tuarach. I was home at Lallybroch!
I ran forward to my husband and threw my arms around him. He grunted as my body hit his, as though he wasn’t prepared for me to consist of solid flesh. He was hard and stiff as I buried my face in his neck. The scent of unbathed male working and hunting for days on end filled my nose, not the least bit unappealing.
“Jamie…” I whispered, tangling my hands in his gorgeous hair of copper, auburn, and mahogany. “Oh, Jamie.”
Still, he hadn’t moved. I pulled my face back to look in his eyes. They were darker blue than any ocean I’d ever seen. His brow was narrowed in disbelief.
“Jamie,” I touched his cheek. “Kiss me, soldier. I don’t know how long this dream will last.”
Finally, he let out a breath. “'Tis a dream then? Ye’re no really here?”
“No...I’m not.”
His hands came up around me, feeling the curves of my body. The look of anguish never left his eyes. “Ye feel sae real, Sassenach. Like the day ye left me. I can smell flowers in your hair.”
His voice struck a tuning fork deep in my chest, vibrating through my core. It was everything comforting and familiar and erotic and safe.
I cupped his face in my hands and stroked his cheeks with my thumbs. “Jamie.”
“Claire,” his voice broke in the middle of my name. “Oh, Claire...how badly I needed this dream.”
His head dipped down, and his lips met mine. Oh, God, it felt so good. That familiar mouth molded to mine, traces of a beard scratching my face, awakening sensations I no longer knew I had.
He seemed to be savoring me—or perhaps processing his shock—with every movement slow and measured. Part of me knew I’d wake up at any moment back on the steps of the Armenise building, so an urgency underlied every move I made.
My tongue pushed open his mouth seeking its mate. He groaned as his shock wore off and his body adapted to mine. His long arms wrapped tight around me, pulling me hard against him. My longing for him over the past five years drove me mad with lust. He was aware of me now; aware of my need. He could feel it in my kiss, in the vibration of my body.
He looked up to the house as if considering whether or not he should take me to bed, and I shook my head...too far away. Here. Now. He nodded in agreement, and in a moment, I was flat on my back on the beautiful green hills surrounding Lallybroch, skirts and kilt lifted, warm skin touching warm skin.
And with a thrust of his hips, Jamie was in me. “Oh!” Five years was too long! I’d been faithful to the husband of my heart, even if he was dead these last two-hundred years. I couldn’t touch another man knowing it was Jamie I wanted. How could anyone else compare? I’d rather be needy, lust-crazed, or sexually repressed than disappointed and unsatisfied.
Jamie never left me unsatisfied. He gave everything he had, everything I needed, and this was no exception. His cock hammered into me as his mouth devoured mine. I’d unleashed his formidable lust, and now it had taken over. His growling and groaning mingled with my whimpers and moans, our tongues tasting each sound as they passed from our throats.
His hands somehow freed my breasts, and he was massaging and squeezing life back into them. How long they’d been stagnant and unused! His mouth dropped from my lips, over my throat, and latched onto a nipple. His hips never stopped, and mine met him thrust for thrust.
One of my hands tangled in his hair, pulling him tighter against me. The other was under his shirt, finding as much skin as possible. His muscles, his scars...it was all there, just as I remembered. I thanked and cursed my exquisite memory for never letting go of a single detail of this man.
Jamie rose to his knees, grabbing my bottom in his hands, watching my face as he drove into me. With him out of reach, my hands fell over my head, laying on a mixture of long, Highland grass and wild, curly hair.
“Ye are sae beautiful, my Sassenach. After all this time, no one compares. My eyes are greedy at the sight of ye.”
It had been too long, and I was too ready. I came apart with him looking down on me and uttering the sweetest words from his rolling Scottish tongue. His hands squeezed tighter around my arse as I clamped down on him demanding he come with me.
Still he thrusted over and over. “I canna tell if ye’re trying to push me out or pull me in wi’ all that squeezing,” he laughed, “but I’ll be buried deep inside ye when my seed spills, Sassenach.”
He lay over me as pleasure overtook all my sense. His hips still fired like pistons as he wrapped my body in his arms, crushing the air out of me. Oxygen was no loss, I hadn’t use for it anyway in my breathless condition.
“Oh, God. Oh, Claire,” he moaned. His pelvis pressed hard between my legs as he erupted inside me. I kissed his neck as his body shuddered, and tasted sweat and man and Jamie. “Oh, Claire.”
His weight collapsed on me, limp and heavy. We lay there listening to each other breathe, feeling the effects of orgasm throughout our bodies. Complete and utter bliss in the space of a dream.
A dream. I had forgotten it was a dream. So real he felt in my arms. I was certain that when I woke, I’d feel the moisture of my pleasure as I walked into class.
“I wish we could sleep forever,” I said. “I don’t want to leave you.”
His head came up, and his eyes smiled down on me. “Aye, Sassenach, but ye must live. Though, I’ll take this memory wi’ me for another five years, at least.”
I traced his Viking cheekbone as I said, “I can’t wait another five years for a dream like this.”
“If only we could steer the ships of our unconscious, mo nighean donn.”
“I can’t even steer the ship of my conscious! And you get far too sea sick for discussion of steering ships.”
His laugh was the most beautiful song in my ear. “Oh, Claire…”
*****
“Claire...Lady Jane?” I felt a tug at my shoulder and a gentle shake. “You awake?”
My head snapped up, and my eyes popped open. I was sitting on the steps of the Armenise building with Joe once again. I’d fallen asleep with my textbook open in my lap. I was using it as a platform for my elbows, which held up my hands that I was using for a pillow.
I flushed red at the sight of my friend, wondering if he could possibly know what just transpired in my brief unconsciousness. “I’m sorry...I must have dozed off.”
“I don’t know how you do it, Lady Jane. Med school, a four year old, a husband...I would’ve run off to dreamland years ago if it were me.”
“You have to have time to sleep to get to dreamland.” A tear dropped down my cheek, and I wiped it away hoping Joe didn’t have a chance to see.
Joe chuckled as he packed up his books and stood offering me a hand. “Let’s get to class. The sooner we graduate, the sooner you’ll get to a full night’s rest.”
“Only a few more weeks.”
“No time, at all.”
I stood up and walked with Joe to our next lecture. I was back in my 1950’s pumps, and as comfortable as they were, I’d much prefer my Highland shoes.
“You’ve got a smile on your face, Lady Jane. A real one. That’s nice to see.”
“Do I?”
“It must’ve been some dream you were having, tears and smiles.”
“Indeed...the best kind.”
_____________________________________
Jamie woke with a sudden intake of breath. Claire was just in his arms...then she was gone. The loss was painful...excruciating. He was gutted once again, like he was back at the goddamn stones.
It was stupid to be so affected by the loss; she’d warned him from the beginning it was just a dream. It just felt so real. In all his dreams before, she was some ethereal creature...a faerie...an angel...blessing his sleep with her presence. But in this dream, she was flesh and blood and woman.
He sat up and felt the effect of his dream on his breeks. He’d have to wash them. He grumbled to himself in irritation. He hadn’t awoken to a mess like that since before he’d married Claire.
At least it was still light out. He’d fallen asleep in the late afternoon lost in his thoughts, and he’d awoken only a couple hours later. As he walked to the creek to wash himself, he could see the sun sinking toward the horizon, its light filtering through the trees.
The chill of the water helped bring him back to reality. He could still feel Claire’s lips on his skin and her warm center squeezing his cock. He knew from years living alone in his cave that it was never a good thing to linger in lust for his wife. He’d never be satisfied with his hand, and he refused to entertain the idea of trying to find a release in another woman. His wife may not be alive in 1751, but she was alive somewhere...some time...he had to believe it so.
Even if she was with...him. He stifled his rage. He needed that man to care for his wife and child.
Jamie would force himself not to sleep that night. Claire was too fresh in his mind. The scent of her, the feel of her. If he went back to sleep, he’d be right back in her arms, and the pain of waking up without her was too much for twice in one day.
And even if he fell asleep without meeting his wife in his dreams again, he’d be all the more resentful of Morpheus for withholding her.
He walked back to the cave while pulling a willow sprig between his teeth—a habit not even five years away from the woman could break. Somehow, he still feared her chiding about losing his teeth before he was thirty.
“Hallo, the cave,” said his brother-in-law's voice. Ian was standing near the entrance to the cave with a sack in his hands.
“Hmphm,” Jamie grunted, walking up behind him.
Ian turned on his good leg and smiled. “Nice to see you, too. Ye’re in good spirits!”
Ian enjoyed his own sarcasm far more than Jamie did. Jamie wasn’t fit for company at the moment.
Then again, wasn’t he just wishing he could distract himself from the intensity of his dream? If he really wanted Claire out of his head, this was a perfect opportunity.
That was where the real problem lie. Jamie couldn’t live with the dreams and memories of his wife, as painful as they were, yet he couldn’t live without them either...without her. He was in a constant battle between hanging on to the intensity of feeling Claire provoked and hiding from it for his survival.
“I brought ye some books...some food," said Ian. "Mary MacNab wanted to make sure ye got some of her fresh bannocks.”
“Hmphm.”
Ian and Jenny seemed to have decided it was time for Jamie to move on. Hypocrites. As though one of them could move on without the other. Hopefully Jenny wasn’t filling poor Mary’s head with her nonsense.
“Why don’t ye come by for dinner tomorrow? Yer nieces and nephews are going to forget yer face.”
Jamie could see from the shame in Ian’s eyes that he knew using the children to lure Jamie into one of Jenny’s traps was beneath him. “Hmphm.”
Ian nodded in acceptance. “Alright. Well then, come by after supper and have a dram wi’ me.”
Jamie was about to grunt again, but Ian interrupted, “Just me. I swear. Ye’re not looking like yourself, Jamie. Ye look like ye’ve seen a ghost.”
“Maybe I have.”
Ian dropped his head and nodded knowingly, “Claire?”
Jamie didn’t need to make a sound for Ian to see the truth of it.
“Was it her spirit come visit ye?”
“Nay...a dream. A verra good dream.”
“If a good dream leaves ye looking like this, I’d pray I never have a dream like it.”
“If ye have a dream like mine, a bràthair, ye can turn to yer wife in yer bed and make it real. Whereas, I must grieve the loss of mine all over again.”
Ian put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s difficult for Jenny and me to see ye suffer so.”
“Hmphm.” Jamie regretted their sympathy, but there was naught to be done about it. He couldn’t let go of Claire...and he wouldn’t if there was a choice. For those few moments of his dream were worth five more years of pain.