[ It's an extension of friendship that compelled Jamie to offer a room in Claire's mansion while John got on his feet. He did so with the assurance that his wife would be fine with it, that he knows her well enough that it shouldn't be an issue. Even though his friend doesn't yet know all the ways in which Jamie will be indebted to him, and even if their friendship isn't, in John's mind, where Jamie left it, it's still John Grey, and Jamie still owes him his life.
Everything he was able to do in North Carolina is thanks to John, in a way. Had he not intervened in Jamaica, Jamie could very well have met the end of a rope long ago.
Those aren't the thoughts that keep him awake tonight though, no, Jamie is sitting up in what he supposes is the sitting room of Claire's mansion (still too odd to call it theirs when she did all the work for it) drinking whiskey and writing, squinting at paper via candlelight as he tries to see without spectacles. Sleep hasn't been coming easy; Brianna has nightmares. Jamie has nightmares. Claire deserves sleep. So tonight it's Jamie listening for their daughter because he doesn't plan on closing his eyes anyway.
In his trousers and shirt, Jamie's hair is loose, wild curls around his head, feet bare, and at his terrible near-sightedness, curses under his breath before rubbing at his eyes. ]
[Lord John Grey is not in the habit of walking about a house quite so undressed as Jamie is himself. Not because of any embarrassment on Lord John's himself, but because it simply isn't proper for a gentleman of John's status. And because he's only ever really lived in the barracks (public quarters) or in his mother's house, for that matter.
So when he stumbles across the other man in the sitting room, despite the hour and the fact that it would be nice to have wrapped himself in a banyan, he'll have to make do with the circumstances presented him.
This whole affair has Lord John similarly restless as the rest of the Fraser family, if not for exactly the same reason as themselves. He knows there are some personal dramas going on, but for the most part he's left them well enough alone. He's not a member of their household, after all. He's merely living in their house. There is a difference.
Soft-footed, Grey steps into the sitting room to find the other man muttering to himself softly in Gaelic. While Lord John cannot understand the language himself, he understands the gist of it quite clearly.]
I hope I am not interrupting... [He flicks the other man a wry smile.]
[Lord John raises an eyebrow at the offered whiskey, before stepping forward into the room with a smile. He's still not used to this kindly attitude from the other man, but he certainly isn't complaining about it either.]
Well. Don't mind if I do.
[Taking a seat in the armchair beside the one Jamie has set up his own camp in, Grey waits patiently to be served, before accepting the glass with a soft murmur of thanks.]
Is there much work to be done here, then?
Edited (damn icon repeat, i really need to treat myself to more lmao) 2019-01-10 20:48 (UTC)
[ Jamie sits again, not bothering to try looking at the list because he can't see it well anyway. He'll have to bother Claire about new spectacles. More clothing as well, but later. ]
Aye, the roof leaks in places, some of the brickwork is crumbling. Baseboards rotted, painting to be done, windows drafty.
[ Just to name a few things. ]
And that's no' including the poor condition of the stables.
[ He'll get to it, all of it, and he's looking forward to it, really. He built a house for his wife once, the least he can do now is fix this one for her, to make it feel like a home they'll grow roots in. Even in North Carolina, though, he'd had Ian's help, and Jamie looks at his friend. ]
[Lord John swirls his drink in his glass and contemplates his response to Jamie's question. On one hand, he is a gentleman. The son of a duke, at that. The image of his valet's round face comes unbidden into his mind, chiding him for dirtying his breeches again, and he smiles, shaking his head as he does.]
I can be trusted with direction.
[Which is to say that he's probably never done much hard labor in his life. But he is in the army. Was? It's hard to know how to define himself, here and now. Without all the usual markers that he might use to guide his life.]
[Lord John offers the other man a smile, despite himself, raising the glass to take a sip of it as he does.]
Then I shall not deny of it. Though I must warn you. I was not bluffing you in that I will need your direction to be of much use as far as the work is concerned.
[He is a member of high society after all, remember that, Jamie.]
Is it the list that keeps you out of your bed at such an hour? You do realize you will need your rest if you wish to accomplish half those things, old man.
[He tacks that last part on half in jest. But also because he sees the age on the other man's face, in ways he had not seen before. An odd reminder of the difference in time between them if ever John were to have seen one for himself.]
[ Jamie quite literally waves off the concern. Anyone can learn, and John is competent. He isn't worried. At the question, Jamie puts the list aside, and at the jab, Jamie grunts. As an old man does. ]
I dinna ken about auld, but the list gives me something to look forward to. No, it isna the house repairs keeping me up.
[ At this, Jamie looks at more serious, eyes narrowing in concern and thought. What happened to Brianna isn't his story to tell, but he could use a friend's advice if he's being honest. Or to simply speak of it without his wife echoing his own fears and concerns. ]
I had never met my daughter before now, ye ken. I believed her gone to me forever, like Claire. It only took the end of the world to bring us under one leaking roof.
[Lord John recalls what Jamie had mentioned to him about her from before.]
You said she was raised in the Colonies?
[It's a careful question. Crafted as carefully as he can as Lord John realizes his own part in this. As Jamie's parole officer. If he had known where Claire had gone, might he not have been able to get her some sort of letter? But Jamie was his Jacobite prisoner. The fact he had not been transported in and of itself was by Grey's hand alone. Much to Jamie's chagrin.]
[ And here Jamie pauses. Perhaps in light of the end of the world he could tell his friend the truth and not have him think Claire (or Jamie for that matter) mad.
Another night, maybe. But still, part of a truth comes out. ]
Raised by another man when Claire thought I was dead after Culloden. Brianna didna even ken of me until she was twenty or so.
[ Jamie does look quickly at John, not wanting the assumption to be made that there's any anger on his part about it. There's sadness, certainly, but no anger. He knew who he was sending Claire back to. ]
I wanted it that way. For her to be safe and well loved. And she was.
[ But.
Whatever thought Jamie has trails off as he looks down at his whiskey glass, taking a long pull. ]
[Oh. Well then. Lord John watches the other man toss back a drink and takes in a deep breath himself. That rather is a situation indeed.
He does not mean to rub Jamie's face in the situation, but he has to process it in his own way himself.]
That must have been quite the shock for her. To find the man who had raised her was not her father by blood. Unless of course she had been told so from the start.
[But no, the way that Jamie's telling it, he rather thinks that she hadn't been.]
[ For various reasons, none that he can tell John for now. Most of this conversation, to, cuts deeply, of course. John would have, had the world not ended for him, raised Willie. A father not by blood, but one who loved his son all the same. ]
I see her now, my daughter, and I ken her, the things she's told me, the things Claire has told me. But I dinna ken the things a father would.
[ He turns the glass on the table, unable to meet John's gaze for a moment. ]
[John may not know that he is the one to eventually raise Jamie's son. But he does know that Willie is Jamie's son, and he understands that Jamie will never be able to lay claim as such. Not without denying the boy the rest of his family. The title he was born to.
So no, Jamie may have sired the child, but he will not raise him. And apparently he was denied the right to raise this child as well. It is a predicament, he will give Jamie that.]
Jealous of the time he spent with her that you will never be able to make up for? Or jealous of the fact that she should love him more than you, when you have only just met?
[ There's a sharp inhale at John's words and Jamie's jaw sets, twitching just a bit.
He hates that it's a combination of both. ]
Claire and I had another daughter.
[ He has so rarely mentioned Faith, but twice now, he's talked about her at length. Once with Brianna and now with John. Two people he trusts the story to. ]
She was born but never drew a breath in her lungs and it nearly killed Claire. I didna...I didna have a chance to hold her. I wasna there.
[ And because John knows he can't be a father to Willie, he knows it's another child he can't be there to hold or soothe or parent. ]
Brianna is grown now. Had a father who kissed her skinned knees, walked wi' her when she was fussy, told her stories, saw her grow. I'm an auld man now, John, strange as it may be to ye. Claire and I willna have any other bairns. Though, even if we could, 'tis impossible here, in this world.
[ And so, he will never have a child, from birth to adulthood, that he has a chance to raise straight through. Fergus, a son he loves fiercely, is as close as it will ever get. ]
[Stillborn. It does add a somber note to their conversation. Especially since Grey's first sister-in-law, Esme, actually had died in childbirth. Her and the baby both. Lord John had still been young at the time, but he had understood even then how much it had hurt his brother. Just as he understands how much he loves his children now.
Raising his glass, he takes a solid swallow of it, letting the alcohol burn its way down his throat before he replies.]
I am sorry. For your loss. Yours and Claire's.
[He pauses for another moment, weighing his words carefully, before he continues:] Yet you must recognize the gift it is you have been given. Here and now. She does not need you to teach her how to walk or talk, no, but she is still only -- what, twenty years old?
[He quirks a soft smile at the other man.] She still needs her father. Trust me on that much.
[Take it from a man who was twelve when his own father was murdered and thus grew up without one from that point on himself.]
[ Jamie acknowledges the condolences with a nod, taking a moment to silently think of Faith, unable to conjure a memory to go with her because he'd been in prison the day she was born. The day she died.
Still, John's words pull a small smile from Jamie. ]
My own mother died in childbed when I was no' but a wee lad. Had she been alive when I was twenty, Christ. I dinna ken for sure, but perhaps I would have made different choices. 'Tis a gift, to have her here and now. And she does need me, though perhaps Claire more.
[ In the aftermath of her trauma she's wanted both of them close, but has gravitated toward her mother for obvious reasons. ]
[They're an odd collection, the people living in this mansion and shuffled into the master bedroom by Claire, but there's safety in numbers and, hopefully, some comfort to be found. She's worried about Bree, about Theon, about Jamie. That worry extends to John, too. Perhaps it would be less if he were older, but he's still a young man, and so that's what brings Claire over to his side.]
[Perhaps he is young, but he is a soldier. This is not the first disaster he's lived through, and though he might not admit as much to either her or Jamie, he had been there at Culloden. At the age of seventeen, no less. Of course, Hal had kept him off the battlefield, but he had put a pistol in his hand after the fact and sent him to help clean up the field thereafter. And then of course there was that time that his former lover had drugged and kidnapped him and nearly forced him to join his underground cult of murderers...
No, this is not his first rodeo. Though it isn't quite like anything he has experienced thus far, to be sure.]
If I'm being honest with you, madam, I'm having a hard time following just what all is going on. It seems like only yesterday my own world was supposed to have ended, and now...?
[Said with a sad smile, if only to not add to any more upset with a frown. With a sigh, she sits beside him, but this time there's not really anything she can do to help anyone. The end of the world is not something she can fix.]
Given the circumstances, I do believe you can just call me Claire.
[Given the circumstances. It makes him want to laugh at the phrasing, it's so terribly British of her to say so.]
Given the circumstances. Very well, Claire. If we are to die together on this day, it's just as well we do so as close to friends as we might hope to become.
[He flicks her a crooked smile. He honestly doesn't know how close to friends they'd come, in her timeline, seeing as how he hadn't gotten the chance to live it yet. He's going to assume it hadn't been too far, given some of the looks she still gives him at times.]
Hello, John. I hope you're not too bothered by getting a text through the device. I suppose I'll get right into it. There's a friend of mine I'd like you to meet, and I was hoping you wouldn't mind befriending him.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
breaks in your inbox slowly and gently~
Everything he was able to do in North Carolina is thanks to John, in a way. Had he not intervened in Jamaica, Jamie could very well have met the end of a rope long ago.
Those aren't the thoughts that keep him awake tonight though, no, Jamie is sitting up in what he supposes is the sitting room of Claire's mansion (still too odd to call it theirs when she did all the work for it) drinking whiskey and writing, squinting at paper via candlelight as he tries to see without spectacles. Sleep hasn't been coming easy; Brianna has nightmares. Jamie has nightmares. Claire deserves sleep. So tonight it's Jamie listening for their daughter because he doesn't plan on closing his eyes anyway.
In his trousers and shirt, Jamie's hair is loose, wild curls around his head, feet bare, and at his terrible near-sightedness, curses under his breath before rubbing at his eyes. ]
Mhac na galla.
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So when he stumbles across the other man in the sitting room, despite the hour and the fact that it would be nice to have wrapped himself in a banyan, he'll have to make do with the circumstances presented him.
This whole affair has Lord John similarly restless as the rest of the Fraser family, if not for exactly the same reason as themselves. He knows there are some personal dramas going on, but for the most part he's left them well enough alone. He's not a member of their household, after all. He's merely living in their house. There is a difference.
Soft-footed, Grey steps into the sitting room to find the other man muttering to himself softly in Gaelic. While Lord John cannot understand the language himself, he understands the gist of it quite clearly.]
I hope I am not interrupting... [He flicks the other man a wry smile.]
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Och, no, ye aren't. 'Tis only a list of thing that need to be repaired here. The house is large, but wasna well built.
[ Lallybroch has never leaked, never crumbled. But this is an inherited home, so perhaps he shouldn't be too hard on it. ]
Join me?
[ Jamie holds up the whiskey bottle, then stands to get another glass, apparently planning on John staying rather than going anywhere. ]
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Well. Don't mind if I do.
[Taking a seat in the armchair beside the one Jamie has set up his own camp in, Grey waits patiently to be served, before accepting the glass with a soft murmur of thanks.]
Is there much work to be done here, then?
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Aye, the roof leaks in places, some of the brickwork is crumbling. Baseboards rotted, painting to be done, windows drafty.
[ Just to name a few things. ]
And that's no' including the poor condition of the stables.
[ He'll get to it, all of it, and he's looking forward to it, really. He built a house for his wife once, the least he can do now is fix this one for her, to make it feel like a home they'll grow roots in. Even in North Carolina, though, he'd had Ian's help, and Jamie looks at his friend. ]
How good are ye wi' tools, John?
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[Lord John swirls his drink in his glass and contemplates his response to Jamie's question. On one hand, he is a gentleman. The son of a duke, at that. The image of his valet's round face comes unbidden into his mind, chiding him for dirtying his breeches again, and he smiles, shaking his head as he does.]
I can be trusted with direction.
[Which is to say that he's probably never done much hard labor in his life. But he is in the army. Was? It's hard to know how to define himself, here and now. Without all the usual markers that he might use to guide his life.]
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[ Perhaps Brianna, but he's not sure of what she'll want to do; if she'll even want to. ]
't'would be a pleasure to have yer company making the hours go by faster.
[ When they have conversations, they tend to run the gamut, and he imagines even with time between them that wouldn't change much. ]
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Then I shall not deny of it. Though I must warn you. I was not bluffing you in that I will need your direction to be of much use as far as the work is concerned.
[He is a member of high society after all, remember that, Jamie.]
Is it the list that keeps you out of your bed at such an hour? You do realize you will need your rest if you wish to accomplish half those things, old man.
[He tacks that last part on half in jest. But also because he sees the age on the other man's face, in ways he had not seen before. An odd reminder of the difference in time between them if ever John were to have seen one for himself.]
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[ Jamie quite literally waves off the concern. Anyone can learn, and John is competent. He isn't worried. At the question, Jamie puts the list aside, and at the jab, Jamie grunts. As an old man does. ]
I dinna ken about auld, but the list gives me something to look forward to. No, it isna the house repairs keeping me up.
[ At this, Jamie looks at more serious, eyes narrowing in concern and thought. What happened to Brianna isn't his story to tell, but he could use a friend's advice if he's being honest. Or to simply speak of it without his wife echoing his own fears and concerns. ]
I had never met my daughter before now, ye ken. I believed her gone to me forever, like Claire. It only took the end of the world to bring us under one leaking roof.
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[Lord John recalls what Jamie had mentioned to him about her from before.]
You said she was raised in the Colonies?
[It's a careful question. Crafted as carefully as he can as Lord John realizes his own part in this. As Jamie's parole officer. If he had known where Claire had gone, might he not have been able to get her some sort of letter? But Jamie was his Jacobite prisoner. The fact he had not been transported in and of itself was by Grey's hand alone. Much to Jamie's chagrin.]
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[ And here Jamie pauses. Perhaps in light of the end of the world he could tell his friend the truth and not have him think Claire (or Jamie for that matter) mad.
Another night, maybe. But still, part of a truth comes out. ]
Raised by another man when Claire thought I was dead after Culloden. Brianna didna even ken of me until she was twenty or so.
[ Jamie does look quickly at John, not wanting the assumption to be made that there's any anger on his part about it. There's sadness, certainly, but no anger. He knew who he was sending Claire back to. ]
I wanted it that way. For her to be safe and well loved. And she was.
[ But.
Whatever thought Jamie has trails off as he looks down at his whiskey glass, taking a long pull. ]
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He does not mean to rub Jamie's face in the situation, but he has to process it in his own way himself.]
That must have been quite the shock for her. To find the man who had raised her was not her father by blood. Unless of course she had been told so from the start.
[But no, the way that Jamie's telling it, he rather thinks that she hadn't been.]
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[ For various reasons, none that he can tell John for now. Most of this conversation, to, cuts deeply, of course. John would have, had the world not ended for him, raised Willie. A father not by blood, but one who loved his son all the same. ]
I see her now, my daughter, and I ken her, the things she's told me, the things Claire has told me. But I dinna ken the things a father would.
[ He turns the glass on the table, unable to meet John's gaze for a moment. ]
I find myself jealous of a dead man.
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So no, Jamie may have sired the child, but he will not raise him. And apparently he was denied the right to raise this child as well. It is a predicament, he will give Jamie that.]
Jealous of the time he spent with her that you will never be able to make up for? Or jealous of the fact that she should love him more than you, when you have only just met?
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He hates that it's a combination of both. ]
Claire and I had another daughter.
[ He has so rarely mentioned Faith, but twice now, he's talked about her at length. Once with Brianna and now with John. Two people he trusts the story to. ]
She was born but never drew a breath in her lungs and it nearly killed Claire. I didna...I didna have a chance to hold her. I wasna there.
[ And because John knows he can't be a father to Willie, he knows it's another child he can't be there to hold or soothe or parent. ]
Brianna is grown now. Had a father who kissed her skinned knees, walked wi' her when she was fussy, told her stories, saw her grow. I'm an auld man now, John, strange as it may be to ye. Claire and I willna have any other bairns. Though, even if we could, 'tis impossible here, in this world.
[ And so, he will never have a child, from birth to adulthood, that he has a chance to raise straight through. Fergus, a son he loves fiercely, is as close as it will ever get. ]
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Raising his glass, he takes a solid swallow of it, letting the alcohol burn its way down his throat before he replies.]
I am sorry. For your loss. Yours and Claire's.
[He pauses for another moment, weighing his words carefully, before he continues:] Yet you must recognize the gift it is you have been given. Here and now. She does not need you to teach her how to walk or talk, no, but she is still only -- what, twenty years old?
[He quirks a soft smile at the other man.] She still needs her father. Trust me on that much.
[Take it from a man who was twelve when his own father was murdered and thus grew up without one from that point on himself.]
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Still, John's words pull a small smile from Jamie. ]
My own mother died in childbed when I was no' but a wee lad. Had she been alive when I was twenty, Christ. I dinna ken for sure, but perhaps I would have made different choices. 'Tis a gift, to have her here and now. And she does need me, though perhaps Claire more.
[ In the aftermath of her trauma she's wanted both of them close, but has gravitated toward her mother for obvious reasons. ]
FRASER INVASION; during the fog
How are you doing?
[Welcome to Olympia.]
ALL THESE FRASERS IN HIS INBOX
No, this is not his first rodeo. Though it isn't quite like anything he has experienced thus far, to be sure.]
If I'm being honest with you, madam, I'm having a hard time following just what all is going on. It seems like only yesterday my own world was supposed to have ended, and now...?
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[Said with a sad smile, if only to not add to any more upset with a frown. With a sigh, she sits beside him, but this time there's not really anything she can do to help anyone. The end of the world is not something she can fix.]
Given the circumstances, I do believe you can just call me Claire.
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Given the circumstances. Very well, Claire. If we are to die together on this day, it's just as well we do so as close to friends as we might hope to become.
[He flicks her a crooked smile. He honestly doesn't know how close to friends they'd come, in her timeline, seeing as how he hadn't gotten the chance to live it yet. He's going to assume it hadn't been too far, given some of the looks she still gives him at times.]
And you may call me John.
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John it is.
[There's a silence for a moment.]
My husband has a bad habit of getting into trouble with redcoats. You rescued him from imprisonment. I'm willing to be friends for that alone.
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I would not object to meeting the man. I would only ask after what has your friend to say on the matter of befriending me, then?
[Is this your way of trying to be rid of him after all?]
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