Chapter Text
Claire
“JAMIE…JAMIE…JAMIE! WHERE THE BLOODY HELL ARE YOU? JAAAAAMMMIEEEE”
I have been running around this fucking island for ages, and I cannot find him. The ship is getting closer, and holy shit, they are dropping anchors.
“JAMIE FRASER, I AM GOING TO KILL YOU!”
I can’t. I won’t. I refuse to leave this place. I don’t want my old life back. Even if Jamie is in it, I don’t want to share him; not with family, not with friends…no one. There is still work and commutes and traffic and people and problems.
All I want is here.
Here, there is nothing we can’t solve with a bit of gumption, a screaming match, and hot makeup sex.
All I need is here, because he is here, and I am here, and one day soon, our child, the only person I willingly share him with, will be here too.
Jesus H Roosevelt Christ. Why? Why didn’t I extinguish that bloody fire? That’s probably why they turned around. They probably saw it in their rearview mirror…if ships have a rearview mirror. Do they? Or maybe that's why they have radar? Wait, are those ships or planes? Holy shit! I am so thick. Shit. Do I have a baby brain already?
“HOLY SHIT, STOP TALKING TO YOURSELF AND FIND JAMIE!”
~~~
Jamie
I am the fucking king of this island…of Fraser’s Island.
I have built a home for my future wife, the mother of my minimum twelve bairns. I have given her fire, food, and countless climaxes.
Now, I have built her an arbour to be married under. In a cave, beneath a waterfall, no less.
Forget this island. I AM JAMMF. THE FUCKING KING OF MEN.
“JAAAAMMMMIIIIEEEEEEEEE!”
“CLAIIRRRRREEE!”
I run through the trees as fast as I can, taking no care at all where I step or what I push through. I cut my feet, my hands, my arms and face as I race through the ferns.
“JAMIE FRASER, I AM GOING TO KILL YOU!”
Jesus, what’s wrong, Sassenach? Just hold on, I’m almost home.
I make it through the last of the shrubbery and hit the sand. That's when I see it. Right in front of our own bonnie wee beach. A dingy, and further out to sea behind it, a ship.
They saw us.
They came back.
Why the devil did I keep up this charade? Why didn’t I put out that fire before I left?
I don’t want to leave.
I can’t.
I won’t.
I slink back into the seclusion of the forest. I skirt around its sandy edges, hiding my stupid red head while keeping one eye on the fast approaching dingy, and one searching for Claire.
My bride-to-be.
The dingy crashes against the sand. A brown-haired man, and a wee golden-haired lass, clamber out and spread over the beach. Our beach.
I hear them calling, but apart from them, all is quiet. She’s quiet. Too quiet. I don’t like this at all. She should be calling out. Surely she is excited. She misses her family and friends. She had a life. She was happy.
There is nothing I can do to make her stay. I cannot hold her back. But still, she is quiet. Something must be wrong.
I’m so close to our base camp. So close to home, I can almost smell her. I slow my movement so as not to disturb the trees, and slowly, home comes into sight. We have camouflaged our hut to the best of our abilities, but if they come this far inland, they will see it for sure.
In my paranoia—as Claire called it—I had built us a bomber shelter of sorts. A rustic panic room. It’s a hole in the ground with a roof made to look like the forest floor, and as I approach it, I see a clump of curls sink inside, and that roof slides into place.
Claire is hiding. She’s hiding. She doesn’t want to leave.
The intruders are so close I can hear their voices. I drop onto my stomach, shimmy across the ground and finally make it. Quietly as I can, I slide the roof open and drop inside.
“Jamie. Holy shit, you’re here!”
She jumps into my arms and bursts into tears.
“Jamie. Please, please forgive me. I know you want to leave. I know it. I see you scream and yell at those ships each and every time they pass, but leaving here is the absolute last thing I want. But if you tell me now that you want to go, if you tell me that you want to leave this place and never come back, I will. I will give it all up, climb out of this dank stinky hole and get on that dingy.”
“Ye’d really do that fer me? Even when ye dinnae want tae leave?”
“You know I would. I’d do anything for you, Jamie. You are my home. I will go where you go.”
My heart breaks into a million pieces and heals the second I seal my lips over hers. She cries into my kiss and grabs me tight. I feel the swell of her belly press into me, and a sense of joy I cannot express lights me from within.
“Let’s go then, Sassenach.” Her face drops. “Let’s ye, me, and the wee bairn ye carry in yer beautiful belly, climb out of this dank pit and piss us off some do-gooders.”
“Jamie?” Her face is all confusion, and chaos, and love; just as the whole of our time together has, thus far, has been. “You know about the baby? You want to stay?”
I kiss her again, then rest my forehead against hers, and whisper, “aye, I ken ye are carrying my bairn, and I ken wi’ all my heart I want tae stay here wi’ ye. There is nothin’ in the world I want more.”
“What do we do about our rescuers?”
“We go tell em tae fuck of Fraser’s Island. That’s what we do.”
~~~
It was a good thing we emerged from the panic room and confronted our rescuers. I’d like to say I did so calmly, but I can’t. Before I emerged, I smeared dirt all over my face, messed up my hair to resemble Einstein, and then leapt before them when I heard their footsteps.
I’d hoped to terrify them, them being our new friends Fergus and Marsali, but they laughed in my face.
Like us, Fersali—as they have named themselves—are romance-inspired runaways. They live on an island called Sam Domingue, a few nautical miles east of ours. They, too, are mostly self-sufficient, but unlike us, did not end up on their island by chance.
Fergus comes from some fancy French wine-making family. Ironically, his surname is Frasier, and he is stinking rich. They own the island they live on, and this one too. We are their free-loading tenants, and they seemed quite happy to have us. For the majority of the time, they stay on the island but return to Kingston when they need supplies or even just a need a day or two of civilization.
Twenty minutes and a few swigs of Fergus’s hip flask later, Fersali promised to stop in to visit and check on us each time they head to town. The dingy slides back into the sea, and Claire and I are alone. Just as we should be. Well, almost alone. We have our bairn with us too.
We really are blessed.
Claire turns to me and smiles. A smile so pure it melts me.
“I can’t believe you knew I was pregnant and didn’t say anything. Why didn’t you, by the way? We are so codependent, you want me to come to the toilet with you,, and when I refuse, you tell me what I missed.”
“I wanted tae wait till ye were ready. ‘Tis yer body, Sassenach. ‘Tis yer story tae tell.”
“But you're happy? About the baby?”
“Christ, Claire. If I was any happier, I’d explode. I love ye sae much. Ye have already given me sae much, and now ye’re giving me the world.”
“Oh, Jamie. Shut up and kiss me.”
~~~
“You want me to shove my face in that tight, dark, wet hole?” She chews the inside of her lip and wriggles her brows. “That’s more your scene, isn’t it?”
“Aye, ‘tis. And I hope tae dip into the wet hole ye’re referring tae verra soon. But right now, we’re slipping into that one.”
“Fine. I don’t normally swing that way, but who knows? I might like it.”
After planting that image in my mind, she dives into the water, bobs back to the surface, and crooks her finger at me.
“C’mon then, let’s blow this hole.”
She’s filthy. And soon, she’ll be my wife.
Just as I’ve done since the day I groped her sandy torso on the beach, I follow her, elegantly cherry bombing in like an eight-year-old, and swim to catch up.
She wades into the pool that sits directly below the waterfall and stares up.
“Something looks different. The water… Does it look clearer or bluer?”
“Aye, it does look a little different. I wonder what it could be?”
Claire eyes me suspiciously. “You’re up to something, and I guess I’m going to have to follow you to find out. C’mon. After you, Mr Fraser.”
“Aye. I guess ye better follow me then…Mrs Fraser.”
Her mouth falls open, but I swim away before she can say a word. I dip below the surface, and as soon as I feel her behind me, I head to and enter the cave.
I wait for her to appear, and when she does, I am reborn. Light streams in behind her, highlighting her body like in a golden aura. Her wet hair curls around her face. Her cheeks are pink and flushed like she’s just been freshly fucked, just as I like it.
She spins in the water, her mouth agape. Again, just as I like it.
“Jamie. It’s beautiful. What is this place?”
“‘Tis where we are going tae be marrit, Sassenach.”
Tears stream down her cheeks as she spots the arbour. Apparently, she can’t swim, cry, and swoon at the same time. She dips from view and starts waving her hands around, gasping for air like she's never swam a day in her life.
I grab her by the waist, lead her to the sand, and lay her down. Our bodies magnetically connect. “Is that how ‘tis? Ye’d rather drown yerself than marry me?”
“Marry you? Of course, I want to marry you. But how?”
As I pepper her with kisses, as I hold her close to stop her body from shivering, I tell her of the old Scot’s tradition of handfasting.
“Will ye have me, Claire? Will ye be my wife?”
“Yes. Yes, of course, I’ll have you.”
All I want to do right now is bury myself deep inside this goddess of the sea, but if I begin now, I don’t think I will ever stop. So, I take her by the hand, pull her to her feet, and lead her to the arbour.
A pale ivory hibiscus I picked earlier is tucked in her curls behind her ear. I kiss her forehead and turn her by her shoulders until she faces the rock wall. Again, she’s lost for words as she sees our waterfall from a whole new angle.
“Jamie? How did you find this place? And when, for that matter? Did you make all of this? How did you get everything inside?” I kiss her lips to shut her up, then stand back as she runs her hand over the planed smooth timber. She inhales the scent of the Lingum Vitae, a beautiful blueish-purple flower, the national flower of Jamaica.
“I found it by accident, or by fate. Whatever ye chose tae believe. I think it was fate myself. Just as ‘twas fate that had us both on that ship, that saved and led us both here, that sent Bruno our way tae eat that pompous ass, Frrrrank.”
“He really was an ass, wasn’t he.” We both laugh. Who knew sharkacide could be so funny?
“Seriously though, I’ve been coming here fer weeks tae make this perfect fer ye. I cannae give ye a fancy wedding as ye deserve, but hopefully, this will make up fer what ye’re missing by choosing tae stay here wi’ me.”
“Jamie, my love. My silly, silly man. I am not missing a damn thing. Everything I need is right here.”
She kisses me and rolls atop my instantly hard and ready body. She slides down my cock like she does those damn coconut trees and moans, grinding her hips against me. Praising her beauty, I sit up beneath her, take her perfect pink nipples in my mouth one at a time, and kiss and worship her beautiful belly.
We exchange our vows as we make love. Eyes locked, we promise ourselves to each other, to always be there, to always give love and make love, and we do it while we are as close as two people can possibly be.
'Ye are Blood of my Blood, and Bone of my Bone.
I give ye my Body, that we Two might be One.
I give ye my Spirit, 'til our Life shall be Done.'
We come together.
We will always be together.
On our own little island in the sun.
Our forever summer.
Hunters and gatherers. Best friends. Lovers. Husband and wife.