Back to the Future (Sequel to Outlander Reversed)

Ten

“What’d ye mean earlier, about hearing me wondering about yer surname as if I’d been speaking aloud?”

        Summer wasn’t surprised by her young husband’s question, nor the genuine Curiosity that laced it as they sat on their front porch swing. Her oldest son-in-law was now sleeping peacefully in their bed, his newborn daughter sprawled out on his slightly-swollen chest. Malcolm was tending to their older children–particularly the twins–while the Fox, who’d finally Revealed her name to be Morrígan like the Celtic Goddess, kept watch over mother and child.

        “Well, to start off, Elves can open psychic links with anyone they please, if they so desire,” she answered, letting him use his slightly longer legsta keep the swing in motion. “We’ve toldja that before.”

        “They can?” Jamie’s eyes widened in surprise.

        “If they wanna or otherwise feel the need,” the Elvin woman said, nodding. “Generally not without consent on their target’s part–or at least, a damn good reason, if they don’t have that person’s consent.”

        He made a decidedly Scotch noise as he pondered that notion.

        “That can allow them to not only hear said target’s Thoughts in their own head, but to talk in said target’s head–just without ever opening their mouths,” Summer continued. “It’s from Projecting their own Thoughtsta their target, after all.”

        The ginger man wasn’t quite sure how to feel about knowing his wife could do such a thing.

        “You’d know, if I’d opened that kinda like with you, though,” she assured him with a chuckle. “If nothing else, you’d have likely wound up with a piercing headache outta nowhere for a few moments since that’s usually what happens.”

        “Well, at least I wouldna be completely unaware of it,” Jamie mused. “But if ye havena opened such a link with me, how’d ye know what I was wondering?”

        “’Cuz ya were Projecting unconsciously–meaning ya didn’t even realize ya were doing, let alone have Control over it,” the Elvin woman answered.

        Rubbing her belly almost absently as she shifted slightly, Summer explained that she didn’t need a psychic connection with him to read his Thoughts, if he did that. But she did make a conscious effort not to constantly take advantage of such a thing, knowing it’d no doubt make him uncomfortable, if he’d ever found out. She just hadn’t been able to help it this Time since she didn’t have her full attention on avoiding such a thing, which was understandable since she’d been focusing on Dallas and ensuring the safe delivery of her granddaughter.

        He still listened with rapt attention as she went on to explain what she’d meant when she’d murmured prior marriage in responseta his unasked question, though. The full answer to that was that she’d once wed another Elf of Scotch blood–just not a Fraser of Lovat like himself. Her former husband had been from a Fraser Clan that’d Land further East than Inverness–in fact, they were where the name of the port Town Fraserburgh came from. For that reason, her older son bore the same surname he did, but he’d technically gotten it from a different Fraser Clan.

        She chuckled as she admitted that after her previous husband had been killed in a battle she wasn’t even gonna try to describe at the moment, she’d retained his surname. None of her other children bore it, though–like their older brother, they’d all been given their fathers’ surnames or her own maiden name. Which one they’d gotten depended on how serious her relationship with their respective father’d been, and whether or not the man’d become what they called a dead-beat. If the man’d run off to parts unknown and left her to raise the child in question on her own, she hadn’t bothered Honoring him by giving said child his surname–doing so woulda been the ultimate insult to the child in question.