When the Heart Calls

Chapter Five

For Comfort's Sake

Autumn 1772 (spoilers for Season 5 episode 11)

Cicadas hissed and chirped, their familiar call brought me into consciousness, and I stared up at the sky—waiting for the chemtrails of jets or for Nathan to stand over me and finish what he started the night before. My bag was still over my shoulder and I still clutched the torn map in one hand. I held my hand up and inspected the engagement ring, one of the two diamonds beside the large yellow one was gone—payment for my passage like the ruby before. Exhausted as I was, I still breathed easier as I pulled myself from the ground and looked at the map. The creek was still in the same place, and it looked like it would eventually turn into a river that would lead me to Frasers Ridge. The problem was it would take a while. I unwrapped the tartan from around the dress and draped it over my arms and head a bit, shielding me from the sun. I could make it in four days if I slept very little.

Four days. I can make it four days.

The scent of smoke filled the air, and the acrid stench of burning canvas stung my eyes. Coughing and squinting I walked toward the smoke. Maybe I could be of some help? What I found were the charred and still smoking ruins of a cabin and a girl burned and melted into the side. Trembling I could do nothing but stare and cry as I was confronted with the reality of the time I found myself in. Truth be told it could happen at any time, but that didn't make it any easier to look at as the girl with her sightless seared blue eyes croaked up at the sky.

There were sounds, quiet conversation and footsteps, but I couldn't stop looking at the girl. Voices called out all around and a familiar looking man with large blue eyes and brown hair stepped around taking off his hat and clutching it to his chest as he stared at the melted girl with her charred, oozing flesh.

"Oh god," he gasped, fixated on the girl half melted to the ground beside the cabin. I couldn't react, I couldn't move or even think. Jamie rounded the corner but I didn't go to him and fling my arms around him for a happy reunion. Instead, I listened as he said a prayer for the girl, and the familiar man smothered her with his hand. They crossed themselves and I shut my eyes shedding a tear and drawing a ragged breath.

"Da..." I whined, and Jamie blinked like he was seeing me for the first time. The man on the ground turned in confusion as Jamie went to me, pulling me into his arms and hugging me close. I bawled in his arms like a little girl, trembling like a leaf, my breath coming in gasps as he rocked me. Others came over, I heard their footsteps between my sobs.

"Shhh, dinna fash. Yer safe now, shh," he cooed to me, drawing back and inspecting the ruined side of my face, still bruised and swollen from Nathan's rough treatment. "Christ," he cursed under his breath.

"Jamie, who is she?" An older woman with dark hair tinged with grey spoke in a British accent. She was pretty with large blue eyes and tall, they were all so tall making me feel so very not as I sniffled and stepped away.

"This is Moira-Rose Fraser... and she's like the three of you, a traveler and our blood kin."

The dark haired woman furrowed her brows and approached me. "I... I have pictures." I reached into my bag and opened the antique box full of herbs. In the bottom were a few pictures of my mom and Da, and my grandma and grandpa with some of Grandma's cousins. That was when I recognized the man, or rather his eyes. I handed the photographs to the woman.

"I see where you get your red hair," the woman grinned down at the picture and held it up to Jamie. "Your mother is beautiful, is she Italian?"