#then 5 min later wondered why the printer had stopped

[sarah-sandwich-writes]

I Am Going To Eat My Printer

[whiskynottea]

We’ll rise up

Previously  Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13  Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19

AO3

A/N: So... This is the last chapter of my very first fanfiction story! Yay! A big thank you to all of you who’ve been here, reading and leaving feedback! ❤️

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Chapter 20. Leaving Paris Behind

“What is he doing here.” 

If anybody had the skill to mask his surprise and make a whisper sound like a demand, that was Jamie Fraser. His voice was even and betrayed nothing but an eerie calmness that upset Claire even more than his anger would.

Before she had a chance to reply, Frank’s cold voice echoed in the dark. “I should expect it would be you.” 

That much for greetings. Frank’s level gaze was fixed on Jamie, causing Claire’s breath to get caught in her throat. She hoped his foolish male possessiveness wouldn't overwhelm him once more and make him go back on his promise. As helpful as the La Force prison map Frank had procured for her to find their way out had been, they still needed the forged papers for Jamie to leave the city.

Jamie didn’t respond but Claire could see the challenging way he raised his chin and how he stood with every muscle of his body rigid, tense. Instinctively, she stepped in front of him, using her own body as a shield to protect one man from the other. This proprietorial behaviour was getting under her skin, an itch she wanted to scratch until she’d get rid of it. Instead of starting a speech regarding fighting cocks though, she kept her calm demeanour and let them continue their silent confrontation above her head. Moments passed and none of them moved or spoke again. At last, Frank’s hazel eyes found hers.

“I’m glad this madness of a plan worked,” he said and his face softened as he took a step closer. Claire felt Jamie move too, his chest almost flush with her back. 

“For now,” she replied. “We’re not safe yet.”

Frank nodded somberly, his jaw tight. “I’ve got everything you asked for, right here.” 

The soft yellow envelope he was holding was their claim to life.

Claire moved towards Frank, hope filling her chest with each breath she was taking. She heard the iron of Jamie’s manacles whispering behind her a moment before his fingers skimmed against her back in a plead not to increase the distance between them, but she decided to ignore the gesture. They would have all the time in the world later. Her gaze darted from the envelope held between Frank’s long, delicate fingers to his eyes. She felt her vision blurring and blinked back tears of gratitude. 

“I’m not the bigger man, Claire. I’m not,” Frank said, seeing the way her eyes glimmered. “I hope I was…”

“You are,” she replied giving him a smile and used both hands to gently hold his own.

He shook his head. “I hope things were different. I wish you’d have more love for me than for him. I wish you wouldn’t risk your life for that man. But wishes and hopes don’t come to be true, I’m afraid.” 

Frank let out a heavy sigh and lowered his gaze as though to gather his thoughts. Claire opened her mouth to speak, but closed it again, uncertain of what she should say. 

“You need to leave. Now,” Frank said once his eyes found hers again. “Get him and run away.” He tossed the soft envelope in her hand and took a step back. “This will get you out of the city. Don’t stay in France, it’s too big a risk. Go back home.”

Claire took the envelope and held it with both hands. It was true that Frank was giving her the opportunity to a home again, even though this home wasn’t a place but a person. 

“Frank, I don’t know if I will ever get the chance to pay you back for this.” 

Her tears ran free now, hope mingling with their salt, tasting like life. She kept her eyes on his blurred form, on this man she once looked at with so much disdain and fear and who had now came to her aid, came to stand by her side. And in that moment, she wondered whether she could really love him, in another life, if the circumstances were different, if she had never found Jamie. 

“Just, don’t hate me, Claire. Remember this of me and not the man who ruined your life.”

He hadn’t ruined her life. He was just a part of it, a fundamental part who brought her where she was now standing. “I will,” she said simply. “Thank you, Frank. Thank you.”

Frank took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Mr Malcolm,” he addressed Jamie, poised and cold. “I hope I never see you again.”

Jamie seemed to be confused at the name but spoke in a clear, fearless voice. “The feeling is mutual, sir.”

Claire turned around and looked for Murtagh in the shadows. He was looking at her. She nodded once and the man gave her his tacit agreement to proceed with the plan. “Let’s get in the carriage,” she instructed and saw Murtagh urging Fergus forward. “Let’s go,” she repeated to Jamie who was standing still and took his hand. As she did so, she turned back and looked at the lean, tall man who had changed her life twice already. “Take care, Frank,” she said and saw him raising a hand in goodbye. 

A moment later, she had followed Jamie into the carriage and the horses were cantering down the empty street. 

“Care to explain, Sassenach?”

“Explain what, Mr Malcolm?” she smiled and opened the envelope. There was a candle in the carriage and Murtagh hastened to lit it. 

“Is everything as expected?” the man asked with a frown.

“Will anybody explain what you have done to get me out of that hellish place?” Jamie’s words came fast, betraying that he started losing his patience.

“Everything looks fine,” Claire replied to Murtagh after quickly scanning the papers. 

Frank had given Jamie a new identity, one that wouldn’t hold him captured in the city. He’d given him a life back, even though it wouldn’t be the same as before. 

Alexander Malcolm, printer, Edinburgh. 

She knew that Edinburgh wasn’t the same as Jamie’s beloved Highlands and they still needed to find a place to start the printshop, but it was a way out. Away from the lampposts that served as apparatus for hanging people, away from the mayhem of the revolution.

A revolution Claire had waited for years. She’d fought for it to come and then fought when it started. She’d never imagine those people who schemed, and planned and got organized would turn into an inhuman, cruel, and dangerous mob. Lately, Claire felt that they all were tightrope walkers -- one wrong step and the eminent fall would follow. Nobody was safe, and nobody could rely on their connections to prove what they’d offered to fight for the third estate. 

She wished Jamie was never caught as a spy but if protecting an innocent boy who found himself at the wrong place, at the wrong time meant to be a crime, she’d face death by his side. Even if she had to leave behind Louise and all those who might need her help as the revolution got crueller and bloodier. She still wanted the people to win the fight for what was rightfully theirs, she just knew now that war was chaos and pain and she had to protect her own. 

Claire folded the papers and Murtagh blew the candle out. He ruffled Fergus’s curls and the boy gave a small protest but didn’t move away from the man’s side. 

She smiled and turned to look at Jamie. “There are a lot of things to explain,” she said. “But you’re here now and we have time enough for me to tell you everything.”

He still looked worried but wrapped an arm around her shoulders to pull her closer. “A few hours ago I thought that this morn I’d see the sun for the last time.”

And then, she asked him what she didn’t have the luxury to ask before and the question burned her throat like a long-held breath. “Are you alright?”

Jamie shrugged, as though his shirt was tight on his shoulders. “I am now. If you exclude these.” The iron manacles rattled as he raised his hands.

“I can take care of that, Milord!” Fergus offered excitedly and jumped from his place to sit between Jamie and Claire. 

It took a few minutes of tinkering with the lock before the boy starting muttering to himself. He sighed, paused in his attempt to get Jamie out of his fetters, and blinked. 

“Maybe if we light the candle again…”

“We can find a way to get these out later,” Claire said in a soothing voice.

“But I know how to open locks,” Fergus grouched. 

“Mon chou,” Claire said, capturing his hands between hers to stop him. “You’ve done more than enough today. Without you we could have never taken the keys from the prison guard and get Jamie out!”

The boy flashed her a proud, mischievous smile. “The man had no idea, Milord!” Fergus said, grinning at Jamie. “Monsieur Forez was talking to him and I sneaked from behind, took the keys from the hook on his belt, and ran to Milady as fast as I could.” 

Jamie smiled in response and looked at the boy while he explained exactly how he had stolen the keys to his prison cell. That seemed to make Fergus forget his failed attempt with the manacles. 

“Who is Monsieur Forez, Sassenach?” 

“A... friend,” she said after a moment’s hesitation. “Who happens to also be the man who would see to your execution. He’s an official hangman.”

She saw him frown as he took the information in. His fingers started drumming against the dirty fabric of his breeches. “Why would the official hangman risk his life to get me out?” he asked at last.

“Well,” Claire started explaining, “He didn’t risk that much. He had every right to be at the prison and he was with the guard all the time so no one will suspect him. I know the man ten years, and we worked together at l’ Hopital.”

“I see,” Jamie said, eyes fixed on the carriage door next to Claire. “And Frank?”

Claire squared her shoulders. “It seems he’s not the man I thought him to be.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I confronted him --”

“You,” Jamie emphasized, and even though his voice sounded almost normal, Claire could feel him gnashing his jaw so hard his teeth might break. “You went to him?”

“I needed the paperwork and --”

“Have ye gone out of your mind, woman?” he interrupted again.

Claire started to lose her patience. “Jamie, I don’t think you realise the seriousness of the situation. There was nothing Murtagh or your uncle could do and we needed to get you out before the execution. I did the best I could and that included talking to Frank again.”

“Ye should have stayed at St. Antoine!” He lost his temper. “Ye should have stayed away, somewhere safe, with wee Fergus. I asked ye not to risk yer life, not to try to save me! It was the only thing I asked for, Claire.”

Claire looked at him through narrowed eyes. “So that’s what you would do if it was me behind the bars,” she hissed.

Jamie huffed indignantly. “‘Tis not the same.”

“Excuse me but I fail to see the difference.”

“Ye’re insufferable! Ye could have get killed, ye ken that?” 

Claire had opened her mouth, ready for a retort, when Murtagh coughed. “‘Tis not the time now. We’re close to the city checkpoint.”

They both fell silent, the air in the carriage crackling from the tension between them. 

Murtagh tossed a dark red jacket with richly embroidered ends at Jamie and Claire arranged it so it would cover his torso and manacled hands. 

“Lower your face and pretend that you’re sleeping,” she said. Jamie didn’t respond.

The carriage came to a stop and Claire collected all the documents from the empty seat next to her. “Let me take care of this,” she whispered, and then added as an afterthought, “Please.”

They all nodded in response. Claire gathered herself, pushed back her annoyance and the urge to shout at Jamie, and replayed the story they had agreed with Frank in her head. A light knock on the wooden carcass of the wagon and a deep breath later, she was smiling at a long-faced grim man who was asking for their papers.

She spoke quickly, a damsel in distress like the ones Jamie might save in another life. 

Just not in this one, she thought and tried to restrain the grin that almost bloomed on her face with the thought. In this one, he found a woman who was his equal.

She was an Englishwoman, she said, with her widowed uncle, her cousin and her fiance. They needed to go back to England immediately, because her mother, “My uncle’s favourite sister, you know”, she added, gesturing at Murtagh, was ill and “how terrible it will be for Mama to be in bed without me by her side”.

She put a hand on her chest in a display of distress but the quick, shallow breaths she was heaving were very much real. 

The man, tired by her babbling and the late hour, stuck his head into the carriage and looked at the two men and the boy for a few moments. Claire’s heart was beating as though determined to escape the restraints of her chest. 

The man stood back again, eyes darting from the papers to Claire. “Give me a moment, Mademoiselle,” he said, and retreated to the gatehouse. 

It took him more than a moment to cross-check their documents, during which Claire felt her knees tremble and could hear her pulse loud in her ears. 

Frank told her that the city guards had lists of the people who were not allowed to leave the city. But what if they had other lists too, and Alexander Malcolm was in none of them? What if the documents weren’t enough? What if something was wrong with them?

Murtagh had also been concerned about Jamie being just Claire’s fiance, but they didn’t have enough time to forge a marriage contract and prepare new documents for her as Madame Malcolm. Claire Beauchamp would have to suffice. 

She tried to discern what the next moments held from the guard’s face as he walked towards her with the grey-blue sky of dawn behind him. He looked tired, Claire thought for a moment. Everyone looked tired lately. 

“You can go, Mademoiselle Beauchamp,” he said, handing her the documents.

Claire swallowed a wide smile and replied somberly, thanking him and wishing him a good day.

She went back in the carriage and before the horses started again she felt Jamie’s big hand engulfing hers and squeezing reassuringly. 

Murtagh didn’t speak either, only fixed his gaze on her. When she didn’t say anything, he asked. “So, lass?”

“We’re free to go.” 

Jamie ran his thumb across her knuckles but Claire didn’t trust her voice to elaborate on details. She didn’t know if she would laugh or cry and was afraid to feel relief before France was behind them for good. 

The sun painted the sky a bright orange and she refused to take her eyes from the puffy clouds that seemed to stroll on ether, soaking in the sun’s warmth. Murtagh had dozed off with an arm around Fergus’s shoulders and the boy had leaned against him, his small mouth open, his face calm and his long lashes brushing against his aristocratic cheekbones in his sleep. Maybe in England she could give her boy a new beginning, another life. Even if Jamie decided that she was too rebellious for his tastes, she would work as a healer and provide for Fergus as she had done in Paris.

“We had to claim you as my fiance to get you out.” It was the first thing she told him after the long silence in the ride away from Paris and his execution. She kept thinking how she’d announced that he was her fiance without even letting him know first. He had never asked and she had never accepted a proposal to become his wife. “That doesn’t mean--”

“I’ll marry you the moment our feet touch Scottish soil, my Sassenach,” he interrupted. 

“What I mean to say is that you don’t need to. You can go on with your life and you can go on with yours. You’ll be safe now.”

Jamie didn’t speak.

“I think you’ve noticed by now that I’m not the meek and obedient type. I understand that you may want a wife who’ll be better in following instructions. One who will stay put.” 

“Aye,” he huffed a smile and she averted her gaze and set her jaw, preparing herself for his rejection. “That would make everything so much easier, dinna ye think so?” She refrained from replying that if that was the case, he would still be in a prison cell and he would die in a few hours. Jamie leaned in, his mouth close to her ear. “But all I want is ye, Sassenach. All stubborn, clever and brave.” He cupped her face and forced her to look at him. “Will ye have me, Claire?”

She felt drank in the love and adoration she found in his blue eyes. “Yes,” she breathed. “Yes, I’ll have you.”

He kissed her then, and his lips tasted like home and hope. And this was everything Claire had ever wanted in her life.

The End