#throughhardships

[jennielaws]

PER ASPERA AD ASTRA Through hardships to the stars✨ Though I was born into privilege, after everything I’ve been through in life (some of it I brought upon myself) - I feel like a survivor. Sometimes I feel broken, & wonder what the point of it all is. But even though this world & my life isn’t perfect, it is still my life & our world & it’s the only one I/we have. Life is so precious, a true miracle. I intend to treasure every moment of its beauty & its pain. From this place I find my inspiration, from the darkness comes the light. I embrace my shadow & set myself free 📸 by @kareemajani #survivor #perasperaadastra #throughhardships #keepgoing #onward #forward #tothestars #missionstatement #mission #realtalk #truth #humbletruth #frommyheart #metoo #photography #garden #flowers #butterfly #nature #naturesbeauty #sunshineaftertherain https://www.instagram.com/p/CSM5IDnAkEA/?utm_medium=tumblr

[imagineclaireandjamie]

Could anyone write what was after the bath / ring scene? What we did not see? I guess we need a little bit more details about that. Long description ...

"One hundred seventy four."

This time he bit the sensitive curve of her neck. She playfully swatted himaway.

"Over two hundred now, by my count."

He lifted up on his arms, just enough to narrow his eyes. "Fine. I supposethat means I'll have to start all over again."

She pulled him to her. Tasted his lips again, like it was the first time.

"I suppose so," she whispered against his mouth. "What apity."

--

"No, it would be at the very bottom."

Claire pulled the regrettably damp quilt tighter around her shoulders, watchinggooseflesh ripple across Jamie's naked legs and back as he dug in the chest fortheir one spare blanket.

"Ha!" he exclaimed triumphantly, throwing the green and whiteMacKenzie tartan over his shoulder. "Auntie Jocasta sent this in her lastparcel?"

Claire nodded, scooting over to make room for him on the bed. "I'msurprised she still had it. She hasn't been a MacKenzie for a long time."

Jamie snorted. "Ye ken as well as I do, Sassenach - she may be a Cameronthrice over, but she will be a MacKenzie 'til the day she dies."

On the way back he took a quick detour to the door - pulled off their pegs thefur wraps that had quickly become such key components of their outerwear thiswinter - and took his place at Claire's side. Gently he pushed the quilt downto her waist, helped her into the rabbit fur vest he had made for her, andwrapped his own mantle of raccoon and badger fur around his shiveringshoulders. She draped the tartan over their backs, cocooning them with warmth.

"I remember the only other time it's just been furs and a tartan forus," he whispered, voice low, eyes dark.

 “I do, too.”

She kissed him - two hundred and fifty six, by her count. Seeking and findinghis hand beneath the tartan. His thumb ran over her new ring.

"I don't need it. But I love it."

She watched his jaw flex.

"Do ye -" He swallowed. "I feel that here, tonight – in ourfirst home – everything is new again."

She twined their fingers together. So tight.

"In Edinburgh, you told me it had always been forever for you."

"Aye."

"You know I - I didn't feel exactly the same way then. On our first night.I still meant to leave."

He raised their joined hands from under the tartan. Kissed her ring. "Iken that. But it doesna matter now. You came back. Then - and now."

She pressed her lips together. "What I mean to say is - with this ring, I*want* to wear it. I didn't wait for you to put it on me – I wanted to put iton myself. Because I am choosing you - choosing this life. With everything Iknow now - even with all the pain and death and heartbreak - "

Tears shone in his eyes, so full of love. "You still make the samechoice."

She nodded. Heart too full for words.

Beneath the tartan, then, he pulled her to his lap. Kisses showering her facelike sacred rain.

--

Ice against her shoulder roused her from dreams of sunlight and crushed fernsand Jamie's musk.

She must have murmured something, for somewhere in the dark he called to her.

"*Seas, a nighean donn*. I am here. Just putting more logs on thefire."

And then he was back - pulling her to his chest, so warm. Lips against herhairline, her curls tickling his nose.

There in the dark, half asleep, so safe in his arms, words flowed unbidden fromher mind.

"Why did you offer yourself to John Grey?"

His hand, skimming across her back beneath the tartan, stilled. His other handdug into her side.

To question how she knew would be to insult her intelligence - and the trust heknew she had in him. For she did not ask him why he did not tell her - only, withher scientific mind, to know the truth.

"Did you feel it was the only thing you could offer him?"

Her thumb traced the contours of his collarbone - her (his) ring warm andsolid.

"When I was at Ardsmuir, one night we played chess. We began talking aboutthose we had lost at Culloden - I spoke of you, and he spoke of...he called Hecalled it a 'particular friend' he had lost."

Jamie swallowed. Claire kissed under his chin.

"That was the first night he made it very clear how he felt aboutme."

"The first?"

"It happened again, years later. I dinna care to think of it now. Becauseboth times I refused him. But then when I left Helwater..."

His pulse raced beneath her thumb. She pressed the ghost of the J he had carvedinto her against his own skin.

"I had to know he would care for Willie properly. That he would love himas his own, and raise him as I would, had I been able to."

"So it was as payment." Her hand soothed his flush.

"It was all I had."

"And had he said yes?"

The dampness on her cheeks was not her own. She kissed his tears, one by one.

"I have thought of it a thousand times. I would have killed him. Orperhaps I would have...let him have his way. Sometimes I want both."

"But it didn't happen." She kissed him long and slow. Only after along moment did he reciprocate.

"I didna have much of a heart left by that point," he whispered."I had lost you. Our bairns. And I was about to lose Willie, too. So Ithought, it wouldnae have mattered much. So when John refused me - I feltnothing." He sighed. "And then the rest of my heart died when I hadto leave my flesh and blood behind."

"I know." She shifted up so that they were nose to nose on thepillow. "I know that feeling. I understand."

"You do, don't you?"

Her hand dug into the thick hair at the base of his skull. "It was a bitdifferent, I suppose. She was grown. I didn't want to leave her - but she toldme to go. That just as you gave me to her, she was now giving me to you."

He crushed her to him. She wrapped her legs around his narrow waist.

"Had you not come back, Claire -"

"Sshh."

"Why am I cursed to not raise my own children? To - to have them raised byEnglishmen, in foreign lands?"

His body tensed around hers, coiled so tight with grief and rage.

"Why should I have lived half of my life without the other half of mysoul?"

"Had we not sacrificed then, we wouldn't be here now." She rolledthem on the mattress so that they were side to side, her breasts crushed to hischest. "We would both be dead. And where's the point in that?"

He heaved a tremendous sigh.

"I'm not arrogant enough to compare myself to Job - but I understand whyGod rewarded him for his years of sorrow. For the things gained throughhardship are that much sweeter, no?"

“Yes.” She brushed stray strands of hair from his cheeks. “For those things, wemake the same choice – even when we know of the hardships.”

 He anchored his hands on her hips. She tucked one legbetween his. He drew closer for a kiss.

 “Three hundred and sixteen,” he breathed against her lips. “I’vebeen counting.”

 She kissed him. “Let’s try for five hundred before dawn.”

 He kissed her. “By your count or mine?”

 She kissed him. “Each.”