#why you always draw louise with combat boots?

[ratguy-nico]

people I dont know how I did this. the gods guide my hand. Im so proud of the lineart, of course I have problems with some parts, like the background, and the center, and proportions, but it look so good despite this

(I'll probably still hate this tomorrow though T^T)

*In case you dont understand because the placement is awful the text says - YOU ARE FORBIDDEN FROM DYING ON ME - (I apologize to any english speaker or graphic designer for this abomanation)

this was inspire again from a publication of @br1ghtestlight (i feel like a creep for doing this again i'm so sorry, but they have such amazing ideas!) it was a post about Louise being terrified seeing movies like terabithia or my girl cause she imagine Rudy dying on her and that ignite this idea on my brain. I actually make it surprisingly fast for me. I wasn't even expecting on coloring no less everything else, but I just couldn't help it. I was totally invested in the vision.

[imagineclaireandjamie]

Imagine if on the Ridge Claire has a flashback to the war. She finally has the time and space to talk to Jamie fully about her war and the PTSD she's never coped with

anonymous asked: I’d like to see another instance of Claire experiencing PTSD during “Je Suis Prest” or “Prestonpans” explored. I felt that this was a great wrinkle the show added. This time she’s triggered into reliving The Blitz and explains the details of it to a horrified Jamie. Bring the feels!

–“There ye are!”

 Claire glanced up from her work, crushing dried bogmyrtle leaves with her mortar and pestle. She stood up, rubbing the small ofher back, and smiled as Jamie quickly crossed the room to kiss her.

 “Looking for me, were you?”

 He nodded, bending to kiss her again. “Jenny said ye’d bein here. Ian just arrived wi’ the post – and look!”

 Her gaze moved downward to Jamie’s hands – full ofletters addressed to her, with postmarks from Paris.

 “Oh!” Carefully she took the letters, seeing MotherHildegarde’s spidery script on two, Louise’s flowery writing on one, andanother whose penmanship she did not recognize.

 “I wonder why so many came all at once.”

 Jamie shrugged, in that odd motion he’d adopted fromFergus since their time in Paris. “I received a few letters myself – from Ned Gowan,and Colum if ye can believe it.”

 Claire quirked an eyebrow. “I can’t possibly imagine whathe would have to say to you.”

 Carefully he leaned on Claire’s table. “An invitationback to Leoch, if ye can believe it. If he’s to be believed, Dougal is in rareform these days, ranting all about the Stuarts, what with the rumors from Italyand Ireland on the Prince’s whereabouts.”

 Claire sighed. “I say a prayer every day that thatdoddering fool stays in Rome with the Pope.”

 He squeezed her hand. “Well, I dedicate a decade of therosary every day to that very same intention. Canna say I think it time illspent.” Then he bent for one last kiss. “I’m due back to the potato fields. Seeyou at supper.”

 She gripped his shoulder, drawing him close for anotherkiss. “I can’t wait.”

 --

 “Who do you think my mystery letter was from?”

 The candles flickered, casting stray shadows on the wallas Claire brushed her hair in front of the mirror that Ellen MacKenzie Fraserhad brought from Castle Leoch, watching Ellen’s son kick off his boots andsocks.

 “Weel…over the past year ye’ve occasionally heard frompuir Mary Hawkins, and Sister Angelique, and Magnus a time or two.” He unbuckledhis kilt. “And Master Raymond, though I’d recognize his writing.”

 “It was from Monsieur Forez.”

 Jamie froze. “Truly? The hangman?”

 Claire set down her brush and retrieved the letter. “Andsometimes healer. He sent me a particularly detailed case study for a patienthe had recently treated at the Bastille. An especially bad case of congenitalsyphilis, which resulted in early onset dementia.”

 Jamie gulped, and carefully dropped his kilt. “Spare methe details. I dinna want the nightmare, though I’m sure it’s riveting bedtimereading for you.”

 She smiled. “I already started a reply – I can exchange myown story about the MacNab lad I recently treated, the one with the terribleinjury caused by his horse.” She glanced down at the sheet of paper she hadalready addressed to the mysterious man in Paris, picking up her hairbrush. “Doyou know, Jamie – I’ve forgotten where we are in the calendar. What’s today’sdate?”

 “June the sixth,” he promptly replied, gently folding hiskilt and placing it in the wardrobe.

 Claire’s hairbrush sounded so loud as it crashed to thefloor.

 Softly Jamie pried her clenched fingers from the edge ofthe mirror. She had no memory of how or when he had rushed to her side.

 “Claire?” he whispered. “Can ye tell me what’s amiss?”

 He knelt in his shirt beside her, perched tensely on thebench, hands suddenly cool and clammy.

 Finally her troubled eyes found his. “Three years agotoday, I was in France.”

 He nodded, listening.

 “It was called Operation Overlord. We called it D-Day.”She swallowed. “At dawn, more than one hundred and fifty thousand soldiersstormed the beaches of Normandy.”

 “One hundred and fifty thousand!” Jamie exclaimed. “Forjust one battle?”

 “Yes.” Her eyes held his, but her voice sounded so faraway. “They were brought in ships. They waded to the beach, straight into themachine gun fire.”

 “Ye’ve told me of it – guns that fire many bullets atonce.”

 “Yes.” She shivered. “Many of them died. I was attachedto a battalion that landed men on the beach that morning. I was brought ashorethat evening, with the other doctors and nurses. On one of the beaches that hadbeen taken.”

 He squeezed her hands.

 “Bodies were still floating in the water, turning the oceanred. Many more were still on the beach – English at first, and then German aswe moved inland. And once we arrived to build the field hospital…you’ve seenwhat a bullet can do to a man’s face. Imagine multiple bullets hitting a man inthe face and the arms and the belly and the legs at the same time – and that he’sstill alive.”

 “You did the best you could, Claire.”

 She sighed, voice choked. “I’d treated the woundedbefore, in England. But those days in France, following the landing – that wasthe first time I’d seen true combat. The first of many times.”

 Slowly Jamie stood, helped Claire to her feet, then ledher to their bed, where he eased her onto the mattress and took a seat besideher. “I assume the invasion succeeded?”

 She nodded. “It established the Allies’ first foothold onthe European mainland. In ten months it was all over.”

 “Where were you, when the war ended?”

 “Performing emergency surgery on an Army private. Stillin France, though closer to the front with Germany. I’d been moved back as theAllies advanced. Always trailing a bit behind, to stay in step with thecasualties.”

 One soothing hand caressed the bare flesh of her leg,curled up under her shift. “Ye stitch up the men, but it leaves wounds in yersoul, aye?”

 She closed her eyes. “So much death, Jamie. So much thatyou can’t think about it – you just need to focus on the man in front of you.Heal his wounds. Then do the same for the next one.”

 “And when it was all over – ye went straight back toEngland. Nobody gave ye the time to think on it.”

 She pursed her lips. “I don’t know why I’m reacting thisway. I never have before.”

 “Perhaps because ye’ve never had the chance to. This timelast year, we were still…apart, in France. And the year before that – ”

 “I’d just arrived here. Yes. Had other things on my mind,no doubt.”

 He shifted closer to her on the bed. Drew her against hisside. Holding her so close.

 “We’ve learned a lot about grief, you and I, this pastyear at Lallybroch. What do ye keep telling me?”

 Her arms curled around him. “To not push down thefeelings. To let them happen.”

 “Aye.” He kissed the side of her neck. “Let me say thesame to you now, mo nighean donn. Mourn for those men now, if ye wish –I’ll be right here.”

 She turned her head and kissed him, fingers digging intothe fabric of his shirt.

 The fire in their bedroom crackled, and the early summerwind howled outside, and they held each other for a long while.

 “Claire?” Jamie murmured sometime later, snug beneath thequilts, skin-on-skin.

 “Hmm?” she asked drowsily.

 “Three years ago today, I was in France, too – as amercenary. Wi’ Ian.”

 She burrowed against his shoulder. “We were there at thesame time?”

 “We were. And do you know what?”

 “What?”

 “Had you not spent time there – and had I not spent timethere – as difficult as it was, I dinna think we ever would have found eachother.”

 She sighed, knowing the truth of his words. Kissing himwith gratitude.