Everything was quite literally the same, down to the rock. I woke up and had no clue anything was actually different. I was in pain, it was like...[ She pauses, trying to think of a good way to put it, always only able to come back to one thing. ] It was like being in a car accident, being tossed upside down and yet somehow still being contained. Hitting against something, being knocked about.
[ She's felt it each time she's traveled, worse every time. She shakes her head at Annabeth's question, thinking back to that night in Castle Leoch when she thought getting back to her time would be as easy as stealing a horse and riding away. ]
I didn't know it, but when I heard it, it gave me quite a bit of hope, because the woman in the ballad goes back to her own time after returning to the rock. That's all I wanted for so long, to just go home. But with no cars, and no easy way to travel as a woman on my own, I was captured almost immediately after I arrived. I thought I was in a war reenactment for about a day, I don't think my mind could accept the reality of my situation.
[ Claire looks around the her little horizon home, then exhales, shaking her head at herself. ] At least I adapted to this better. Although for a week, I wouldn't leave my host's house.
[ annabeth winces in sympathy. she might not have been in any car accidents, but she definitely knows the pains of being tossed around and knocked unconscious to the level described. she's had a surprising number of bad injuries. ]
Ow. Talk about a nasty side effect.
[ then she frowns as claire explains the notion and fears of being stuck, knowing how lucky she is to live in her own time, as a girl. she thinks about her father and how untethered she is to him, how different her life might have been even a hundred years ago. ]
I can't say I blame you for not getting it right away. I mean, who touches a rock and assumes they're getting sent back in time? [ she's been through plenty of difficult to process experiences, some of which she's still working through, but time travel isn't in her repertoire, and she'd like to keep it that way. ]
It sounds... difficult. I can't even imagine. And you still chose to stay, despite all that?
[ she follows claire's gaze as she looks around the house, her domain. ] I kind of wanted to nap for a week after getting here, so maybe hauling up upon arrival isn't that strange all things considered.
[ Claire thinks back to the moment she knew she was staying. It was a moment of realizing she'd loved Frank for the security he brought her, the basic decency of him (at first), but she wasn't in love with him. Not the way she fell in love with a man who gave up everything to rescue her. ]
I chose to stay because I fell in love. [ She looks down at her coffee cup, thumb lightly grazing the rim. ] It wasn't instant, but Jamie took care of me, and then to protect me with the name of his clan, he married me. I didn't want him, but I didn't want to be a prisoner on the grounds of being a spy, either. [ Her choices were limited, even in hindsight. She'd tried to escape on her own, and had been almost immediately captured by the worst possible man. ]
It took a while, but by the time he knew the truth of me and actually got me back to the stones, I realized I couldn't let him go.
[ Claire gives a helpless shrug and a small smile. It's the same with Jon now. After everything they shared together, her heart couldn't shut off hundreds of years of loving him. She's just glad he feels the same. ]
[ aphrodite would certainly find it romantic. annabeth supposes there's a part of her that thinks the same, even if she has a hard time imagining herself staying in the past with all her own ambitions. if it were for percy, it might be different - but either way she's glad it's not a choice she had to make. ]
[ there is no doubt in her mind that percy would stay with her though, no matter where she was. ]
[ and she can't help but offer claire a small smile of her own once she sees the expression on the woman's face. it's happy, and more than anything else, annabeth is just glad she was able to find a happiness. for all the kindness she's ever shown, illusion world or real one, she thinks claire deserves it. ]
What if he went with you instead? Was that an option?
[ Claire's smile falters just a little; it's impossible not to think of Culloden, of Jamie detouring to take her back to the stones against her will, and her desperate hope once she realized, that this time he would hear them, that he would come back with her. ]
He couldn't. He touched the rock and it was just a rock. But christ, I hoped. I hoped all the way to the stones something would happen. [ She gives a slow shrug of her shoulders, because she has no answers for that. ] We'd been at war, one I already knew Scotland would lose. I tried to change history, like a fool, but of course, I failed. History is history. [ Claire closes her eyes, remembers how hollowed out she felt the moment she woke up alone in the future, no sounds of cannon fire around her, no Jamie. Just the distant sound of traffic and a parting gift from her husband. ] I was pregnant, and we'd already lost one child. I had to go. I had to.
[ Her voice comes with a slight waver; it feels like an abrupt end to the story, she knows it. But even now, she can't go into some details despite knowing they're all together in the future past, her entire family, at least for a little while. The way she felt then, as if she were in a black hole of grief she could never quite pull herself all the way out of, it's too emotional to remember for long. ]
I don't—[ She clears her throat and wets her lips. ]—I don't talk about that part much. The leaving. Mostly because I ended up going back twenty years later, after Frank died and I realized Jamie survived the battle. It's easier to skip ahead, sometimes.
[ she frowns, sympathetically. there's a lot here annabeth can't even begin to imagine going through, and she's not sure she wants to try. she has plenty of her own shit to keep sorting through. but she can still feel for claire and the apparent chaos of time travel. ]
So the time traveling rock is picky. [ her tone is disdainful in a way meant to try and inject levity. she can see the way talking about it affects claire, and she doesn't really know if now's the time to offer a hug. she's better at figuring that out with people she knows well - and even though part of her still feels she does know claire, it's different. annabeth is working on it. ]
You don't have to talk about anything to me you don't want to. [ she hesitates a moment, but reaches out to give claire's arm a squeeze. ]
Twenty years? Was it the same time for him too? Or did you end up where you left off? [ she pauses. ] Was it - was that your daughter you mentioned before then?
Very picky. And we can't quite figure out everything it takes to go back and forth. I just know it's more difficult each time. [ Claire would rather go in the direction of levity, of lighter as soon as they can get there. Annabeth's gesture is met with a small but warm smile, and Claire covers her hand for a moment with her own.
She appreciates her words, and in truth, she wouldn't be telling Annabeth if she didn't trust her, didn't want to try and build something close to what they all shared. It felt nice, to be connected to others, a feeling that she's lacked for most of her life. ]
Twenty years for each of us. When I went back...well. We'd been apart longer than we'd ever known one another. It was awkward. And yes, it was Brianna, our daughter. I raised her, and then she encouraged me to go, to find Jamie again.
[ That feels like a happy note to end on, and not an untrue one. She can't believe sometimes that it's been nearly four years since she's seen her daughter, but Claire shoves that aside and reaches for another cookie. ]
If it gets harder every time, do you think that means one day it might be impossible? [ the question is out before she really thinks about stopping it - she's prone to idly musing aloud on her best and worst days. she does look vaguely apologetic after, because it probably is something claire might have considered, and annabeth doesn't want to make her think of the bad things. ]
[ she lets the whole story sink in for a few moments, processing it as she is wont to do, and idly sipping her coffee as she does, to give her something to do with her hands. it was bad enough being apart from an amnesiac percy for half a year thanks to hera's meddling. she can't fathom twenty years. she doesn't want to. ]
It's really complicated and wildly crazy... almost unbelievable, if we weren't sitting in another world already. [ she pauses. ] Thank you, for sharing it with me.
[ even without the nuances and details, she still appreciates the sentiment of learning this very big part of claire. it does explain a lot. ]
Did you find him again? Before you got pulled here?
[ Claire nods slowly as she chews a bite of the cookie. Once she swallows, answers thoughtfully. ] I think so. Which is why I won't ever try again. When I left Bree, I told her it would have to be forever. It wasn't easy to do. [ But in the end, she'd wanted everything with Jamie that was denied to them, to live the last half of her life the way she wanted.
Reaching out, she gently squeezes Annabeth's arm with her free hand, a look of warmth softening her gaze. ] I know who we are or were to one another other can be confusing right now. Sometimes it's a bit hard to reconcile, even now. But I believe we'll all figure it out. And I wanted you to know the real me, not what the Singularity made me into.
[ When Annabeth asks about a reunion, Claire nods, thinking back to the print shop, to the moment Jamie looked up and saw her, then promptly passed out. ] I did find him, yes. We spent a year and some months together before I was here. And now I've been apart from him again longer than we were reunited.
[ But she isn't sad about it this time. She can't go through all of that sadness and grief she just explained to Annabeth, a second time. She nearly did, stayed holed up, wrote to Jamie as if she were a prisoner of war. But then she made friends, she met others. She discovered magic. and so she's able to smile now, in a way that makes the corners of her eyes wrinkle. ]
But I've found a family here, and the friendships I think I've been looking for my entire life.
[ she doesn't quite know how to feel about that, but it's a far more complicated story than annabeth can truly understand, so she tries not to let her own struggles with parental abandonment color it. perhaps she simply wouldn't be surprised if her father left; in some ways, he'd been gone already long before she'd even run away. ]
Did Bree always know her dad was... in the past? [ that seems like the best way to phrase it. ]
[ but she does understand the desire to be known as herself, and not the god she became. annabeth doesn't want to be that person, even with all her own imperfections now - she doesn't want to transform into another version of her mother. she offers claire a small smile and a nod over it. ]
When things are confusing, we just have to... try and sort the pieces. I'm not that person either. Maybe if we think about it like a three dimensional puzzle...
[ a puzzle of people and emotions. but if she thinks about it like a problem to solve, it feels easier. ]
[ oh. annabeth hasn't found here what claire says she has - family and friends - but she does understand the wanting feeling too, so much so that she suddenly doesn't question why claire would like being here, despite the life she'd led back home. ]
I'm glad you've been able to settle in this place. After everything you've been through, you deserve a little peace.
[ Claire doesn't know how to feel about it either. She hadn't suggested going back at all, it was Bree, but it would be a complete lie to say her heart hadn't surged in her chest right then and there, already halfway to the past. Annabeth's question makes Claire look down which may be answer enough; for better or worse, she'd lied to Bree her entire life, and Claire faced the consequences of that. ]
No. No, she didn't know until Frank died because he forbade it. He had a condition for taking me back. [ She hated Frank for this for so long, but now it just makes her sad for herself, and for Bree, because it might've made things so much easier if she could've raised her daughter alone and peppered anecdotes about Jamie all through her life. Had Frank said yes to divorce any of the times Claire asked, she may never have been a doctor, but maybe her relationship with Bree would've been better. ]
He made me promise I would never speak of Jamie or the past ever again. Not to him, and never to Bree. He would love her and claim her as his, support us, and put me through medical school if I agreed. I asked for a divorce first, but he quickly pointed out I had nothing. After three years in the past, he had control of all the money. I never had a home of my own, I had no family and I was pregnant with nowhere to go. [ What else was she going to do? They both knew even when she asked, she couldn't refuse him. ]
He took everything I was wearing when I returned, everything in my pockets, which included little notes from Jamie, and he burned it to ash. The only thing he let me keep was Jamie's ring, and only that because it was simple silver, made out of a melted-down house key. So there was nothing. Nothing to show for what happened to me except for scars and Brianna herself.
[ And, as Bree so wonderfully pointed out, trying to tell the truth only made Claire look like a 'bored housewife who fucked another man.' Still, she's able to rally and offer Annabeth a small smile. ]
This entire story is why once happiness presented itself here—even with what I have waiting if we're ever forced to leave—I had to take it. I can't ache for something that might not ever be, or could be in two decades. Not again. It's exactly as you said, I deserve a little peace.
[ Which is easier for her to admit because Annabeth said it first. ]
[ the more claire describes frank, the more annabeth's face twists with disgust. she understands societal rules and expectations of different times, but it hardly sounds like jamie was this much of a dickhead and he was from the fucking 1700s. she is aware there could be plenty claire isn't touching on, but she will remain solid in her negative views of frank. she knows and likes claire. she doesn't care what frank was thinking with the context of everything claire has been through. ]
What an asshole.
[ she indignantly shoves another cookie in her mouth to stew on it, to settle with the smile claire offers at the end of it all in the face of the happiness she's managed to find here. it's a far cry from the more mature advice she might have offered claire in the illusion, but it's the truer annabeth version of support. she nods at the older woman's affirmation that she deserves it. ]
As peaceful as things can be in this place, I guess. There's a certain reprieve it offers, in spite of everything.
[ she once told claire she really appreciated thorne's beds, so she supposes she understands that experience of not taking the good of this place for granted. ]
figured we could probably wrap with your next tag?
[ Annabeth's assessment pulls an abrupt laugh out of Claire, a spit take if she'd had a mouthful of coffee. Luckily not, and she laughs until her side aches. ]
Truly, I've waited so long to hear someone else make that exact statement. Thank you, it feels validating in a way I can't explain.
[ She takes a deep breath that feels nice and cleansing and lets it out. ] We'll see how long the peace actually lasts. But I will say that here, I've been less afraid for myself as a woman. That alone is a reprieve from the 18th century.
[ With about half a cup of coffee left, she nods toward the back door. ] Would you like to go look now?
[ yes! she made claire laugh! that's a win! it's a good grade in making adults laugh, which is both reasonable and normal to want to achieve. ]
[ she grins, a little warmly, pleased to have made claire feel a little better too. ] Well, it's true. You're welcome.
[ she exhales a little, and opts for another semi-joke instead of dwelling on the horrors of a misogynistic past. ] Plenty of other dangers besides sexism here to contend with instead.
[ annabeth nods, draining the last of her own coffee. ] Yeah. I really wanna see what it normally looks like.
[ she's still just happy claire wants her around. it feels nice. ]
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no subject
[ She's felt it each time she's traveled, worse every time. She shakes her head at Annabeth's question, thinking back to that night in Castle Leoch when she thought getting back to her time would be as easy as stealing a horse and riding away. ]
I didn't know it, but when I heard it, it gave me quite a bit of hope, because the woman in the ballad goes back to her own time after returning to the rock. That's all I wanted for so long, to just go home. But with no cars, and no easy way to travel as a woman on my own, I was captured almost immediately after I arrived. I thought I was in a war reenactment for about a day, I don't think my mind could accept the reality of my situation.
[ Claire looks around the her little horizon home, then exhales, shaking her head at herself. ] At least I adapted to this better. Although for a week, I wouldn't leave my host's house.
no subject
Ow. Talk about a nasty side effect.
[ then she frowns as claire explains the notion and fears of being stuck, knowing how lucky she is to live in her own time, as a girl. she thinks about her father and how untethered she is to him, how different her life might have been even a hundred years ago. ]
I can't say I blame you for not getting it right away. I mean, who touches a rock and assumes they're getting sent back in time? [ she's been through plenty of difficult to process experiences, some of which she's still working through, but time travel isn't in her repertoire, and she'd like to keep it that way. ]
It sounds... difficult. I can't even imagine. And you still chose to stay, despite all that?
[ she follows claire's gaze as she looks around the house, her domain. ] I kind of wanted to nap for a week after getting here, so maybe hauling up upon arrival isn't that strange all things considered.
no subject
I chose to stay because I fell in love. [ She looks down at her coffee cup, thumb lightly grazing the rim. ] It wasn't instant, but Jamie took care of me, and then to protect me with the name of his clan, he married me. I didn't want him, but I didn't want to be a prisoner on the grounds of being a spy, either. [ Her choices were limited, even in hindsight. She'd tried to escape on her own, and had been almost immediately captured by the worst possible man. ]
It took a while, but by the time he knew the truth of me and actually got me back to the stones, I realized I couldn't let him go.
[ Claire gives a helpless shrug and a small smile. It's the same with Jon now. After everything they shared together, her heart couldn't shut off hundreds of years of loving him. She's just glad he feels the same. ]
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[ there is no doubt in her mind that percy would stay with her though, no matter where she was. ]
[ and she can't help but offer claire a small smile of her own once she sees the expression on the woman's face. it's happy, and more than anything else, annabeth is just glad she was able to find a happiness. for all the kindness she's ever shown, illusion world or real one, she thinks claire deserves it. ]
What if he went with you instead? Was that an option?
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He couldn't. He touched the rock and it was just a rock. But christ, I hoped. I hoped all the way to the stones something would happen. [ She gives a slow shrug of her shoulders, because she has no answers for that. ] We'd been at war, one I already knew Scotland would lose. I tried to change history, like a fool, but of course, I failed. History is history. [ Claire closes her eyes, remembers how hollowed out she felt the moment she woke up alone in the future, no sounds of cannon fire around her, no Jamie. Just the distant sound of traffic and a parting gift from her husband. ] I was pregnant, and we'd already lost one child. I had to go. I had to.
[ Her voice comes with a slight waver; it feels like an abrupt end to the story, she knows it. But even now, she can't go into some details despite knowing they're all together in the
futurepast, her entire family, at least for a little while. The way she felt then, as if she were in a black hole of grief she could never quite pull herself all the way out of, it's too emotional to remember for long. ]I don't—[ She clears her throat and wets her lips. ]—I don't talk about that part much. The leaving. Mostly because I ended up going back twenty years later, after Frank died and I realized Jamie survived the battle. It's easier to skip ahead, sometimes.
no subject
So the time traveling rock is picky. [ her tone is disdainful in a way meant to try and inject levity. she can see the way talking about it affects claire, and she doesn't really know if now's the time to offer a hug. she's better at figuring that out with people she knows well - and even though part of her still feels she does know claire, it's different. annabeth is working on it. ]
You don't have to talk about anything to me you don't want to. [ she hesitates a moment, but reaches out to give claire's arm a squeeze. ]
Twenty years? Was it the same time for him too? Or did you end up where you left off? [ she pauses. ] Was it - was that your daughter you mentioned before then?
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She appreciates her words, and in truth, she wouldn't be telling Annabeth if she didn't trust her, didn't want to try and build something close to what they all shared. It felt nice, to be connected to others, a feeling that she's lacked for most of her life. ]
Twenty years for each of us. When I went back...well. We'd been apart longer than we'd ever known one another. It was awkward. And yes, it was Brianna, our daughter. I raised her, and then she encouraged me to go, to find Jamie again.
[ That feels like a happy note to end on, and not an untrue one. She can't believe sometimes that it's been nearly four years since she's seen her daughter, but Claire shoves that aside and reaches for another cookie. ]
How's all that for a complicated history?
no subject
[ she lets the whole story sink in for a few moments, processing it as she is wont to do, and idly sipping her coffee as she does, to give her something to do with her hands. it was bad enough being apart from an amnesiac percy for half a year thanks to hera's meddling. she can't fathom twenty years. she doesn't want to. ]
It's really complicated and wildly crazy... almost unbelievable, if we weren't sitting in another world already. [ she pauses. ] Thank you, for sharing it with me.
[ even without the nuances and details, she still appreciates the sentiment of learning this very big part of claire. it does explain a lot. ]
Did you find him again? Before you got pulled here?
no subject
Reaching out, she gently squeezes Annabeth's arm with her free hand, a look of warmth softening her gaze. ] I know who we are or were to one another other can be confusing right now. Sometimes it's a bit hard to reconcile, even now. But I believe we'll all figure it out. And I wanted you to know the real me, not what the Singularity made me into.
[ When Annabeth asks about a reunion, Claire nods, thinking back to the print shop, to the moment Jamie looked up and saw her, then promptly passed out. ] I did find him, yes. We spent a year and some months together before I was here. And now I've been apart from him again longer than we were reunited.
[ But she isn't sad about it this time. She can't go through all of that sadness and grief she just explained to Annabeth, a second time. She nearly did, stayed holed up, wrote to Jamie as if she were a prisoner of war. But then she made friends, she met others. She discovered magic. and so she's able to smile now, in a way that makes the corners of her eyes wrinkle. ]
But I've found a family here, and the friendships I think I've been looking for my entire life.
no subject
Did Bree always know her dad was... in the past? [ that seems like the best way to phrase it. ]
[ but she does understand the desire to be known as herself, and not the god she became. annabeth doesn't want to be that person, even with all her own imperfections now - she doesn't want to transform into another version of her mother. she offers claire a small smile and a nod over it. ]
When things are confusing, we just have to... try and sort the pieces. I'm not that person either. Maybe if we think about it like a three dimensional puzzle...
[ a puzzle of people and emotions. but if she thinks about it like a problem to solve, it feels easier. ]
[ oh. annabeth hasn't found here what claire says she has - family and friends - but she does understand the wanting feeling too, so much so that she suddenly doesn't question why claire would like being here, despite the life she'd led back home. ]
I'm glad you've been able to settle in this place. After everything you've been through, you deserve a little peace.
omfg i swear this is the last essay 😭
No. No, she didn't know until Frank died because he forbade it. He had a condition for taking me back. [ She hated Frank for this for so long, but now it just makes her sad for herself, and for Bree, because it might've made things so much easier if she could've raised her daughter alone and peppered anecdotes about Jamie all through her life. Had Frank said yes to divorce any of the times Claire asked, she may never have been a doctor, but maybe her relationship with Bree would've been better. ]
He made me promise I would never speak of Jamie or the past ever again. Not to him, and never to Bree. He would love her and claim her as his, support us, and put me through medical school if I agreed. I asked for a divorce first, but he quickly pointed out I had nothing. After three years in the past, he had control of all the money. I never had a home of my own, I had no family and I was pregnant with nowhere to go. [ What else was she going to do? They both knew even when she asked, she couldn't refuse him. ]
He took everything I was wearing when I returned, everything in my pockets, which included little notes from Jamie, and he burned it to ash. The only thing he let me keep was Jamie's ring, and only that because it was simple silver, made out of a melted-down house key. So there was nothing. Nothing to show for what happened to me except for scars and Brianna herself.
[ And, as Bree so wonderfully pointed out, trying to tell the truth only made Claire look like a 'bored housewife who fucked another man.' Still, she's able to rally and offer Annabeth a small smile. ]
This entire story is why once happiness presented itself here—even with what I have waiting if we're ever forced to leave—I had to take it. I can't ache for something that might not ever be, or could be in two decades. Not again. It's exactly as you said, I deserve a little peace.
[ Which is easier for her to admit because Annabeth said it first. ]
pls i love it
What an asshole.
[ she indignantly shoves another cookie in her mouth to stew on it, to settle with the smile claire offers at the end of it all in the face of the happiness she's managed to find here. it's a far cry from the more mature advice she might have offered claire in the illusion, but it's the truer annabeth version of support. she nods at the older woman's affirmation that she deserves it. ]
As peaceful as things can be in this place, I guess. There's a certain reprieve it offers, in spite of everything.
[ she once told claire she really appreciated thorne's beds, so she supposes she understands that experience of not taking the good of this place for granted. ]
figured we could probably wrap with your next tag?
Truly, I've waited so long to hear someone else make that exact statement. Thank you, it feels validating in a way I can't explain.
[ She takes a deep breath that feels nice and cleansing and lets it out. ] We'll see how long the peace actually lasts. But I will say that here, I've been less afraid for myself as a woman. That alone is a reprieve from the 18th century.
[ With about half a cup of coffee left, she nods toward the back door. ] Would you like to go look now?
5 years later, yes 🎀
[ she grins, a little warmly, pleased to have made claire feel a little better too. ] Well, it's true. You're welcome.
[ she exhales a little, and opts for another semi-joke instead of dwelling on the horrors of a misogynistic past. ] Plenty of other dangers besides sexism here to contend with instead.
[ annabeth nods, draining the last of her own coffee. ] Yeah. I really wanna see what it normally looks like.
[ she's still just happy claire wants her around. it feels nice. ]