Lioness // Outlander (Completed)

Thank you - Chapter 12

Hello everyone, this is the last chapter of Lioness. It's a long one because I wanted to end it right. 

Thank you all so much for supporting this story, it means a lot to me! I know I haven't been consistent with updating this story so I'm very thankful to everyone who's stayed around to read it. Thank you to everyone who's added it to their reading list, it's been really motivating for me. 

I hope you enjoy it.

Thank you all x

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Faith. 

The months that followed brought many things. First, the coldest winter yet. The potatoes that we'd planted had frozen through, the herbs grew icicles in the shed and even three pairs of stockings were not enough keep my knees from knocking. 

Alas, the winter didn't stop us. Like the seeds of budding flowers, pushed into the crumbs of the earth, we were determined to grow. And we did. Da took his place as Laird of Lallybroch, he settled back into the estate and what it demanded from him. Every morning he would eat his breakfast, layer up his clothes and set out for the fields. There wasn't much planting to be done, with the ground so solid with cold, but he insisted on mending broken fences, creating hutches for our new chickens and taking grain and smoked meat for those in the village who had nothing that winter. When he'd come home in the late afternoon, freezing cold from the day's work, he's pour a dram of whiskey for him and ma and they'd sit together closely by the fire. They'd whisper to each other and laugh and, despite the ice forming around Lallybroch, I was filled with the warmth of love. 

Ma, being the eager woman she is, couldn't rest. At first, we'd organise the herb shed, cutting and measuring what we had. Preparing them to be made into teas and poultices. I could tell she wanted more to do. Like myself, she wasn't exactly a 'woman of the house'. She was no master of cooking (although da and I would never tell her so) and staying inside sleeping all day was not an option for her. So, when Jeremiah came running to our door in the middle of the day, screaming that his ma had took ill in the village and needed help, she couldn't stop herself. She grabbed her bag and my arm and we were off. That's how we spent most of our time, healing. We'd ride for miles sometimes, just to see to someone. I could spend every hour with her and not get bored of her company. That was the beauty of having a mother to love, and to be loved by her just as much. 

Brianna, or as she insisted we call her, Bree, had started speaking with a Scottish twang. Uncle Ian, as well as da and aunt Jenny, was teaching her Gaelic. Her American accent made the words roll out wrong, but still, it was lovely to hear. It wasn't always easy for her to trust me, she was still learning to adjust to life here so I was patient with her. Da made her tiny work tools so she could pretend to build things in the yard and Fergus and wee Jamie would let her chase them until she was tired. 

The greatest change of them all came from Fergus. Almost overnight he changed from the small boy who I met in France with dirty cheeks and curly hair, into a man. He'd go with da some days to help him build, or he'd sit with him in the library and look over the ledgers. A man he was, so serious and tall. He still teased me, of course, and he could never say no when Bree asked him to make a mud pie with her. 

That was winter. Bitter and fragile on the outside but filled with healing in the centre. 

When spring came, it too brought many things. New crops and mornings filled with warm sunshine. It also brought us changes, blanketed in red. 

First, the poppies sprang from the ground. They were beautiful, they turned the fresh greens of the Scottish hills bright crimson. It was the first sign of life on the hills and it gave us hope that this years crop would be bountiful.