Chapter Text
The Scottish countryside rolls by outside the windows.
Misty and foreboding.
Enchanting
Clarke has never seen such a deep, rich green ever before. It’s a sight for sore eyes and a sore mind. Finn prattles on in the driver’s seat. Something about the bed and breakfast they’re visiting. The researcher he found to delve deeper into his family tree.
And not for the first time, Clarke regrets this vacation with him. This long weekend away to reacquaint themselves with one another.
She vaguely remembers the love she used to feel for him, the way her heart used to flip flop in her chest at his smile. How his hair used to fall forward onto his face, no matter how much pommade he used.
How it was so thrilling, to catch his eye and to become his.
It’s different now.
They’re different now.
Everyone is.
There was relief that first day he limped off the train. His leg still healing from the wounds of the war, his uniform a bit looser around his thin frame. But he was alive and he was there and his arms around her felt good.
It was relief that first day, but the flip flop in her heart never resumed.
The smiles came back, haunted and rough around the edges. The stories of what they both saw shared between them, short and never in full detail. Never enough to let the other know just how bad the horrors they were made to witness really were.
There was his presence in bed every night. Warm and solid, but never crossing the line. Their kisses nothing but polite and infrequent.
Clarke fears they will be broken like this forever.
And it’s that fear that makes her agree to this trip, this weekend away, this half concocted plan of Finn’s to bring them back some normalcy.
The world around them has turned into something unrecognizable, and if this is how they cope, then this is how they cope.
Xx
There is a woman just inside the door of the bed and breakfast. She cocks her head and studies Clarke as soon as she is through the door and a shiver moves down Clarke’s spine.
Finn gets pulled into the study right away to begin delving into the papers of the past, and the woman shows Clarke to their room. Placing their suitcase down on the bed and studying her again.
“I feel as if I know you. Have you ever been up here before?”
Clarke shakes her head. “This is my first time.”
“How odd.” The woman turns and leaves the room with nothing more, and Clarke is stumped.
Xx
When she descends into the parlor, Finn is still locked away but there is a tray with tea waiting for her. She pours herself a cup and studies some of the books on the wall by the window, drinking as she goes.
“I’ll read those for you if you’re almost done.” The voice startles her and she nearly drops the cup. She spins and turns, hand over her racing heart to find the woman from before.
“I don’t know, I’ve never had that done before. I’m not quite sure I believe in it.”
“That is precisely why you should let me.” The woman sits down and waits for Clarke.
“I’m sorry, what was your name?”
There’s a twinkle in her eye when she looks up again. “You may call me Mrs. Graham.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I thought you were married to Thomas.” Clarke points towards the door where Finn disappeared.
“No, no dear. We care for these grounds together but we are not married. My husband passed three years ago and I moved here full time.”
Clarke nods her sympathies and drinks the remainder of her tea, her stomach knotting into itself as she hands the cup over to Mrs. Graham. The cup is flipped onto the small saucer and Mrs. Graham’s forehead furrows as soon as she looks.
“Interesting. May I see your hand, my dear?”
“Clarke.”
“A wonderful name. Now, your hand?” She holds her own out, open and waiting and Clarke swallows the lump in the back of her throat.
“Just as I imagined it would be.” Mrs. Graham whispers, more to herself than to Clarke. She studies Clarke’s hand again, quietly, running her finger along the lines grooved into skin.
She says nothing for a long time.
When she looks up, her eyes are almost black.
Xx
Clarke starts from her sleep, sweaty and flushed.
Mrs. Graham’s eyes haunting even in dreams.
Her heart races and she pours herself a glass of water from the pitcher on the dresser.
Finn doesn’t even stir, worn out from the drive and the day. His mind racing with all the thoughts brought up from his discussions in the afternoon.
Before dinner they walked the grounds and stumbled across an old castle. Smaller than Clarke thought it would be, but still beautiful even in crumbling ruin. This at least wasn’t brought down from the bombs.
Finn smiled sweetly at her as they made their way through the rough landscape and the rooms taken over by grass and weeds. A forgotten life was lived in this place.
He held Clarke’s hand through their walk, but it felt more like a routine than anything. An offering to do so because it is how they were before.
And Clarke felt almost nothing as he did. Just as she felt nothing the first time they tried to reconnect. Cringing at the thought of their stilted and perfunctory love making when Finn came home. How it was rote and precise and nothing like it had been when they were newly married. Newly married and home for eight months before the call came.
He hasn’t tried since.
She hasn’t either.
And perhaps this is what life will be. Companionship and quiet conversation.
Her stomach turned at the thought.
Already feeling useless and morose in the life she returned to. The one that placed her back inside the house, her nursing skills no longer needed in the world. Her only job now to carry babies and support the home.
And no, she quietly promises herself. She will not stand for it. Will find another way to live, to breathe.
Too young to succumb to that life.
When she cannot fall asleep again, she throws her shoes on and leaves the room. The moon is full and wonderful in the sky, lighting up the fields that surround them like a shining beacon.
She walks and she walks and she walks.
Feels a pull to the great open grass. To the stones of Craigh Na Dun they discovered earlier in the day.
A pull that she cannot explain, but she knows that is where her feet are carrying her. Can feel it.
They rise up out of the darkness and a soft buzzing fills the air. She looks up and around wondering if there are insects above her that come alive only in the night, but she finds the air clear. The stars shining as brightly as the moon.
The buzzing gets louder and louder with each step.
The pull in her gut stronger and stronger the closer she gets to the stones.
And the largest one looms before her. A warmth radiating from it into the cool night air. She reaches out, the buzzing in her ears drowning out any other sound. A vibrating now, one that she can feel all around her.
And then the rough rock beneath her fingers.
And then nothing.
Xx
There’s a clanging.
Metal against metal, clashing and ringing out.
Instinct drives her to open her eyes and she almost doesn’t believe what she sees, blinking once, twice, before sitting up.
There is a man in a kilt before her, the sun high in the sky. He’s squared off against two redcoats, and swearing loudly at them. Clarke can hear more fighting in the distance and her training bounces back into her bones. She crawls along the high grass, trying to get as far away as she can before she hears a deep voice.
“I wouldn’t keep moving if I were you.”
She crawls faster until a heavy black boot nudges her hip and forces her to roll over. She can’t get a good look at his face, the sun blinding in it’s intensity. She can see the red wool of his coat, the shiny buckles that sit in the fabric. Feel the cool, hard, metal of the sword he has tucked under her chin as he appraises her.
And though she can’t see his eyes, she can feel the way he slides them up and down her body.
“Well, well, well, where did you come from?”
She doesn’t get to answer, doesn’t even attempt to fight back before there’s a loud thud and the soldier is out cold on the ground next to her.
When Clarke looks up, a giant of a man with a dark beard and even darker eyes is holding his hand out for her. “Come on lass, let’s get you up and tucked away somewhere safe.”
And she doesn’t want to trust him, his accent thick and hard to understand, but the way he looks at her is kind and puzzled and she places her hand into his and feels herself pulled to her feet.
“Thank you,” she manages to choke out. Noticing the alarm on his face when he hears the wrong vowels leave her lips. It’s only then, once she’s standing on her own two feet, that everything swims before her eyes and the darkness takes over.
Xx
“Ah, you’re awake.”
The first words she hears again once her eyes open to find a canvas tent above her. She has to take a deep breath to quell the thoughts that race back to bombs and blood and war.
When she looks around she sees the giant man who knocked the soldier out.
“Have some water and then we’ll talk.” He hands her a skin and she drinks the cool liquid. When she’s finished he takes her by the shoulder and guides her out of the tent to the fire that’s blooming into the night sky.
There are men gathered around, studying her.
Someone draped a blanket over her shoulders, covering up her night clothes providing warmth and a shield.
“He didn’t seem to know who you were, so you must not have been with them, and yet… you’re British.”
It’s not a question, but she’s expected to answer as all eyes turn towards her.
“I am, “ she says and those pairs of eyes widen.
“How did you get here? Why are you alone?”
She tries to come up with the best answer she can even though her head is still swimming and she’s not entirely sure where she is.
“I was traveling, I got separated from my group.”
“You’re in your night clothes…”
“I- I…” she wills herself to be smarter than this.
The men erupt around her when she fails to answer. She hears the words spy and whore thrown around and promptly tunes out. Blood rushing in her ears and the spots still dancing in her eyes in her weakened state.
When she looks back up she catches the eye of the only soldier still sitting. Still quiet.
A woman.
Studying the fray before her.
Brooding and surly. Clearly nursing some kind of injury.
But still she does not speak up.
With the flick of her eyes, she meets Clarke’s.
And Clarke cannot look away.
They study each other and the rest of it fades away. Something tugs inside of Clarke, something wild. The same tug she felt walking in moonlight.
“Girl! What is your name?” The giant man yells at her, frustrated that he had to call her more than once to break her thoughts.
She opens her mouth to speak, watching as the other girl’s face shifts. Opens itself just a little bit more, but never takes her eyes away from Clarke’s.
“Clarke. Clarke Griffin.”
Her maiden name. It’s the first one that falls from her lips and it feels right.
“Where is your party?”
“I don’t know. I got lost,” she shrugs. Nerves building steadily in her belly. The other girl still watching, studying. “I hit my head, I passed out. I don’t even… I can’t recall… what year is it?” She lets some of the exasperation into her voice. Needing to know where the fuck she is.
Clarke feels drawn to the girl who has not broken her gaze, not once, even if her eyes widen at Clarke’s question.
When someone answers, she nearly faints again.
Somehow, by some unexplained force, she is standing two hundred years in the past.
Xx
They begin arguing around her again.
This time the girl stands up and steps closer to the conversation.
And when she is distracted, Clarke takes advantage and slips away. She hears water running and follows it, thirsty and confused.
Two hundred years.
Two hundred.
The stones, the buzzing, the pull.
It all… but how?
She’s debating the physics of it when rough hands grab her. A flash of red meets the corner of her eye as she’s spun around to find two soldiers. Their eyes wild, the thrill of the hunt alive in them.
She struggles against them but they’re too strong and outnumber her. She screams, lets it loose into the night sky.
Kicks and bites and claws against them.
Fear growing in her belly, spreading to her limbs, she will not see the dawn.
But suddenly they fall.
Without a sound, and without breath, they fall. Releasing her from their grip.
Blood pooling darker red through their coats.
And when Clarke looks over her shoulder, the brooding girl is there. Her chest heaving and her eyes fiery and wild and alive. Clarke studies her. The billowing white shirt and the heavy kilt that covers her lower half. The plaids that symbolize her clan, her people.
“Thank you for saving me.” She finally finds her voice.
“You shouldn’t be out here alone! Foolish sassenach . What if I wasn’t here to come to your aid?”
“You’re hurt,” Clarke notices the girl bleeding and ignores the chastising.
“It’s nothing.”
The girl leads her back to camp, walking just far enough ahead to see Clarke, but to allow her space to breathe. To recover.
When they make it back the men are all huddled by the flames. Drinking and arguing in a language Clarke does not understand. She feels their glares as they land on her, but ignores it. Choosing instead to focus on the wild girl before her.
“Let me take a look.” She gets the girl to agree only by putting a slight amount of pressure on her dislocated shoulder. There’s a glare and a hiss, but acquiescence.
She patches up the girl’s shoulder, resets the joint and stitches the wound.
The men around her all stare in awe at her skills. They are still skeptical and wary of her presence but cannot deny her skill. They begrudgingly send her to bed, with a guard posted outside her tent. Clarke knows there will be no more attempts to leave again. Not tonight, and not with the redcoats so close.
The next morning she’s greeted by the man who brought her to camp. Gustus introduces himself properly and thanks her for tending to Lexa’s wounds. Clarke smiles at finally learning her patient’s name.
“We’ll take you back to Leoch with us, we could use a healer.”
“I have to find my way back.” She thinks of Finn, her friends. Her life in the future.
“Not yet, lass.” He shakes his head and Clarke realizes that getting home will be harder than time travel.
It turns out, Lexa is the one who takes responsibility for her as they set out to head back to their home base. Clarke sits in front of her on horseback and argues with Lexa about her shoulder and holding the reins.
Lexa rolls her eyes, “I’ve ridden home with worse injuries, I’ll be fine, sassenach .”
Clarke can see the ache in her shoulder, the way her eyes widen with the pain, but she doesn’t argue any further. Her stomach flipping as she feels Lexa behind her, arms around her to hold the reins, chest flush against her back, legs bracketing hers and a warm breath hitting her neck.
“You’ll tell me if it hurts?”
Lexa just scoffs in her ear and urges her mount forward.
And for the first time since she’s landed in the past, Finn is far from her mind.