#because the old dm wrote me up for having an excused absence

[pyropansy]

Companies are always like "we value you! You need to take care of your mental health!" And then when you call out because you can't stop crying and don't know why and snapped at a customer (because it's the anniversary of your father's death where you held him as he slowly died and your body had a trauma response without you even realizing it) its "oh you let down the team. You've only worked here a month, you're not allowed to call out!" And then they write you up for it. Despite the store manager saying "yeah, you don't sound like yourself. You should stay home."

[zoe1078]

Hi all! My little(r) one and I wanted to wave hi 👋 and give a little update in response to the kind DMs and anons who have asked after us. Things are going quite well in life and in the pregnancy. If all goes well, this summer my little man will get a baby brother! 😊

The pic's actually a bit old, as we haven't had our formal ultrasound. But this is what happens when you leave a pregnant woman alone in an office with an ultrasound machine!

My apologies that I haven't been around much lately. My Tumblr absence is due to a few factors, most of which have to do with real life (work being especially busy), but also because Outlander fanfic, both the reading and writing of it, has always been entertainment for me. And when other things are more entertaining (or, in the case of American politics, unfortunately distracting), it gets pushed to the wayside. I have sporadically been working on the next chapter of Another Life, as I hate to leave it unfinished, but make no promises as to when it'll be posted.

But as a little attempt to make myself focus again, here's a little excerpt...

“Tell me about the stars, Sassenach.” Jamie’s voice was gentle and low, and he was looking at me, not at the stars slowly spinning above. The light from the moon lit his eyes, which were the clearest shade of blue I had ever seen, even in the dark. It was a clear night, and a beautiful one. After the sun set, a chill rose from the ground, making the air crisp and fresh. We lay in the grass together, and we took the lowering temperatures as an excuse to huddle close together. The wind stirred my hair, and he reached out to tuck a curl behind my ear.

“The stars? What do you want to know about the stars?”

“I remember, or rather, I wrote down something ye told me once.” He patted the sheaf of papers he had tucked back into his sporran. “‘Twas about how far away they are. But I dinna understand what I wrote. I was rushing, ken. Trying to pen all of it before I forgot anything more. I… I could feel myself losing ye, and I couldna bear it.”

The grief in his voice was thick, and it matched my own loss. Yet I had not had his foresight and had allowed my memories of him to slip away. I was distracted enough during the day with my duties as Lallybroch’s new healer and herb-mistress that I pushed aside my confusion. But at night, lying in the lonely room Jenny had lent me, I knew I was losing him, even as the days passed, and I no longer knew whom I had lost. Yet somehow, he was just inches away. I closed the gap between us by placing my hand on his where it lay on his sporran. He made a low, happy sound in his throat and opened his other arm to me, so I lay my head into the crook of his shoulder and looked up at the constellations. It felt as natural as breathing. “Well, it takes thousands of years for the light of the stars to reach us. Light travels fast, very fast, but the stars are just that far away. They’re suns, you see, like ours. Some much bigger, others smaller, at unimaginable distances. Some even died and burned out long ago, though the light they threw only reaches us now. So looking at the stars, we’re looking back in time.”

“Mmm.” His voice was a rumble. I felt it in his chest more than I heard him. “You would know, would ye no’? My lass lost in time.”

I turned my head so that I could hear his heartbeat, steady and slow, and answered, “Found, I think. Not lost, not now that I’m here with you.”