[ Oh, but she understands that smile. For twenty years it's one she carried with her anytime someone asked about her husband, not realizing she was thinking of Jamie before answering for Frank. She isn't sure anyone else recognized the ache in her, but she sees it in him now, giving him a gentle nod so that he knows she understands.

Although, the sudden bloom in her smile seems up to the challenge of chasing the melancholy away. ]

My second husband was a Highlander. [ She grins when she says it, proud that his Viking blood runs through their daughter's veins, proud that she's loved someone with such a deep bond to his land and his roots. ] His family estate, Lallybroch, is where we'd intended to raise our family. It wasn't too far from Edinburgh, about a day and a night by horse.

[ Now her smile dims, but she doesn't dwell, moving beyond the past tense. ]

Clan Fraser, although there aren't many clans left now at all. War saw to that. There is no land more beautiful that I've ever been to, than Scotland. The hills, the lochs, the sunset after it's rained. [ She sighs. ] I always wanted to go back.

[ And she did, for a moment. But now she knows she's never to return. At least, as far as she thinks she knows. ]