Chapter Text
Sitting at her desk, looking around at all the patient files and paperwork she needed to complete, Dr. Randall sighed in defeat. The past year had taken so much from her. She felt hopeless, overwhelmed and lonely. She was a very successful 30-year-old woman, with a shared practice in North Carolina. After her uncle died of cancer when she was 18, she decided to become a pediatrician and had poured herself into her education. She busted her ass through medical school and her foundational years to become one of the youngest doctors in the UK. After completing her studies in England, she and her two best friends left the UK and moved to a small town in North Carolina where they opened their pediatric practice. Claire and Louise were a great team, and all their patients loved them dearly. Geillis who had no interest in becoming a doctor was one of the best pediatric nurses they could have asked for. The trio truly enjoyed working together and they were good at it.
“Claire Elizabeth, if ye dinnae get your suitcase packed and come wit’ me to Hawaii,
I swear I'll box yer ears right here, patients or no!” Geillis, the fiery red headed Scot
stood with her hands on her hips and furrowed brows. “I mean it Claire. I’ll do it!”
The doctor exhaled forcefully, her best friend had been
begging her for months to go on this trip with her,
insisting that it was exactly what she needed after the divorce.
The problem was that Claire had poured herself into her practice since
Frank left but she was beginning to see Gelly’s point. “FINE!”
“Fine?” Geillis was shocked.
“I said fine! I’ll go but I swear Gelly this better be worth it.” Claire had her doubts,
she had been fighting to find herself again after that bastard walked out on her,
with no success so far. What did she have to lose really? Whatever she was doing
here wasn't working. “When do we leave?”
Geillis started squealing, jumping up and down in her excitement like a small child,
“Claire Beauchamp is going to fucking Hawaii wit' me!!!
LOOK OUT HAWAII, the sassenach and the Scot are coming fer ye!!”
The fact that Geillis had called her "Claire Beauchamp" was not lost on her.
Claire and Geillis had met while she and Louise were in med school. The three of them became best friends almost instantly. They loved going out together and spent so many nights on the town in England. Anytime the two of them were together it was bound to be a good time. When Claire and Frank got married, the friends drifted apart. A year after they were married Frank had changed, he became possessive and demanding of her time and attention. Between the marriage and the demands of opening her practice with Louise, Claire was swamped. She rarely saw her friends outside of work and didn’t go out at all. She lost herself when she became Mrs. Randall, only to have Frank spit in her face and leave her for another woman, only 4 years after they were married. If she were honest with herself, she only married Frank because she was lonely. She had no one outside of her friends. Her parents were dead, her uncle was dead, she was utterly alone. She was fine with it for a time but then it became too much. She met Frank in North Carolina, and he was ‘amazing’, or so she thought. He wined and dined her. He wooed her with pretty little lies but he couldn’t keep up the act. After that first-year things between them started to decline, until one evening she found him with another woman. If this wasn’t bad enough, she had just had a miscarriage and was fighting to keep herself sane. This was the last straw. Within a matter of months, she had lost her baby and her husband. A husband who had taken her away from the only friends she had. Now that the divorce was final, she, Louise and Geillis were working to patch their friendship. They could use some time away she decided.
“Lou, how would you feel about closing the office temporarily for four weeks?”
“Four weeks? Whatever for?”
“Gelly wants to take me with her to Hawaii, and I would love it if you could
come with us. We need a good girl's trip, and I need the time away.”
“We have been working hard since we moved to NC,
and Frank really drug you through the mud with the divorce.”
she thought out loud “Let’s do it! I have a few patients I would need
to see beforehand; can we leave in two weeks?”
“That would be perfect, I need to do the same. Would you want to stay in
Hawaii for the entire month? Or just the two weeks Gellis had initially asked for?”
“Hell! If we’re doing this, we may as well do it right.
A month in Hawaii sounds delicious, mon cheri.”
“You’re right, GO BIG or GO HOME, right?”
Across the map, James Fraser sat in his own office, pondering his life choices. He was a 30-year-old man, freshly divorced and overworked. He had become CEO of his family's whisky business after his parents passed away and divorced his wife 2 years later. Running the business was a lot of work, he would be the first to admit that. He hadn't been home enough to love a wife properly; she was unhappy and decided to find her own happiness in an older man who had his life settled. He also had tons of money, which surely was a factor in Laoghaire deciding to divorce him. She was sick of having to struggle while he got his feet on the ground. Losing his parents was hard enough, inheriting a business was just icing on the cake. Laoghaire had already made up her mind and wasn't an active role in anything related to the company. She stayed angry with Jamie and hated everything about him. They had gotten married young; he was only 21 at the time. Laoghaire had gotten pregnant and the two of them chose marriage for the sake of the bairn. His daughter Marsli was almost nine now and lived with her mother full time. Much to his dismay Laoghaire had fought him tooth and nail for her new husband to adopt their daughter. She took him to court and tried everything you could imagine to have Jamie’s rights taken away to no avail. Still Laoghaire refused to stick to a visitation schedule, and he rarely get to see Marsli. This is an ongoing battle, court date after court date and nothing has changed. It doesn't help matters that her new husband is loaded. He throws money at the lawyers and delays things to keep Jamie from getting anything handled legally. He missed his daughter, he missed his parents, and he was miserable. The phone on his desk rang and he sighed in contempt.
“Fraser’s Ridge, James Fraser speaking.”
“Jamie!” A chipper Englishman's voice answered in reply.
“John.” he responded flatly.
“Cheer up ole’ chap!! We leave in two weeks.
Then it will be all sunshine and mimosas for a month.”
Jamie had agreed hastily to go to Hawaii with his best friend after another night of depressed drinking, missing his daughter and the family he had always wanted. It wasn't Laoghaire that he missed, they were in a constant state of misery when they were together, it was the idea of a ‘family unit’. He was drunk and feeling hopeless when he accepted John’s invitation. One that he now regretted wholeheartedly.
He groaned loudly in distaste, “only two weeks, is it?”
“Yes mate. Two weeks. Fourteen days. Then we are off to the sunny beaches of Hawaii.”
“I dinnae realize it was here already.”
“Don’t you dare think about it James Fraser, you cannot back out on me!”
Jamie cursed under his breath but surrendered nonetheless,
“I ken John, I willna do ye like that. Hawaii ‘tis then.”
“Aloha! Welcome to Hawaii” called the dark-haired man behind the check in desk, in a Hawaiian print shirt that was covered with brightly colored flowers. The three women walked in giggling like loons, a few drinks on the plane were a well-deserved treat for the overworked trio.
“Aloha!” they exclaimed in perfect unison, eliciting more laughter.
“We are here for our reservation.” Louise explained as clearly as possible,
being the least drunk of the group. “The reservation is under ‘Duncan’”
“Ah, yes” the man said, typing away on his keyboard.
Behind them John and Jamie walked in casually, looking around the lobby as they waited.
“What now?” Jamie grumbled mostly under his breath, as he looked curiously at the
three very intoxicated women in line in front of them.
“Now, we check in, relax and hit the pool with mimosas in hand.” John said happily,
feeling proud of himself for getting his friend out of the personal hell that was threatening
to drown him.
“Aye.” Jamie started to respond.
when one of the women in line before them shouted,
“OOOHHH G, another Scot and a Sassenach.” and the woman at the check in desk added,
“Mimosas sound wonderful. Let's drop off our bags and head to the poolside bar.”
John’s eyebrows rose in interest, and he glanced at Jamie,
“So, who's the sassenach in your party then? The Scot is clear enough.”
Louise responded, “pas moi je suis francais”
“Ah, a Frenchwoman. Bonjour Mademoiselle.” Jamie added in perfect French.
“Right then, I suppose that leaves me.” Claire said primly.
“Ah! A Sassenach, a Frenchwoman and a Scotswoman. Very diverse bunch.” John responded in proper English.
Jamie grinned at the three intoxicated women in front of him, but his breath hitched when he caught sight of the Englishwoman's bonny brown eyes, the color of Scottish whisky. She met his gaze and held it for only a moment before glancing away. It didn't go unnoticed by him when she looked back soon after.
“Weel lads, ‘twas verra nice to meet ye, ken. But the lassies and I need a drink.”
Geillis said as she rejoined the group, keycard in hand.
“I think we’ve had a drink already this morning, mon cherie”
Louise giggled and then promptly hiccupped.
“I suppose we have, but we haven't had a mimosa
in the sunshine by the pool.” Claire stated dreamily.
“Aye a charaid!
Claire pursed her lips in thought, “How very rude of us, I’m Claire”
she said with an outstretched hand, “This is Louise and Geillis.”
gesturing toward each of the other women.
Jamie took her hand in his, “Jamie.”
John cleared his throat and glared at his friend, “John.”
“Nice to meet you blokes, maybe we will see you around”
“Count on it.” Jamie added hastily, causing John to peer at him suspiciously.
Mimosas by the poolside bar were exactly what the doctor ordered, if said doctor, was Claire or Louise. The three women bask in the sun and overindulged in alcoholic beverages. The three chose different forms of relaxation, Geillis with her headphones, listening to music, Louise with her air pods, listening to a pod cast and Claire with a romance novel in hand.
“Another drink for you ladies?” John asked as he approached the group.
Claire being the only one without her hearing hindered, responded first,
“No thank you, if I have another, I won't be able to read anymore.
The lines are already blurring together.” Her friends caught on and removed their headphone,
John repeated his question, got their order and walked over to the poolside bar.
“I ken that feeling verra weel. ‘tis verra hard to focus on the wee words when
your vision is normal, aye? Much less when yer knackered.” Jamie answered,
pulling up a chair over beside of Claire and her friends.
“Oh, absolutely. Which is why I only reward myself with wine AFTER I look over patient files.”
“Patient files? Yer a doctor then?” Jamie asked.
“Yes sir! Louise and I are pediatricians.” She explained gesturing toward the Frenchie,
“Geillis is a pediatric nurse, the three of us work together back home.”
“Ah verra bonny, where is home if ye dinnae mind me askin’?”
“Oh...um, North Carolina and you?”
“Scotland.”
“Scotland is beautiful, we went to med school in the UK,
England to be exact. I haven't been back since we graduated.”
“Ah, ye should visit again someday.”
“Maybe I should. I always wanted to go on a tour of the highlands.”
“Aye, weel I can be yer personal tour guide, mi lady.”
“That would be wonderful, I’ll hold you to it then.”
The conversation amongst the group continued into the evening. They had sunbathed and cooled off in the pool, all while drinking way too much alcohol. Everyone noticed the connection between The Scot and The Sassenach, discreetly pushing them together several times throughout the day. John had happily taken Claire's lounge chair and insisted she and Jamie go for a dip in the pool. With the excuse of 'Jamie being very burnt', the women with all of their medical training knew fine well that the pool wouldn't help Jamie's sunburn, but Claire didn't resist. She even offered to apply mire sunscreen for him before they got into the water. "I'll do yours, if you do mine Jamie," He had happily obliged. In the pool their conversation continued with interjections from their friends.
"I told you what I do for a living, what about yourself?"
Claire asked, intrigued by the handsome Scotsman floating
beside of her.
"I am the CEO and owner of my family's whisky business,
'Fraser's Ridge'. It's Scotland based, of course. Inverness
to be more exact. My sister and her husband are helping me
find my barrens. I took over a few years back."
"How amazing." Claire said dreamy-eyed. "I love whisky, especially
Scottish whisky. Geillis has brought 'Fraser's Ridge' whisky home on
quite a few occasions, it's delicious. Any plans to expand to the states?"
"Oh aye, I've been workin' wit' a few business associates in the
states, I hope to have it in the states within the year."
"I'll be your first customer! Just tell me when" she said with a smile.
A smile that Jamie had gotten lost in several times throughout the day.
"Give me yer address and I'll send ye some of yer own Sassenach."