A Savior

"Faith! Faith! Look at this!" A boy called to me. His long brown curls bounced on his head as he ran towards me. He held something in his hands. As he drew closer, I saw the butterfly sitting in his grasp. I gasped, looking up at the boy.

"A butterfly!" I giggled. "Mama! Mama! A butterfly!" I yelled at the woman sitting in front of the small house. She nodded and continued her needlework. I looked back at the butterfly. But it was gone. Instead, the boys hands were full of blood. I looked up at the boys face. It was red.

"Why didn't you save me?" Kaeden's voice came from the boy's lips. "Why didn't you save me?"

Kaeden's POVFaith's lungs refused the air, causing her to convulse in the bed. I gripped her hand, waiting for it to pass as the others had. But she kept convulsing. I did as Claire had told me to do, calling for her to come in.

"Alright, that's alright." She soothed her daughter, slipping some liquid into her mouth. Soon the convulsions stopped. We both sat in our chairs, watching Faith sleep.

"I'm sorry... About the baby..." Claire spoke, breaking the silence.

"It's my fault. I shouldna come back. If I'd stayed away... She'd be ok." I broke down, putting my head in my hands. Claire's hand rubbed my shoulder.

"You're a Scot like my husband. We both know there was no stopping you. You did nothing to her. What happened is part of life." She explained. "It's what happened to her when she was born." Claire sat back in her chair at the end of Faith's bed.

"What do you mean?" I asked, looking up from the floor towards Faith. I brushed a red curl from her face. She looked so peaceful, so beautiful, even in her pale state. I internally begged for her green eyes to pop open and find mine. I wanted to just hold her in the safety of my arms.

"When I was pregnant with Faith, I bled like her. One of the servants took me to the hospital. My body wasn't prepared properly to carry a child, so I birthed a baby who had no breath in her lungs." She paused. "The nuns resuscitated her, I suppose. But otherwise, my child was born dead."

"You really didn't ken she was alive all this time?"

"No... Jamie and I thought we'd lost her..." She shook her head. We sat again in silence as I looked at the girl in the bed. My hand remained in hers as it had for hours. She was the girl I'd love since I met her. At only 11 years old, I knew I loved her. She had a fiery spirit, a loving soul. She made me crazy. I burned for her and only her. She was the only woman I had ever loved. She'd be the only woman I would ever love. I just needed her to wake up so I could tell her. So I could give her the ring I'd carried for months. She had be out for a few days. Long enough for us to come back to Fraser's Ridge where my body had been taken and hidden.

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Faith's POVMy eyes shot open from my nightmare. My lungs filled with air rapidly.

"Kaeden!" I gasped, looking around my room. I was alone in the room. It was dark but still held a light from the fire. It looked like Claire and Jamie's cabin. I felt my stomach. The bump that was growing there was gone. My heart tore into pieces as I remembered Kaeden's death. It tore more as I realized I'd lost our baby. My last memory of him. I heard people outside the door. I slipped out of bed, my whole body sore. I wrapped a blanket around my body as I stood only in my shift. My hair was down, tied back by nothing. I pulled the door open as it creaked. Murtagh, Jamie, and Claire sat around the table. They all turned to see me standing there.

"Faith!" Murtagh gasped, running towards me. In his rush, the seat he'd been sitting it toppled over, smaking the wooden floor. Claire and Jamie rose, coming over to me as well. Murtagh already held me in his grasp.

"What's going on?" A familiar voice asked.

"Come look." Claire turned towards the voice, letting a man by. My eyes were still fuzzy from my sleep, but I knew that hair anywhere.

"Kaeden." I gasped, pushing through Murtagh and Jamie to hug the man I thought was dead. "How?" I cried, holding him close. His arms wrapped around me, his face dug into my neck.

"Jamie." Kaeden's voice cracked. I'd never heard him cry. Not even as children would he cry when a horse bucked him off or when he fell and scraped his knees.

"I thought I'd never see you again." I released him, cupping his face in my hands.

"Aye. Or I you." He smiled lightly. I turned back to Jamie.

"Thank you." I smiled.

"Aye." Jamie responded, bowing his head.

"You need to get back in bed. Kaeden will you please take her?" Claire interrupted.

"And keep yer hands to yerself this time, laddie." Murtagh growled.

"I'm her father, Murtagh. Not you." Jamie laughed as Kaeden helped me back to the room.

"Aye, but I ken her longer." Murtagh rebutted. Kaeden laid me back in the bed before shutting the door behind us. He sat in the empty chair next to the bed.

"I need you to explain what's going on." I looked at him, placing my hand on the bed waiting for his.

"When ye visited me, I was going to hang. Then Tryon came to visit me. I explained what happened but he dinna care. So then a man named Gray visited. He had some sort of contraption and some sort of potion from Claire. The contraption helped keep me from breaking my neck or suffocating while the noose tightened. The potion was to slow my heart rate so I'd pass as dead." He paused, looking at me. "Once I'd died according to the executioner, ye passed out. Claire and Murtagh took ye to the shop. You lost the baby..." A small tear slipped from my eye. "They wrapped my body and gave me to Jamie. This was around the time Claire had made you stable enough for travel. When I arrived at the shop, yer mother did whatever she did to reverse the potion. We came here next so I could hide and ye could recover. Claire wasn't sure ye'd wake at all. She said ye'd lost too much blood." He took a long breath. I sat in silence soaking up his words.

"Why didn't they tell me?"

"They weren't sure it'd work." He dug into his pocket.

"Can you... get into this bed and hold me?" I asked, sitting up against the pillows. He smiled and nodded, pulling the sheets back. He crawled in next to me, holding me close to him.

"Kaeden?" I looked up at him. He looked down towards me. "I love you." His mouth widened into a grin.

"I love ye too." He kissed the top of my head. "I love ye more than ye ken. Yer the only one I'll ever love." He pulled something from his pocket finally. It was a silver ring, crafted by Murtagh. "Being an outlaw, I canna give ye my name. I canna give ye much besides the clothes on my back and a promise that I'll love and protect ye as long as there's breath in my lungs." My heart raced. I didn't know what to say or do. Of course I loved him. Of course I wanted to be with him forever. My hand found his with the ring.

"I have to go for awhile. I canna stay here. Someone might recognize me. I will go meet with Isaac and Ivy." He paused again. "But I want ye to keep this. As a promise that one day, I will return to ye."

I couldn't respond. His words dug deep. All I wanted was him, yet he pushed me away. I didn't care that he was a criminal. I didn't care that my life would be on the run. I just wanted him.

He pulled me closely as I fiddled with the ring. His lips brushed my head as I laid against him. The world began to slip from us as the night grew darker too. We both fell asleep in each other's arms.