CHAPTER ONE
THE IMPROBABLE

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People disappeared all the time.

Teenagers angry at their parents ran away in the middle of the night, traumatized war veterans left their homes without intending to return and victims of domestic abuse got on a train going to a different place than they'd told their abuser.

Most of the time they were found. Just about every disappearance had an explanation, every mystery had its answer. At least, they were supposed to.

Aoife Macbeth had looked into many as she helped her father run his historical magazine. Her father, Patrick, was something akin to obsessed with the history of their homeland of Scotland. She'd helped him all her life, from arranging the boxes of text and images on the pages to finding stories to be researched to finally, researching herself and venturing out to take photos as she got older.

The human memory had always been something of an idle interest to her, how it was so fallible yet so strong. One could recall with perfect detail the description of a stuffed animal they'd had and then lost in their childhood but witnesses to a crime could struggle to recall even the colour of the escape vehicle they'd been staring at.

Later, Aoife would grapple with her own memory. She would be able to recall with perfect clarity the day her whole life changed, the day she said goodbye to her father for what she believed would be the last time. She could almost recall the phantom smell of the breakfast her father made for the two of them, the way the light danced on the glassware, casting patterns of rainbows on the walls and most of all her father's smile at her from across the table.

For the rest of her days, she would struggle to remember just about anything from the week that led up to that morning. Despite so many things, long conversations with her best friend and meals with her father, calls with the postal service about picking up the coming week's magazine and finishing a season of her favourite show, aside from the fact that it happened, she could hardly recall anything more.

But she knew one thing for certain. If she was given the chance to go back, to change her mind and do everything differently... She wouldn't change a damn thing.

The morning began just as so many had. Aoife woke and dressed for the day ahead of her, deciding on one of her longer and heavier skirts to chase out the cold that came with the middle of October, pairing it with a long-sleeved shirt and one of her long cardigans, too. When she had tied back her red hair, she finally ventured down to the main floor.

Her father was already standing in the kitchen, darting back and forth from the fridge, stove and countertops between them. A mixing bowl with some scrambled eggs sat on the back of the stove with a potlid over them to keep them warm, a pan of sizzling bacon on a hot burner, her father tending to that while also buttering some toast that had popped out of the toaster just as she had walked in.

"Madainn mhath," she greeted her father.

"Ah, good morning, my darling," her father echoed back to her, stepping back to wrap an arm around her and kiss her temple.

"It smells wonderful," she told him.

"Thank you. It's just about done," he said, darting back to flip the bacon. "Why don't you set the table?"

"Tha, I can do that."

She crossed to the cupboard and pulled out two plates, setting them down and grabbing two sets of cutlery out of the correct drawer, bringing them into the adjoining dining room and setting them at their usual spots at the table. After setting them down, she returned to the kitchen and drew two glasses out and set them on the counter, crossing to the fridge and grabbing out a jug of orange juice.

Her father turned to set the bacon down off of the hot burner, eyes turning to his daughter and catching sight of the jug that she was carrying. Before he could turn the bacon off onto a clean plate to be served off of, he stopped, frowning at the bright orange drink.

"No," he said. "I will not be drinking that."

"Oh yes, you will be," she countered. "It's good for you. You need the vitamins."

"It tastes like shoving a sour ice cube into your mouth," Patrick argued.

"A touch dramatic, that is," she argued. "You'll drink it and you'll do it happily. Or would you rather take the vitamin pills again?"

"Drinking sour ice or dry chalk are my only options?"

"Those are your only options."

Patrick sighed heavily and turned away, finally turning the bacon onto the plate he had set out for it. He picked up the plate and then grabbed the bowl of eggs off the stove, turning towards the dining room. Before he walked into the next room, he turned to his daughter once more.

"Well, come on then. And bring your devil's juice."

Laughing, Aoife finished pouring the two glasses of orange juice and joined her father at the dining room table. The father and daughter dished out themselves some of the breakfast that Patrick had prepared at first in silence.

"Are you heading out to Inverness today?" Patrick asked.

"Yes, Lane said she'd be joining me. Said she'd be by after eating herself and then we'd set out," Aoife explained.

"Should have invited her for breakfast."

"I tried, Dad. But you've known Lane for going on two decades now, do you really think she'd impose herself like that?"

"She wouldn't be imposing."

"Well, you can just take that up with her when she gets here."

"Maybe I will..."

Aoife laughed to herself as she continued eating, smiling up at her father from across the table. He gave her a smile back before it ended with a wink as he brought his next bite of food up to his mouth. Aoife laughed some more, turning her eyes down to her plate.

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It was on her first day of kindergarten that Aoife first met Lane Crawford. They both had the same backpack and so, to their young minds, that meant they were best friends. It was only after the school day had concluded that they realized the Crawford family had moved in just down the road before the school year had begun. Lane and Aoife had been inseparable from that day forward.

The first time they had separated for any significant length of time was after they had both graduated from high school. Lane had gone on to attend the University of Edinburgh to study accounting while Aoife herself had gone to the University of Cambridge to study medicine just as her mother had. Though, she'd only been there for a semester and a half before returning home, the pressure having been too much for her. Lane had remained in Edinburgh and was now finishing up her final year of the program.

Lane made time to visit home, to see both her parents and her best friend, and on a weekend she had free of assignments and homework, she had travelled back to Glencoe so that she might accompany Aoife on her latest adventure to help with her father's magazine.

"So we're just spending the day in Inverness?" Lane asked as they turned onto the highway.

"Aye. I figure we'll snap some photos of the stones and get lunch, maybe do some shopping if they've got any nice shops nearby and then we'll be home before dinner."

"Good plan," Lane agreed.

"I'm known for my good plans," Aoife said.

"Oh, is that what you're known for?"

"Do you disagree?"

"I may not, but I think those three boys with a broken nose and arms—"

"Someone had to defend your honour—"

"Not by sending them to the hospital—"

"Oh they were being dramatic, they didn't need to go to the hospital."

"Two of them had broken arms, Effie," Lane argued.

"Well, then... they deserved it."

Lane laughed and rolled her eyes, but her expression was still incredibly fond as she watched Aoife driving down the highway. While assaulting the three boys who had been harassing Lane wasn't the first time that Aoife had gotten violent in her attempts to defend her friend, it was the most recent. But, of course, what was one to expect was going to happen when they brought someone with a temper like Aoife's to a club full of drunk boys? Their own pride and the witnesses who had seen the whole thing were, as always, the only thing that kept the redhead from having a criminal record.

Two hours later, they were arriving in Inverness and turning off the main roads to head towards where their maps told them the standing stones of Craigh Na Dun were.

The mysterious standing stones of Craigh Na Dun were what her father was doing the next issue of his magazine on. Aoife had agreed to drive out to Inverness and take photos of them herself to include so that they didn't have to worry about finding and paying for some online.

It was a fascinating history that they had. People going missing around them, never to be seen again or returning years later with no explanation. Aoife had spent one night staying up much later than she should have just reading all of the accounts and stories about the stones. Her father had scolded her in her morning but that was okay, everyone needed a good story to get lost in every once in a while.

When they were just about there according to their maps, Aoife started to slow the car down in preparation of finding a spot to park. She kept her eyes glancing from the road ahead of her and off to the side of the road where the stones were sure to come into view. When she finally caught sight of them, she couldn't help but smile before her eyes turned back to the road and the parked car ahead of them that was slowly coming more and more into focus as they got closer.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me," Aoife said when they were close enough for her to fully recognize it.

"What?" Lane asked.

"He's here. How did he know we were coming today? Did you tell him?"

"You think I talk to him?"

Anger rising, Aoife slammed the car into park and reached into the back seat, grabbing her camera and then getting out of the car as the person in the car ahead of them also got out and started heading towards them.

"You must have lost your fucking mind!" Aoife shouted.

"Effie, I just want to talk."

"I don't have anything I want to talk about you with. I am happy to stand here and hurl insults at you to vent my anger, but that wouldn't be the two way conversation I think you're envisioning."

"Effie—"

"Don't call me that! Only people I like get to call me by nicknames."

"Are you saying you don't like me?"

"Well, gee, I think that's what breaking up with you would mean!"

Aoife turned away from quickly, moving around the car to start heading up the hill. She heard Lane yelling at him as well behind her but didn't pay it any mind.

Just after Christmas of last year, Aoife had broken up with her boyfriend of three years, Ryan Blackwood. Two days before they were supposed to go to a New Year's Eve party, Aoife had come into his apartment to find him sleeping with another woman. Ryan had made every excuse in the book, tried anything and everything to win her back, but there was no mistaking the sounds they were making when she'd caught them. And that didn't just happen accidentally.

But Ryan was not a person who was used to not getting what he wanted. Between his charms that had once wooed Aoife and his smarts, Ryan had never really had to face rejection. So when Aoife had broken up with him, he'd decided to make his new life goal winning her back. Only this time, she wasn't going to fall for any of his tricks.

"Effie, please," Ryan called out, clearly following her up the hill.

"I said don't call me that!"

"Talk to me, please!"

Anger boiling, Aoife stopped and turned back around to face him, both of them halfway up the hill now. He stopped as soon as she did and so she marched closer to him so she could get in his face when she shouted at him. Maybe if she yelled right in his face, he would finally hear the words she was saying.

"You wanna talk? Fine, let's talk. How about we talk about how I walked in on you with another woman in your bed? Or how you cheated on me? Or maybe you'd like to talk about how I came over like we had planned and instead of finding my boyfriend playing video games or watching Netflix or cooking or even doing an extra assignment for school, I walked in on you fucking another woman? Any of those what you wanted to talk about?"

"That was a mistake, I—"

"Oh, a mistake? You mistakenly flirted with another woman and mistakenly invited her over and then mistakenly undressed her and mistakenly started fucking her?" Aoife questioned him. "Is that what you're trying to say?"

"Aoife—"

"No, Ryan. I don't want to hear it. There is nothing you could say that would make me forgive you. There is nothing you could do that would make me take you back."

She turned away from him once again and started heading up the hill. She crested the top of the hill and was finally standing in the center of the standing stones of Craigh Na Dun when a hand touched her shoulder, turning her around so that she was facing Ryan once again.

"Can I at least say I'm sorry?"

"Sure. Go ahead," she said with a shrug. "Tell me you're sorry for cheating on me. That doesn't mean I'm going to forgive you."

"Will you ever forgive me?" he asked.

"Ryan, we dated for three years and we were friends for the two years before that, meaning you've known me for six years now. Do you really think, with all those years of experience, that I would ever forgive you?"

He looked down, realizing that he knew the answer even if it wasn't the one he'd wanted to hear.

"Exactly. Now if you don't mind, I have a job to do."

Aoife stepped away from him, raising her camera to start taking photos. She wanted to mainly get the center stone, but she wouldn't neglect trying to get photos of the whole stone circle as well. As she lowered the camera and looked at the trees around, she thought rather idly about trying her luck at climbing one of them to get a better shot at the whole circle. But then the branches and leaves would probably get in the way so she cast the thought from her mind.

"I am sorry, you know," Ryan said suddenly.

"Let it go," Aoife said, her anger beginning to rise again as she lowered the camera. "Just let it go. It's almost been a year, Ryan, you need to move on."

"I can't just move on."

"Why the fuck not? I have!"

"Because I still love you!"

To her surprise, Aoife actually laughed at that. She didn't expect it and by the look on Ryan's face, he hadn't been expecting it either.

"If you actually loved me, you wouldn't have fucked another woman," Aoife told him.

"How many times do I have to say I'm sorry for that?"

"Uh, you don't have to keep saying it. But you aren't actually sorry, so of course I'm not going to forgive you. If I hadn't caught you that day, you would have continued on fucking other people behind my back and never felt any remorse."

"You don't know that."

"Yes, I do, Ryan. Because I know you. And now I'm not blinded with what I thought was love. I see you for who you really are."

"What you thought was love?" he echoed incredulously.

"Ryan, I'm not having this conversation with you. I don't want to have any conversation with you, in fact. I would like to do my job. So get back in your car and just leave."

Aoife raised the camera once again but Ryan was quick to try and make a grab for it. Try to remove the thing that he believed was causing her to ignore him. She didn't know what he thought was going to happen if he got it or what he would do with the camera, but she wasn't going to let him get it.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"Don't ignore me!"

"Don't keep trying to have a conversation that's over!"

"This conversation isn't over!"

"Oh, for once in your life will you just fuck off! One girl rejects you after you hurt her and it's like you've lost your bloody mind! Have some common fucking sense! I've said I want you to leave so that was me ending the conversation!"

"Well, I'm not leaving until I've got you back."

As anger boiled up in Aoife, a buzzing began in her ears, drowning out all other noise. She glared at Ryan, wanting nothing more in that moment than for him to just disappear. And if looks could kill, he would have dropped dead right there on the spot just like she wanted him to.

She turned away from Ryan, eyes falling on the center stone, but he didn't seem to like that and reached out for her as she took a step towards the stone. He only managed to grab the camera out of her hand, neither of them hearing the sound of the camera going off repeatedly as Ryan placed his finger down on the shutter button unknowingly.

Aoife placed a hand on the stone to rest against, but instantly recoiled as the buzzing sound was replaced with an awful scream. Though the sound of the stone screaming died away, the sounds in Aoife's ears did not. A rising crescendo of swords clashing, gunshots firing and men yelling rose in her ears and she brought her now two free hands up to cover her ears in an attempt to block out the sound to no avail.

She didn't hear Ryan continuously calling her name or see Lane hurrying up the hill, shouting at him to leave her alone. As they continued to argue, Aoife's vision began to blur, head spinning, and she stumbled in the direction she thought was away and out of the stone circle but instead stumbled towards the center stone like metal being drawn to a magnet.

Once, Aoife had gone to an amusement park with her friends in high school and she'd been dead set on riding every single rollercoaster they had. She didn't care how many loops they had or how high they went or how fast they went. The more wild the better. But in the middle of the ride on one of them, just as they were coming down, the ride had come to a sudden stop, leaving them all hanging slightly out of their seats. That abrupt transition is as close as she could come to describing the feeling she experienced, but it falls woefully short.

Despite squeezing her eyes shut, it was like her vision contracted down to a single spot before blinking out of existence entirely, leaving not darkness but nothingness on the other side of her eyelids. She felt like she was spinning and falling all at once, like she was Alice and she'd just fallen down the rabbit hole into Wonderland.

Aoife stumbled away from that center stone, falling against one of the outer stones before she even got a chance to open her eyes and peel her hands away from her ears. The sounds of the world reached her again, birds chirping in trees, wind moving through branches and grass. She leaned there for a moment, panting and trying to catch her breath, waiting for someone to touch her arm and ask if she was okay or what had just happened.

But nothing came.

She stood up straight again and looked around for Lane or even for Ryan but they were nowhere in sight. She turned away, heading back down to the cars but she was halfway down the hill before she realized that neither of the cars were there. Her own car along with Ryan's had vanished entirely. In fact, the very road that they had driven up on was gone as well.

A cold wind blew by and Aoife instantly shivered, pulling her cardigan tighter around her. She didn't know when the temperature had dropped or the sun had disappeared behind clouds. Maybe it was just her anger leaving her, but she'd been warm enough before that she had wanted to roll up the sleeves of her shirt and cardigan. Now she almost wanted another layer.

"Lane?" she called out. "Lane, where did you go?"

Nothing but the blowing wind answered her and she looked around frantically, mind running a million miles a minute to try and figure out what was going on. Nothing made sense anymore.

Still half dazed, she wandered further, waiting for some sign of civilization or for her mind to finally figure out what had happened. As she started down another hill, her foot slipped and she fell, hitting the ground before rolling down the hill until she reached the bottom. Now sore as well as confused, Aoife pushed herself up to a standing position and started brushing herself off.

Voices reached her ears from not too far away. She made out only a few words but it sounded like someone was in distress. Though she was in distress herself, she instantly headed towards them in hopes that she could help them.

Within moments of her wandering, she reached the source of the two voices and realized it was two men, one with dark hair, the other with red, both of them dressed entirely in Highlander garb: kilts, coats, swords and all. One of the men, the one with darker hair, was sitting down and leaning back against a tree, his breath harsh and uneven. Aoife understood in an instant that this man was not just having trouble breathing, but it was something of a recurring problem. She'd had to help Lane through enough asthma attacks to recognize what was going on, even if this man wasn't asthmatic.

She started forward, but that was when the two men finally noticed her and the redheaded man instantly jumped in front of her, blocking her path and drawing his sword.

"Dinnae come any closer," he warned.

"I can help him," she insisted. "My best friend used to have similar problems, so I can help him."

"You ken what to do?" he asked, looking skeptical.

Aoife nodded quickly, eyes going to the other man once again. The redheaded man still looked skeptical that she could help.

"Dinnae fash, Jamie," the other man said. "What's the... worst she could do?"

"Alright," the redheaded man, Jamie, said. "Go on, then."

He didn't sheath his sword again, simply lowering it and stepping aside so that she could pass. Aoife hurried past him and knelt down beside the other man.

"Here, sit up properly," she instructed him, placing a hand on his back to push against where his back bent. "Then tilt your head back so you open up the airway."

He did as she instructed and she heard his breathing come a little easier. Jamie looked at her in shock, finally sheathing his sword.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"Ciaran," the man answered.

"Well, Ciaran, I'm Aoife. It's nice to meet you. Do you have your inhaler on you?"

"Inhaler?" he asked, exchanging a confused look with Jamie.

"Didn't your doctor prescribe you one?"

"What's an... inhaler?" Jamie asked.

"It's to help you breathe, they give them to people with asthma in case they have an attack," she explained. Who didn't know what an inhaler was?

"Asthma?"

"Are you not asthmatic?"

Ciaran shook his head, lowering his head now that his breathing had evened out again. The two men exchanged a confused glance and Aoife couldn't help feeling more confused herself.

"Well, whether you're asthmatic or not, that little trick should help you out. Whatever is causing your breathing troubles, opening up your airway like that should at least make it easier for the attacks to pass when they do happen," she explained.

"Thank you."

"Oh, it's my pleasure."

Aoife stood to her feet as Jamie offered Ciaran a hand up as well. For a moment there was silence between them all as they stood there, wondering what to do next. As they stood there in awkward silence, Aoife shivering slightly whenever the wind blew harshly past them, she caught sight of the two men glancing at her, looking her up and down and then quickly looking away. She wondered what could possibly be wrong with her outfit, as she'd thought it was very cute when she chose it that morning. And she didn't think they could judge, all dressed up in costumes as they were.

"Uh, have you seen two other people come through here?" Aoife asked. "Same way I came from?"

"None but us," Jamie said.

"And our party," Ciaran quickly clarified. "Are you lost, lass?"

"Somehow I think I might be," she said, looking around. "One moment I was up on the hill by the stones and then the next... my friends were gone. And the road and our cars and they weren't even in the area, it was like they just vanished off the face of the earth."

"Why don't you come with us?" Ciaran offered. "We can get you to the nearest village. We're headed there anyway. You wouldn'a be any trouble"

"Oh, thank you. That's very kind of you."

Aoife followed after the two men a few steps away to where there were two horses tied to a tree that she had somehow failed to notice before then. She was so disoriented and then focused on the person in distress that she probably couldn't even make her way back to the stones at this point. Her best bet was to get to the city and Lane was sure to come back to get her.

Though she thought it strange these two men had horses instead of a car, Aoife figured they were on farmland that was nearby, or there was a ranch that they hadn't seen on their way up. Plenty of people had horses in the countryside. Aoife took Ciaran's hand and got up onto his horse with him, grateful for some of his body heat from behind her when the wind blew by.

They travelled mostly in silence until buildings came into view ahead of her and a realization that had been slowly creeping up on her came suddenly to the forefront of her mind, even as she fought to accept it as the truth.

Every house in the small village had some chickens and goats, maybe even a cow, milling about around it. There were clothes hanging on lines and people dressed in eighteenth-century clothing wherever she looked. Not a single electric light could be seen, nor telephone pole, wire, or distant cellphone tower.

Something was horribly wrong.

Even as Ciaran and Jamie guided their horses over to what could have been a tavern, Aoife struggled to accept the truth even as the evidence was all around her.

It was a historical village, her mind tried to convince her, and these are all actors or volunteers in costume. But then where was the ticket booth? Another part of her mind argued. Where was the student groups? The tours? The people with cameras? None of that could be seen. And the village was too small for that to be the case. If this was a place for tours to come and learn about a certain time period, they didn't have enough of, well, anything, to have proper demonstrations. The one that Aoife had gone to as a child had been much larger.

Something her father used to tell her as they researched together came to mind. Occam's Razor. The simplest explanation was often the truth. Her father's favourite Sherlock Holmes quote to tell her when her mind spiralled with all the possibilities during research came forth and she heard her father's voice in her head; "Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth."

It couldn't be a historical village for show. There were no signs of modern technology as far as the eye could see. Jamie and Ciaran didn't know what asthma or an inhaler was. They used horses instead of cars. They were looking at her clothes like she wasn't dressed properly and they looked like they were wearing costumes.

Somehow, Aoife had gone back to the eighteenth century.

As they slowed to a stop next to the tavern where the other horses were all hitched, Ciaran and Jamie both quickly got down off of their respective horses. Jamie quickly grabbed the leads of both animals and started tying them off to a rod near the water and food troughs while Ciaran held out a hand to Aoife to help her down from the horse.

"Thank you," she muttered, looking down.

"Are ye alright?" he asked her.

"I... I'm not sure. I think, well, I don't think I can go home," she managed, finally looking up.

"Why not?"

"I don't think it's there."

"What about your friends?" Ciaran asked, brow furrowed in concern. Jamie walked over, a similar look of concern on his face. "Ye said you were lookin' for two people, did you no?"

Aoife grappled with what to say. "I think I was confused. Something happened on that hill and my head, I— I think it got all scrambled."

"You can stay with us," Ciaran offered. "If you've no place to go."

"Thank you," Aoife said, actually managing a smile at his kindness. "I'd appreciate that."

With a sense of hopelessness rising in her, Aoife followed Jamie and Ciaran around the front of the tavern and then inside. There were calls of the two mens' names as they were recognized by who must have been their friends. And immediately following that, as the other men caught sight of Aoife, whistles and accusations that she was quick to tune out. Jamie and Ciaran both quickly explained the situation and one of the older men told the younger men to shut up.

That same older man stepped up in front of Aoife and she lifted her head to look at him. He held himself like a man who was used to intimidating all those who saw him. He had a bald head but a mostly grey beard and dark eyes. She didn't know what it was about him, but she couldn't help feeling that something was off about him.

"What's your name?"

"Aoife Macbeth, sir," she answered.

"My nephew says they found ye wanderin' and ye helped Ciaran with his breathing."

"That's correct."

"Why were ye wanderin' around the woods by yourself?"

"I was lost. I hit my head, I think."

"Do you ken where your home is?"

That was the question, wasn't it? Where was her home? The home she'd shared with her father for her whole life, mostly just the two of them. She knew that the building she lived in wouldn't be there, even if she found her way to Glencoe. For a moment, she could only imagine her father all alone in that house, and it was enough to bring tears to her eyes.

"No," she said finally. "I don't know where my home is."

"Alright." The man nodded, then turned to the group of men. "Someone find Miss Macbeth a change of clothes. Now!"

A few of the men scrambled to their feet and disappeared out of Aoife's view. Ciaran stepped up next to her.

"I'll take her up to a room," he said.

"Aye, go."

Aoife followed after Ciaran almost robotically as he led her towards the stairs and then up to where the rooms were on the second floor. She followed him to one of the rooms and when the door shut behind them, quietening some of the loud noise of the tavern below them, she took a deep, stuttering breath and let it out slowly.

Ciaran hurried around her to the fireplace and started stoking the dying embers until there were large flames once again. He gestured for her to come over and she followed, sitting down on the floor in front of the fire and closing her eyes as the warmth washed over her. She didn't open her eyes as she heard movement, just kept them closed until she felt something on her shoulders and opened them to see one of the blankets from the bed being draped around her shoulders and Ciaran giving her a soft smile as he did it.

He looked like he was going to say something, but before he got a chance, the door opened and it was a woman that Aoife presumed was a barmaid or someone who worked there. She carried a bundle of clothing in her arms and when Ciaran caught sight of her, he immediately backed away from Aoife and gestured for her to come in.

"Mister MacKenzie sent me," the woman said. "He said you needed a change of clothes?"

"Yes," Aoife said flatly, turning to Ciaran. "Would you give us the room?"

"Oh. Aye, of course," he said, immediately looking down and hurrying out of the room, closing the door behind him.

"I, um... I'll need some help dressing. If you don't mind?"

"Of course, miss."

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While she dressed, Aoife made a list in her head of what she knew, everything she would have to remember and started making a plan on what she was going to do. Though she was exhausted mentally from everything she'd been through in such a short time, when she was finally alone in the room once again, Aoife did not get into the bed to curl up under the covers like she wanted. No, instead, she placed herself in front of the fire and went through her list one more time before she would go out and face the world she was now in.

Aoife had gone back in time to the eighteenth century. She didn't know exactly when, but she remembered enough from history classes and her own research to recognize the way everyone was dressed. There was a very high chance that she would never get home, back to her time. By now she had a much more complete understanding of the disappearances they'd been looking into from around the standing stones of Craigh Na Dun. There was only one story she'd ever researched of someone coming back from one of these disappearances and she had no idea — especially not without being able to look over her notes — if Claire Randall had come back the same way that she'd disappeared.

She would have to be constantly careful of the things she said. She'd already slipped up when she first met Jamie and Ciaran. Of course, at that point she didn't know what had happened. For that one alone, she could give herself a pass. But from her point of realization on, she couldn't forget that she was now living in a time that was centuries before her own.

If asked, she would claim amnesia. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch, after all, she'd already told that one man that she was lost and she thought she'd hit her head. That combined with how she had been acting would surely be enough to convince them of her story. And it would be the perfect excuse for when she didn't understand something of the time she was now in.

Aoife took a deep breath and stepped away from the fire, turning towards the door that led out of the room. She hesitated for a moment, hand hovering over the door handle. She could pretend, while the door was closed, that none of it was real. She could pretend, in the safety of this room, that it wasn't a different century on the other side of that door. That when she opened it, it wouldn't be a room full of strangers but instead, perhaps, she'd find Lane and her father, all dressed up for the renaissance faire. But as soon as she opened the door, she couldn't pretend any longer.

With another deep breath, Aoife finally grasped the handle and pulled the door open, stopping short of exiting when she found her path blocked by another person. She recognized Ciaran in an instant, who stood there as frozen as she was, his fist raised like he was about to knock.

"I was coming to check on you," Ciaran said, lowering his arm and clasping his hands together.

"Oh. Consider me checked on," Aoife told him, managing an awkward smile.

There was a beat of silence where neither of them seemed to know what to say next. Then Aoife remembered her plan and found her words once again.

"Is there food?" she asked. "I'm starved."

"Aye," Ciaran said, a smile creeping up on his face. "Right this way."

She followed after him as they descended to the ground level and he led her toward the bar. He talked to the bartender quickly in what Aoife recognized as Gaelic while she looked around, surveying the room around her. She spotted Jamie across the room seated at a table with the group they'd brought her to when they first arrived. A few of the other faces she could vaguely recognize, especially the older man she'd previously spoken to that seemed to be the leader.

Ciaran leaned back from the bar and handed her a plate with some meat, some kind of bread roll and a set of utensils. Aoife's mouth started watering as the smell hit her nose and she almost didn't want to even bother following Ciaran to the table with the rest of their group, instead just sit down there at the bar and scarf down as much of the food as quickly as possible. But she wasn't trying to draw too much unnecessary attention to herself, so she didn't do that and followed Ciaran as he led the way again, carrying two tankards of what she would assume was either ale or scotch of some kind.

They sat down near the end of the table, Ciaran gesturing for her to sit down first in the spot next to Jamie before he took the seat opposite her. He gave her one of the tankards he'd been carrying and she took a sip of that first, identifying the drink as scotch. And good scotch at that. The conversation that had halted at their arrival resumed as Aoife dug into her food and she was almost comforted by the idle noise around her.

Even though Aoife noticed all of the men occasionally glancing her way before looking away again quickly, as Aoife sat there with them, she felt like she was blending into the background. They didn't try to engage her in their conversation, but they didn't intentionally try to keep her out of it, either. She was just there, eating her food.

When she finished, she wiped her mouth and finished off what was left of her drink, neatly grouping her dishes together as she was so used to doing in restaurants. When she looked up, she noticed everyone was staring at her and she shrunk a little bit in her seat.

"Alright lads," the man she'd guessed was the leader said, standing up from the other end of the table. He paused, eyes landing on Aoife. "And lass. Time to go."

"You want me to come with you?" Aoife questioned, standing up along with everyone else.

"We cannae just leave you here," Jamie said, giving her a confused look as if the very suggestion they'd move on without her was preposterous.

"Aye, you'll join us," the man in charge affirmed. "At least until you remember your home or we can find it."

A smile grew on her face before she could stop it, a sense of relief washing over her. Though it was really no different, staying there with nothing but strangers around her or going with these men who might as well have been strangers too, she at least knew the names of some of these men. And in going with them, she wouldn't be left to figure out how to fend for herself.

The group made their way out of the tavern and towards the stables. Aoife lingered in the entranceway, watching as everyone untied and saddled their horses, waiting for someone to tell her if she was supposed to ride with someone or which horse she was to ride on if that wasn't to be the case. As the moments ticked by and everyone got more and more ready, Aoife began to worry.

Finally, Ciaran caught sight of her waiting there, eyes darting between everyone. He seemed to understand what was wrong despite her not having said a word and caught her eye with a smile, gesturing her over to his horse.

"You can ride with me, if you'd like," he offered. "At least until we can get you a horse of your own."

"As long as you don't stop breathing suddenly," she said. "I'm not the most experienced rider."

"I'll make you a deal," he said with a laugh. "I will do my best to keep breathing while on horseback and you will help me if I do while we're not riding."

"Deal."

Aoife held a hand out towards him for him to shake. He laughed again but he reached out and shook her hand.

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an. well, chapter one is finally here you guys! "finally" as if I didn't publish this fic like five days ago. but here is chapter one nonetheless, I hope you liked it and love Aoife and Ciaran as much as I do already.