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By Root 2074 0

(if I dare mention such a word); everything fits—the need for confession, connection, understanding; realization of mortality and the need for continuance; and finally, unexpected absolution. Raging about what had happened wouldn’t fit; it would just be a distraction.

See, this scene isn’t _about_ Rosamund; it’s about Claire.

Glad you liked the “life goes on” part; so did I.

—Diana

Fm: Mira Brown 100425,170

To: Diana Gabaldon 76530,523

Hi Diana,

(In my own case, I should imagine the doctors did get angry with the couple of doctors who failed to stem the bleeding, and with plenty of reason. It wasn’t a case of “looking down,” just simple, justified expectations from their own profession.)

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Yes, I have noted that before and thought that was really well handled. After I sent the message I realized it would be easy to interpret the “anger” that way and that’s not what I meant. I’m talking a more general feeling/awareness of helplessness and limitations—the anger that’s a result of frustration. That’s something I can see happening to a doctor over and over again, keeping them from getting de-sensitised (sp?), maintaining the sense of personal responsibility (which is quite different from guilt, far more rational).

You know I get a feeling that we may be hitting yet again the American/European divide. While I don’t think there are *any* actual differences, the psychological process is very probably exactly the same on both sides of the Atlantic, interpretation/presentation may be very different. Europeans don’t mind being seen as “realistic”; Americans very often wrap it up in emotional tissue paper. Do I need to d&r? Actually, I’d dearly love a British or mainland European doctor to get involved here.

<< Besides. I wanted to make the point about mortality and immortality. For the first time, Claire admits—if offhandedly—that she’ll die herself one day. What she knows is very, very valuable in this day and age; she _has_ to find a way to pass it on, if she possibly can. Notes in her casebook are all very well, but what she _really_ needs is to find an apprentice. Hm? >>

Hm, indeed. You see, until now I’ve never taken your time travel very seriously. To me it’s been just a vehicle, not really very different from a plane or a camel. Now, you are bringing it into a different focus, and at least for the moment, I can’t get my head around it. There are questions piling up faster than I can type them: Where is Claire going to die? Does she know she can’t change/influence history? How much is anything she does influenced by the fact that she can—at least in theory—pop back to her own time and look up the history records for that time/area? You see, I really can’t deal with this imaginatively. How *do* you see it?

<< Raging about what had happened wouldn’t fit; it would just be a distraction. See, this scene isn’t _about_ Rosamund; it’s about Claire. >> Agreed. And a good way of doing it. Mira

Fm: Diana Gabaldon 76530,523

To: Mira Brown 100425,170

Dear Mira—

Ah, I see. Yes, I had misunderstood your first account of your accident—I thought the doctors who tended you later were upset because the earlier rescuers hadn’t done things right. Got it.

Yes, good point regarding American/European methods of expression. That’s one reason I gave Claire such a “mixed” background from the beginning; I figured it was inevitable that I would occasionally do something recognizably American, rather than British, but if she had spent a good deal of time in contact with Americans (during the War), or working in America (during her years with Frank), any such cross-cultural lapses would still be believable. —Diana

Fm: Diana Gabaldon 76530,523

To: Mira Brown 100425,170

P.S. Oh, the time travel. Ah… have you read the second book in the series? That begins to deal with these questions—but not nearly on the level that FIERY CROSS will.

Can one change history? Well, yes and no (under the Gabaldon Theory of Time Travel,