The Highlander's Time

She plopped down on the landing. Staring at her stilettos sitting innocently at the bottom of the stairs, she didn't have the energy to walk back down and get them.
    “You are not all right.” Charlzie was at her side before Jenny could blink. “What's wrong?”
    Buck up and put on a brave face . She'd managed to do that her whole life and she wasn't ready to give up the coping mechanism yet. “I'm just tired.” She blinked the tears wavering in her eyes away. She hadn't cried since she buried her dad and she wasn't about to turn into an emotional wimp. “Give me a nap and I'll be fine.”
    “Thank God.” Charlzie hugged her. “I'm counting on you, Jenny.”
    “I know you are.” But, who do I get to count on? For the first time in a long time, she needed someone to lean on. Someone to pick her up and brush her off when she fell flat on her face which was a given in this situation. Not any of her classes or dealing with Lila’s antics had prepared her for this. Shoving her needs away, she pulled herself up with her fingers clenching into the stones of the wall. “Let's get Lila to bed, and then we'll talk.”
    She didn't really want to talk. In fact, she felt drained dry.
    What she wanted was to feel a man's arms around her. He'd hold her and tell her everything would work out.
    Jenny turned her gaze to the hall. She watched Father Thomas putz around. Elspeth walked in with a basin of water in her left hand and a stack of linens in the other.
    She willed a tiny tornado to appear and save her from this crazy nightmare.

Chapter Three

    I don't want your help. I don't need your help. But, I have no choice .

    Jenny lay on the small pallet, praying harder than she had since her mom entered the hospital for the last time. Every inch of her hurt in ways she knew were a big, bad sign she was on the fast path to collapse. Her head still hadn't stopped aching and now she was suffering bouts of nausea.
    Turning over on her back, she stared at the ceiling. Her brain toiled over the language lesson Father Thomas had given them. Gaelic wasn't her thing, and that much was outrageously apparent. She couldn't get the rolling sounds right in her head, let alone flowing off her tongue. The manners lessons she did better at, but she feared for her life should she forget to curtsy or call someone by the wrong title.
    Charlzie wasn't doing much better. She'd nearly fallen when she tried to curtsy and half the little rules they had to apply themselves to had thrown her off base. Her Gaelic sounded like a mish-mosh of syllables crashing together.
    Lila was the lucky one. She'd turned on her diva-ness, played too ill to take part in the lesson, and refused to participate.
    Charlzie and she had decided to insulate Lila from as much interaction with the Highlanders as possible until they could get her to see reason. It was also realized that if they couldn't get back to the future, at some point they were going to have to cut her loose. If it came down to Lila and survival—survival would win out. In retrospect, the conclusion wasn’t as shocking as she’d thought it would have been. It was more or less a mindset of, ‘you can’t fix what is irreparably broken and you can’t fight against a giant when he has absolute power over you’.
    Fluffing the flat pillow, Jenny turned onto her left side. Now facing the door, she closed her eyes, trying without much success to go to sleep. She hated being like this.
    An introvert by necessity, she'd suffered through all the death in her life by digesting her mourning because there was always someone who needed her to be strong. She mulled over things to an ulcer-causing degree, and then when she felt ready to shatter, she did.
    Back when her mother was sick or during her father's lengthy hospitalization after quadruple heart bypass surgery, she'd curl up in the corner of the couch covered by an old chenille lap blanket with the phone on the end table beside her. She'd flip through the cable channels until an old movie would come on. Losing herself in the story never equated in her mind. To her, the practice was more a waste of time, or when she was waiting for the inevitable call to hurry to the hospital before it was too late, she was merely killing time.
    “Come on,” she whispered on a bitter sigh. Shifting onto her right side, she squeezed her eyes tight against the frustrated tears stinging in the corners. “This isn't that hard. Close eyes. Count sheep. Go to sleep.”
    The