This wife you have, Bird said at last, deeply contemplative, did you pay a great deal for her? She cost me almost everything I had, he said, with a wry tone that made the others laugh. But worth it.

Lord, ye gave me a rare woman, and God! I loved her well.

The colors of living things begin to fade with the last breath, and the soft, springy skin and supple muscle rot within weeks. But the bones sometimes remain, faithful echoes of the shape, to bear some last faint witness to the glory of what was.

Your face is my heart

It wasn't a thing I had consciously missed, but having it now reminded me of the joy of it; that drowsy intimacy in which a man's body is accessible to you as your own, the strange shapes and textures of it like a sudden extension of your own limbs.

There aren't any answers, only choices

Could I but lay my head in your lap, lass. Feel your hand on me, and sleep wi' the scent of you in my bed. Christ, Sassenach. I need ye.