Outlander Finale Recap: Who Died — And Who Didn't — In The Time-Travel Drama's Last Episode

It's time, Sassenachs.

The romantic journey we all started in 2014 has come to an end: The final episode of "Outlander" is upon us. Can you believe it? It seems like just yesterday Claire was uttering her first "Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ" and snapping wee Jamie's dislocated shoulder back into joint.

Time flies, eh?

Going into the supersized finale, one question loomed large. Was Frank's book right: Was Jamie fated to die in the Revolutionary War's Battle of Kings Mountain? Well, we got our answer... and then some.

Read on for the highlights of "And the World Was All Around Us."

The episode opens with Jamie summoning his men near a burning cross at the meeting house. It's almost time to fight the British, who are on their way to the back country. "Je sui prest," Jamie says, invoking the motto of Clan Fraser. The other start yelling their clans' battle cries as the embers float into the sky. Calm down, boys: We've got a lot of goodbyes to get through before you hit the road.

The morning of the fight, Jamie and Claire lounge in bed awhile, trying to make the experience as normal as possible while both of them consider how it might be their last one. They chat, cozy and close; he asks her to tell him about her bees, in part to take her mind off what's ahead. She tells him about finding two bees sleeping together in a flower, holding feet. He quotes a poem, "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" by W.B. Yeats, then they discuss how the quiet life wasn't meant for them. All told, though, Jamie is grateful. "I've lived longer than I thought I would. I have lived to see my grandchildren," he says. If he does die on the morrow, he jokes, his spirit might take peek in on at various people in his life from the hereafter. "Would you look in on me?" she wonders. "Maybe just a wee glance, Sassenach," he says. "Wouldn't want to frighten you." And YES, we WILL be getting to this later in the episode/recap.

She reminisces about seeing a vase in a window during her Scottish honeymoon with Frank, but she never went back to buy it, "Because the next morning, I went up to Craigh na Dun in search of a certain blue flower. The rest is our history." Jamie wonders if she ever wishes she hadn't traveled through the stones. "Never," she says, kissing him. "I still don't have the blue vase, but I have everything I never knew I wanted." He agrees that he does, as well, and she lays her head on his chest as they try to enjoy the calm before their departure.

When Claire comes downstairs, she finds a very upset Fanny begging to come with them to the battlefront. "We love you so much," Claire says, both of them already crying, "but we have to go. We have to try to make things better for you and for everyone on the Ridge." Fanny (correctly) points out that she's already had quite a lot of loss in her little life, and lobbies to be Claire's medical assistant during the battle. Claire, who is visibly upset, says that can't happen. Then she promises that, even if she and Jamie don't return, Fraser's Ridge is Fanny's home. They hug, but neither of them feels any better.

Jamie finds Brianna on the porch and gives her Frank's book, promising her that "No matter what comes, no matter how the story ends, it will all have been worth it." Then he remarks on how much she looks like Claire — which surprises her, given that everyone always says she looks like him. "You look like your mother in love, is all I mean," he clarifies. Bree tells him she loves him, and he responds in kind as he kisses her forehead.

Later, as everyone gathers to leave, Claire and Bree share a long, sad hug. Rachel leaves Ian halfway across the field to the big house, unable to watch him go. Jamie visits the bees, recites a little more of the Yeats, then asks them to take care of Claire if she reports that he's died in the fight. Then he puts on his tricorn and blinks back his tears: It's time to ride to battle.

Jamie and his gang — which includes Roger, Ian, Josiah, Hiram, Mr. Whitaker, and Buck — meet up with Cleveland and his men. Jamie confides to Claire that while he doesn't fear dying, he does worry he'll never see his home again. She assures him he'll be back. Eventually, the assemblage stops to make camp. When they have a few moments alone by a stream, Jamie asks Claire for a few favors. 1) If he dies, find a priest and have a funeral Mass. It might take time, but that's OK: "I'll grin and bide my time in purgatory," he jokes. 2) He's pretty sure, based on a conversation with Mandy, that baby Davey isn't able to time-travel. (It has to do with the color of their auras, etc.) So if he dies, Jamie wants Rachel and Ian to take the little boy, and Claire, Bree, Roger, Mandy, and Jem should return to their time. Claire tearfully says she can't promise that: Brianna would never leave her child behind, and "Me? This is my home." If he died, she continues, "I'd want to stay here where I can feel you all around me." And 3) "Remember me," he asks. Oh James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser, as if the alternative were even possible!

They wind up back in their tent for some very reverent, soul-gazing lovemaking; the scene plays out languidly partly because it might be the last time they're together this way forever, and partly because the makeup department took the time to slap that scar prosthetic on Sam Heughan's back, and they want to showcase their work. (I kid! Seriously, though — that thing looks REAL.) Afterward, as Jamie dozes, Claire watches him. He smiles slightly in his sleep.

Then, it's go time! Jamie addresses his troops with a rousing speech, then asks Roger to bless them before dismissing them to their duties. He then asks Roger to look after Claire, and trades some Gaelic with his wife before running off to catch up with the group.

The fighting begins. Claire lasts all of 10 minutes in the field hospital before she's stuffing supplies into a satchel and setting off for the action. "Claire," Roger stars. "Don't you try to f**king stop me," she warns. And because this is not his first tango with his formidable mother-in-law, he doesn't!

The British have the high ground. Hiram Crombie is fatally shot near the start of the fight. Jamie and the men advance until eventually, they're close enough for hand-to-hand combat. Not far behind, Claire and Roger pick their way through the wounded, getting the ambulatory ones on their feet and helping the others as best they can. After a while, Claire is in the thick of the fighting, ducking and dodging as she tries to lay eyes on her husband. When a British soldier sees her and advances, she has the presence of mind to grab a gun off a dead body nearby and kill the Redcoat at point-blank range.

Jamie is fighting with sword and knife, trying to locate Major Patrick Ferguson so he can capture him and end the battle. Josiah saves his laird's bacon once by taking out a Redcoat who's coming up behind Fraser. Jamie, in turn, fires a well-timed shot that saves Buck from certain death. At one point, Claire scurries behind a tree and realizes that all of the Brits near her are surrendering. And when she makes it to the top of the hill, she sees Jamie there — alive! Ferguson sees Jamie, too, and rides straight for him. But Big Red angles his sword just so, and it breaks the Brit's blade. Some other colonial soldiers grab Ferguson, and... the fighting is done!

"It's over, Sassenach," Jamie says as Claire runs to him. "Frank was wrong!" she cries. They are GIDDY with relief, but it's right about this point that I start getting a VERY BAD feeling in my chest. Mr. and Mrs. Fraser talk about how she's going to head back to camp while he finishes up there and I write in my notes, "CLAIRE HANDCUFF THAT MAN TO YOU THERE ARE STILL WEAPONS LYING AROUND EVERYWHERE." But no one listens to me. So Claire is halfway down the hill when Jamie asks Ferguson if he surrenders, and Ferguson says, "I will never surrender" as he pulls out a hidden gun and shoots Jamie in the chest.

Claire freezes in her tracks, grabs at her own heart, then immediately turns around and runs back to the summit... where Jamie has fallen to the ground and is bleeding copiously from both his chest and mouth. And listen: I didn't go to 30+ years of TV Medical School not to know that mouth-bleeding equals not good, probably bad. (For what it's worth, Buck, Ian, and Josiah triple-kill Ferguson almost before the bullet has even lodged itself in Jamie's robust pec.)

Claire kneels by her husband's side. "Dinna fash," he says calmly, "I'm not afraid." Then he smiles at her, asking, "Forgive me, Sassenach," and closes his eyes. "Don't you go!" Claire screams, pulling him to her as all the men take a knee. But it's too late: Jamie is dead.

Some time later, Roger and Ian try to move Claire from Jamie's side. "He just needs to rest," she keeps repeating, almost to herself. She won't let Roger touch Jamie's body, and after a few moments, he walks away to give her some more privacy. Claire stays with Jamie's body after the sun goes down, sobbing into his body and yelling "Where are you?!" How about we La Dame Blanche this situation, ma'am? But no, Jamie is still gone at dawn, when Roger approaches again and suggests that they take him home to bury him. She doesn't respond until after Roger leaves. "He is home," she whispers, then lays down next to Jamie and dies.

Yep. Claire dies, too. I KNOW.

Now, here's where things get crazy. The next thing we know, we're back in the series premiere, when Frank sees Jamie — AKA the ghost to whom we always referred — watching Claire brush her hair in an upstairs window at the inn. We see that Jamie has tears in his eyes as he gazes upon her, but he turns away and disappears into the rain as Frank calls out to him.

Jamie winds up at Craigh na Dun, touching the stone in the center of the circle. He smiles a little, and as the camera pans down, we see tiny blue flowers start to spring up in the grass at the base of the stone.

A montage of Claire and Jamie's life together follows, and it's a good ride through the seasons, all the way through to the end. And THEN, we're back with the dead Himself and Herself, lying together on the cliff. Claire's hair is fully white, like Adawehi said would happen when she reached her full powers. And while I can't confirm that Claire has, indeed done so, I can confirm that the final moment of the episode finds both Frasers opening their eyes and audibly inhaling: It appears that Jamie and Claire somehow have lived to die another day.

If you stick around for the post-credits scene, you're transported to a bookstore in the 1990s that's holding a signing event with Diana Gabaldon for "Outlander," the first book in her sprawling series. When a customer asks Diana what's with the leather journal on the table next to her — the same one we saw Claire writing in in Episode 9 — the author says it's "just a wee bit of inspiration."

And that's that! Now it's your turn. How did you interpret the final moments of the series? What did you think about the finale, and Season 10, overall? Grade them via the polls below, then hit the comments to elaborate upon your thoughts!