Archive of Our Own

They tumble through a doorway, through a wardrobe and everything is over and it's all Peter's fault. He'd been the one to lead the way, he should have recognised the lamp-post, should have remembered all it meant, should have turned them in another direction, should have done something.

Lucy sleeps in the bottom of the wardrobe every night, eyes scrubbed red with small hands. Edmund turns sullen and hostile, lashing out in ways he hasn't for years. Susan withdraws, all silent and uncertain and haunted dark eyes. They are not Valiant, not Just, not Gentle, they are children grieving a loss too great to comprehend. His back aches under a weight meant for the adult shoulders stolen from him with a single, mis-taken step. Peter is not Magnificent and it's all he can do to claw them back, keep them together, keep himself together.

It works for a time in that house in the country where the Professor doesn't mind Peter and Edmund and Lucy borrowing the swords and knives to practice sparring and Susan a bow and arrows for archery. Their calluses are quick to reform, but the loss of muscle earnt over long years leaves them struggling, and always aching the next day. Lucy has space to run wild in the grounds, but every time returns to the house bitterly disappointed that she hasn't found some hidden way back to Narnia. Edmund and Susan can read in the library to their hearts' content, but no matter how they search the Professor's books gathered over a lifetime and more they find no hint of a magic that could return them home. They pester the Professor for any inkling of something that may work and when he finally gets to explaining his uncle's rings Peter sees his siblings' eyes all light up in hope. He too dares to let it kindle within him, only for it to be swiftly dashed when the older man's face turns grave and serious.

"I do not believe those rings a wise way to attempt to return to Narnia," he tells them. "You've just as much chance of forgetting yourself in the Wood or ending up someplace far worse, as finding Narnia again." He goes on to describe the wasteland of Charn and when he talks about ringing the bell, waking Jadis and everything after in a carefully disaffected tone, Peter sees a lifetime of regret deep in his eyes tempered only by the apple that saved his mother.

The isolation of the country is kinder in many ways. Back in London Lucy and perhaps Susan would get a pass as girls but likely Edmund and certainly Peter would be told to man up and stop blubbing. Here, however, they are allowed to feel their losses openly and keenly, if out of sight of the Macready.

Still, Peter waits a week or so after their return until they are somewhat settled. When his siblings finally sleep, albeit fitfully, he slips from his bed and creeps downstairs, exiting the house by one of the side doors. The grass is thick and lush, cool beneath his bare feet, and as hard as he tries he can't feel any connection to it or the ground beneath, even when he sinks to his knees and digs his fingers into the dirt. This, in the end, is his breaking point and so he does what he has snuck out to do: Peter curls up on the grass, head buried in knees tucked up into his chest, and weeps. When nothing more will out, when he has cried himself empty, he rolls over onto his back and looks up at the clear sky. It's salt on a black table - beautiful and soulless. These stars can offer no guidance. Eventually he scrubs his face with a sleeve-covered fist and returns indoors. He checks the wardrobe room first.

One door to the wardrobe hangs open a crack. Inside, Lucy is buried in a nest of fur coats, and her head lifts when Peter's quiet steps hit a creaky floorboard. He moves to join her, squeezing inside and pulling the door almost closed behind him. Cool light spills in through the gap, illuminating his little sister's face in greyscale. Tear-tracks become rivers of moonstone.

"Do you think... did we do something wrong?" Lucy hiccups between sobs, now she can finally bear to talk about it. Peter tucks her into his chest, places a kiss on her hair.

"You didn't do anything wrong, Lu," he promises.

"Are you sure?"

"Certain."

"Then why?" She sniffs.

Peter cannot answer.

Eventually, Lucy falls into a restless slumber in his arms. In her sleep she calls out for Aslan like her heart is breaking.

They return to London eventually, only to leave again soon after, back to their boarding schools to escape the war ravaging the cities. Peter tries to lead by example, tries his best to be kingly, to be kind, but it hardly seems to make a difference in this world where there's always news of some fresh horror, where adults are dismissive and little boys are cruel. He's tired, he's angry, and Peter falls too easily into a pattern of raised fists and bared teeth and bruised knuckles. Edmund sighs and bandages his hands, lips pursed in disapproval. (Peter can never quite meet his brother's eyes, on these occasions. It's not as if he's forcing Edmund to patch him up - the opposite, if anything - and perhaps that's why he feels so guilty about it.)

This, he knows, is the easy way out, the coward's way out, but he can press his thumb into the bruise on his thigh and the brief flare of pain washes everything else away. For a single shining moment, that hurt is the only hurt, and he doesn't have to feel the ache of missing his home so much he can hardly breathe.

Besides, fighting is something he can do, at least - use his rage to protect the young, protect the weak, even if he gets as good as he gives. His teachers tut at his penmanship and every time he thinks that perhaps he'll let his hands heal so it won't smudge half of his words when it hurts too much to hold his fingers in the right position around the heavy fountain pen. But then there's a boy curled on his side in the mud and it doesn't take half a thought before Peter's sprinting over and hauling the bigger boy off him. His ribs ache and he hides the symphony of watercolour splayed across the thin skin beneath his shirt.

At the station back in London Lucy charges down the platform and crashes into him. He inhales sharply, holds back the yelp threatening to escape, but can't prevent the way his face scrunches in pain. He meets Susan's eyes and her brows knit together, mouth forming a thin line. On the walk back while Lucy chatters away to Edmund in front, Susan nudges him in the ribs with her elbow and he lets out a hiss, shoots her a glare that she returns double strength.

"How bad is it?" She asks quietly.

"It's fine," he says curtly. With her spare hand she grabs his with its purple-red knuckles and sandpaper scabs and looks at him, raises an eyebrow.

He tugs his hand out of her grip. "It's fine, Su. I promise."

"Edmund wrote, you know," she tells him.

"I know," he replies.

He'd sat in the library with his brother while he'd written letters to their sisters. "Ed, don't tell Susan," he'd said, "she'll only worry." Edmund had taken the time to finish his sentence and add a firm full stop before he'd looked up at Peter. Whatever Peter might have said next had quailed in the back of his throat at that look and he'd sighed in defeat. "Fine just- don't tell Lucy, will you? Her worrying will be worse." Edmund had nodded at that, thankfully.

"You didn't tell Lu-?" He asks, hushed, with a brief glance at Lucy that their little sister doesn't notice, wrapped up in a story she's telling.

Susan tilts her head, as if to say really? With a nod, Peter acknowledges his question is redundant. They both know that if Lucy knew she'd have started fussing as soon as they'd met on the platform.

"Thank you," he says, because at least there's that.

"You can't keep on like this, you know."

"Can't keep on like what?" Lucy chirps up, looking back at them.

Peter shoots Susan a pleading look and her lips purse but she acquiesces. "Peter needs help in maths," she says smoothly.

She scrunches her nose. "Don't we all," she grumbles, eliciting a laugh that sends stabbing pains through Peter's chest.

"Maybe you should talk to your teacher, ask for some help," Lucy adds.

"Yes, Peter. Maybe you should talk to someone," Edmund chips in with an expression that says he knows exactly what he and Susan have been discussing. And Peter knows that if he wanted to talk his siblings would gladly listen, but they each carry some version of this already; he cannot put his own burden on their shoulders too.

Peter sighs as heavily as he can without the daggers in his ribs plunging too deep. "Fine. I'll... sort it out," he glares at Edmund and Susan as they exchange a smugly triumphant glance.

And he doesn't talk about it, but he does stop the fighting. For a while, at least, he heals because it's the holidays and there's no one to punch (as long as he doesn't leave the house, as long as he ignores everything but whatever chore it's for when he does). And yet each new day stuck in this grey world where he is nothing and no one and worst of all (because of it all) can't do anything, only fuels his frustrations. By the time summer is over and they're packing their bags he's raring to go. Their mother is pleasantly surprised about his eagerness to return to school; she doesn't notice the knowing, worried, tired looks between Susan and Edmund behind her back that Peter pretends to ignore.

The station is the last stop before their trains split, before they're back at school, and as much as Peter is loath to bid goodbye to his sisters, his whole body thrums with restless energy. They sit on a bench and his knee won't stop bouncing.

And then...

They're in a forest, on a beach, and the tang of magic hangs in the air and they run into the waves and shout and scream and laugh themselves hoarse. Beneath it all there's a question that Peter can't bring himself to face because they're somewhere other, that's for sure, but is it really Narnia? Shouldn't he know it somewhere deep within himself if he is home? He wonders if his siblings know, wonders if Lucy's wild grin, Edmund's bright eyes, Susan's pink cheeks are due to the joy of being home or simply of not being in England. He stands calf-deep in the waves, digs his toes into the sand and silt and closes his eyes, reaches down in that way that had always been so easy before. There's something there - deep beneath his feet, he thinks - a stuttering heartbeat. A spray of water splashes his face and Lucy runs past with a giggle and the moment is lost. Peter can't quite decide if what he just felt was real or simply a fantasy born of a year spent longing.

After, they trudge inland, and that's when they find the ruins. It's all too familiar in a horrible, dissonant way. The walls of the hall, the dais, the well are all in the right places but overgrown with foliage and crumbling and none of them can bear to even suggest what is suddenly all too clear. (Peter thinks of Professor Kirke's description of Charn. Though this sun is still a fierce yellow, he wonders if its world - their world - is dead and empty, before swiftly quashing the thought.)

It comes to a head when Susan brings back the golden chess-knight with its winking ruby eye and the words that no one will speak hang in the air, thick as treacle and sour like spoiled milk.

He knows. They know. He knows they know and they know he knows and still he says, so they don't have to: "have none of you guessed where we are?"

The words sit heavy on his tongue, cloying and rotten. Peter thinks it's the worst thing he's ever had to say.

Because how do you broach the idea that you're back in the place where you lived for fifteen years, the place where you grew up, where you became the people - the Kings and Queens - you were meant to be? How do you even start to comprehend, let alone acknowledge, that your home is empty and lies in ruins when you've only been gone a year and you never wanted to leave at all?

This was supposed to be a reunion, not the same loss again and one-hundred times worse. Peter studies his siblings and wonders how he can possibly protect them from this grief a second time.

When Edmund tests the wall behind them a booming echo confirms the treasure chamber entrance and the sound resonates with something inside Peter. He feels all hollowed out and distant as they pull away the ivy and pry apart the old door. It feels like breaking into a house you moved out of years ago, now someone else's home. It feels like desecrating a grave.

The chamber is silent and still when they reach the bottom of the stairs. Edmund's new torch illuminates the room with a powerful beam revealing glints of gold and silver and colour beneath a thick layer of dust.

Everything remains quiet as bundled together they move slowly forward until Lucy spots something and breaks rank to run to it and brush off the dust. "Oh, our coronation rings!"

Peter feels more than hears Susan inhale sharply beside him. His ribs aren't bruised anymore but his chest aches all the same.

Lucy's find opens them up to a cascade of memories - almost every object in this trove has at least one that can be attached to it, reminisced about. It's too easy to slip back into the old days and ignore the longing in their voices.

Peter's head swirls, his vision blurs, and all of a sudden he's standing at the end of the chamber and his sword and shield hang before him on the wall. Lucy and Susan stand nearby, taking in their own gifts. Edmund, at their backs, looks on.

From the corner of his eye he sees Lucy reach up on the tips of her toes. She's too short, has to climb up onto the chest beneath to unhook the leather strap from the wall with its pouch for her cordial and loop for her dagger. She unsheathes the knife and the blade glints dangerously, spinning fragments of light across the walls and ceiling. Before she replaces it she twirls the hilt in her hand, sighs in comfort at the familiar weight.

Susan takes down her bow, buckles her quiver at her side, fingers tracing the ivory engravings. The horn, they realise, must have been lost that day they left or perhaps in the years since. (Peter wonders if anyone else ever dared sound the Gentle Queen's horn, if they received the help they were searching for if they did.) In a fluid motion she strings the bow and a gentle pluck of the string immerses them in yet more memories. When she unstrings it, Peter sees her hand tremble slightly as it lowers.

When the noise fades Peter knows it's his turn and something akin to fear coils together with the anticipation in his stomach. The shield along with the leather scabbard and the hilt above it wear a coat of the same dust that covers everything in the chamber. He takes the shield down using both hands, brushes it clear to reveal the red lion in its full glory. He fits it onto his arm before turning back for the sword, taking it down, brushing off the dust. He wipes his hand clean on his trousers before he takes hold of the hilt.

There's a sense to this moment that feels like something from myth or legend and he almost expects the sword to stick in the scabbard, to prove him unworthy, but of course it doesn't. It sings as it slides free, as it always has, and shines as if freshly polished when he holds it up in the torchlight. The leather grip is still intact, smooth beneath his hand, softened and conformed over years to the larger grip of the man he once was. (And yet, still, it is his Rhindon. This of all things has remained, his most constant companion besides his siblings, and Peter cannot be anything but grateful.)

Peter is glad to leave the chamber - practically a mausoleum, only lacking bodies, haunted by the ghosts of the Kings and Queens they once were.

Unfortunately, this thought does not make for good sleep.

The next morning Peter and Susan stand dripping wet from rescuing a boat while Lucy and Edmund cut the ropes binding the Dwarf who was in it. He thinks they're ghosts, or thought they would be, at least. If it weren't for the soaking schoolclothes weighing heavy on his body, the hot Narnian sun beating down, the cool metal of the lion's-head pommel of his sword beneath his hand, Peter might be inclined to agree. Either way, when the Dwarf tells them this is the choice spot of the armoured men to "get rid of anyone," as he puts it, a chill runs down his spine. Perhaps there are more ghosts here than their past selves and the people they abandoned.

It's not that Narnia doesn't feel real, or even that he doesn't feel real. It's that since they've returned it's been a struggle to feel the beating heart of their country beneath him, even barefoot on the beach - a connection that had once been ever-present and involuntary as breathing. It's that when he'd first stepped into Narnia at age thirteen it had been wonderful and terrifying but above all Peter had had his duty to keep his family safe, a prophecy to guide and lead him, a goal to achieve. It's that now it's still wonderful and terrifying and anything else he might feel is swallowed and smothered by an unending grief he'd thought he'd managed to tamp down by the end of a year in England. It's that he has a sword hanging heavy on his belt, a shield strapped to his arm and no direction for how to use them. It's clear that Narnia is in peril, but how is he meant to save what's left of his home when he has no clue where to start?

And then the Dwarf tells them of Caspian, of the Old Narnians, how they've been called up by this new King sounding Susan's horn and it's something, it's a starting place, a mission, a purpose. Already Peter's tucking away the sorrow, replacing it with a plan he can follow that starts with finding this Caspian. Determination overwhelms that horrible hollowness and he sits tall, feels his back crack and pop as his spine is pulled straight.

It becomes clear, soon enough, that while Trumpkin no longer thinks them ghosts, he can only see children dressed up in strange clothes and dusty relics. Lucy calls him stupid and Edmund gets all indignant at his scoffing until Peter interrupts, places a hand on his brother's shoulder and shoots him a warning look. They need Trumpkin to take them to Caspian so the Dwarf has to believe their help will be worth something.

The clothes they find down in the treasure chamber are all too large but they make do, cutting and tearing as necessary until they're ill-fitting but wearable beneath the armour they also don. His skin is still damp from his dip in the ocean and goose pimples rise up all over when Peter strips off his schoolclothes. While the Narnian clothes are a little musty the moths haven't got to them, and they're a far sight better than a starched shirt and stiff collar. When they leave the treasure chamber for the second time the weight of armour added to his sword and shield is a comforting one. It reminds him of days when things were perhaps more complicated for dealing with the running of a kingdom (though Susan and Edmund had always been the ones to keep the necessary cogs turning) but which were in other respects far more simple. When he wore that armour it was for the purpose of protecting Narnia, protecting his people and his family, and that if nothing else had always turned the grey to black and white.

He pulls Edmund back as they climb the steps. "Listen, I'm going to challenge Trumpkin to a spar. If he sees we can fight he'll have to respect us, and hopefully help lead us to Caspian."

Edmund shakes his head, a glint in his eye. "No, let me do it," he says, and while Peter knows his brother is right he can't help a flare of disappointment. After holding back that last month and a half in England and longer still before that with only his fists and knees and elbows he wants - almost more than anything - to fight with his sword again, but he can admit Edmund is the better choice for this and so it is his brother who beats Trumpkin soundly using a disarming trick Peter himself once taught him. As he watches the match he feels his hands and feet moving of their own accord, mirroring Edmund's swings and parries in the miniscule like movements in a dance.

An archery contest proves Trumpkin a close contender, but not quite skilled enough to beat Susan (not that any were back in their day, either). Despite it all, he's a good-spirited loser. Lucy spares a drop of her cordial on his wounded shoulder and with that the Dwarf is thoroughly convinced of their status.

It's a strange and sorry thing to leave the ruins of Cair behind. Even so terribly changed and haunted it is at least something familiar, while they have little idea of what might await on the rest of their quest. Taking one of the oars beside Edmund, Peter is able to watch the remains dwindle until they turn the corner of the island and the view is replaced by only woodland atop cliffs. Behind them, directing from the bow, Lucy and Susan reminisce on their past voyages - trips to all the islands out to the east on their Splendour Hyaline - and it fills Peter with a quiet melancholy as he pulls stroke after stroke.

After a while Edmund switches out with Susan. The sun is blinding, dizzying, its heat exhausting, but it is everything England was not so Peter settles into a new rhythm with Susan under Trumpkin's coxing, continues to row. Eventually when his breath starts coming a little too harsh all three of his siblings bully him into giving his oar up to Edmund. Peter sits at the front of the boat with a glum Lucy, who's too short to help row, and aids in directing the way up Glasswater. The three of them swap out in this way until darkness starts to creep in and they leave the boat behind to climb ashore.

Considering the late hour they settle there, the creek at their backs, apples again for dinner. Peter fights the pull of sleep sitting with his back against a tree, sword in his hand and bared across his lap. Edmund and Susan fall swiftly into its clutches and he can hear Trumpkin snoring but Lucy's eyes are still open where she lies near his feet and the starlight glints in them.

"Do you think they missed us?" She whispers out to the dark, to Peter. His little sister is almost still but for her thumb worrying at her little finger like a touchstone.

"I'm sure they did, Lu. Just think how much we missed them."

"I always thought..." she stops, shakes her head. "I knew we'd come back. I knew Aslan wouldn't leave us there, but I never thought it'd be like this."

Her voice is so small. She's always had the strongest faith of all of them in Aslan, in Narnia - after all, she grew up here more than the rest of them did. So when Lucy asks him: "why didn't Aslan bring us back earlier? What if we could have stopped all this?" Peter doesn't know how to answer.

He sighs, looks up at the sky. While Narnia has gone quiet, the stars still dance up in their constellations. Peter was never the best at reading the stars' messages, though he could navigate by them, and knew the patterns of the northern expanse somewhat better from all those nights camped out in the mountains.

"I don't know, Lu," he says, perhaps a little too honestly. There's a rawness in his voice, a tightness in his throat when he imagines everything that might have happened when the Telmarines invaded. He wonders, did Cair fall to them? Or was it simply abandoned to history, crumbling slowly to dust with nobody around to care?

He clears his throat. "There must be something about this time. You know Aslan usually knows what he's doing, even if we can't see it yet. Lion knows I didn't when-"

-When Aslan hadn't shown, that spring morning. When Peter had sat atop a Horse he hardly knew, his brother beside him, sisters missing, armies he had little idea how to command arrayed behind, and a mass of horrific creatures approaching. When the Witch and her chariot had drawn near and her thick fur mantle had shone unmistakably gold in the dawn light. When he'd raised his sword with a shout of Narnia and Aslan and prayed his arm wouldn't shake beneath it. When Edmund had-

He shuts his eyes tightly, refuses to let any images flood into that darkness. "We must have faith in Aslan," he says, willing himself to believe it as strongly as he says it for Lucy.

Peter doesn't know if Lucy replies as the darkness overtakes him. His eyes relax and he succumbs to sleep.

The next morning doesn't get off to a good start. Apples for the fourth time in three days makes for an unappealing breakfast on top of two nights of poor sleep and muscles aching from all the rowing. Lucy's face is set in a frown, Susan grumbles and Peter snaps back without thinking. He regrets it immediately but she turns away and Edmund's on at him about directions and he has no time to apologise.

All that considered it's not a bad hike until the bear and its messiness in more ways than one. The attack leaves them all shaken and after they've skinned the beast and taken as much meat as they're able, everyone's hands are that much closer to their weapons when they set off again. Peter's sure Lucy is aware of it but she doesn't say anything about the four of them forming up around her - Edmund and Peter in front and Susan and Trumpkin at the back of the group.

Still, he knows they're headed the right way and that it can't be too much further, even if they should already have found the Rush by now. Then they strike the gorge and Peter's heart drops through his stomach. The only thought through his head is that this is not his Narnia, and he's led them wrong because of it.

It's a horrible argument - all he can do is apologise and then Susan complains and Lucy defends him and Edmund jabs back at her. Trumpkin at last breaks them all up, bringing them to the realisation that this river is the Rush or as like as matters for their purposes. Just as they're about to head down the gorge Lucy cries out in delight.

"It's Aslan," she says, eyes shining, and Peter looks from Edmund's hope to Susan's skepticism, to Trumpkin's blatant disbelief.

Lucy says Aslan wants them to follow him up the gorge. When it comes to the vote and Trumpkin calls to go down, no one is surprised. When Susan says the same, Lucy's eyes brim with tears and she stamps her foot. Edmund sides with Lucy and Peter holds back a scream through gritted teeth. He did not want to have to decide this.

In his mind, Peter lays out the facts: Trumpkin sort of knows this geography, and if this is indeed the Rush, then so do he and Edmund, for the most part. On the other hand, there's Aslan. In other circumstances it wouldn't even take a thought to follow him but Peter knows how easy it is for the eyes to play tricks, especially when you want to see something, and he knows Lucy wants to see Aslan with everything in her. As badly as he wants to hope, to believe, it's Trumpkin and Glasswater and their own grit that has got them this far, and so even as Lucy stares at him imploringly and his gut tells him to follow her, follow Aslan, he says "down."

His little sister's face crumples and he feels the force of the hurt and betrayal in her eyes, almost shrinks back, but he's made his decision and so down the gorge they go. 

With the way the morning goes, everyone's rather gloomy until they finally see Beruna and the new bridge across the river and as much as he knows Lucy's hurting, Peter can't help but think that at last he's done something right. Of course, then comes the hail of arrows from Miraz's outpost and it's a desperate scramble back the way they came and while it's inconvenient to have lost so much ground he can only be thankful between heavy breaths that they've all escaped unscathed. When it comes to the point that they've not much option but to head up the gorge now, Lucy is happiest of course, but as Trumpkin talks about his plans for their dinner and they begin the trudge that way, they are all somehow in higher spirits.

After dinner, knowing they will surely reach the camp at the How the following day, Peter's finally allows his thoughts to drift to Caspian. A Telmarine Prince turned Narnian King seems rather the contradiction, but Peter has seen the strength of Trumpkin's belief in him - so great that the Dwarf travelled all the way to Cair not for his own hope of the four of them or Aslan but for Caspian alone. To have inspired such faith in a downtrodden people and provided a spark for all-out rebellion speaks to someone driven by one of two things: a true desire for change, or a prodigious will for revenge on his uncle. As he falls asleep, Peter hopes to everything he can think of that it's the former.

Lucy wakes them all in the middle of the night.

There's a good amount of grumbling, and as steadily as she claims that Aslan stands not twenty paces away, none of them can see a thing but empty woods and moonlight. When Peter points this out, Lucy insists she's going with or without them, and Edmund says that even if nobody else will go, he will.

Peter looks at his siblings and the same determined set of their mouths and he knows they feel older but to him they look ten and twelve, and it's not as if he can let them venture into the wilds of this changed Narnia on their own.

Lucy takes the lead and they follow in single file - up along the gorge and then down into it. Susan drags behind and Peter cajoles her as gently as he can, given the circumstances. He's beginning to feel a burgeoning hope now they have a path, and given the way Lucy's clearly following something, he starts to dare to believe that it might just be Aslan.

Edmund turns to Peter with bright eyes as they cross the river, and now that Peter knows the Lion is not Lucy's imagination alone he thinks he sees a flicker of shadow, a twist of tail. It's a little later that he finally sees him. Peter looks on from the ground and high above, all at once, Aslan appears around a bend of the path up the cliff face: bold and bright and golden as if he's cast in sunlight, rather than under the moon. Peter inhales sharply, looks back at Susan whose face only remains creased with effort. She knows what he's seen, and it's a special kind of devastation he feels when her eyes follow his, when they search and strain to catch even the slightest glimpse, passing right over Aslan where he stands.

At the top of the cliffs the land opens up flat and wide, stretching out to a hill beyond a copse of trees not far off. It's here that Susan suddenly stiffens, doesn't stop in her tracks but stumbles in a quite un-Susan-like manner. She moves over to Lucy, takes her hand, says something quietly.

They reach the trees and Aslan halts. Peter continues forward, almost in a trance, plants a knee firmly in the dirt, bows his head. This is how he greets Aslan: sweaty beneath his armour, and apologising and glad above all. It's not unlike their first meeting on that very hill, almost two or fifteen or over a thousand years before.

Now, in the dawn light and in the presence of Aslan, there is something more Kingly and Queenly about all of them. There's a sort of solemness, though Lucy is even merrier than usual and Edmund wears a pleased tilt to his lips and Susan's eyes sparkle like he hasn't seen for too long. It's not this perhaps, but a bearing instilled upon them, forgotten until the great Lion's arrival, Kingmaker that he is. Or, perhaps it's simply that they're finally home.

Aslan gives his instruction, and so with a kiss to Lucy's and Susan's cheeks Peter and Edmund draw their swords and head towards the the How, Trumpkin close behind. As they step through the entrance they hear a roar that Peter knows billows out for miles, and it is this roar that fills him with courage once more. No matter what they might be walking into, his brother is by his side and his sisters are safe and Aslan is here and he will see them through.

Edmund is the one to notice the carvings on the wall in the light from Trumpkin's torch. Once he's seen them Peter cannot stop looking, though there is no time to pause and study the art at the pace they're going. Instead, it's flashes of fading colour and gold - all sorts of beings, Aslan every few steps, and frequently interspersed are the four of them: tall and noble with gold crowning their brows.

It's the first time he's really understood what they mean to this version of Narnia, how they've been fitted into legend by word of mouth, by paint on a wall and built into figures far greater than they ever were in that life. Something builds in the pit of his stomach that he can't put any word to but dread, because how is he meant to live up to this fiction of himself? Maybe once he was Magnificent, but now he is fifteen and the fingers of his spare hand flex and curl at his sides, knuckles cracking as he tries to figure out how he could possibly help Narnia like this.

Edmund glances at him with that concern Peter hates being responsible for. He tilts his head, asking a silent question, and Peter shakes his own, brushes him off. He lets out a long breath. The first step in the plan was to reach Caspian and after all their struggles they are so close to achieving it. He cannot afford to lose focus now.

There's a loud conversation verging on an argument coming from the central chamber of the How as they approach its door. They stand outside and listen as Nikabrik gets nastier, and then the Dwarf speaks of other powers, greater powers, and a chill runs down Peter's spine, seems to spread out across his back, freeze his muscles through. His fingers slacken around the hilt of his sword. He looks over at Edmund and for the first time in this whole venture, for the first time in years, his brother is pale and still with terror.

Inside the room voices rise and weapons are drawn and with that, the three of them burst in. Trumpkin's torch goes out, and in the brief moment before the candle in the room is knocked over and the light extinguished Peter sees a huge figure - pale skin and grey fur - leaping in a great arc towards a young man. He swings his sword, meets flesh and bone.

It's a momentary scuffle, but their element of surprise and the increase in numbers is enough to quickly subdue Nikabrik's attempt at treason in its tracks. When Edmund strikes a match and lights the single candle, Peter takes stock of the situation aloud: their enemies are all dead and he's standing beside someone who can only be Caspian.

Peter's first impression of the new King is dark hair, dark eyes shining in the candlelight, bloody sword, and a look on his face that appears startled and sorrowful all at once. When he looks at Edmund and at Peter it's with a lack of recognition, then Trumpkin introduces them and his eyes widen almost comically. He'll start to stare at them before catching himself and looking away, only to end up doing it again a few moments later.

Caspian's been bitten by the Wer-Wolf and Edmund takes the role of cleaning and bandaging the wound. For all that Peter's had more experience of field wounds than his brother, Edmund's hands have always been steadier for this kind of thing. Even so, he almost wishes he'd done it himself - perhaps if his hands were busy he wouldn't feel Caspian's curious eyes on him quite so heavily.

Caspian reminds him a little of Lucy, Peter realises, when he expresses his regrets about Nikabrik, about how the war has dragged on too long. He seems to wear his heart on his sleeve and while it's crucial that a King can be kind, Peter wonders privately if he will be able to contend with the harsher realities of ruling. His question is answered when after breakfast (thankfully with not an apple in sight) Caspian gives them a full assessment of Miraz's armies and their own. His voice is clear and strong, even if his chin juts forward and he takes a moment to swallow hard when he tells of the Narnian injuries and losses.

Peter knows they cannot count on whatever forces Aslan and the girls are stirring up in the short term, not for a pitched battle. Their job is to buy time, and there is one clear way, so: "I'll send him a challenge to a single combat."

He hasn't got much anything to give, but he can lend his sword in service of Narnia. (He has given blood before, has always been prepared to give more than blood if it ever came to it.)

"Pete-" Edmund starts.

"Ed," he says evenly.

His brother frowns, opens his mouth to argue when Caspian asks, "please, could it not be me?"

"You're wounded," he says, not unkindly, adds something about how Miraz wouldn't take him seriously anyhow. It's not untrue, but it's also more than that: Caspian deserves revenge for his father, but he shouldn't have to kill his own uncle. Truthfully, Peter doesn't know him well enough to say whether he'd be able to beat Miraz anyway, let alone follow through if he did. (Peter knows he can kill, if he has to.)

Neither Caspian nor Edmund is too happy with the outcome but Peter's word goes and they both begrudgingly accept it. He dictates his challenge for Miraz to the Doctor Cornelius without further interruption.

He sends Edmund to deliver the message, knows that his brother will get the job done, nevermind his own feelings on the matter. In the meantime Caspian shows Peter the army. The Doctor, Trufflehunter and Trumpkin peel off and so they return to the central chamber alone. The bodies of the creatures and Nikabrik have been removed and now there is no fight, there are no greetings to make, no orders to give, Peter's eyes go right to the Stone Table at the centre of the room. He remembers Susan's shaky voice that night after the battle, when she'd told him what Aslan had done for Edmund.

"I should be the one fighting Miraz," Caspian says from behind him.

Peter doesn't turn, doesn't answer.

"It's my place," Caspian says, a little louder this time, and it's clear he's not going to let the matter go.

"I am the High King, you know?" When he looks around, Caspian's face is almost apprehensive, except his mouth is pressed in an angry line and his eyes shine with it.

"Caspian-" he starts, only to be interrupted.

"-How am I to prove myself to these people and make things better for Narnia if I cannot defeat their enemies, if my battles are fought for me?" He challenges.

Whatever Peter may have worried over before meeting him, it is clear that Caspian is not just a boy playing at being a King. Along with the title he has had responsibility thrust onto his shoulders, but beyond that there's this belief about him - an unshakeable, almost juvenile thing. He knows things can be better, and has the obstinacy to not give up, to see them through, even to his own potential detriment. Peter thinks that perhaps Caspian is King for better reasons than he himself was. (All Peter really did was fall through a wardrobe and stumble into the rest.)

Peter sighs. "I'm not trying to take your place, Caspian."

"So you say, but-"

"-Let me speak." It's his own turn to interrupt and his tone brooks no argument.

"Your shoulder is hurt, yes?" Caspian nods mutely. "And from what I understand of Miraz's character, he would not hesitate to take advantage of this. Secondly, the man has known you your whole life - even if he were to accept a challenge from you, he knows how you fight and has been wielding a sword far longer."

Caspian's head tilts down and Peter exhales, exasperated. "I don't mean to say that you would not be a worthy opponent, Caspian, but you do not need to kill your uncle to earn the respect of your people. That will come with your actions and with time. We didn't kill the White Witch, you know?"

He looks up, the space between his brows creasing. "But the stories say-"

"-Stories are often just that," Peter says. His lips quirk up in amusement before his gaze falls back on the Stone Table and he feels his smile fade. "It was Aslan who took care of the Witch, in the end. When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death, they said. Turned out to be a rather literal line of prophecy."

"Oh," says Caspian. "But... it is not Aslan fighting Miraz."

"No, it's not."

He sounds so very young when he asks: "are you- Will you kill him?"

He can't be much older than Peter, really, and while he's fought in the skirmishes and small battles of this war, killing in battle is very different to doing the same in single combat. Peter knows this.

"It would be cleaner on all sides." It's not really an answer. "This is personal for you in a way it isn't for me. If I win, if you want me to spare him..." He looks back to Caspian, who seems almost afraid to be met with this decision.

Caspian takes a few moments to think, swallows hard before speaking: steady, and carefully dispassionate. He doesn't meet Peter's eyes, instead focuses on some point behind him. "I do not think that killing Miraz alone would cow the Telmarine army - his court is a pit of snakes and it is like as not that they would continue the fight without him. For that, we must be prepared." Peter nods.

"However, he has committed many evils to reach his position and to keep it, and he despises everything Old Narnia stands for. If he were to remain alive, he would never let up. He would do anything possible to regain the throne and quash Old Narnia for good." It is at this that he finally meets Peter's eyes. "If you have the chance, High King, strike true."

There is an anguish, a sort of shame painted on his face that he does not shy away from in this place with Peter alone to witness. All Peter can do is nod again, gravely, like he understands this sacrifice of family that Caspian is making, when really he knows he never will.

"Thank you," Caspian says suddenly. Peter tilts his head and Caspian hastens to explain. "Ever since I fled that night, since I landed up with Trufflehunter and Trumpkin and Nikabrik-" his mouth twists on the last name "-and this whole business started... I always thought that if we did, by some miracle, succeed in this venture, I would have to be the one to kill him. And, while I hold no great love for the man, he is still my uncle, so in some terrible way I find myself glad," he grimaces. It's weak of me, I know." His eyes are trained on the ground.

"Caspian- no! Stars, no. Not wanting to take a life is not a weakness - the opposite, in fact - even when it comes to enemies. Especially when it comes to enemies." He steps forward, clasps Caspian's shoulder. "Every life has value. Taking one must always be the last resort."

He doesn't answer.

"You are not weak," Peter says, a little softer. "Whoever told you that clearly does not know you." He lays his other hand on Caspian's chest. "Your strength lies here, in your heart, in the people you care for; it is not measured by the number you've cut down. You have a Narnian heart, Caspian."

Caspian stands taller, then, like the weight of the world has been lifted from his shoulders, nods a little shakily. He meets Peter's eyes, then he frowns again, looks away. "Still, I am sorry to make you do it instead."

He shakes his head. "You're not making me do anything." There is plenty of blood on his hands already. What's a little more, if it keeps Caspian's clean?

"Nevertheless," Caspian says. "Thank you, High King."

His breath catches as Caspian's eyes meet his in that moment. He's suddenly aware of how close they are, and when he speaks it's barely audible, rushes out as an exhalation. "Peter. Call me Peter."

"Peter," he says, Telmarine accent curling around the word. If he isn't careful, Peter thinks, he could almost mistake the reflection of the flickering torchlight in his eyes for something like wonder.

He's not sure quite how long they stand there, but at some point the rumblings of noise from the rest of the How build and there are voices calling both their names. Edmund has returned with the news that Miraz has agreed to the terms. From there it's all a swift blur of choosing the marshals followed by a quick lunch and then exiting the How beneath the early-afternoon sun to go the short distance to the marked-out field.

On this walk over he heads the column of the entire company of Old Narnians who are able. Edmund is on his right, and if he didn't know better he'd say his brother is entirely unbothered by the approaching event. Peter knows better, can see how ever so slightly his jaw is set forward and his eyes are narrowed and when he deigns to speak to Peter it's clipped. It's Peter's own fault. Edmund had asked him earlier if he thought he could beat Miraz and he knows now (knew then, too,) what he was supposed to say, but his eyes had caught on one of those portraits on the wall - High King Peter the Magnificent battling the Giants on their northern border. The thought had struck like a mace to the gut that that isn't him any more, had knocked the air from his lungs. It had taken him unprepared and entirely the wrong words had slipped from his mouth: not the confidence of a King or even the brashness of an English schoolboy but the uncertainty of something in-between and neither, something thirteen, on tenterhooks and about to fight his first battle all over again.

So, Edmund is angry with him and Peter walks with his head high and footsteps steady while inside his armour he's all off-kilter. This is the time when Susan would say something sensible and bracing, when Lucy would tell a joke to break the tension or a story to inspire, but their sisters are with Aslan and Peter is all of a sudden aware of the possibility he won't see them again, his Gentle Susan, his Valiant Lucy. He looks over at Edmund and his brother just stares straight ahead, marches on.

"Ed," he says, loud enough only to carry to his brother above the ruckus of armour and voices around and behind them. He doesn't react. "Edmund," he tries again and this time there's a twitch of his cheek, a tightening of his brother's mouth that tells Peter he's listening, at least. "I'm sorry. For back in England, for steering us wrong here, for what I said earlier-"

"-I don't want your bloody apologies, Peter." Edmund snaps, finally turning to face him. "I want you to win."

Peter can't promise that. Edmund knows he can't promise that. All the same, he hardens his face to the determined set of it he once practiced over and over in the mirror in his room in a castle long since ruined.

"I'll win," he promises.

Miraz is not an old man. He was the younger brother to Caspian's father, and while he's been a greedy tyrant of a king, it's clear he's not let his muscle go to waste sitting on a throne. Peter is fifteen (should be thirty, by rights, but he's fifteen in all the ways that matter right now) and has hardly swung a sword in a year.

Peter is quicker, however, and the Narnian air has worked its magic. He has the benefit of spry limbs along with Dwarf-wrought mail that's lighter and sturdier than Miraz's Telmarine stuff. The fight is up and down and then he manages to get first blood, pricks Miraz in the armpit only to get the man's full weight landing on his shield. His wrist screams (Peter screams through gritted teeth, curses himself after for reacting like that where Miraz could hear him). As he wrenches himself back he kicks Miraz away, uses the moment to try to get his shield arm back in position only for blinding pain to shoot through his wrist and up his arm. It sends his hand spasming when he tries to straighten it to support the weight, and Peter has to let his arm hang limp to make any sense of things. When Peter suggests a rest, Miraz's beady eyes flick between Peter and his arm and back, but his face is red beneath his helmet and he's huffing and puffing. Still, he tries to make it sound like a magnanimous gift to Peter when he agrees. The effect is lost somewhat considering Peter is the only one to hear it and doesn't particularly care, as long as he gets a moment.

"I think it's sprained," he tells Edmund, who wears the same pursed-lips disapproval he had back at school, bandaging up Peter's knuckles and writing to Susan. It makes him want to laugh. His eyes blur and he blinks hard, tells himself it's the pain.

His brother wraps up his wrist tight as he can bear to hold it stiff and firm and he can just about support his shield. He needs to get back out into the lists - on the other side of the field Miraz is getting up.

"Ed," he says.

"You'll win," Edmund says fiercely, practically an order, and who is Peter to refuse something like that?

"Righto, then," he replies.

Behind his brother Caspian hovers, catches his eye over Edmund's shoulder. His face is stricken with guilt. Peter gives him a sharp nod, wants to tell him not to worry, that he'll get this done, will beat Miraz or die trying and that either way if Aslan is doing his work it should all turn out alright. Old Narnia will be free again. He's not sure it all makes it into the nod because Caspian doesn't look any less concerned, but across the field the Telmarine army is jeering and calling for him and so Peter turns away, starts walking towards Miraz.

If he doesn't look back he can imagine Susan and Lucy are standing there with Edmund, can imagine he was able to wish them all goodbye. Peter doesn't look back.

He does his best to use his speed in this second bout that they all know will be the last. Peter doges and ducks and weaves and springs back to avoid Miraz's heavy-handed swings, parries some and manages to get in a blow or so of his own here and there until there's a ringing in his ears and his head is killing him and Peter is on the floor with Miraz bearing down on him. Everything turns slow and syrupy for a moment and in the haze of it all he has the time to wonder if this is it, if it's his turn to sacrifice for Narnia. He thinks of Susan's tears when she'd told him about Aslan on the Stone Table, thinks about seeing Edmund fall to the ground with the Witch's broken wand right through him. Distantly, he hopes his brother doesn't watch when he dies.

The man's sword glances off his shoulder and it's pure instinct that has Peter grabbing the arm and letting Miraz unwittingly pull him back to his feet. Miraz bellows and his swordwork becomes faster but sloppier. They trade blows evenly, jabbing and slicing and parrying and Peter sinks into it, body practicing drills he knows by heart, until all of a sudden Miraz is down, has tripped and fallen.

If you have the chance, High King, strike true, he remembers Caspian telling him, and almost raises his sword, but then he remembers that anguish on his face. Besides, if Peter were to take Miraz out like this the Telmarines would be baying for his blood to be spilled on this grass not a moment later. It's not the right way, not for something with these stakes. If Peter is to win it has to be definitive - he cannot give them an inch of anything to protest about.

This has all hardly passed through Peter's mind when the Telmarine marshals jump their ropes crying treachery and Aslan's Teeth is Peter tired but he bends his knees and raises his sword as they rush at him, and he yells for the Narnian army. One of the marshals stops on his way to stab Miraz in the back and Peter can't help his relief - it's one worry taken care of.

Edmund is first at his side of course, and as the Telmarine army crashes forward Peter sees Caspian on his other side, catches a glimpse of Trumpkin behind. The four of them hold their position on the field as the battle rages into being and Peter forgets the ache of his muscles, the pain of his wrist, swings his sword through the power of bitter determination and every time thinks just once more.

He hardly realises the Telmarines are running until they're halfway across the field and the Narnians are hooting and hollering and all around is the scent of pine and the noise of creaking branches. The trees are finally awake, and Peter wishes Lucy were here to see it as they chase the enemy.

When they follow the Telmarines and the trees down to the river it's to find the bridge gone. After the terror of the trees, being faced with the open ford and lacking their leaders they are all too ready to set down their arms. The few who would have fought on are cowed by Aslan's arrival, accompanied by Bacchus and his Maenads and all sorts of others, and Susan and Lucy shining beside him.

Peter shares a grin with Edmund, turns to Caspian who stands stock still, staring at the Lion.

"Come on." He jerks his head in Aslan's direction.

"I couldn't," says Caspian, aghast.

"Yes you can," Peter tells him, and Caspian tears his gaze away from Aslan to look at him.

"Can I?" It's hesitant, as if he's teetering on the brink of something wonderful but almost can't bear to allow himself it.

"You can," Peter says firmly.

At that, Caspian finally seems to relax a little. Even so, when Peter places a hand on his shoulder to guide him over to the Lion he can feel it's stiff and tense beneath his mail.

Aslan greets them with as much a smile as he ever has, pronounces Caspian King. After Reepicheep is healed and his tail restored, Caspian kneels before Peter who taps him on the shoulders with the flat of his blade. Caspian rises a Knight, with his back straight and head held high.

The celebrations rage that night: fires blazing, food and wine flowing, music playing and people dancing all about.

Peter takes a moment to sneak away into the dark of the tree cover, to lie flat on his back on the ground and close his eyes, to dig his fingers into the rich earth and reach down. Far beneath him, Narnia's heart beats strong and the joy of finally feeling her truly alive once more fills him up to overflowing.

There's the sound of a gentle footfall, the clearing of a throat and Peter opens his eyes, sits up to see Caspian. Someone's topped his head with a magnificent crown of leaves from which sprays of tiny flowers peek: yellows and whites that Peter can just about make out in the dim light.

"Lucy got to you?"

"Indeed," Caspian chuckles. "She has King Edmund working overtime, though he doesn't seem to mind too much. There's one for you, too." He brings his hands out from behind his back to reveal a second wreath matching his own. When he steps closer Peter notices there are purple flowers too in both. "May I?" Caspian asks, and Peter dips his head in answer, tucks his chin down and feels the crown carefully placed upon his head. What he doesn't expect is for Caspian's hand to still half an inch from his cheek, for his thumb to swipe beneath Peter's eye, for that thumb to collect a single tear.

All of a sudden Caspian springs back. "I- I'm sorry, I should not have- I thought-" His eyes are wide, body half turned in the other direction like he's about to flee. Peter's cheek feels cold.

"Caspian," Peter says, low and steady.

"Yes?"

"You are a King of Narnia now." He looks a wild thing, crowned with leaves and flowers and eyes shining in the dark. "Come here, let me show you Narnia." He pats the ground beside him and Caspian lurches forward, sits with a thud. He crosses his legs, turns to face Caspian, presses his hands to the earth in the little space between them. Caspian mirrors him. "Reach down," Peter instructs, "not with your hands but with everything inside of you: your mind, your will, your heart."

He watches Caspian's eyes close, and a little crease form between his brows. Then, all of a sudden his fingers curl, scrape through the dirt, and he sucks in a sharp breath. "Is that-?" He asks, hushed.

"Yes," Peter smiles.

When his eyes finally flutter open, tears like diamonds cling to his lashes. "I never imagined..." he murmurs.

"It's like nothing else," Peter says.

Caspian makes a "hmm," gaze fixed on Peter but eyes distant, mind clearly elsewhere.

A strain of music winds through the trees, reminds him of the ongoing celebrations, and Peter climbs slowly and carefully to his feet. His muscles have long since cooled and are beginning to ache from his fight with Miraz, and while his wrist hasn't been bothering him too much as is, still bound up tightly, there's a shock of pain every time he accidentally places any pressure through it. Caspian rises too, and together they weave their way back towards the revelry.

As they reach the fringes of it Peter halts, places a hand on Caspian's shoulder. "That feeling back there? Remember that," he tells him. "This is yours to protect, now."

Caspian's eyes are pools of gold in the light from the fire and he holds Peter's gaze as he nods. "I swear it, High King. With my life."

"Peter," he reminds him.

Caspian's lips curl. "Peter," he replies, says it like it's something precious, and there's a look on his face that sends Peter's insides fluttering, turns his mind entirely blank.

Peter forces himself to look away.

There are many others around wearing wreath-crowns, but his and Caspian's are the only two he can see that match. When Peter finds Lucy caught up in a dance she snaps a hand out as she passes and tugs him in. "Lu," he says, shoots her an unimpressed look.

"Yes, brother dear?" She beams up at him from beneath sprays of red, orange and yellow as she passes under his arm.

"I don't know what you think you're doing, Lu, but-

"-Caspian found you, then?" There's a mischievous glint in her eyes to go with her smile. "He was looking everywhere, even before I sent him off with the crown."

And that- well, that doesn't matter here nor there because the point is that Lucy shouldn't be meddling. He tells her as much and she only laughs, says he's lucky Susan hasn't got involved yet. At that, Peter can only sigh. When the dance ends he ignores her protests to tousle her hair, and ducks away to find their sister.

Susan holds court sitting against a tree, chatting with two fauns, a Raven and a Dryad. Her wreath has little blue flowers all interlaced. Gingerly he sets himself down beside her, and as soon as he's sat, his bones seem to be made of lead. His sister talks for a short while before gracefully dismissing the little group in her masterful manner, where it doesn't sound remotely like the order it is.

"Tired?" She asks, and he slumps to the side, lays his head on her shoulder.

"Like you wouldn't believe."

She laughs a little. "It's certainly been a day." In fact, Peter realises he and Edmund have likely been up over twenty hours at this point. His eyelids start to droop in response to the thought but he forces them open.

"How was everything on your end?"

"You'd hardly have known there was a war on," Susan says, relates the breaking of the bridge, tromping around Beruna and Beaversdam with Aslan and Bacchus and his girls until their group joined up with Peter's own. "What about you? Ed told me about your match and really, Peter? Single combat? What were you thinking?"

He shrugs, too tired for her badgering to have much effect. "Least number of possible casualties," he mumbles through a yawn.

Susan shakes her head. "And you've clearly not let Lucy at you with her cordial."

"I'll heal up fine. It would only be a waste."

She sighs, but knows there's little point in pressing the matter, tired as he is. There are a good number of people still dancing - Lucy included, currently whirling a Naiad around - but the music has slowed somewhat. Susan hums along to it quietly, leans her head against his, and before long, Peter drops off to sleep.

The next day is a slow one for the most part until dusk, when they gather back by the river for Caspian's coronation. A group of Dwarfs present the new crown to Peter, and they seem to have taken inspiration from the wreath Caspian was wearing the previous night. All fashioned in gold it's mostly ash leaves, but tucked here and there inamongst them are flowers too - exact replicas (but for colour) of the little purple, yellow and white ones Lucy had given to Edmund to weave in.

The sky is pink and orange when Caspian kneels before the four of them and Aslan, an array of Narnians and Telmarines watching on.

Lucy steps forward first on light feet to present Caspian with a staff of apple wood. "Do you swear to love all the creatures of Narnia equally, to treat their hearts and their health as if they were your own?"

Caspian bows his head to Lucy. "I do swear it," he says, takes the staff in his left hand. Lucy steps back.

Edmund is next with measured steps holding a silver set of scales. "Do you swear to rule all the creatures of Narnia justly and fairly, to uphold the laws that have come before you and set down new ones in accordance with what is best for this country and her people?"

"I do swear it," Caspian says again with a nod, takes the scales in his right hand. Edmund steps back.

Susan is third, glides forward with a cape of rich purple. "Do you swear to protect those under your charge to the best of your ability, to shelter those in need and be a shield to the Narnian people?"

"I do swear it," Caspian says, inclines his head, and Susan ties the cape around his shoulders, walks back to her place.

Peter is the last, moves forward to stand before Caspian with the crown. "Do you swear to be the first in the charge and the last in the retreat if enemies should come against this land, to be the sword of the Narnian people?"

"I do swear it," Caspian says, bowing his head before lifting his chin back up, holding steady as Peter places the crown atop his hair. His face remains solemn but a fierce joy shines in his eyes.

"Then rise, Caspian, tenth of that name, King of Narnia, Lord of Cair Paravel and Emperor of the Lone Islands," Aslan rumbles.

Caspian plants the base of the staff in the ground, steadily comes to his feet. There's a great deal of applause and cheering that swiftly leads into the beginnings of more feasting and dancing and drinking.

Caspian is pulled away in one direction almost immediately, and Lucy drags Peter closer to the music to dance with her. After a few dances he ducks out, eats with Edmund and sits with Susan with a cup of wine. Whenever Caspian comes up in conversation they each give him the same knowing look paired with a teasing smile. From Lucy he's already expectant of it, and with Edmund he's mostly just glad his brother isn't angry with him any longer, but when Susan does it he groans. "Not you too!" She laughs, even as he sighs at her.

In the end he finds Caspian leant against a tree in the half-light at the edge of the clearing. "Alright?" He asks.

"Hmm? Yes, just... taking it all in." He turns his gaze from the partying to Peter. "This has happened so quickly. I still can hardly believe that..." he breaks off, shakes his head with a small laugh.

"What?"

"You," he says. "All of you," he hastens to add. "I spent the days of my childhood pretending you weren't real to appease my uncle and the nights with Doctor Cornelius learning all I could about Narnia's Golden Age. When you first arrived at the How I could scarcely believe it... hardly can now, if I'm honest."

Peter grips his arm. "We're real, Caspian. We're here." He's only known Caspian two days, and yet somehow it feels like a lifetime.

There's a look in his eyes that Peter's trying to puzzle out when Caspian suddenly leans in and kisses him. (Just like that. Like it's easy.) When he pulls away Peter stands stock still staring at him, can hardly form thoughts, let alone whatever words he might be waiting to hear

Caspian curses under his breath. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have done that. I'll-" he starts to turn, to leave, but Peter tightens his grip as Caspian's arm slides out of it, catches his hand.

"No, you-" he starts. "I mean, that was-" he sighs in frustration, pulls Caspian close until they're inches apart. "Can I?" It's hesitant. It feels like he's teetering on the brink of something wonderful, something he almost can't bear to allow himself. (He's wonderful. And terrifying.) But... Peter doesn't have to conform to English sensibilities here, is no longer subject to the duties of Kingship that always used to take precedence. (He will always be High King, he knows, but this is not his Narnia any longer and for the first time since they've returned there is something freeing about that).

"You can," Caspian says firmly.

Peter kisses him and it's like feeling Narnia alive again.

The next few days are a flurry of sorting out Miraz's castle and helping Caspian set up his rule. Susan and Edmund do the best part of advising on sending messengers and how to sort trade agreements and all that kind of thing, and Peter stays by Caspian's side, chips in where he can, links their fingers beneath the table while others are around (more, when they're alone). His siblings are rather insufferable about it but it's good-natured, and in all honesty Peter finds he's too happy to care.

Aslan tells him and Susan one night that he wants to speak to them early the next morning - before the gathering of the Telmarines who don't want to stay in Narnia. Peter doesn't think too much of it at the time, tells Aslan they'll be there before returning to the card game Lucy is trying to teach Caspian. After breakfast, he and Susan find Aslan outside the castle walls. The Lion's face is solemn, his eyes sorrowful, and it sends a bolt of fear right through Peter. "We have come, Aslan," he says, not unwarily.

"I am afraid, my children, that your time here is done."

For a moment, Peter can't understand, and then he does, and he wonders why the birds are still singing in the trees. This is the ruins of Cair, the treasure chamber covered in dust, the ghosts and the bear and the gorge all over again and infinitely worse. Peter's instinct has always led him to fight over flight but now he freezes, every muscle tensed, and it takes conscious thought to make his chest rise and fall again. He's been so caught up in all the joys of setting everything to rights, in seeing Narnia bloom once more, in Caspian, that he hadn't stopped to even think it might not last. Even if they'd returned to England eventually, they'd had so much longer last time. In truth, Peter had always secretly hoped that their leaving had all been some terrible accident. Susan grabs his hand and oh, this is happening to Susan, too, his darling, Gentle Susan.

"You must learn to know me in your own world, in my other forms," the Lion tells them, and Peter wants to shout in protest that this is their world, to ask what else ever could be, only he cannot find his voice. Beside him Susan is silent and shaking and Peter doesn't know whether it's from rage or grief, can't bear to look at her to find out.

"What about Edmund and Lucy?" He chokes out finally. What about Caspian? He wants to ask.

"They shall return to Narnia, in their own time."

"When do we go?" Susan's voice is clear, sharp, matter-of-fact.

Aslan tells them it'll be with the Telmarines who wish to leave. They don't even have two hours left in Narnia.

They return to the castle in a daze. "You should speak to Caspian," Susan tells him. Peter manages a nod, reaches out to catch her hand as she starts to walk away.

"Su, don't-" he can't quite get the words out but she nods anyway, knows he means don't tell the others. They shouldn't have to know it's their last hours in Narnia (only this time at least, for them). A stray thought leads him to wonder if this is why Aslan left it so late to tell him and Susan. In the end it doesn't really make anything better, when they still have to leave, just feels like less time.

Peter makes his way up to Caspian's rooms and knocks.

"Come in," he calls. He's sitting at his desk drafting a letter. "How was it with Aslan?" He asks, scratches out a word and scribbles something else.

Peter stops in the centre of the room and looks at him, silhouetted by sunlight shining through the window behind, and suddenly he knows with an unshakeable certainty that this is going to hurt more than anything has yet. His sword is in his hands and he takes the last few steps, sets it gently on the smooth, dark wood, steps back. (His hands fall at his sides and his left instinctively searches for the pommel to the blade that no longer sits on his belt. He tucks his hands behind his back, laces his fingers together so he doesn't reach out to try and take it back.)

Caspian's quill stops moving and slowly he places it down before looking up. "What's this?"

"I thought that would be quite evident," Peter says.

"I can see it's your sword, but I'm unsure what you mean by leaving it on my desk."

"Your sword," Peter mutters.

"What?"

"Your sword, now," he says, clearer. "I'm giving it to you." He fixes his eyes on the red-brown leather of the scabbard.

"Why are you giving me your sword, Peter?" There's an edge to it - he can tell something is wrong, of course.

When Peter can't answer, can't even look at him, Caspian asks again, louder, "why are you giving me your sword?" His voice is shaking now. He stands, and his knuckles are white where he clutches his side of the desk.

It's not the full truth but it's part of it, when he eventually speaks. "Can't quite bear to let it sit in some treasure chamber collecting dust again, when we're-" gone. The last word doesn't even make it out of his chest, sticks in his lungs like it's trying to make a home there (trying to stay like he so desperately wants to).

"When you're what?" Caspian asks.

It seems to take an age to pry the answer from his unwilling lips. "We're leaving."

"I don't understand."

Peter doesn't either, really. (Except he does - he remembers tripping over the entrance to a wardrobe, the sharp, fresh pain of skinned knees and the immediate realisation of where he was that had hurt far more. It might be more accurate to say he knows. He had never understood it then, doesn't now, thinks he never might. Perhaps it's easier that way, to not think about the why of it so deeply. He's not sure he'd ever find an answer if he tried.)

"We're leaving," he chokes out again. "The four of us." And now the worst part: "Su and I... we won't be back."

"What?" It's a breath, hardly louder than a heartbeat. His brows knit together. "Then, I will come with you," he declares. Peter finally looks at him and he is vehement and blazing and beautiful and Peter can only swallow around the lump in his throat, shake his head.

"You know you can't do that," he smiles sadly.

"I'm King," he returns.

"Exactly," Peter says softly.

For a few long moments they simply stand there in the silence and still and the morning sunlight. Caspian's face is utterly shattered, and the shards of it cut Peter's heart to shreds.

He makes to move around the desk, stills when Peter steps back, frowns.

"Don't," Peter whispers. "Please." He thinks he'd rather take his sword (not his, any longer) from the desk and split himself open than let Caspian close right now, knows that if he feels even a brush of fingers on skin he'll want to pull him close and cling to him and never let go.

But Peter has to leave. Caspian has to stay.

So Caspian stays behind the desk. Peter turns and leaves.

An hour later, the first Telmarine goes through the Door in the air and the rest begin to mutter uneasily. Peter exchanges a glance with Susan. This is it. They lead Edmund and Lucy to where their schoolclothes have been brought. Peter changes as quickly as he can, wanting to think about it as little as possible. The stiff collar and tie feel more like a noose than usual.

He's knelt down lacing his shoes when he hears someone approaching, looks up to see Caspian striding towards him, thunderous expression on his face. Peter stands just as he reaches him and Caspian doesn't stop, pushes him back into the trunk of a tree and slams his mouth against Peter's. It's harsh and heavy and angry. He grabs at Caspian's shoulder and it sends a shock of pain through his sprained wrist. Caspian makes a wounded noise and Peter remembers it's his bad shoulder. Neither of them stop. Peter pulls him closer, gasps at the pain and Caspian swallows the sound, bites at his lip. His other hand finds Caspian's waist, settles there, the hilt of his sword (Peter's sword - he's taken it) pressing into the back of his hand. When Caspian pulls back they're both breathing heavily. Without a word, Caspian turns and walks back the way he came.

Peter sags against the tree, readjusts his tie, plants his feet as firmly as he can so he doesn't do something foolish like run after him.

All too soon his siblings are ready, and Peter leads the way back so they can't see his face. He's schooled it by the time they return to the gathering to see Caspian taking his spot between Trumpkin and Aslan. The four of them make their goodbyes and Caspian's expression has softened by the time Peter reaches him.

"I'm sorry," he says quietly into Caspian's shoulder.

"I know," Caspian whispers.

Caspian has one hand on the pommel of his sword, and hidden from the crowd behind by his body, Peter allows his own to fall atop it for a brief moment. "It's yours, forever," he says, hopes Caspian understands everything he means by that.

He wants to stay here in Caspian's arms. He pulls back, feels the faintest brush of lips against his cheek, blinks fiercely against the pressure behind his eyes.

Peter leads the way to the Door, Susan's fingers gripping so tightly into his shoulders that he wouldn't be surprised if they left bruises. As he approaches the Doorway the view splits into three: golden sand and blue sea, the familiar grey of the railway station, and, finally, Narnia. Aslan stands golden and brilliant as ever but Peter only has eyes for Caspian standing beside him. It's strange, almost like a hall of mirrors, because Peter is watching Caspian and Caspian is watching him and yet the image through the Door is at the wrong angle and their eyes don't meet.

The last sight of Narnia Peter sees is Caspian cast in sunlight, dark eyes shining almost as bright as the crown atop his head, Peter's sword buckled on his belt and a white-knuckled hand clenched around the lion's-head pommel. There are tears streaming down his face.

Then, Peter steps through onto stone and concrete. The sun is uncovered by clouds but it's a harsh light that illuminates the quiet platform, the station, their trunks and boxes piled around their feet.

Peter's wrist doesn't hurt anymore.

And that's it. They're back, and the girls' train arrives and Peter and Edmund help with their suitcases, bid them goodbye, and then it's just the two of them sat waiting for their own train.

"Bother it! I think I left my torch behind," Edmund says.

Peter makes some noise of acknowledgement, doesn't say: I think I left my heart behind.

Their train ride is quiet. Peter watches the countryside pass outside the window, feels Edmund studying him at intervals but his brother doesn't speak and so neither does he.

Last time they'd returned he'd ended up so angry he'd let it consume him; he doesn't think that's going to happen this time. This time, the best word Peter can find is defeated (though lost and tired resonate too). They get to school, unpack, begin to settle in and it's easy to go through the motions while his mind is filled with nothing but the static hiss and crackle of the wireless in-between stations. It's two days in, conjugating verbs in Latin class when it hits him for the first time that he has to live here, now. This is all he has. It's the first time but not the last, and every time it hits him again it's like seeing that portrait on the wall of the How, feeling all the breath leave his lungs. He is not King Peter the Magnificent, will never have the chance to be that man again here, but he has to do something. When his teachers start talking about subject choices and careers, Peter sees Medicine written on the chalkboard, and he has always worked best with a goal to achieve - perhaps this can be his new one. It's something that would help people, at the very least.

There are days where Peter wakes early and keeps his eyes closed, where in the still and quiet of morning he can almost pretend he's somewhere else until the bells ring and he and the other boys in his dorm have to get up and ready for the day. Even as he throws himself into his schoolwork there are times when it's not distraction enough. Sometimes he'll go and find Edmund and talking about home soothes the ache, but there are other times where he knows his brother's continual skirting around Caspian's name will only grate. On these occasions he sneaks out, slips through the broken panel in the back fence, past the old bench where some of the younger boys go to smoke in secret, and into the small copse of trees just behind the school.

He never dares try to reach down into the earth, (he will never feel that again, now,) learned his lesson about doing that here in England back at the Professor's house in the country, but lying on the cool grass and searching for gaps of sky between the criss-cross of branches above him helps clear his mind a little. Here, if he closes his eyes and listens to the birds, feels the breeze and the solid earth beneath him, he can almost believe it's home. Sometimes it feels so close he can taste it and for a short while it's a pleasant dream until he hears boys shouting in the distance, smells acrid smoke, and it's lost to him once more.

(There are other times when even that isn't enough, when it feels like nothing will fill that hollow within. There are times when he's thirteen again, curled up on the floor with his damp face pressed into his knees, his hands. Sometimes he voices aloud to no one the things he couldn't manage, couldn't even think, on that terrible morning when Aslan had told them their fate. Sometimes, Peter begs.)

And then one morning Peter is standing in the school chapel and something about the hymn he's singing strikes him as so utterly Narnian that he wonders how he never heard it before. When he prays, it's to Aslan; silently he asks, is this the way? When he steps outside, a gentle breeze kisses his face, uncommonly warm for October. It feels a little like Lion's breath. (And it's not home, but it's better than nothing.)

He writes to Susan, and it's his first letter in a long while where all the words are entirely legible because he hasn't had to contend with swollen knuckles, hasn't had to try to avoid getting blood on the page.

Peter turns sixteen in April and he's spent more years of his life in England than he ever will in Narnia.

As hard as he works that year, it can't quite make up for the previous one spent doing little but fighting, and the long while they spent in the country doing little but missing home. His teachers say his end of year exams show improvement and promise, but he'll need some extra help if he's set on Medicine. When his mother gets in contact with Professor Kirke, he's only happy to take Peter over the summer holidays while Susan and their parents are off to America and the younger two get stuck with Uncle Harold and Aunt Alberta and Eustace.

It's rather pleasant, Peter finds, staying with the Professor again. He will never really understand their experience of Narnia but he believed them when they knew no one else would, understands enough that he's always treated them as adults since they told him about their time there. During the work hours it's all school subjects, but the Professor manages to make them far more memorable and interesting than Peter's teachers. Outside of that, they talk about all sorts of topics: literature, philosophy, astronomy, sciences, and the Professor actually wants to hear his thoughts. It's a novel experience here in England where Peter is dismissed all too often due to his perceived youth.

They talk about Narnia, sometimes. Peter tells him things from their reign, the history he learnt that fell between it and the first days that Professor Kirke witnessed. After telling him the base details Peter doesn't talk about his last visit, and the Professor allows him to steer away from the subject whenever they get too close to it. He doesn't ask, either, and Peter is immensely grateful for that.

His aunt and uncle have a phone in their house but Professor Kirke doesn't in his new place, so twice a week Peter walks to the nearest phone box to call Edmund and Lucy. One or the other usually picks up after a ring or two, but one day a few weeks into the summer it's almost instant, and Lucy's shrieking his name down the phone.

"We went back!" She starts rattling off details so fast he can hardly follow but he gets the gist. Something about a painting, then all three of them in the ocean - "Eustace too!" - and picked up by a ship belonging to Caspian. (And his heart does this funny clenching thing.) He hears a hiss in the background but he can't quite make out the words. Lucy's voice falters momentarily before she picks up like nothing happened.

Peter's insides twist. He wasn't prepared for this, isn't sure he can bear to hear Lucy chattering on about Caspian and his ship and his crew and his quest, and so as his sister starts talking about the Lone Islands he interrupts.

"Here, Lu! Listen, that all sounds very exciting. I'm glad you two got to go back, and I'm sure you'll tell me all about it properly next I see you, but there's someone waiting for the phone and he's looking pretty impatient."

"Oh," says Lucy. "I see. Well, if you don't have long, I can hand you over to Ed now so you can get a few minutes in?"

"You're a brick, Lu. I'll make sure to say goodbye before I have to go." There's a slight crackle as Lucy hands the phone over and then he hears Edmund's voice. "Peter?"

"Hi Ed, I've not got long. How are you holding up?" He tries to keep his tone cheery, half succeeds and hopes the line quality masks the rest.

"We're not going back."

The smile he's pasted on his face drops immediately. "Oh."

"Eustace is, I think, but we aren't - Lu and I."

"I'm sorry." It's all he can find the words for. "Is Lucy-? She seemed-"

Edmund lowers his voice a little. "I don't think it's really sunk in yet, for her."

"But it has for you?"

His brother gives a humourless laugh. "Sort of felt it coming, you know?" After you, he doesn't add, but Peter knows he and Susan were the examples, knows how Edmund surely saw their experience and prepared, where Lucy would have seen it and clung as desperately as she could. Peter's not sure how he would have reacted, if he'd had time to think about it.

"I'll see if I can come for a visit soon," he says.

"That'd be nice." There's a sort of dullness to his brother's voice that Peter's sure isn't down to the phone.

"Listen, Ed, keep your chin up, alright? I'll see you soon." He hates that this is all he can give right now when his brother and sister are grieving.

Edmund clears his throat. "Alright. See you soon. I'll pass you back to Lucy."

A few moments later his sister is back on the phone, and he says the same thing to her.

"It'll be good to see you," Lucy says. "There's a lot to tell."

"I'm sure. Right, then. I'll talk to you both again soon, either way."

There's a brief silence, and then: "Peter, about Caspian-"

Peter freezes, doesn't move, doesn't breathe. On the other end of the phone he hears what sounds like a muffled half-argument, and then there's a click and the dial tone and just like that, they're gone.

He puts the phone back, presses the button to collect his change, walks out of the booth into bright summer sun, squeezes his eyes shut tightly and tips his face up to it in an attempt to feel something, anything but this hollow bitterness. There's no one else around to see, nobody waiting.

He doesn't visit them, in the end, before Susan and their parents get back.

There's a certain way about those who've visited Narnia. After they'd returned the first time, Peter had recognised that twinkle in the Professor's eyes for what it really was, and after Susan's back from the States and the man takes them all up to Norfolk to meet his friend, Peter sees it in the sharp curve of Polly's smile. When he greets his cousin for the first time after he's been to Narnia, Eustace scans him with that keen gaze he's always had, (searching for the exiled King, no doubt) but there's something a little softer about it now, a little kinder, perhaps.

Sitting in Polly's living room, there's a kinship between the seven of them, and it's something of a comfort, as Edmund and Lucy and Eustace describe their most recent trip and don't once look at Peter whenever they say Caspian's name. He sees Lucy's head turn fractions of an inch, before she corrects herself to look at anyone else. He sees Edmund's steady gaze fix on a few points he cycles through, none of which are Peter's face. Eustace's stolen glances between his own additions are more curious than anything, and Peter does his best to ignore them as he listens to the story.

On his part, Peter listens as best he can. It's a battle between the part of him that wants to know everything against the part that still can't bear to hear how Caspian's moved on in the three years since they left. (A third, secret part that he pushes deep, deep down is resentful in a way he hates, is horribly jealous of his siblings, of the way they got to return to familiar faces and have adventures without the terrible stakes they all faced last time. He's glad for them, of course, but all the same it's like a shameful brand on his heart.)

That visit falls close to the end of the summer, and then it's back home to unpack and repack and then back at that station that's the best and worst place in the world (aside from that wardrobe, perhaps). He can't wait to board the last train to school, if only to get away from that place.

It's a Sunday a week or so into September, when Edmund finds Peter with his homework in the library. There's a letter in his hand and a stricken expression on his face. Peter's first thought is who's died? (Immediately he thinks of his sisters, of his cousin and Professor Kirke and Polly and his parents.)

"What is it?" He asks.

Edmund shakes his head. "Not here."

They go to the woods out back and the grass is cold and Edmund hands Peter the letter and he reads it, and he sees Eustace's neat handwriting spell the words: Caspian didn't make it, and he sits there and the grass is cold and in the end it doesn't matter that Caspian is in Aslan's Country now because he's still dead, still gone, and even if Peter were ever somehow allowed back to Narnia he still wouldn't be able to see him, and there's a gaping wound in his chest that he knows is never going to heal.

It's been a year. (Just over a year.)

Caspian is dead and Peter is sitting on the grass and he can't tear his eyes away from those words and he thinks a part of him will never leave this place, this little copse of trees behind the school, near the bench where the younger ones sneak a cigarette or two and where Edmund sits with him with a tear-damp face. The thought hits him, not for the first time, that Edmund and Lucy and Eustace had almost a year on the Dawn Treader with Caspian. Peter had days. It's been a year. And he's gone.

Peter stays there for the rest of the day. Edmund leaves at one point and comes back with an apple and a sandwich that Peter doesn't touch. Dark falls early, and it's with stiff legs that he eventually stands, staggers back through the gap in the fence and across the back green and into the building.

The next day, he gets up at seven, sits in Algebra at nine, English Literature at ten, and the day unfolds and Caspian is still dead.

Professor Grossman, who gets a bad rap for his name and because he teaches Latin, but who everyone knows is one of the nicer teachers, really, pulls Peter aside after class to ask if everything's alright. All Peter can say is that a friend from home died and see his teacher's sympathetic nod and wonder how many times he's heard something similar, since the war started.

And the next day it all happens again, only without being asked if he's alright this time, and that's how it goes, because Peter had to leave and Caspian had to stay and so Caspian has lived a whole life and died while Peter has spent a year acting the part of an English schoolboy.

(He gives the letter back to Edmund, at first. A few days later he asks to see it again, returns it a little while later. The second time he asks, Edmund gives him a long look, doesn't say anything but fishes it out of the bottom drawer by his bed and hands it to him. Peter takes it back out to the wood again for some privacy, returns with soil caked beneath splintered nails. He washes what he can off using the outside tap, keeps his hands folded behind his back until he can get to a bathroom to scrub them properly.)

Peter doesn't want to go home for Christmas, but it's already been decided and it'd only cause problems to create a fuss about it. His parents are the only ones he can really stand, the only ones who don't walk on eggshells around him, but of course it's only because they don't know anything is wrong. (They can surely sense the atmosphere in the house, but it's been a while since they stopped asking about personal things when the four of them would only give vague, non-commital answers in return.)

They go up to Polly's again just before the New Year. There's eight of them now, and Jill's face holds a Lioness' fierceness that reminds him of Lucy as she silently dares them to tell her she can't be a part of this. They don't, of course - she has as much a right to this as any of them, now. She and Eustace tell them all about their adventure with Puddleglum to save Rilian, about Aslan's country and Caspian there - young and alive again and that almost hurts more.

"And then we-"

"The two of us-" Eustace cuts in.

"-We went back through to England in our mail and all and got to give those little beasts at Experiment House a right scare!"

With the end of the story comes any questions that hadn't been answered by its telling, and then it's a lot of the usual talk, as well as catching Jill up on things she doesn't yet know. Peter doesn't talk much, that visit.

After they leave Polly's for the station, tracking footprints in frost, Eustace pulls Peter away to trail at the back of the group, out of earshot. "Look," he starts. "Caspian was- is- as good a friend a chap could have, and at the end when he came back, he asked me to pass a message on. To you."

Peter's heart clenches in his chest and he almost freezes, makes his feet continue walking, can't seem to find any words. He waits with bated breath for Eustace to continue.

"He said to tell you he kept your sword. To the end. And he really did even have it with him at the end - in Aslan's Country, and when we-" he breaks off, looks sort of sheepish.

"When you what?" Peter frowns.

"Well... it wasn't just Pole and I, who came back here. Caspian asked to see our world, and so Aslan let him through. It was only five minutes. I didn't say earlier because it seemed like one of those things nobody talks about so I thought I shouldn't." He trails off, looks up at Peter anxiously when he doesn't reply. "Did I say something wrong?"

"No, Eustace, it's-" he swallows around the tightness in his throat. "You didn't say anything wrong. Thank you for telling me."

His cousin studies him carefully for a moment before jogging forward to walk with Jill.

(Caspian kept his sword. Through all of it. To the end. Caspian was here. For five minutes. And Peter didn't get to see him.)

Peter doesn't talk much on the train back, either.

After that it's almost like when they'd come back from Narnia the second time - he throws himself into his schoolwork again (he has to live here, now) and talks to Edmund and doesn't talk about Caspian and when it all gets too much he goes out to the little wood and sits beside the bare patch of earth there, and sometimes he talks to Aslan (and sometimes he talks to Caspian) and sometimes he just sits or lies on the cool grass and looks up at the sky. He's not angry much at all these days, hasn't been for a while. He's still tired.

(The thing is, there's this life setting itself out before him that he can't see the end of, can't see the middle of, can hardly see past the next step of, really, and he knows this is what he has to do now, that this is what living here means, but at the same time he just can't bring himself to care.)

Early the next summer, before he's left for Professor Kirke's, Susan quietly announces at the dinner table that she's done with school and she's got a job, with a decisive finality that nobody questions. A few weeks later when they go up to Polly's, they don't all go. Lucy tells the rest of them that Susan has a shift that couldn't be moved, that she sends her love to everyone. Polly's living room is small and they're all crammed in as usual, but it somehow feels empty without his sister. Susan doesn't come to the meeting after that, either.

The next time he sees her it's the end of the summer holidays before he's headed back to school. Now he's looking closely he can see it's not just a shift and meeting a friend, it's Susan drawing away. He sees her flinch, sees her face shutter whenever they talk about Narnia and all he can do is try to be there for her in the few moments they have, when she isn't at work or doing her best to avoid him. (She would claim otherwise if he suggested as much aloud, but when they talk it's only ever about dinner or the weather or how his shirt needs an iron, so she's avoiding him in all the ways that matter.)

That school year is the most important so far, (he has to live here, now) and so again Peter cracks down, learns quotes and conjugations and theorems like he used to learn footwork and swordplay and how to rule a country. He gets a Distinction on his Higher School Certificate and he's happy about it, of course, but it's the path continuing to unfold and most of the time he still just feels empty.

(Before he leaves, he goes back to the little wood one last time. The earth is all covered in grass again by now, but there's one patch that's slightly different, that he would know even if it weren't. Peter digs. There's nothing to find. In the end, he walks back to school with a handful of earth in a tightly-clenched fist, empties out a small pencil-box, ties it up tight with a few pieces of string, packs it in the bottom of his bag with a jumper wrapped around it.)

Then, it's summer again and he's home for good - if he gets a place at one of the London universities he should be staying for the next few years at least. One evening, Lucy comes crashing into his bedroom and throws herself face-down on the end of his bed.

"Lu? You alright?"

"Susan's abandoning us!" She practically wails.

Peter puts his book aside. "Lucy, what on earth are you on about?"

His sister pops her head up. "She said she's too busy for Narnia, can you believe it? She says she's not coming on Saturday!"

In truth, Peter hadn't been too surprised when Susan had skipped their last meeting, and so this one isn't really a shock either. "Oh, Lu," he moves down the bed so he's sitting beside her. "Look, if Su doesn't want to come, we can't make her."

Lucy's brows knit together in the face she makes when she's had an idea. "You could."

"Lu-"

"No, I'm serious Pete - you could get her to come, surely! Would you?" She gives him that look she knows he can't resist with the big eyes.

He sighs. "I'll try," he says. "But no promises."

"Thank you!" She tackles him with a hug and he falls back onto his bed, wraps his arms around her for as long as she wants to stay there. "It'll be good to have everyone together again," he hears her murmur

Peter gets up a little earlier than usual the next morning. Edmund was out late somewhere or other and is still snoring, Lucy is rarely an early riser, and their parents have been away for a conference since Tuesday. He knows Susan has an early shift, and so he makes a cup of tea and sits at the kitchen table and waits.

His sister lingers in the doorway for a moment before she joins him, sits opposite with a heavy sigh and a hint of dark circles beneath her eyes.

"I'm supposed to convince you to come with us on Saturday."

He watches her slight flinch - the only reaction she gives. "She thinks I'll come around eventually? I won't." The last two words come out harsh, defiant, and she shakes her head a little to soften it, looks away, looks down at the table. Peter stays quiet, waits.

"I just... I can't bear it any longer," she says, and his chest tightens. He starts to reach a hand out but she pulls her own back a little and so he does the same. "Being on the fringes for Eustace and Jill, talking about it like a past-time when it's never going to happen again. Not to us."

And he understands, because it's all the things that have hurt the most in this wild life they've been given. But it's also been the source of their greatest joys, and he did promise Lucy, so... "Once a King or Queen, always a King or Queen," he says softly. She flinches again, and it's a knife to the heart to think he's hurt his sister in any way.

"I don't really remember being a Queen," she says quietly, watches her thumbnail dig into one of the table's well-worn grooves. "All I remember is being a scared little girl."

He remembers how scared she'd been at the beginning, when it was ice and snow and all unknown. He hadn't realised until now that it had outweighed everything else. Peter reaches across the table again, decisively this time, takes her hand. He knows how annoyed she'd been the last time she'd caught a nail and it'd splintered horribly.

"Sometimes I think we two had it worst," he confesses. He's never said this aloud - would never dare breathe it to any of the younger set, and to the older two it would feel too much like complaining. Susan understands, though. "With what we returned to and the way we left. Not knowing it was our last time, or that there'd even be a last time, until we were told it was over."

"And Caspian?" His sister asks, though it's not a question, really.

He stills, instinctively, muscles tensing, breath catching. He's used to having to remind himself to breathe, by now.

"And Caspian," he answers.

She reaches for his other hand, and when she takes it he clings. Susan holds on just as tightly. "I'm sorry," she says, tries to meet his eyes, but he can't quite manage it, not right now.

"It is what it is," he gets out.

He feels her careful gaze scan over him. "Whatever it is, it isn't easy."

He shakes his head a little, swallows hard. "No," he agrees, "it isn't." Caspian kept his sword and Caspian is dead and Peter has to live here now, and he just doesn't know how. It's not been easy for a long time, not since the first days in that house in the country when all he had to do was look after his siblings and keep spirits up. (Even then, it hadn't been easy.)

They stay there a while.

Peter does stay in London in the end, starts his course in September. If he'd thought school was hard, this is something else entirely. The workload gives him little time to think about much else, which is rather welcome, really. Peter's always worked best with a goal to achieve and the next step is before him: all he has to do is get through five years of medical school. He says this last point to George - one of his new classmates who's become a tentative friend - on a rare night off, over a pint. Though it's actually been three pints by then, which is surely why the man laughs as hard as he does.

"Only five years," he says, before he's consumed by another burst of laughter.

A few months later it's George who calls the morning after the broadcast announcement, says there's going to be a party at his place to celebrate the end of the war. Peter asks Susan and she's up for it, so they spend the day on the streets with the rest of London out celebrating, and in the evening they head over to George's student house.

It's a huge thing they've pulled together with very little notice, but even this close to exams surely everyone is taking tonight off. He'd be surprised if anyone turned up to classes the next day frankly, even their lecturers. Peter does the rounds, says hello to the people he knows, makes sure his sister is always in sight.

All in all it's a good night, despite having to escape a fair number of hair-twirling girls. George finds him at some point, offers a cold bottle of cider, and Peter takes it gratefully, clinks it against his friend's. He's become more used to the quiet questions and signals here in England, and when George raises an eyebrow, inclines his head towards the hallway, Peter knows what he means, shakes his head. "Gotta keep an eye on Su," he says.

His sister can manage herself really, but half his year are here and rowdy, and he knows a number of them are likely liable to get the wrong idea of what's alright, especially after another drink or two. Even if Susan's currently settled on a sofa talking animatedly with a girl he vaguely recalls being introduced to as someone's cousin, he'd rather be nearby.

(He's not ready for anything like that yet, is the truth. Besides, he's not sure he could stand to lose anyone else, if something were to go wrong between them. Better to remain friends. Better not to risk it.)

Later, in the soft yellow light of a streetlamp as they walk home, Peter spies lipstick on his sister's cheek.

Peter gets through the end of the first year of his degree with gritted teeth and a cramping hand from too many notes and essays. After all that, it's a nice change to have Edmund and Lucy back home over the summer - even when their parents have been home, the house has felt practically empty with just the two of them, himself, and Susan. (He wonders how Susan had managed it on her own the year before.)

That first summer after the war is something of a golden one, reminds Peter of those first days in Narnia after the battle when it was all celebration before the real work began. The four of them visit museums, picnic in parks, stay out as long as they want doing pretty much whatever they want to. Eustace joins them on a few occasions, Jill too, and at first it's a little awkward when one or the other brings up Narnia when Susan's around, but they catch on quickly. They visit Polly and Professor Kirke joins them as usual and Susan doesn't as usual, but she doesn't seem to mind much these days, as far as Peter can tell.

Then, Susan moves out.

It happens at the end of August, after her birthday. With her, during term time, the place had felt quiet. Without her, and after the younger two head back to school, it just feels lonely, especially when their parents are away at conferences and the like and it's only Peter at home.

His second year keeps him busy, at least, and Susan isn't too far away so he stops in once a week or so, and she visits too. One morning his sister opens her door and there's a girl sat on her sofa reading a book. He recognises her, he realises, from the party at George's.

"Alice," she says when he's clearly struggling for her name, holds out a hand. It's a firm handshake.

"Peter," he replies.

"I know," she says.

Susan has been happier for a while now, and as the three of them sit and talk, Peter gets to understand why, gets to see this part of her life that hasn't been hidden so much as kept private. She'd known he was visiting her today, so when he leaves he hugs her a little tighter than usual, silent thanks for allowing him to know her a little better.

In the end it really is only five years of university. It has its natural ups and downs and when it's done and he's dressed in his cap and gown, staring into the mirror, there's a sense of finality that he's used to, a sense of closure that he's not.

The pathway is still there before him, and he can see the next step, but he's been thinking for a while now that it'd be nice to take a break - just for a year or so - maybe go traveling. There's a lot out there to see. Perhaps he'll learn to navigate by these stars.

(He feels a little less tired, these days, a little less lost. If he closes his eyes he can almost imagine it's not a cap but a crown.)

Polly invites them all up to Norfolk and they decide to make a week of it this time, rather than just visit for the day. They rent a cottage not too far from her house and a short walk from the beach. Peter asks Susan if she wants to join them, and hopes she will since it's a sort of holiday too, but she says she's busy as usual in that light voice she uses for the lies they both know he'll never call her bluff on.

It's the second night of the trip and they've just finished having dinner when all of a sudden Lucy, Jill and Eustace all start and stand up and there's a horrendous crash as Jill's chair topples. The Professor knocks his wineglass and it smashes on the hardwood floor just as Peter's eyes finally find what they're all looking at.

For a brief, shining moment he thinks it's Caspian and he freezes, can't move, can't breathe.

It's not. But the man who has appeared before them all is in Narnian dress and has that same air they all do, and there are traces of Caspian in a face that seems as shocked to see them as they all are to see him. No one says anything until finally, Peter manages to.

"Speak, if you're not a phantom or a dream. You have a Narnian look about you and we are the seven friends of Narnia."

The man doesn't reply, though it seems he's trying to. He flickers a little, like he's some sort of ghost, but then looks more solid than ever, as if he's standing right in the room with them.

Peter stands. "Shadow or spirit or whatever you are, if you are from Narnia I charge you in the name of Aslan, speak to me. I am Peter the High King." Because even if he's not said the words aloud in some time he is still the High King, will always be the High King, and a tiny part of him starts to hope that Narnia might finally need him again, that Aslan might allow him back, whatever was said in the past.

The man seems to try to speak again, but nothing comes out of his mouth before he flickers again - worse, this time - and fades entirely.

"What on earth was that?" Eustace asks into the silence after.

Peter steps carefully around the broken glass, into the kitchen for the dustpan and brush. His nails have dug bright red crescents into his palm when he unclenches his hand to start cleaning up the mess.

The others start to talk about ghosts and spirits and all sorts, and when Peter finally comes back to the table again he drinks the end of his wine and stands there, waits until they all fall silent, looking to him.

"I think it's pretty clear," he says. "If this were the usual kind of adventure, Eustace and Jill would have already been called back, surely. This appeared to all of us, so Narnia must need all of us." He wonders privately if this includes Susan, too.

"But we aren't allowed back, Pete," Edmund says quietly.

"What if this is an exception?" Lucy counters, eyes bright.

"Look, this is clearly a sign, but whoever it's for, how are we even to get back there without Aslan taking us?" Jill asks. "Last time, Scrubb and I chanted his name a bit, and then we got in through a door. Could something like that work again?"

"It's certainly worth a try," Lucy says, stands up.

No one doesn't want to at least attempt it, and so they all spend a minute or so chanting Aslan's name, asking him to let them into Narnia. Nothing happens.

"What about the wardrobe?" Lucy asks, looks to the Professor. "Do you think we'd be able to get back into your old place and try it?"

Edmund shakes his head. "Don't you remember, Lu? Aslan was always on about how things never happen the same way twice - I doubt any of the ways we've used before will work."

His brother is right, as much as Peter hates the thought. It's never been the same way twice and it's likely not going to be this time, either. He remembers their desperate search after they'd returned the first time, all the books in the Professor's library that spoke to the many avenues he'd already tried that weren't-

"-What about the rings?" He looks to Professor Kirke, to Polly, and it's clear they've both already thought of it from the look they're exchanging.

"They are a different magic," the man says.

"But there'd be no way to know what pool," Polly replies. They're speaking across the table to each other and no one else. The rest of them simply listen.

"Though, it may be the only way that's certain to work," the Professor answers.

"Yes, I rather think so."

And so it's decided.

There's a lot to organise, but they manage to iron out most of the plan that night and the rest the next morning over breakfast. That day, they pack up their bags and tidy the cottage and the day after, Peter and Edmund are on a train back to London. They drop their belongings off at the house first, pull out an old boilersuit from the back of their father's wardrobe and find a few bits that'll do for Edmund so they'll look as inconspicuous as possible. The garden shed holds a couple of trowels and some gloves that they add to the collection, and with that, everything's ready for the morning.

All prepared, the rest of the day is empty, and so they trek back into London to visit their sister.

"I thought you all went to Norfolk for the week?" Susan says after the greetings and hugs.

"We did, but..." Edmund trails off, looks to Peter for help. It's clear she's had no visions like theirs, or isn't letting on if she has.

"Something happened," Peter says, which is one way to put it. "And there's something we need to do, so Ed and I came back. But we thought we'd stop in and say hello while we were here."

Their worry is plain, and Susan looks between them, nods firmly. "You'll stay for dinner?"

"Of course," Edmund says.

They cook, they eat and drink, and Susan manages to coax a laugh or two from each of them by the time their plates are clean. And then Edmund checks his watch and it's nine in the evening already, even though the sun's still not quite set outside Susan's small kitchen window.

The agreement was that only Eustace and Jill would use the rings. Peter has been thinking about breaking this promise. As they say their goodbyes to Susan, he thinks about breaking a different, silent promise, considers telling her why they're really back, what they've planned. Truthfully, he doesn't know if she'd jump at the chance to join them, or scold him for even suggesting it, or simply pretend he'd never said it. Whenever she does talk about Narnia these days it's in brief mentions, only a word here and there. She talks about it like it was some game, and it feels a little like a knife twisting in his chest, but it's something of a relief, too, because at least she doesn't seem to be hurting quite so much anymore.

So Peter doesn't say anything, but he pauses with his hand on the doorknob. There are a lot of things that could go wrong with this plan - the Professor and Polly made sure to drum into their heads all the precautions to take, and what to do if anything happened with the rings. Fifteen years as High King taught Peter to trust his gut, and he has a horrible feeling that something big is going to happen, that it might not be for the best.

"Take care, will you, Su?" He says, tries to raise the corners of his mouth into a smile. She says she will, says she'll come by the house when they're all back.

Peter hugs her tightly before he leaves.

It's a hushed, furtive thing as he and Edmund dig into the earth in the Professor's old back garden in the early hours of the morning. They use the trowels and wear the gloves to prevent themselves touching the rings by accident, though it feels as if it'd be more appropriate to scrabble in the dirt with bare hands, to scrape and claw to this potential way back. But this is not for them, Peter reminds himself. This is for Eustace and Jill.

Even if he were to attempt to go back, there's surely nothing left for him in Narnia. It's been seven whole years since Eustace's and Jill's trip when they saved Rilian - if it had been over a thousand years there for not even two here in England, back between their first and second visits, Peter hardly wants to imagine how much time has passed now, how much has changed.

(A niggling thought reminds him of Lucy telling them all about the great wall of water at the edge of the world, how Reepicheep had passed it, how it had surely been Aslan's country that lay beyond. He thinks that if he were to go back, he'd beg to stay this time. He thinks that if he were allowed to stay, he'd take a boat, any boat, and sail east.)

They dig up the rings - five yellow, five green, put them in two little bags, and on their way back to the house they stop at the post office to send a telegram to Norfolk.

The rest of the day is rather quiet. They sit around, make a few attempts at playing cards or chess, but Peter hasn't much focus for it and so Edmund ends up playing solitaire instead.

"Do you really think we'll get back?" His brother asks as he shuffles the pack between games. The way he says it isn't particularly hopeful, but it's not condescending either. Peter is used to his brother's careful neutrality, knows he's not asking for reassurances or for denial.

"I don't know," he answers honestly. "All of this has been different from anything before. There's something up, but whether it'll be for us to sort it... I think we have to wait and find out."

"Do you want to go back?" Edmund asks in that same careful tone, pinning him with a quick glance before his eyes fall back to the cards as he starts to lay them out.

He wants to try, wants to sail to the end of the Narnian ocean, but he somehow knows that would mean never returning, and he can't do that if it means leaving Susan behind. She would understand, he thinks, but that doesn't mean he could bring himself to do it.

If he does go back he'll do his duty, will give Narnia whatever she needs from him, and then he'll come back here and try his best to move on again. That's the way it's always been, and he thinks he understands it a little better now than he did all those years ago. Though, a lot has changed since then to make that true.

(Still, Peter sort of hopes that he doesn't go back to Narnia, if only so he doesn't have to make that choice.)

Peter shrugs. "I don't know, Ed. It's been a while. Do you?"

"It was easier," Edmund says.

"It was, sometimes," Peter says.

All of a sudden he misses the weight of his sword by his side.

The next morning they head over to the station where they've planned to board the same train the others will be on. It's a small station on the outskirts of London, and they leave plenty of time to be sure they won't miss it, so it's around half an hour that he and Edmund have been standing on the platform when they finally see the train approaching around the bend.

It's coming far too fast.

Everything is green, is his first thought. Blue sky stretches overhead. He'd had a blister on his heel from wearing an old pair of boots that were a touch too small when they'd dug up the rings, but that burning tightness is suddenly gone.

Edmund is beside him and he's dressed as a King of Narnia. When Peter looks around he sees Lucy nearby, a Queen again, and two others that he swiftly comes to recognise as the Professor and Polly, but far younger than he's ever seen them aside from in photographs on Polly's mantel.

Peter's clothes are Narnian too, a familiar crown on his head. (His sword is missing.)

The next thing he sees is the Door and its frame, standing alone with no building, no supports. There's a sense that something is about to happen and so none of them speak, but instead gather together and watch what follows - creatures and Calormenes and Dwarfs all come through, Tash appears and disappears again, and then there's a familiar face.

"Jill!" Lucy exclaims, runs forward on light feet to help the girl up. As she brushes herself off she's in mail and a helmet one moment and dressed as royalty in the next. The same thing happens to Eustace not long after, and just as the two are telling them about everything that's been going on, Tirian, too - the current King of Narnia (and perhaps, from what Jill and Eustace have said, the last King of Narnia).

He's the one who appeared to them at dinner, and they all greet him warmly and Peter tries not to think about how his hair is far lighter but those are Caspian's eyes.

Then, he asks Peter, "has your Majesty not two sisters? Where is Queen Susan?"

And even now, they can all sense the finality of this. They're staying. The choice has been made for him, in the end, and it seems he's left Susan behind after all.

Aslan appears, and it's a joyful moment (should be a joyful moment, but all Peter can think about is how his sister should be here).

Narnia ends. They crowd around the door to watch. Peter thinks it's the worst thing he's ever had to witness as it withers and floods, and eventually the sun is put out. Everything is cast in ice.

"Peter, High King of Narnia," comes a rumble from beside him. "Shut the Door."

It's with a hesitation and a twist in his gut that Peter reaches out through the Doorway, steeling himself against the cold that sinks far deeper than he could have prepared for. At the same time as his fingers land on the handle he takes one last look at the remains, at the empty wasteland, except-

It's not empty. There's something shining in a human shape not too far away - a forgotten Star, perhaps? Peter's about to ask Aslan about it when the figure gets closer and he sees a white dress - or, no, a nightgown - and long black hair and he hears her call his name.

His Susan, his darling, Gentle sister, stands in the emptiness of the end of Narnia and he wants to shout back to her, can hardly speak for the joy of it. He calls her name, but a greedy gust of wind rips it away as he says it, rattles the Door. Peter grips the handle tighter and braces himself against it, sways forward a little. His eyes remain on Susan. She smiles.

The wind tries to fight again, batters at the Door and this time his feet slip, the Door slams in his face. All at once Susan is there and then she is not. (And he was wrong, so wrong, because seeing his sister alone in that place was a far worse sight than the end of Narnia.)

Peter tries the handle and it turns, but no matter how he pushes the Door it won't give even an inch. He's about to ask Edmund and Lucy and the others to lend a hand when Aslan speaks, low and solemn, for his ears alone.

"High King." It's a warning. It feels like a dagger between his ribs.

"But, Sir," he says helplessly, "Aslan, please." Because, surely he knows. How could he not?

"Son of Adam," Aslan says, and the knife plunges deeper.

"Susan's still out there!" He turns to the side, shoves with his shoulder as if a different angle will make it easier.

"Peter," the Lion says finally and his name alone cuts to the heart that is trying to beat right through his chest and through the Door and all the way to Susan standing alone in that wasteland. "Lock the Door."

He stills, presses his forehead to the cold wood. His face is damp. "Tell me I'll see her again. Please, Aslan. Or just tell me she'll be alright, even."

The warmth of Lion's breath surrounds him. "My dear son," he says, "this is not yours to know." Peter wants to scream. Then, "yet," Aslan adds.

Peter turns his head, looks into Aslan's tawny eyes and there is kindness there, muddled up with joy and sorrow. A small hope rises up within him "You mean...?"

"Lock the Door, Peter," Aslan says gently, and Peter clings to that single word, that yet, as he reaches into his pocket, pulls out a heavy, gold key and slides it into the lock. It turns a full rotation with a click that echoes through his bones, leaves him feeling weightless and empty for a single, brief moment. When he comes back to himself Peter can feel everything but his hands, and when he looks at them his nails and fingertips are blue.

After that, it's further in and further up to the very westernmost reaches of this strange, new, surreal Narnia, until they reach the gold gates of the Garden. A horn sounds and he looks at Edmund, at Lucy, and their eyes shine with tears like his own, because they know that horn like they know their sister's voice. It calls them now, just as it called them back to Narnia so many years before, just as it called Peter to fight the Wolf when Susan first blew it. (If her horn is here, surely it will call her back too, one day.)

And then they're met at the gates by Reepicheep, and if the Mouse is here...

It was true that there was nothing left for him in that old Narnia, and yet this version holds new friends and old alike, when they walk through into the Garden and everyone is there waiting for them. (Almost everyone is there.) It's hugging and handshakes and happy tears all around, yet Peter can't help but feel guilty that he's disappointed when each new person isn't Caspian.

Prince Corin has him in such a tight embrace that his feet are almost lifted off the floor when he sees, past the man's shoulder, a figure standing apart. Peter freezes. Corin lets him go, says something he doesn't hear, and then Edmund is there to take Peter's place. "Go on, then," he mutters, gives Peter's shoulder a little shove that gets him moving.

Peter walks up to Caspian in a daze, eyes tracking over his face. Ages are strange in this place, and Caspian somehow looks not a day older than when Peter first saw him, but at the same time he's far older, and Peter can see pieces of the man and the King he must have grown into. His eyes are the same, though they've seen far more now.

"You're here," he breathes.

"You're here," Caspian replies. Then, "I suppose that means you-?"

"-Yes. I think so, at least."

"How-?"

"-train crash. It was all over rather quickly, though."

"I was going to ask how long it was," Caspian says quietly. "After you left."

"Oh, right. Eight years. And two days."

Caspian gets that startled and sorrowful look on his face that's the first Peter ever saw of him. "I'm sorry," he says. "That's not long at all."

Peter shrugs. "It was long enough."

He frowns, asks softly, "was it really so terrible?"

"Not by the end, but... it was never really home." He swallows, braces himself for this next part. "And you: you married, had a son."

He watches as Caspian smiles faintly. "Lilliandil was a dear friend to me after that voyage." Peter's boots and the grass beneath them are suddenly of great interest. And Peter understands - Caspian moved on. It makes sense, really. They'd only had days, after all and Caspian had so many years after that, filled with kingly obligations and the like. (And Peter had already known about this, since Eustace's letter, so why does it still hurt so much?)

"I'm glad you had her by your side," he chokes out. It's a truth, though not all of it.

"She never once asked for my heart," Caspian says, and Peter's head snaps back up.

Peter hadn't asked either, though, had only given his own away. "Did she have it?" He asks hoarsely.

"Part of it," Caspian admits. "She was my wife for nigh on forty years, and she was aware from the very start that it would always belong to another." His hand moves at his side and Peter tracks it as his fingers come to rest on a familiar lion's-head pommel.

Peter can't move, can hardly breathe. "Eustace passed your message on."

"It's yours, if you'd like it back."

His eyes flick back up to meet Caspian's and Peter feels the corners of his mouth curve up. "Not like I really need it here. Besides, I said forever, didn't I? That is - if you still want it?"

"For as long as you'll allow me to keep it."

Peter has felt lost since the moment his foot hit the stone and concrete of that in-between station platform on the other side of the Door.

For the first time since then, when he falls into Caspian's arms, he doesn't feel lost any longer.

It's some time later - a few hours? A lifetime? Peter's never really sure how long - that the horn sounds again and he knows. Caspian's hand stills in its absentminded movement over his hair, and Peter sits up, looks at him.

"Go on," he smiles. "I'll follow."

Peter goes.

As he approaches the gates, Edmund appears on one side and Lucy on the other. His brother is full of quiet anticipation. His sister bounces on the balls of her feet.

The gates open.

Lucy is the first to Susan because she runs, though Peter and Edmund aren't far behind. It's laughter and tears and Peter hugs her as tightly as he can to try to make up for everything he's surely missed.

"I'm so sorry Su," he says when they've all drawn apart a little. He's never stopped wondering if she'd have been able to pass through the Door at the end, if he'd held it, if he'd been strong enough. He tells her about the wind, about how the Door wouldn't open back up.

His sister lays a hand on his cheek. "It's alright, Peter. It's not your fault, and I'm here now. We're all here."

Peter's never stopped feeling guilty for leaving Susan behind, but his sister is Gentle, his sister has always understood, and his sister is here, now. Finally, Susan is home and they are complete.

She greets everyone else, says a few quiet words in Caspian's ear when she hugs him. It's not much later that Alice slips in quietly, and there's another round of greetings and introductions. Peter, for his part, hugs her tightly. "Was she alright?" He asks quietly.

"It took a while," she tells him. "But she was happy. I made sure of it." He thanks her, hugs her again.

After all that, they stand together. Caspian is by his side and Peter has an arm around his waist, and Edmund and Lucy stand on either side and across from them, Susan is home. 

"What do we do now?" She asks.

"Whatever we want, of course!" Lucy laughs, bright-eyed, turns and skips away. They all follow. And that was how it all started, Peter supposes: following his little sister into a wardrobe. And this is how it ends and starts again: following his little sister deeper into the Garden with Caspian by his side and Edmund and Susan and all their friends and family.

For the first time they are all finally together, and no one will ever have to leave again.