Archive of Our Own ^beta

The sky is grey and dark, rain threatening but not quite here yet, and Edmund hunches his head over in instinctual preparation for it as he crosses the street, puts his hands in his pockets after he knocks on the door. As soon as Susan opens it he darts in and stamps his feet against the entry rug, breathing on his hands to warm them.

"There's hot tea in the kitchen," Susan says, and he shrugs out of his coat and hangs it up on a hook before following her. (Susan is strict on the niceties of things. Always has been.)

"You're sure a brother escorting you won't dampen your prospects at this party?" The heat of the cup she hands him seems to be taking too long to spread, but then cold has always gone to his bones. He's not built for it.

"You're one of those handsome charming types. All it will do is make the girls want to meet you." She picks up a cup of her own, only half empty. "You came early, I'm nowhere near ready."

"Well, I had a favor to ask."

"Edmund -"

"No, I promise, not that." He holds up one hand in a mock surrender, pacification for the warning sternness in her eyes. "I mean, Lucy wants me to ask, but I didn't promise her anything. I was wondering if you could drive me to the station next Tuesday so my car won't have to languish there while I'm off."

"Off on assignment again?" She's not supposed to know, but then - try keeping secrets from Susan.

"Faithful servant of the state, you know how it is."

"Of course I can. Will it be after work?"

"I wouldn't interrupt your work day. You know I have too much respect for you to do that."

There's memories she could call on now, times that prove him vastly wrong on that score, but Susan just smiles, unreadable and amused as she drops another sugar cube in her tea cup and stirs it in.

"You'll rot -"

+

"- your teeth doing that, you know," Edmund says, and immediately regrets it between how much he sounds like Susan, the way Susan herself is raising her eyebrows at him as she stirs the sugar into her tea, and how Peridan is hiding what Edmund strongly suspects is a smirk.

"And your hot chocolate won't?" Susan says, and yes, that is definitely a smirk and Peridan's not even hiding it anymore.

"That's not the -" he pauses, looks between their faces, and decides that this isn't a battle he's going to win. And just look, there's all these papers on his desk, more in a neat stack on Peridan's lap, more still spread loosely across the floor in front of where Susan's sitting cross legged. So much to do.

"We need more information on Calormen." Susan's already forgotten his comment (or seems to have, you can never really tell), hair spilling loose of the ornate braids she'd had it in for dinner earlier as she leans forward.

"It's hard to get someone who will fit in there. I don't have many agents yet to start with, and almost no one who can blend in. And that's not even covering the language difference." A pause, and he sets down a paper and considers. "You know, I understand Archenland has an expatriate Calormene population. Perhaps next time I visit Anvard I can go talk to them."

"We could find a reason for you to visit Anvard shortly," Susan says, absently reaching for another sugar cube to drop into her cup.

+

"- your teeth doing that," he finishes, a little lamely, and Susan rolls her eyes and takes a deliberate sip of her tea, watching him the whole time.

The deja vu of some moments has always been the hardest part for him. The times when he says or does something and it's happened before, he remembers this conversation and he expects it to go the same but inevitably it doesn't. Things aren't the same here, there's simply no getting around that.

"I know I didn't promise Lucy anything, but she really would like you to come down when we all get together next." Susan stays silent, watching her tea instead of him. "She really does miss you, you know," he adds, and Susan sighs and nods.

"I know she does." For a moment he thinks maybe it's acquiescence, but she puts her cup down and turns towards the stairs. "But she will insist on turning every conversation to childhood again. Isn't it time she was looking forwards?"

He follows her up the stairs, quiet for a little bit as he tries to determine the best argument. It can be so hard to know how to get Susan to go along with things - she knows all his tricks, even if she won't admit to remembering where she learned them.

"If she promised not to?"

"She promised not to last time, and you remember how well that went." He does - remembers the tangential aside Lucy had made without even thinking, the tightening of Susan's eyes and Lucy's scornful frustration, the row that had followed and only been smoothed down long enough for them to drink their coffee and Susan to leave.

"It was important." He knows better than to ever refer to Narnia by name, but sideways references work sometimes. "You know how much it means to her, she doesn't understand."

Susan sits down in front of her mirror and picks up her lipstick, watching her own reflection with tired resignation.

+

"You know that I do not regret it." She's looking out the window instead of at him, fists clenched at her side. The casualty report from the battle at Anvard is on the table, the count of the few dead first. He knows an archer from her personal unit didn't make it, an officer she had been hoping to promote soon. Adam. "Don't you?"

"Given the circumstances." He stops, takes a long moment to start again. "You had to try. Everyone knows that."

"With what we knew, yes. I had to try." After a long moment her shoulders slump and she turns to him, pulls her hand through her hair to loosen the tangle of braids and start to shake them out. "Rabadash was more of a fool than I dreamed."

"I'm sorry about Adam."

"Me too." Outside this room the castle is still moving, preparing for the end of the day. He can hear Lucy nearby, indistinct but loud.

"It's time to get ready for dinner."

"I'll be right there," she says, and he turns to leave.

+

"You know that I do not regret it." Susan turns her head to examine her hair in the mirror critically, adjusting a pin. She doesn't meet his eyes. "Don't you?"

Edmund stands by the door for a long moment and watches her, caught somewhere between memories. There should be horns blowing as a hunting party sweeps back into the stableyards, the noise of the bustle of the castle getting ready for the return of their High King, Lucy's voice just down the hallway adjusting seating arrangements.

The room remains stubbornly small and terribly mundane, and Susan looks up and catches his eyes in the mirror with a look of understanding.

"I know," he says. Because it is Susan and it is easy to be truthful with her, he ducks his head and adds, "Sometimes I do. Perhaps then everything wouldn't feel so very -"

"Grey?" She's looking at her hair rather than him again, but he knows that's just to make it easier for him.

"Yes." Susan presses her lips together and turns to him.

"Regret is for when you could have changed something, Edmund. We were dust in a storm. Nothing more."

"You make it sound so accidental."

"It was lovely while it lasted. But it didn't, did it?" He takes her arm, watches the way she smiles. Lucy says it looks fake these days, but it really hasn't changed. She was always polished, always prepared. Oreius had told him once the true mark of a leader was how they rose to their surroundings.

So maybe she's changed, but so have their surroundings.

"But worth having?"

She unfolds her umbrella (bright red and plastic) as they step out together, the rain finally coming down.

"Edmund, really. That's hardly a question." But she looks at him, as if assessing how much he really needs it answered, and then her gaze flickers away again. "I suppose that's for each of us to decide for ourselves, isn't it? But yes. For me."

"You look good." The flash of her teeth is brilliant, practiced in how unpracticed it looks.

"Thank you." The light of a streetlamp spills across them both for a moment, golden and bright and then gone, and he walks tall.