Nightmares
Edmund wakes up, tangled and sweating in his sheets, to Peter staring at him like Edmund has grown an extra head. They have been in Narnia, been kings and queens, for a little over a month. By Peter's calculations, Edmund will be ten in five weeks. And isn't it ironic that the first birthday will be that of the traitor's?
He looks up at Peter, who's still looking at Edmund like he's a bomb that might go off, and maybe he is, thinks Edmund, but Peter hasn't said a word in all the time he's been standing here, and it doesn't look like he's going to either. Edmund starts to squirm under Peter's attentive frown and finally he pushes himself up to confront Peter and his staring. He opens his mouth to tell Peter off, but he snaps it shut right away.
"What time is it?" asks Edmund instead.
Peter shrugs. "Late," he supplies. "Go back to sleep.
"You go back to sleep," Edmund grumbles and rolls over. It is late, he realizes, and Peter is standing in the middle of his room in the middle of the night, staring at him.
Sitting up again, Edmund crosses his arms across his chest. "What are you doing up, Peter?" he asks suspiciously. "Here to kill me in my sleep?"
Peter manages something of a laugh but he looks down, away from Edmund. He takes a deep breath and looks Edmund right in the eye. "You were having a nightmare," he says simply. It's Edmund's turn to look away. Already the dream is slipping away from him. There's fire, he remembers. Fire that casts shadows but provides no warmth. He's cold, cold right down to his bones. Fire and cold.
"How'd you know?" asks Edmund and he expects Peter to look away again. He knew somehow and it wasn't because Peter heard him all the way down the hall behind think, heavy, wooden, closed doors.
But he doesn't. Peter is the master of surprises and he stares right at Edmund when he says, "Do you really think I can do it?
Edmund doesn't ask. He doesn't have to. He sees it in Peter's step, in his wavering smile. He sees his hands shake and hears his voice tremor. He knows Peter doesn't think he can rule a country. He's hardly fourteen and, as far as Peter can tell, he's the one who broke their family in the first place.
But Edmund sees it in his eyes, and Aslan's growls, and the Narnians' willingness to follow Peter. He sees it in every gentle word and touch, every caring smile, deep laugh, and carefully considered decision. Peter was made to do this job. He's the one who led the Narnians into victory and he's the one who put his family back together.
"I do," says Edmund. "I know. Do you really think I can?" he adds.
Peter smiles sadly. "Of course I do," he says like it's the most obvious thing in the world.
"Then why don't you think you can?" presses Edmund. "I mean, it's not like you're a million times more qualified than I am or anything."
"Ed…"Peter starts. It's the start of a lecture Edmund has heard twice a day everyday over the past month, and it's late and Edmund's tired. He doesn't want to hear how none of it was his fault.
"Peter–" Edmund interrupts him. Peter, surprisingly, doesn't launch into his well worn speech about the Narnians' misplaced trust in Edmund and how he already proved he was worthy by making Aslan's sacrifice mean something. "What are you doing in here?" he asks.
"I couldn't sleep," he admits after a long silence. "I needed to make sure you were okay."
Edmund was sore for three weeks, in varying places and degrees after the Battle of Beruna. Peter had welts the size of Lucy's head covering his body for two. Still, Edmund would wake up in immense pain from a wound that left barely a scare. It would rip through his body and leave him gasping and immobile. He couldn't tell Lucy or Peter, but Edmund suspects that Susan already knows.
Peter, Edmund knows, is having almost as much trouble adjusting as he is. Maybe more. Life after combat is hard, a fact they learned back home, but it's even harder than they expected. Facts and experience turn out to be very different things. It would be easy enough to manage if it was just the battle, Edmund supposes, but Edmund had all but died in that field and Peter watched as the witch, startled by Edmund's courage, took her new weapon, created by Edmund's own hand, and plunged it into Edmund's stomach, twisted it with a triumphant glint in her eye, and pulled it out, coated and glistening in Edmund's blood, and Lion knows what else. Edmund knows, because Peter told him, that time and sound and space all stopped as Edmund fell and all Peter heard was the dull thud of Edmund body as it hit the ground. He knows how it replays in his mind because he remember every second of everyday all the things that went wrong in Edmund's first few days in Narnia, and he had seen every outcome except the way it is now. He's not even ten yet and Edmund has had nightmares of Peter's insides on his outside, vivid enough to make him sick all over his bed.
"I –I just needed to be sure," Peter says desperately. Peter closes his eyes, rubs them tiredly, and stands up straight, straight as a poker. Behind his closed lids, Peter sees Edmund laying lifeless on the ground, the grass soaking up his blood, Peter kneeling beside him in the mud, praying, hoping, that Edmund will wake up, at least long enough for Peter to apologize. But he doesn't. The color just drains from his face and the grass turns red and Edmund grows cold.
"The same one?" asks Edmund. He feels much older than ten and somehow much younger. He draws up his knees under his blanket and Peter sits, at last, on the edge of Edmund's bed. He doesn't say anything but Edmund takes the way he stares at his hands, perfectly still in his lap, as a yes.
Edmund shifts over, almost imperceptibly, but enough for Peter to know that it's okay if he lays down. Peter's tired, worse than Edmund, and his eyes droop as he rests against Edmund's headboard.
"Me too," says Edmund in a small voice. Small like the voice of a Rabbit or a Hedgehog. Small and tired. Peter doesn't say anything, but his hand comes up to rest on Edmund's shoulder. That's all Edmund knows about the dream though. It's the same one. It leaves him cold and desolate, quaking with fear when he wakes. Ten guesses what it's about, although he never remembers anything more than a feeling.
Edmund sighs and Peter takes a deep breath. Peter's hand leaves Edmund's shoulder and he pulls Edmund in, quick and rough, for a hug. Peter doesn't move to go back to his room. Edmund doesn't push him off his bed. Peter settles onto the headboard and Edmund settles onto Peter. The steady rise and fall of Edmund's chest and the weight of Edmund's body against his shields Peter from the horrors of a battle a month over. The warmth and strength of Peter's arms that find their way around him during the night chase away the remaining snags of the witch's grasp and his guilt on Edmund's heart.
Peter and Edmund Pevensie, the Kings of Narnia, fall asleep too close together to be comfortable, but it's enough, just enough, to keep away the nightmares of what could have been.