Title: All the Shattered Pieces
Rating: T
Possible Spoilers/Warnings: Mild violence; covers entire series
Summary: Past, present, and future, the shattered glass comes together in three decisive moments of Edmund's life.
A/N: This was written over the summer for the Narnia Fic Exchange over on Livejournal, which has been fantastic. There have been tons of amazing fics written for the exchange this year, and I would encourage everyone to head on over to the community and check them out! It was my first time ever writing for an exchange, and I had a blast!
Sadly, I cannot say who my recipient was, because they were one of the dropouts. For the same reason, the prompt I was given is not mentioned. All the same, I hope you enjoy!
-x-
All the Shattered Pieces
-x-
Narnia. Year Three of the Golden Age.
"Ed. Edmund. Edmund. Wake up."
He came awake with a start to Lucy's insistent shaking, her concerned form bent over his face. Golden curls hung loose from her braid, dangling over rosy cheeks and wide eyes. "Edmund, this is important. Wake up."
He blinked his eyes twice, finding it difficult to put away the swirl of dreams that hung about his mind. A sword, a wooden platform, a metal bird, and, and... a pair of dirty socks. How absurd. He blinked again and focused once more on Lucy's face with a mumbled, "I'm napping."
"But Edmund..."
The light that fell through the half-drawn curtains was dim and red-hued, a long slash across his desk. Judging from the angle and tint, it was well into the evening. Edmund leaned forward to stretch his back, rolled his shoulders and reached up to massage the back of his neck; sleeping in his chair, no matter how comfortable it seemed as he settled down, almost inevitably led to stiffness upon waking. Lucy stepped back knowingly to let him stand, and he extended the stretch, reaching up with a release of breath.
"Are you ready now?" she asked with the hint of a smirk as he lowered his arms.
"Don't mock my habits," he responded poker-faced. "Kings need sleep, too."
"So I see." She slipped past him, over to the door that led from his study to the rest of the chambers. "Ready to go?"
"And where would we be going?" He did not bother to hide the irritation in his voice; he hated disturbances, especially from much-needed naps.
The smile Lucy had been trying to hide blossomed to her face. "Your brother requests your presence at the Northern gates."
There was one sliver of a second in which Edmund couldn't understand what his sister had just said. His brother requests... but wasn't he out on campaign...? And then there came the flash of understanding. "Peter!" he exclaimed, and with a whoop of delight, he chased Lucy out through his chambers and into the hall.
-x-
The dash down the corridor was fast and near out of control, so much so that if Susan had come upon the two of them, there would have been quite the lecture on decorum and acting one's age and position. At the moment, though, Susan was already at the front gate, and both Edmund and Lucy were much too anxious to see their elder brother. Besides that, the corridors were almost completely empty, as it was just reaching the hour when most nobles were either having an evening stroll in the gardens or else settling down for a slow and comfortable evening.
The pace lessened considerably upon reaching the stairs, and Edmund seized the opportunity to catch his breath and speak. "I thought Peter was not due back until the day after tomorrow."
"That's when I thought," Lucy replied cheerfully. "But I suppose the ride back went faster than planned. I certainly don't mind."
"Neither do I," Edmund agreed with a grin.
They reached the last stair at the same moment. Lucy glanced over to her brother, a gleam in her eye, and before he could take another step, exclaimed, "Race you to the courtyard!" The words were barely out of her mouth before she had darted forward, Edmund hot on her heels.
With her head start, Lucy was first to the corner; just as she disappeared around it there came a horrific crash, followed by a loud shriek. And then Edmund rounded the corner and found himself staring down at a mess of broken crockery, with Lucy tangled up with a scowling faun in the middle of it.
"I am so very sorry," she was saying, and trying her best to help scoop up the broken shards without cutting herself. The faun said nothing, but righted the tray and rather abruptly pushed Lucy's hands away, as if making it clear that he could clean the mess himself.
Edmund stepped forward and took hold of his sister's arm to help her up; she stumbled a step regaining her balance and very nearly stepped upon a large piece of the ceramic tea set, righting herself at the last moment so her toes just barely touched it. The shard slipped to the side from the movement, revealing something papery underneath, but as Edmund bent down to see what it was, he found the view blocked by the faun's hand.
"I will take care of this, your majesties," the faun said, his voice low and controlled.
"Yes, of course," Edmund responded slowly, and stepped back, using his grip on Lucy's arm to have her do the same. She glanced up at him, curious at his sudden solemn countenance, and seeing his face, stepped back further.
The faun did not move, his hand still hovering over the crockery shard and whatever else it was that Edmund had seen. "Would that be all, your majesties?" the faun asked.
"Yes," Edmund answered, voice as cautious as before. "Come, Lucy." And, still gripping his sister's arm, he guided her forward around the mess.
Then, and only then, did the faun move, hand sliding quick as lightening to flick another shard over the spot he had been covering. If Edmund had not been watching, he certainly would not have seen it; as it was, for a split second the paper – and it was a paper – was left uncovered and the black ink clear to see.
Releasing Lucy's arm, Edmund dipped down and plucked the page from beneath the shard. With a start, the faun grabbed for his hand, but missed.
Lucy's eyes passed from the faun to her brother to the paper slip. "Edmund?" she asked uncertainly, and then, glancing back at the faun again, "Edmund!"
He barely looked up from the paper, eyes scanning the information in growing dread. "This," Edmund said tightly, almost to himself, "this is confidential information. Where did-?" A burst of pain interrupted his thoughts as Lucy stepped on his foot hard, and Edmund's eyes lifted to see the faun leaping up, a knife held threateningly in his hands.
"Lucy, down!" Edmund shouted, and ducked as the knife came too close. Then he had caught the faun's hand in his own, struggling to wrestle the dagger from the servant's grip.
"Edmund!" Lucy shrieked, and as the grappling increased she threw herself at the faun's back. All three of them went down, slamming hard into the broken crockery. The faun twisted, his hand suddenly free of Edmund's; his elbow slammed back hard into Lucy's nose and she fell limp to the floor. Edmund reached for the faun's hand again, but the faun was in control and swiped with the knife; Edmund barely had time to roll back out of the way, wincing as ceramic splinters cut into his shoulder. Coming up on his knees, Edmund reached for his sword before remembering he did not have it. The faun leaped at him; Edmund ducked and reached with scrambling fingers to the pile on the floor. The glass slipped and cut his skin; ignoring the pain, Edmund grabbed the biggest piece he could locate by touch alone and brought it up before him. The faun had too much momentum to avoid it; a second later Edmund had driven it into his throat, the sharp edges cutting into his palm from the pressure.
Warm, red blood gushed from the wound, splattering across Edmund's chest and staining his hands. He found himself looking up into the faun's eyes as they clouded, a gurgling sigh escaping his lips. The head sagged forward, and then the body tilted unnaturally to the side. The shard cut into Edmund's palm again and he released it, still embedded in the faun's throat, as the body collapsed.
Lucy moaned, pieces of crockery clinking as she shifted upright, her hand on her nose to contain the blood. Edmund looked down at his fingers, sliced open in half a dozen places, and as the pain caught up with him, was suddenly and unexpectedly sick.
He barely looked up at the arrival of several horrified individuals, all of whom were loud and fretting and generally unhelpful. Then came a much stronger and much more welcome voice, taking charge and sending various servants off to all ends of the castle for aid.
"He's going into shock," someone murmured near Edmund's ear.
Then another voice, the familiar taking-charge voice, "Get him to the healers."
And a voice that could only belong to one person, "I'll get my-"
"No, Lucy."
And then someone was helping him to stand and after a rush of black, Edmund's vision cleared and he found himself facing his very welcome elder brother's concerned eyes. "Couldn't have left the heroics until after you'd welcomed me?" Peter teased.
"'Course not," Edmund mumbled. "You had a whole two months of playing the hero, gotta have my turn."
-x-
The pain eased somewhat after his hand was bound and the concoction of strange smelling medical herbs was downed. Edmund was fairly sure the tonic had included something to make him sleep, for the room began to blur not long after he drank it, and he had to struggle to keep his eyes open.
"Lie here," a dryad instructed, firmly attempting to move Edmund toward a bed against the far wall. He resisted her efforts, blinking hard to keep awake.
"Have to see Peter first," he mumbled, and then stronger, "I have to see Peter."
"You have to sleep," the dryad countered, and tried again to move him towards the bed.
The disagreement might have gone on far longer if Peter had not chosen that moment to walk into the room and make a beeline for his younger brother.
"Why are you not in bed?" was the first thing he asked, casting an annoyed look to the dryad as if it were her fault she could not control her patient.
"I tried, your majesty," the dryad murmured, dipping low while still attempting to pull Edmund out of his chair.
Edmund gathered his remaining strength and shook her grip off. "I had to see you," he said solemnly, and slipped his uninjured hand into his tunic pocket. Peter waited silently, recognising the stubborn trait in Edmund that had surfaced after many battles.
The paper was crinkled and ripped in one spot, a gruesome drop of blood soaked into the corner. Edmund unfolded it as best he could with only the one hand before handing it to his older brother. "Intelligence," he explained. "The faun was a spy."
"And now he's dead," Peter observed, eyes running over the letters on the page.
Edmund did not even bother to answer that. He knew, just as Peter knew, that it would have been better to subdue the faun and keep him alive for questioning. He also knew, as Peter surely did as well, that the faun had, in the end, made that task impossible.
Peter slid the paper into his own pocket with a short and abrupt nod. "I'll see what we can do with this," he promised, before narrowing his eyes. "But for now, you need sleep."
Edmund could only wrinkle his nose in reply.
-x-
"So, boy, thought you were invincible to glass, did you?"
Edmund stood in the doorway to the Colonel's office, thumb rubbing over the recently healed scars that criss-crossed his palm like a spider's web. The wounds did not pain him anymore, but his hand felt tight and inflexible from the new skin. "I didn't exactly have a lot of choices," Edmund countered, and at the Colonel's gesture, moved into the room.
"What about your sword? Your knives?"
"I have them now," he answered shortly. He had already berated himself over the absence of any weapons that day. He should have known long before this to never go anywhere without a knife.
"Your cuts healed yet, then?"
Edmund dutifully held his hand up for inspection. Normally such treatment from his subjects would be considered highly improper, but the Colonel had made it clear from the moment the young kings had met him that he would treat them as any other recruit, and neither Peter nor Edmund would have it any other way.
The dwarf peered at the hand briefly before turning his eyes back to Edmund. "So, I'm assuming you're ready to get back to practise?"
Edmund nodded once, and hesitated. The Colonel raised an eyebrow but waited patiently. Edmund rubbed at the scars again, reflecting that the movement had already become a nervous habit, and blurted, "I'd like to know if you can teach me to handle glass without hurting myself."
"Handle glass?" The dwarf snorted. "Step one – keep it in one piece. Step two – always carry your knife as the weapon." He turned away, rooting in his desk for a pouch of dried leaf and his pipe.
Edmund pressed his lips together, having predicted the response he would get. "You told me before that anything in a room can be used as a weapon. I want to be prepared. Can you teach me to shatter a glass and use it as a weapon without cutting my hand open in the process?"
The dwarf grunted, lighting the pipe and bringing it to his lips without looking at Edmund. There was silence as he sucked on it, before spewing a cloud of smoke through his lips. "Eh, we'll see what we can do."
-x-
England. 1940.
There is a heavy volume in one hand and a half-full glass of water in the other, and Edmund pauses. The door is closed, and although he tries to adjust his grip on the book, his fingers are not quite long enough to grip around the hard cover and the door handle at once. There is an awkward attempt to juggle the book and the glass, but when the water is nearly spilled across the carpet, Edmund gives up and drops the volume with a heavy thud to the floor.
He is terribly tired after three sleepless nights, and finds his mind wandering as he reaches for the door-handle. Distracted, Edmund only registers the hesitant, padding footsteps of someone – correction: someones – sneaking up on him when it is too late to do anything but turn around. He does so, and ducks as a fist flies overhead to slam into the wooden door; there is a yelp before the arm is snatched back again.
Edmund finds himself reaching for hidden daggers that aren't there. In a sudden correction, relying on instincts honed to perfection over the years, he pulls the hand with the glass back, water sloshing everywhere, and smashes it against the door. His fingers grip the largest shard and swing it up before him as a weapon.
And then his mind catches up with his body and Edmund recognizes the three assailants as nothing more than school boys, bullies, his once-and-no-more friends. All are staring at him – no, at the glass shard in his bleeding fingers – with something akin to horror. Murphy, leader of the three, is nursing his bruised knuckles; Hepworth and Rogers flank him on either side.
The door opens behind Edmund then. It is his roommate, whatshisname Tozer, no doubt summoned by the shattering glass. Edmund straightens from his defensive crouch and listens to the sound of shuffling feet as Tozer stumbles backwards in surprise. Hepworth swears softly in the stunned silence as Edmund belatedly loosens his fingers to drop the glass. The shard hits the carpet, and the boy asks in some queer mixture of hatred and wonder, "What was that?"
Edmund looks over each face and away again and finds that he does not know what to say. He seizes on the only excuse available, one that makes him cringe inside because it is an insult to lives lost but also so very true, if not in the way the boys expect – Edmund shrugs his shoulders and says tightly, "The war."
And he bends down to lift the dampened textbook, shaking off the pieces of glass to scatter about his feet like gleaming jewels. When he straightens again, the boys are still watching cautiously, as though he is some wild animal not to be trusted. Maybe he is – Edmund is not sure about anything anymore.
He steps into his room without another word and shuts the door in their faces. Then, in a sudden rush of exhaustion and loss, he sags against the wooden slats with half-closed eyes, memories of Cair Paravel dotting his vision like stray dreams. The textbook falls again from his injured fingers to land unnoticed on the floor.
When Edmund is finally able to gather himself together and open his eyes, Tozer is studiously ignoring him. All the same, as Edmund rips a strip from one of his shirts and binds his wound in quick, practised movements, he notices the boy watching him when he thinks Edmund is not looking. Edmund doesn't blame him; he would not want a madman for a roommate, either.
It is only after the lights are out that Edmund remembers the glass in the hall and thinks to say, "Watch where you step when you leave the room."
-x-
He should expect all the gossip at breakfast the next morning, but of course his sleepless night – now four in a row – means Edmund wakes with a pounding headache and no room for thinking ahead. He slips down to the dining room and slides into place at the edge of a table of boys in his year. They all cast strange looks at him before turning quickly away to whisper. In the three days Edmund has been back at school, he's already gotten used to sitting alone – the boys he used to call friends have had enough time to learn he's changed, while the others have not had enough to learn he can be trusted. Even Peter is little help, for it is odd for brothers to associate much at the school, and Edmund does not wish to stand out.
Strange, when once he wished to stand high above the rest.
He is not doing a very good job at staying inconspicuous today. It doesn't take long for him to realize that most of the whispers involve his name, or to see Murphy glaring from two tables over.
Peter is looking at Edmund too, but with concern. Edmund rolls his eyes at his brother in an attempt to say Back off, but Peter just narrows his eyes.
He's leaving the hall by the time Peter catches up. "You cut your hand," is the first thing his brother says, and Edmund rolls his eyes again.
"Clever deduction."
Peter takes his arm before Edmund can worm away and pulls him to the side. "Look – I heard what happened."
"Wonderful," Edmund exclaims in exasperation. "Glad to hear you pay attention to the gossip of the school. I'll remind you that Murphy exaggerates."
From what Edmund has overheard, in this instance the bully actually had not, but Peter is not to know that.
"So your cut is really nothing?" Apparently, returning to school has only revived Peter's sense of sarcasm. "I thought you learned how to break glass without harming yourself."
"My fingers don't remember," Edmund mutters, and at the expression he receives, adds, "Peter, I can handle this. Trust, remember?"
His brother's hand loosens, and a familiar resigned grin slides onto Peter's face. "Right. But no more stunts, please."
Edmund nods wearily and watches Peter disappear down the hall.
-x-
Tozer is waiting when Edmund returns to their room that afternoon. His face is ashen and his hands are in fists; he is standing in the middle of the room, his feet planted firmly on the ground, his lips pressed tight together. The expression on his face is one Edmund is used to seeing on soldiers on the eve of battle.
Edmund stops short in the doorway, unaware but wary of what his roommate might want. He does not need another confrontation now.
Tozer doesn't say anything at first, doesn't even move, and finally Edmund steps into the room and pulls the door shut. The click of the handle seems to be a signal, for Tozer immediately stiffens. Edmund doesn't say a word, but just waits in resignation.
"Pevensie," Tozer begins, and while he tries to sound tough, his voice trembles. "Pevensie, I just want to get one thing straight."
Here it comes, Edmund thinks.
"I – I don't know what quarrel you have with your friends –" Edmund frowns at the association "– but I don't want any part of it. You hear? I have lads who'll back me up. I want no part of this." Tozer shuts his mouth firmly and glares.
Edmund takes a deep breath. "Right," he sighs, too tired to think of anything more eloquent. "Fair enough. I don't want to fight." He steps past Tozer to his bed, where he collapses across the mattress and closes his eyes.
The other boy doesn't move. "A-and no more of that business from last night," he adds from what he must assume is a safe distance. "That business with the glass."
Edmund can hear it in his voice, as much as Tozer tries to hide it – the boy is terrified. Edmund thinks back to what he did the year before and knows that the fear is justified. The thought disgusts him now.
"Look," he says firmly, sitting up again to fix Tozer with his eyes. "My only quarrel with Murphy and the others is that I'm done with them. I'm not picking any more fights."
Tozer looks away quickly. Then, in a much more subdued voice, "But the glass yesterday..."
"It was a mistake." In a way, it was, but not really – Edmund had certainly meant to shatter glass, even if he had not quite comprehended the situation correctly. Still, it is too long and confusing and personal to explain further. Tozer looks unconvinced, and Edmund adds, "The only person who got hurt was me."
The boy's eyes travel down to Edmund's bandaged hand, and he turns away, clearly unnerved. Edmund sighs again, watching Tozer awkwardly sift through a drawer before abruptly changing his mind and leaving the room. Edmund falls back onto the bed again.
-x-
The days pass like dripping molasses, long and slow and bitter. Edmund concentrates on staying out of trouble; he works hard in class, keeps mealtimes short and spends as much time as possible alone in his room or a private corner of the library. He meant what he said to Tozer about not wanting any fights. Unfortunately, if there is one thing he learned during his reign in Narnia, it is that one can never go too long without a confrontation – he is simply delaying the inevitable.
It turns out he's right, although that isn't much of a consolation, and it certainly doesn't happen the way he had been expecting. It's late, almost time for curfew, and Edmund is just returning from the library where he had been writing a letter to his sisters when the sound of voices catches his ear. He recognises Murphy's immediately, and the frightened whimper as his victim, and almost before he realizes what he's doing, Edmund has backtracked to take the other hallway toward the disturbance.
Stay uninvolved, whispers that tired, worried, schoolboy corner of his mind, but stronger than that is the sense of justice that Edmund has known since Narnia. Barely a moment later, he has found the problem. Murphy is in the middle, a firm grip on his victim's vest, and Hepworth and Rogers are on either side. Edmund has a double take when he recognises the victim as Tozer.
The others don't notice his presence until Edmund drops his books to the floor with a heavy thud. Even then, Murphy barely looks over his shoulder and Tozer only widens his eyes in fright. It is Rogers who turns with a smirk and a snide, "Look who decided to show up."
Edmund knows he can't fight them. As good as he might be – and in all modesty, Edmund is very good – he is still outnumbered three to one, unless Tozer can fight, which is unlikely. Besides, even if he does gain the upper hand, he will merely become the next target. No matter how lucky he might get, he won't escape unscathed every time.
Bullies are just frightened boys trying to prove how much better they are than everyone else. Edmund knows it is true – after all, he was once just like them.
"Look," he says finally, "You aren't going to get what you're looking for by beating someone up."
Murphy snorts and releases Tozer's shirt, pushing the boy back hard against the wall in the process. "Think you know what we want, Pevensie?" he sneers. "What do we want?"
Carefully, now. "I'm not saying I know what exactly you want," Edmund replies cautiously, "I'm just saying you won't get it by beating someone up."
"And what if I want to beat someone up?"
"It's a means to reach the end. I'm saying I don't know what your end is, but bullying is the wrong means to getting there."
The boys frown, trying to make sense of Edmund's words. He stands still, unmoving and nonthreatening, waiting for their next move.
"You think you're better than us?" Murphy accuses, and steps closer to Edmund. "Maybe you need to learn that sometimes a beating is the perfect means to putting others in their place."
Edmund shrugs, glances once behind Murphy, and bends quickly to pick up his books, careful not to look away from the bullies for a second. "Well," he says, voice changing quite suddenly to lose the solemn quality. "If that's what you think, good on you." Then he stands, and begins to back away down the hall, eyes still on Murphy and his companions.
He's taken maybe five steps when Murphy's face changes to understanding, and he whips around to the wall again. Tozer is no longer there, having taken advantage of Edmund's timely interruption.
As soon as the bullies have turned away, Edmund bolts down the hall, back the way he had come. He's afraid that for all his effort, Murphy will still blame him, rightly, as the reason his victim got away. It isn't likely they'll come after him tonight, but he'd rather be safe in his room than the halls in any case.
-x-
Tozer is waiting when Edmund slips inside the room, breathless and hot from his run. The boy's eyes are still wide, and he seems to be giving Edmund a once-over for any bruises or cuts. Clearly, he is expecting his saviour to have taken on the punishment.
"Thanks," the boy says as Edmund drops his books onto the desk and collapses into the chair. "For... you know..."
"Yeah," Edmund cuts him off. It's an uncomfortable moment for both of them, and he doesn't wish to prolong it. Tozer seems to sense that Edmund doesn't really want to talk, and turns to his bed, scratching his ear briefly before turning back.
"You didn't have to," Tozer says fiercely. "I'm not such a wimp that I can't take a few hard knocks."
Edmund looks up in surprise. "I know," he replies. "But you're enough of a man that you don't deserve them, either."
The silence is hot and discomfiting. Tozer rubs at his ear again. "They're gonna be after you now," he points out.
Edmund nods and shrugs his shoulders.
"If... if you want," Tozer continues slowly, "You can stick with us – me and my mates, I mean. Murphy doesn't go after people in a crowd."
Edmund blinks in surprise, and after a pause of deliberation, nods again.
Each of them moves to prepare for bed, wrapped up in their own thoughts. Nothing else is said until just as Edmund reaches to douse the light. That's when he hears Tozer's voice from the other side of the room admit, "You know, Pevensie... you aren't half bad."
-x-
England. 1949.
It will be late summer, the hot weather uncharacteristic and unbearable, when Edmund decides to visit Susan one last time. He will walk there, even though the walk is a long one, and the day will be nearly reaching its end when he finally stops in front of the nondescript city flat. Edmund will have debated this decision a long time before convincing himself it was right to come, but now, again, he will hesitate.
When he finally lifts his hand to rap business-like on the door, he will be answered first only by a stretching silence. His jaw will slacken, although whether from disappointment or relief, he will not know. When the wait becomes too long, he will shake his head as if chastising himself for coming, and will slowly turn away.
That is when the door of the stairwell will fly open.
It will be Susan he sees there; Susan, but not the Susan he used to know. Her raven hair will be pulled up in an elaborate London fashion, her eyes will be heavily shaded, her skin will be powdered. He will not miss the scowl that crosses her face before a fake mask of pleasant surprise takes its place.
"Edmund!" she will exclaim, and the false smile will be a mockery of what he remembers. "What are you doing here?"
He will hear the condemnation in her words as she steps into the hall, and won't miss the way she averts her eyes. How long would it have been since they last spoke – a month, two, a year?
"I came to talk, Susan," Edmund will explain as his sister passes by. He will watch as she fumbles in her purse for her key, and her hand will tremble as she slides it into the lock.
"Go away, Edmund," she will say. "I don't want to talk." Her door will open with a creak and she will slip inside quickly.
Edmund will try to follow, but she will block the way in. "I don't want to talk," she will repeat, before she closes the door in Edmund's face.
Edmund will not know how long he stands there, separated from his sister by a door and so many stupid, meaningless arguments. When he finally turns to make his way back to the stairwell, his head will droop in disappointment. He won't see what the point of having been a king of Narnia is, if he can no longer speak to his older sister.
When Edmund reaches the bottom of the stairs, he will look around without taking anything in. He won't know where to go or what to do. It is a long walk back home, but he will hate admitting defeat. A girl will come out of the stairwell and she will make eyes at Edmund, but he will not notice. As she goes out the door, a man in a uniform stinking of beer will enter, brushing past Edmund on his way up the stairs.
Edmund will realize then that if he hates defeat, he will simply refuse to be defeated. He will lift his chin with new purpose and stride back to the stairwell. He will know what to do.
When he reaches Susan's door again, he will lift his hand with a silent prayer to Aslan. But before he can knock, he will hear a sound from within, a gasp of alarm. He will rap firmly, decisively, but no one will answer the door. He will wonder if Susan heard, and will knock again, only to cut off when he hears a shriek.
Another alarming gasp will follow, and without hesitation, Edmund will try the handle and find it unlocked. He will burst into the flat to see his sister struggling with the man in the uniform, attempting in vain to push his hands away. "Whats'a matter," the man will be mumbling, "You prefer tha' boy, Edmun'?"
"He's my brother!" she will protest, and will lift her hand to slap him. The man will catch her arm and twist it around.
That's when Edmund will move forward, grasping the only weapon at hand – an empty wine glass. With a yell, he will swing it down over the man's head, shattering the cup. The man will release Susan's arm and turn in surprise to see Edmund, the jagged edge of the stem pointed at the man's face.
Then Susan will kick the man hard and shove him away, a bitter accusation, "You're drunk!" spitting from her lips. She will glare at him and do her best to ignore her brother. "Get out of here," she will order, and although she says it to her date, Edmund will suspect she means it for him too.
So Edmund will place the stem of the wine glass on the counter and grab the man's arm to remove him from his sister's flat. When he reaches the hall, he will look back once to see her expressionless face. It is enough to wound him all over again, and he will step away, pulling the man to the stairwell.
He won't hear Susan come out into the hall until he's opened the door to the stairs. When he turns, her hand will be up at her mouth, and he will be able to tell that she is fighting off tears. "I'm sorry," she will whisper, and then, "Thank you." And before he can respond, she will disappear back into her flat.
The next day, Edmund will meet Peter at the train station.
-x-
END
-x-
A/N: You may have been wondering why I have not been posting much lately. Do not fear - I am writing as much as my busy life will allow! The Narnia Fic Exchange is not the only exchange I participated in this year; you may not have noticed, but I posted only a few days ago a new crossover fic for Inception/Merlin/Narnia that I wrote for the Multi-fandom Crossover Exchange on Livejournal. Also, I am working pretty hard on a couple other projects, one of which I have been dealing with all fall and hope to finish by the end of the month.