A/N: I'm not completely satisfied with this, but the plot bunny was chewing the inside of my eyeballs, so at least I can say that I wrote it.
Criticism is welcome, but be gentle, this is my first Narnia fic & I'm only 15. :
It had been eight long years for the Pevensie children. Eight years without Narnia. Susan had completely forgotten about the land through the many coats of Professor Kirke's old wardrobe. Edmund didn't even care. As soon as their father had returned from the war, he was so full of relief and love he pushed his days as a King of Narnia to the back of his mind, and focused on making their father proud. As for Peter, he never mentioned Narnia to his siblings, that was, not until this night.
It was no secret that Lucy had taken their departure from Narnia the hardest. The first few weeks the Pevensie's were back, Peter would awake every morning, make his way to the spare room and find his youngest sister asleep atop the many coats in the wardrobe, clutching her hankie so tight he feared she would bleed. He would shake her awake, and she would give him a look of pure anguish before making her way to breakfast, which she ate in silence. He had never seen her so upset.
Over the days and months and years, she went from gay and golden haired to dark, depressed, and promiscuous. There wasn't a boy in town that hadn't been with her in one way or another, and she spent her days asleep in her room, and her nights out drinking and Aslan knows what else with the two-faced girls she called her friends. Peter, strong and solemn pretended he didn't know, but the sight before him he couldn't deny. He had awoken to a strange sound coming from the restroom and as he cracked open the door his heart broke.
His little sister, who was once so bright and charming lay broken in the bathroom floor, eyes and lips painted with colors too deep for her, spilling her stomach out into the chamber pot.
"Lu?" Peter said gently as he rubbed her back. "Lucy please stop doing this to yourself."
She looked up at him and in those big eyes he could see the eight year old girl that begged him to play hide and seek when their mother sent them away all those years ago.
"Peter…I want to go home." She sobbed, and he needn't ask what she was talking about.
He picked her up and frail, too-thin arms found their way around his neck. He carried her into the sitting room and sat her by the fire. As he was draping a quilt over her tiny legs he heard her whisper ever so lightly.
"Tumnus…"
Peter once again found her eyes and she began to tell him something she wouldn't have dared if she hadn't been intoxicated.
"I loved him Peter. I loved him, and he loved me."
Peter could hardly believe what he was hearing.
"That night before we went to look for the stag I told him and we made love for the first time."
Dear Mr. Tumnus…and his little sister…a faun and a Daughter of Eve…Queen of Narnia. Lucy's eyes never left the fire. She stared at it as if she expected figures to jump from the flames and dance for her.
"I begged him to go with us, so I could tell you all, but he thought it best if we waited until after we returned from hunting…Oh, Peter! Do you know what its like to be a twenty six year old woman in a body ten years too small?"
She looked up at him and the tears began to fall more freely than before.
"He would hardly think I'm valiant now."
And Peter Pevensie simply walked over to his little Lu and wrapped his arms around her, for now the handkerchief and the tiny fists beating on the back of the wardrobe and the drowning her pain in sherry and various other types of liquor all made sense.
And it was then that King Peter the Magnificent pondered if anyone less valiant could have survived this long.
