Lucy sighed as she crossed the road with Edmund.
"What's up with you?" Edmund asked.
"I want to go back to Narnia." She burst out.
"We only just got back, and you said that last time."
They stepped back onto the pavement bustling with people.
"I know." Lucy said. "I want to live there. Forever. I want to bring Narnia back to it's former glory, like when we were all the kings and queens the first time round. After we defeated the White Witch."
"I know what you mean. I sort of wish I was there again. We weren't there for very long. Whose fault was that again?"
They stopped and shared a look. "Peter's." they said together. Then they both laughed and Edmund slung his arm over Lucy's shoulders as they continued walking.
"Coming back, London seems dull doesn't it?" Lucy asked.
Edmund pulled her out of the way as a small patrol of soldiers marched past them. "I don't know about that. Seems pretty exciting to me."
"Ed, yes it's war, but you can't take part. In Narnia you're Kind Edmund the Just, the right hand man of High King Peter. In London you're just Edmund."
"It's a hard point. But a true one." Edmund snorted as they continued on. "Maybe we can go back soon."
"It took a year last time. How much to bet it's going to be another year?"
Edmund looked surprised at the hopeless tone in her voice. "What's this? Queen Lucy the Valiant losing hope? The world must be coming to an end. Tell you what, Lu. It's been simply ages since we spent time together just us. Want to have a camp out tonight? Nothing big, just pitch the tent in the garden."
"What about Peter and Susan?"
"They're too serious. They don't have a lot of time for either of us anymore. Since that talk with Aslan before we left they've not been that, well, friendly towards us. It's like they're distancing themselves from us. I think we're too young for them. They're growing up."
"And they're leaving us behind. Again. I'm always left behind. Even in Narnia." Lucy complained kicking a loose stone aimlessly.
"We don't want you to get hurt."
"I can take care of myself. I don't need to be babied." Lucy shook off his arm and stalked ahead. Her dignity was crushed a moment later as she slipped and fell into a puddle.
Edmund stifled a snort and went to help her up. Her simple school skirt was wet through. Seeing this, Edmund couldn't help laughing.
"That would have been so much more dignified if that hadn't just happened." Lucy said through her own giggles.
As they entered the street where they lived a torrent of rain suddenly beat down upon them. Laughing they hurried to their house and Edmund fumbled with the keys. Finally they fell inside onto the mat and Susan and Peter looked up at them in surprise from the sitting room where they were doing their homework. They looked on disapprovingly as the younger siblings burst out laughing again.
"What took you so long?" Susan mothered.
"Ed wanted to buy a new torch, since he left his in Narnia." Lucy said as she picked herself up and then raised Edmund to his feet. "So much for the camp out." she said as she and Edmund went through to the kitchen and heard the rain pelting on the windows.
"We can still have it. Come on, Lu. We'll set up our sanctuary. Just like we used to, when we were little and wanted to escape the elders." Edmund nodded his head back towards the sitting room and the studious siblings.
Lucy nodded, smiling enthusiastically. She remembered escaping to their sanctuary when they were younger. It wasn't much; just a bedsheet set up like a tent with an old fashioned gas lamp and to them it was an escape. They used to be close; before Edmund thought he was too grown up for Lucy. In the year since the return from their first trip to Narnia Edmund had seemed more like his old self. He was more grown up but he had learned his lesson and treated Lucy like more of an equal.
Their mother had started working nights in a nearby hospital, so Susan had to be the mother of the house. She and Lucy enjoyed preparing the evening meals and doing the housework. Susan barely blinked when Lucy asked her sweetly if it was okay for her and Edmund to have a dinner of sandwiches upstairs in private.
When Lucy brought the plate of sandwiches upstairs with a pitcher of lemonade and some glasses all on a tray up to the old playroom Edmund was just finishing setting up the tent. He turned and smiled at her.
She set the tray down and then they pulled the oldest double mattress in the house into the sanctuary. They had always slept beside each other when they camped out, gossiping and whispering secrets to each other until late in the night.
"Why do you think Peter and Susan are in such a hurry to grow up?" Lucy asked when they lay on their tummies on the mattress, settled in for a good talk.
"Probably because of the way people treat us as kids. They patronise us terribly. Except in Narnia of course. In Narnia, even as children, we're treated like adults. I think they want to keep that feeling so they try to be as grown up as they can be." Edmund said turning over onto his back.
Lucy propped herself onto her side and looked down at her brother. "You're probably right. Do you know how wise you are? No wonder you were crowned King Edmund the Just." She reached over and ruffled his hair playfully. He didn't brush her hand away.
"Wisdom is something I could have used when the white witch got me."
"In a way I'm glad you weren't wise then." Lucy curled a lock of her own hair round her finger and lowered her eyes.
"Why, precious?"
"Well, you were so ghastly before you learnt your lesson, and then after we rescued you and you had that talk with Aslan you turned back into the old Edmund. The one who used to play with me, who'd stand up for me when people laughed at me, who'd help me when I was learning to read, the brother I could go to when I had nightmares, and who'd read me to sleep. Until you felt like you had to grow up you were my favourite brother. You needed to learn that lesson to become my favourite again. I may be a silly little girl, but I knew you'd come back to me. I never lost hope."
Edmund smiled and took her hand. "You never do. You really are the heart of the Pevensie's; your faith always sees us through. Without you, we wouldn't be nearly as successful as we were as kings and queens. You taught us to believe in the best in people; that everyone has good in them. You probably think that even the White Witch had some level of decency in her."
"She's probably the one person who doesn't. Although she may have been a good person once who was seduced by evil. As, I might remind you, were you. Briefly. But you, luckily, have a good heart beneath here." She patted his chest lightly. "Which saw you through it."
"Thank you. Another factor you didn't include was the family I have behind me. A family that risked their lives to rescue me."
"That's what family does." Lucy said simply. "Families stick together."
Their conversation that night ran along the lines of Narnia and the people they knew there; whether Caspian would make a good king and what trouble Trumpkin was getting himself into. That night they both dreamt of Narnia as it once was; during the Golden Age of their rein. In dreams they visited Cair Paravel their wonderful palace which had been their home for the twenty Narnian years of their rein.
Edmund awoke to birdsong and found that Lucy was snuggled up to him with her head on his chest. He smiled down at her and thanked god that it was the weekend so they didn't have to get up early. Broad sunlight was beaming through the opening of their tent and it was mottled, as though they were in a forest.
As carefully as he could he moved Lucy off himself and crawled to the mouth of the tent.
"Lucy? Wake up." he tried not to sound panicky.
"What is it?" she said sleepily.
"Lu, I don't think we're in Finchley anymore."
Lucy pulled herself to the mouth of the tent too and rubbed her eyes. "What are you talking about?"
"Look at it. Look familiar?"
"Impossible." Lucy breathed.
"Narnia." They whispered together.