Title: As They Were
Fandom: Soon after LWW
Rating: G
Character(s): All Pevensies (including parents), with some emphasis on Ed and Pete.
Disclaimer: Clive Staples Lewis' world, not mine.
Notes: This is more a series of four tiny fics that go together, about Mr. Pevensie noticing. I have quite a few other ideas in my head for other stories set in the same time, and I may or may not add them as further chapters to this story.

Mr. Pevensie hadn't been home above five hours when he started noticing.

It started with the horns, mostly. The family had eaten dinner and were in the living room listening to the wireless (set to the classical music station) and talking, catching up on news now that Mr. Pevensie was home on sick leave (the illness had spread to his lungs, and there was no way he'd be fit for more than light work for at least four months, the doctors said). The music paused, and the announcer gave the name of the next piece, no one in the crowded room really listening, and then the music began, horns ringing clear. There was a motion opposite him, as Peter's head came up, a sudden fierce clearness in his eyes, the set of his jaw and mouth determined.

The horns continued their high, clear music, and Mr. Pevensie glanced around the room, taking in his children's faces. Edmund's eyes held the same clearness as Peter's, and he was smiling at nothing. He looked years older in a moment (like a king, Mr. Pevensie's subconscious said, but the thought never reached his mind). Susan's lips parted for a moment as she drew in a deep breath, flattening her hands on her lap as if consciously restraining them. Lucy had that look on her face, the one reserved for magic and fairies and elves in corners, as she stirred restless in her chair.

Then the horns ended the introduction and the orchestra came in. As one, the children let out a breath they weren't aware they'd been holding, and Peter's head drooped. Edmund, curled up in the corner of the sofa, was suddenly a boy again.

Odd, Mr. Pevensie thought.

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"... what, by sheer force?" Pete was saying, only it didn't really sound like Pete. Mr. Pevensie paused, his hand on the doorknob.

"Well, he thinks he can do it, at least," Edmund argued, and his voice too had a deeper, almost manly tone to it. (Mr. Pevensie's subconscious stirred again, but Mr. Pevensie batted away the thought as ridiculous.) "And that's half the battle right there."

"Sure, if you can give that assurance to the troops. But they don't lead like we did, Ed. They lead from little bunkers in the back, staying safe."

"And they call themselves generals," Ed said scornfully. "I bet they'd have no idea what to do if asked to go up against the Northern Giants. Now that was a battle for the ages." Peter laughed, and Mr. Pevensie realized that it was the first time he'd heard Peter laugh in the two days he'd been home. He frowned and thought back. Edmund hadn't laughed either, he realized, and he had always been the merrier of the two. And Susan too, and Lucy even, were more serious than he remembered them. He wondered for a moment, and then decided it was probably just the war.

He pushed open the door, and they both looked up, almost warily, the smiles on their faces fading. Peter's shoulders tensed, his forehead frowning, and Edmund's eyes clouded again as he hunched over the map on the table. The remarks Mr. Pevensie had planned, cheery and common, faded, and he walked through to the door to the kitchen with nothing more than a smile to them. He listened from the kitchen for them to start talking again, but they didn't.

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It was a week later that Mr. Pevensie began to wonder what Edmund kept doing in the evenings, hunched over a piece of paper with a pencil or pen in his hands. Finally he moved over and started looking through the stack of papers beside Edmund. He could see Edmund stiffen beside him.

They were drawings, he realized after a moment, pen and ink sketches for the most part of places he'd never seen and strange fantastical creatures. They were all done with a meticulous eye for detail that astonished Mr. Pevensie, who had always considered his son a bit of a rapscallion, to tell the truth.

"Edmund, where is this?" he said finally, holding one of the drawings up. It was one of the best, done with such detail and attention that if color were added, it would be alive, of a castle resting beside the sea. It was one of the few labeled ones, a small, neat 'Cair Paravel' written down in the bottom right corner. The room went completely still in a moment, as the other three children stopped what they were doing. Susan went pale, Lucy's eyes looked about to fill with tears, and Peter looked somewhere between furious and reverent, if such a combination were possible.

"Just somewhere I remember," Edmund said softly, and that kingly tone was back in his voice again. He looked at the picture longingly, and then stood up and took it gently from his father's hands, putting it back on the other drawings and taking them too. "Beautiful, isn't it?" he said softly, and then opened a drawer and placed the drawings away, shutting it firmly.

Somewhere behind him came a rustle of skirts as Susan left the room, and Edmund followed her out, giving a look to Peter that stopped him halfway as he began to rise from his chair.

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"Susan, I'm sorry," Edmund said. "I didn't mean for you others to see those. They were just something I did... to keep the memory fresh, you know?"

Susan nodded, her face stern as she kept the tears back.

"It's just..." she said softly. "I could almost see the lights, and taste the cider and wine from that last ball we held. You remember it, right?"

"Yes," Edmund said. "I remember." The dryads came and made petal showers, laughing as they fell, and Mr. Tumnus danced with Lucy, and there was only a half hour to dawn when everyone left, all silver and shining in the twilight, and we waved them all away and then went to bed. And the next afternoon we left to hunt the stag, and everything changed.

A moment later, he realized Susan had been thinking the same thoughts.

"The dryads looked so beautiful in the twilight," she said softly.