Chapter 7: A Quiet Word-Susan

Three days after my sunrise talk with Pete I still hadn't had a chance to speak with Caspian. Lucy and I were coming out of the tailor's rooms, fresh from ball gown fittings, when I smacked straight into a man's hard chest. I reeled back, and Caspian darted an arm out, hooking me around the waist a moment before I would have lost my balance completely and crashed to the floor. My left hand was wrenched from Lucy's, and she darted her eyes back and forth between Caspian and I before grinning deviously behind his back and continuing down the hall without me, almost skipping.

Only seconds had pasted since I'd collided with him, and I lifted my eyes from the floor to his. "Sorry." I apologized sheepishly. He smiled slowly at me, the expression seeming to warm his eyes as he unhurriedly removed his arm from my waist.

"Are you all right?" he asked courteously. I nodded quickly. He paused, seeming to weigh his words before he spoke. "Walk with me?" he finally asked, rather formally, after a few moments, during which I'd only managed to stare at the frown lines puckering his forehead. I found myself nodding again, before the words had even had a chance to register in my brain. He could have asked me if I could fly and I would have said yes if he were looking at me like that.

We wandered through the halls, talking about the upcoming ball, and soon found ourselves outside and in the citrus grove again. The mid-morning sun was softened by the trees, and the scent of the blooms permeated the air.

I snuck a glance over at him, both wondering how to bring up our kiss two years-three for him- previously and trying to summon my courage to broach the subject of what it might mean now. Before I could ruminate on the subject any longer I spotted a wayward branch sticking out into the path directly in front of my face. I quickly ducked, then swerved when I still saw it looming, which sent me bumping into Caspian's arm, hand hitting his. Before I could move away he meshed his fingers between mine. I glanced up at him quickly and found him watching me, the warm look from the hall back on his face, but no hint of a smile. He was all seriousness.

"Susan," he began, continuing up the path towards the orange trees. "I…I don't know if your feelings have changed over the last three years…or if you ever had more than fleeting feelings for me,"

I opened my mouth to express my shock that he'd ever thought I'd just had a crush, but he held up his free hand in a silent entreaty to let him continue.

"I did not want to spring this on you the first day or week you were here, but I cannot stand the thought that you might believe me indifferent to your presence here." He came to a halt and gently pulled me around to face him. "I never forgot you Susan. I missed you every day you weren't here; I couldn't stand the thought of spending even an hour with the princesses our neighboring kings insisted on parading through Cair Paravel. " he paused, searching my face. I feared I was gaping at him. "Just say the word and I will never speak of this again. Your brothers and sister are like family to me, and I want us all to be able to be together, however that is." He stepped back a pace and started to withdrawn his fingers from between mine, face open but guarded, giving me space to take his words in. I couldn't speak past the lump in my throat, but I had to say something. He'd spent three years...not exactly waiting, since we'd believed it hopeless, but still, wishing for me. The thought sent a flare of warmth through me, straight to my heart, and I tightened my fingers around his hand as I tried to swallow the lump down. He stepped back, brown eyes intent on my own, a strand of hair falling into his face as a gleam of hope lit like a spark inside those beautiful brown eyes.

"I missed you too." I could feel a blush creeping over my face as I stared down at our linked hands. After a few beats of silence he cleared his throat and asked "How did you miss me?"

When I didn't say anything his free hand found my chin, tilting my face up towards his and away from the ground. "How did you miss me?" he persisted. I sighed. I knew what he wanted to know. Had I missed him the way he'd missed me, had I been unable to look at other men, or had he been a fleeting thought once or twice?

"I cried. So, so much. No one but my siblings understood why I was so upset suddenly. Then Pete and I went to America and Lu and Ed stayed in England, and Mum and Dad…I tried to hide it, but they worried. Peter was the only one left who knew, and he spent more nights up late comforting me than I can count." I took a deep breath. The next words were so quiet I barely heard them. "My heart wasn't breaking; I didn't even have it. I left it here, in Narnia. With you."

He pulled his hand from mine.

Then suddenly I was in the air, being spun around in his arms. His grin looked like it might split his face as he set me down on the ground again. His hands slid from my waist, and I barely had time to miss the warmth of them before he brought them up to cradle my face.

He kissed me sweetly, lips just a whisper against my own as my hand came to rest on his neck.

"I dreamed of that for three years." He whispered, forehead resting against my own. I stroked the soft hair curling against the nape of his neck and smiled up at him. "So did I." Just quiet little words, but they meant so much.

A/N: Sorry it's been so long, I should be posting the next few chapters fairly quickly.

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