Author's Note: Oh my goodness, you guys, I am so sorry about the long wait! D: Life gets in the way, and I've had a lot of stuff going on for the last month or so... My grandmother passed away, and I was very close to her, so that was a big bump in the highway. Then my sister had back surgery to fix her scoliosis, but that didn't affect my writing time so much. I've been really busy with school lately, so I haven't had the time I needed to do any quality writing... Well, actually, I wrote this entire chapter in my AP US History class. XD On paper.. Over the course of four or five days. So, this was slow coming. I hope you guys like it though! I made it extra long, and tried to make it as detailed as I could. :) Enjoy! :D
Song for this chapter: Don't have one as of now.
Edmund smiled to himself as he entered the large bedroom that he and his Narnian wife shared. Ari was sleeping peacefully underneath the thick, dark green blankets on their bed. Her curly red hair fell like a curtain over her face as her steady breathing caused her chest to rise and fall. Edmund almost hated that he was going to crawl into bed in a few minutes for fear of disturbing her peaceful state, but he too was exhausting.
It had been a long and tiring day, and though he was happy to have his family members with him again, they had brought some unsettling news. Edmund shook his head to clear his thoughts. It wouldn't do to dwell on those things at the moment. There would be time for that later.
He shucked off his clothes that he had worn that day and placed them in a basket in the corner of the room. The basket was nearly full now. He made a mental note to carry the basket of dirty clothes down to the wash room the next day. He pulled on a pair of soft gray pants and slowly climbed into bed, careful not to wake Ari. But when he laid his head down on the pillow, a pair of bright green eyes were staring back at him. He sighed.
"I didn't want to wake you, Sorry." Edmund apologized. Ari blinked at him and smiled.
"You didn't wake me up. Your son did." She said, a hint of irritation in her voice. She winced a second later. "He seems to like using my stomach as a kicking bag late at night."
"She's just overactive." Edmund chuckled softly as Ari rolled over to lay on her other side. He wrapped an arm around her and the other underneath her head and pulled her close to him. Since her back was turned to him, he was able to put a hand on her stomach to feel the baby move.
It seemed like every time that he felt their child move inside her, no matter how small that movement was, it brought a huge grin to his face. After all those years of frustration and tragedy, they were finally getting a miracle. He knew, though his redhead would never admit it, that as the day drew closer where she would have to bring their child into the world, she grew more and more frightened at the thought of being a mother. Their fears were mutual. Edmund grew more and more nervous as the days went by, scared that he wouldn't be a good father.
When he shook away the thoughts, Ari was already fast asleep again. He listened to the steady rhythm of her breathing, and felt their child move beneath his palm. It wasn't long till he too succumbed to sleep with a smile on his face.
When Ari woke the following morning, she found the space on the bed next to her empty. Edmund couldn't have been up for a long time since the bed was still warm. She was dreading having to climb out from under the warm blankets around her, but she knew that if she couldn't pull herself out of bed, Lucy would.
She threw off the green blanket and shivered at the cool September air that filled the room. She walked over to the coat rack across the room at the door and quickly took her warm robe from one of the hooks. She pulled it as tightly around her as she possibly could, effectively blocking the cool air from chilling her skin any further through the light-weighted material of her nightgown. She slipped on a pair of soft bedroom shoes and made her way out of the room and down the stairs to the dining hall.
Susan looked up from her eggs and toast to nod at Ari briefly when she entered the room. Lucy set down her fork with a piece of sausage still on it and gave the redhead a bright smile. Peter stood up and pulled her chair out for her like the gentleman that he was. The Professor wasn't present, not that Ari had expected him to be seated at the table with them. On any normal day he would eat breakfast in his study. Yet there was still another empty seat.
"Has anyone seen Ed this morning?" Ari asked as she sat down, casting a look at the vacant seat beside her. "He wasn't there when I woke up." The three Pevensies seated shook their head simultaneously in response, but it was Peter that finally spoke up.
"No." Peter replied to her. "I thought he would have come down with you. I haven't seen sign of him since we talked last night."
Ari sighed as she put a few pieces of bacon and toast on the blue and white china plate in front of her. After she took a few bites of food, she looked up at her family.
"He's probably out in the gardens taking a walk." She explained. "He tends to do that when he's got a lot on his mind that he's trying to process."
Peter and Lucy nodded in agreement. Edmund did take his time strolling through the gardens of Cair Paravel when he had a new situation to think about. Whenever a new problem arose, he would spend hours out in the flowers and plants trying to come up with a way to fix it. Often he would neglect his well being until one of his family members would come and retrieve him so he could eat. The peacefulness of the garden helped him clear his thoughts and let him analyze things better.
Susan excused herself from breakfast early. When the swish of her red dress had disappeared, Ari turned worried eyes to Peter and Lucy.
"What's the matter with Susan?" She asked in a hushed voice, though she wasn't sure why she whispered. Peter opened his mouth to speak but then shut it again, as if trying to think of how to phrase his words correctly. In the end, it was Lucy that broke the silence.
"Our sister is losing her faith, Ari." Lucy replied in a soft and gentle voice. Ari's eyes widened.
"Losing her faith, as in..." The redhead trailed off, as if not wanting to believe it.
"She doesn't really know, or at least from what she's told Lucy, if she still believes in Narnia or not anymore." Peter said, an upset look clear in his eyes. Ari's eyes popped open and a nearly inaudible gasp tore it's way from her throat.
"But...that's not possible!" Ari exclaimed. "Susan loved Narnia more than any of us other than Lucy!"
"I know. But she's changed since we left Narnia in ways you can't even imagine. It's like she isn't even Susan anymore!" Lucy said as she pushed her plate of food away from her, her appetite lost.
"We'll get her back." Ari said with a determined look on her face. "We always got Ed back."
The three of them shuddered simultaneously as their thoughts drifted back to their Golden Age reign. They each remembered what Ed was like in those first several years. He did get better later on, but when he reverted back it was worse than in the beginning. In the first couple of years in their Narnian reign, Edmund would have severe bouts of panic. Whenever someone would mention the Witch, or a traitor, the Just King would sink back into himself so far that nobody could reach him. He would close off to everyone. He would sit with a glazed expression and one could practically see the flashbacks and horrors that he was seeing in his mind. Sometimes it would take days to snap him out of it and finally get him to eat something. It took even longer to get him to speak. These attacks lessened in frequency with time, but they still occurred at random moments. Even after all of those years, Edmund still hadn't forgiven himself for his betrayal, when his family forgave him without any trouble at all.
"This isn't like that." Peter said, snapping everyone out of their thoughts. When he was sure that he had Ari's attention, he continued. "Ed was always trapped in his own mind. He didn't chose that. Susan is forgetting what's happened, and we can't tell if she's doing it on purpose or not."
"That's absolutely dreadful." Ari said, shaking her head.
"Yes, we know." Peter sighed. He push his head in his hands. "I don't know what to do! I'm supposed to be the leader. I protected my entire country, but I can't even take care of my own family now."
Ari studied Peter's face and he looked back at her. In all of her memories of the golden haired king, she couldn't remember more than ten times that she had seen him look so helpless. He had no fears of going into battle against an army twice the size of his own, but when his family was hurting, he felt powerless.
"Look, let me talk to her." Ari said to them. "I'll see if I can get anything out of her."
"I don't think it will do any good." Lucy replied sadly. "All of us have tried, Ed included and nothing has changed."
"Wait a second... You told Ed? When?" Ari demanded. Peter flinched just a little, knowing that a storm was brewing just underneath the surface.
"I told him last night after you had already gone to bed." Peter answered. "Why do you want to know?"
"He came to bed late last night, and he never does that anymore." Ari said, shaking her head. She ran a hand over her stomach and winced once. "He's barely let me out of his sight these past couple of weeks."
"And I can see why." Lucy said, a small grin on her face.
"What's that supposed to mean!"Ari asked in indignation.
"Ari, just take a good look at yourself." Lucy said soothingly. "You look like you're going to be ready to pop that baby out of you any second now!"
"I'll tell you exactly what I told him. I'm pregnant, not made of glass." Ari snapped at her sister. Lucy decided it was in her best interest to keep quite and not face the wrath of an upset, pregnant Ari. She was bad enough without all of the hormones running through her body.
Author's Note: Once again, I'm so sorry for the long wait! Life gets in the way sometimes. Hopefully I'll have another chapter up soon enough.
Leave a smiley if you liked it! :D
