AN: Since I wasn't able to update all weekend, I thought I'd get this up today. I hope you like it.

The yellow rose lay harmlessly in the snow. Lucy fought against the urge to get off the horse, bend down, and pick it up. It wasn't meant to be hers. Susan hadn't wanted it but she couldn't take it as her own after all.

It was snowing again and the little ice flakes quickly buried the ill-fated flower in a white blanket of frost.

Both Lucy and Ash held back tears as they rode away from it. They both felt as if they were losing hope. Hope of what? They weren't really sure. Perhaps it was hope of what might have been between them. What they might have allowed themselves to feel if Ash hadn't been hopelessly in love with Susan all these years.

The wind began to blow so furiously that it felt like a slap across the face whenever it brushed against exposed cheeks. It made them feel as though the skin was being peeled off their ears which now had a red-as-ripe-cherries hue to them. The snow flakes that landed on their noses and eyelashes felt more like icy bullets. Lips turned blue and noses turned scarlet. Both Lucy and Ash had a problem with the skin on their knuckles bursting open and bleeding. Lucy hated looking at the reins because seeing her dried blood caked over the brown leather made her feel rather sick to her stomach. They quickly remembered their forgotten gloves and slid them on. It made their hands thaw a little and ache less. Both wished they'd been clear-headed enough to recall the soft velvet-wool gloves sooner. No one dared cry or drool for fear any moisture would freeze and stick to them like barnacles.

They had to keep their eyes tightly shut as often as possible to avoid getting their eyeballs cut with the sharp sleet that blew at them mercilessly. When Trumpkin finally opened his eyes to be sure they weren't headed for a cliff, he saw what looked like a long wide tundra as untouched-white as a blank sheet of paper.

"Your majesty!" Trumpkin called to Lucy. "We've made it to the tundra."

Lucy allowed her eyes to slide open a crack and take in the sight of the flat, dull, chilly plain ahead of them. At least they were doing just what Aslan had told them to. They were on their way to Rilian where ever he was.

"I wonder how far in the castle is." Ash said speaking for the first time since he'd seen the yellow rose fall from Lucy's pouch earlier.

"I hope it isn't far." Lucy shivered, her purple-blue lips quivered as she spoke. "I've never been so cold before."

Ash took off his wool cap and placed it on Lucy's bare head. Ash had once read some where that people lost a lot of body heat through the head.

"Thanks." Lucy managed a smile at him, took her stiff-from-cracking-open left hand off the reins and was ready to it off and give it back if she had to. "But what about you?"

Ash shook his head. "You keep it." He insisted. "I don't need it."

Lucy smiled again. This time there was a little more warmth in it.

Ash felt his heart flutter a bit. It seemed to him that a smile like that could warm up tundras much colder than the one they were traveling on. It was really too bad that he'd been so foolish as to reject her. He thought sadly of that kiss she'd given him. It had been his first kiss and thinking back on it, he had felt something. Something he wasn't sure he would have felt if it had come from anyone else. Even Susan, he realized with more amazement than words could express, couldn't have kissed him like that. He knew now that if he could go back in time to that morning, he wouldn't have pushed her away.

Traveling along, they came to what looked like a white cliff with a tall thin hill jolting out of it's core. It wasn't nearly big enough to be a mountain but was as rocky and hard as though it were. On the top of it was the only dark color in the whole tundra. A great black castle with towers so large and imposing that they seemed to reached up through the gray-white clouds into heaven itself. It wasn't a friendly looking place in the least. Not at all warm and inviting like Cair Paravel. But all the same, any building at all looks quite appealing when you've been traveling in the cold snow for any extended period of time. A hideous garret on the top of a shabby apartment house would have seemed almost beautiful to them.

"Now we mustn't loose our heads." Trumpkin said firmly, as much to himself as to Lucy and Ash. He longed to rush up that hill, pound on the door and demand in the name of Aslan that they let them come in and warm themselves by a nice fire place. However Prince Rilian was probably a prisoner in that dark castle, meaning that whomever lived there need not be the least bit kind. It might be a wicked creature with some plot against Narnia as likely as not.

"How are the horse and pony going to get up that hill?" Ash wanted to know. "It's very steep."

"It's too steep." Trumpkin said gravely. "We have no choice but to leave the horses here and go up on foot."

"Oh, it does feel rotten leaving them here like this." Lucy sighed as she used the reins to tie the horse to grove in a nearby rock. "I feel like a murderer leaving them out there in this weather."

"Nothing can be done about it." Trumpkin said trying to sound tough and matter-a-fact but really feeling quite badly for his poor pony. The high-strung bright eyed creature wouldn't stop looking at him with a very, 'You aren't leaving me here are you?' sort of expression on its face.

Ash said nothing, pressed his lips together, eyed the hill and gulped. It was very imposing in appearance and climbing up it seemed dismal. It might have been less so if there was a merry party of friends and food awaiting them at the top but Ash knew perfectly well there'd be nothing of the sort and that it was bound to be a very unpleasant time indeed. The only good thing that could be said about the hill was that it had levels. If you fell down part of it you didn't slide all the way back down to the bottom. You simply fell to the level below you. Which was cheering in gloomy sort of way.

They all started carefully up the hill.

"Pace yourselves." Trumpkin warned them whenever they seemed in too great a haste to reach the top.

"But we shouldn't linger." Ash protested, taking a tighter grip on a rock he was pushing himself up on.

"Haste makes waste." Trumpkin reminded them.

"Hey, my mother says that." Ash beamed at the dwarf.

Trumpkin pouted at the thought of being compared to anybody's mother. It was bad enough when Lucy did it, he almost wanted to smack Ash for daring to try it but decided not to. He had to concentrate on reaching the top of this hill.

The hospital was quiet. There weren't that many visitors or emergencies that day. The lovely clear blue sky that looked very out of season for that time of year could be seen through the window in Lucy's room. Mrs. Pevensie had pulled back the curtains convinced that her daughter would feel better if a little sunlight were allowed in.

Peter was sitting in his chair beside her. Susan had succeeded in getting him to eat a decent breakfast which was more than he felt the lump in his throat and the pit in his stomach would allow. But Susan had been very determined and it the end it proved easier to just give in. As he'd eaten, Peter realized that it felt very good. He hadn't realized he'd been starving until then. He wondered how long it had been since he'd sat down and really enjoyed a good meal. Any meal. And managed it eat everything on his plate while he was at it.

Now though, food was the last thing on his mind. He could tear his eyes away from his poor baby sister who had shown no signs of waking up since that one moment the night before.

Edmund stood behind the chair and was watching the waves on the machine by Lucy's bedside go up and down. Suddenly they weren't so wavy. They looked like they were getting flatter and flatter.

"Peter!" He exclaimed.

Peter and Susan flew over to the monitor. Something was wrong. Very wrong. If there wasn't some mistake, it meant they were losing her.

"Susan, go get the doctor now!" Peter ordered, grabbing onto Lucy's hand. "You're going to be alright. You just have to be."

Susan raced down the hallway as quickly as her legs would take her. She prayed that the doctor hadn't gone on break. He had to be in the building. If he wasn't...no she wouldn't think about that. She had to find him.

Lucy suddenly fell down to the lower level of the hill she laid where she'd fallen and didn't move.

"Lucy!" Screamed Ash, jumping down as quickly as he could to reach her.

Trumpkin followed close behind. "What happened?"

"I don't know." Ash said, not bothering to wipe away the tears that were now freezing to his face. When he reached her, he saw much to his horror that she still didn't move. She was laying on her back and her eyes were half closed.

"Your Majesty, what's wrong? What's the matter?" Trumpkin cried out letting his emotions betray him for once in his life.

Ash kneeled in the snow beside her. "Lucy..." He lifted her head onto his lap.

"I feel so weak." Lucy managed to murmur, as her eyes started to close a little more.

"No, stay awake." Ash pleaded as he shook her gently hoping the motion would keep her from fainting-or worse.

"Lucy please don't leave us." Mrs. Pevensie bawled as the doctor and his assistants tried desperately to find out what the problem was and save her. "Come back my sweet girl, come back!"

The lines on the machine were almost as flat as they could get without being completely straight lines.

"Lu..." Peter sobbed, clinging onto her side as closely as he could without getting in the doctor's way. "Lucy, please..."

"Please don't die." Susan wailed, looking into the pale weak unmoving face of her sister. "Please Lucy. Please."

The corners of Lucy's mouth started to relax.

"No!" Edmund cried, realizing what was happening.

Lucy felt very strange. She felt as though she was both in a bed and in a snow bank at the same time. She could see nothing but blackness all about her. But she could hear. She could hear so many voices all of them pleading with her.

First she could hear Trumpkin and Ash. Ash's was the last face she'd seen before this dark blackness surrounded her. Then she couldn't hear them but could hear Peter, Susan, Edmund, and her parents. They were crying and pleading with her to come back to them. Then she couldn't hear them anymore at all. She could hear Ash and Trumpkin only. Then it changed and she heard Peter again. Then she heard all of the voices at once. They overlapped one another and spoke over and over again like a broken record. Wake up don't leave us! Then the sound grew softer and softer until it faded away.

The lines on the machine went flat and there was a sharp, BEEP. All the nurses hung their heads. They felt so sorry for the young pretty child who'd just passed away and for her family.

Peter and Edmund were clinging to each other tightly weeping harder than they'd ever wept in their lives. Susan was crying into her father's heaving chest. Mrs. Pevensie held onto no one sobbing into the palms of her hands.

Ash reached into Lucy's pouch and pulled out Lucy's magic cordial. His numb fingers struggled to open it. Please let this work.... When it was open he gently lifted the diamond bottle to Lucy's lips letting a drop fall into her mouth.

For moment there seemed to be no change. She didn't move and it seemed as though she was dead. There was no so much as a light pulse and her heart had stopped beating.

"We were too late." Sobbed Trumpkin. "She's gone. We've lost her."

Lucy felt the darkness evaporate from around her. Her eyes were closed but she could feel sunlight touching them. She heard weeping. She opened her eyes and saw a clear blue sky out of a slightly streaky window. She was in a white room. Her eyes focused on a brown clip board that said, "Room 626, Lucy Pevensie. Age: 17."

Then she closed her eyes again and felt as though she was falling into another body. It was still her's but it was worlds away and much colder than the one she'd been in only a second ago

"Peter, look!" She distantly heard Susan cry out.

She hadn't seen Lucy with open eyes but she did see the machine waves started up again as well as Lucy's chest going up and down. She was alive!

Peter raced over to her bed side. "Thanks be to the Lion!"

"But how is that possible?" Mr. Pevensie gasped happily.

The doctor smiled and shrugged. "It isn't."

"A miracle!" Cried Mrs. Pevensie overcome with joy.

Lucy's head still rested on Ash's lap. He looked down at her unable to stop blubbing.

Lucy felt hard frozen tears hitting her face like hail and was feeling caught somewhere between deeply moved and slightly irritated.

"I love you." Ash cried even harder now (If that was even possible). "I've been so stupid."

Lucy's eyes slid open a crack and a smile started to form on her lips. "Say it again."

Ash was so relieved when he saw her bright blue eyes looking up at him again. "I've been so stupid."

Lucy crinkled her brow and frowned at him. "No, not that part!"

Ash couldn't help laughing a bit at that. "Sorry."

Trumpkin smiled and held his tongue. This moment was just for them and he didn't want to interrupt.

"I love you." Ash said again.

Lucy felt her teeth chattering with joy. "Really?"

"Yes." Whispered Ash pulled her close to him and embracing her so tightly that she could barely breathe. "I love you and I'm never going to let you go!"

"Ash..." Lucy's voice was somewhere between a gasp and a laugh.

"Yes?"

"Let go."

"Okay." Ash laughed and let her go.

They sat in the snow looking up at one another happily.

"I thought I'd lost you." Ash said softly.

"What happened?" Lucy asked.

"I don't know it was as if you just died suddenly..." Ash shuddered. "It was terrible." He lifted the diamond bottle and showed it to her. "I thought this might help so..."

Lucy leaned forward and kissed him.

This time he didn't pull away. He kissed her back.

Trumpkin waited nearly five minutes watching them kiss before he finally coughed, "Ahem!"

They pulled away from each other and started climbing the hill again.

For the rest of the day, Trumpkin acted rather grumpy because thanks to them, he found he couldn't stop smiling and he had to make up for it some how.

AN: So whatja think? Love it? Hate it? Tell me! Please please please, review. Don't forget!

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