Disclaimer: I own nothing in this marvelous universe; it all belongs to C.S. Lewis.

Rating: T

Summary: What do you do when you've lived two lifetimes? What do you do when you fall in love with one life and can never go back? Or so you think...Book and Moviebased

"Speech"

/Personal Thoughts/

Nighttime Demons

By Sentimental Star

Chapter Twelve: Incomplete

(Clacton-On-Sea, Colin Pevensie's P.O.V.)

I know Helen said they changed. I did not realize they had changed this much.

I sigh, and resting my elbow on the arm of the couch, drop my chin into my hand and gaze out the window, frowning slightly.

They aren't supposed to be like this. Not at only fifteen and eighteen years of age! Every time I look into their eyes—or their sisters' eyes for that matter—I see there years of experience which I did not take part in. And what is truly disconcerting is that those years number more than just five or six.

I know war has made adults out of children for centuries. But my children have a depth to their gazes that I do not see in their fellows, and they seem more real, almost, than any others their age.

It's frustrating, and it's painful.

Particularly when I only catch fragments of memories, pieces of conversations, that apparently they all share…and Helen and I do not.

The scene I witnessed on the porch between Edmund and Peter, for example. Narnia? A coronation? A battle? It would seem like utter, ridiculous nonsense if I did not feel so strongly that something in those words held the key to finally understanding—at least a little—my grown up children.

I did not lie when I told Peter I could never hope to compete with him. I do not believe he realizes it, but he is the central figure in the lives of his siblings. More than Helen. More than myself.

And that hurts. I cannot believe just how badly that hurts. To think I didn't realize it until the past few weeks.

Edmund no longer comes to me. If Peter's not home he goes to Lucy. If Peter's home, then I can barely catch one without the other for more than two hours in a row. And Lucy does not stray far from her brothers, either. When the three of them actually reach the age to legally be considered adults and move out of the house, I truly will not be surprised if they decide to live together, or at least, live very nearby one another.

Every separation seems heart-rending for them. They are reluctant to say good-bye, even though they know they must, and know they will see each other soon. They cling to one another with a fierceness that suggests they have been through far worse than merely parting for school. As if they are afraid one of them will come back wounded, or covered in blood, or half-dead.

From Peter's description of his nightmare, it seems they might well have.

That dream of his…in all its horror, it suggests a sickeningly intimate knowledge of the battlefield. He speaks as one who knows the battlefield and death all too well. Something an eighteen-year-old should not. Something my son should not.

Perhaps, though, that is one of the reasons why they seem so completely different from their same-age companions. They have an understanding of their own mortality I have encountered in few others.

Only soldiers should have such a great understanding. And they aren't soldiers. They're supposed to be children!

But they aren't. As much as it pains me to admit it, they aren't.

I said Edmund no longer comes to me. Now I see why—at least a little.

He has something with Peter I'm afraid I don't understand. They are more than just brothers by blood. They are brothers by the heart and soul, too.

Furthermore, they are best friends.

Edmund's obvious familiarity with his brother's thought process, his ability to understand Peter with hardly any words exchanged between them at all, speaks to me of long years of experience which I'm not entirely sure he ought to have. Not at only fifteen.

Those same years deepen his gaze. Make it so wise, so somber, and (after a nightmare) so haunted.

But Lucy can make him smile. Peter can make him laugh. Is it any wonder, then, that he seeks their comfort now, rather than mine?

It shouldn't come as a shock to me. And really, it doesn't.

It does, however, hurt.

Things aren't the same anymore. I shouldn't have expected them to be.

Edmund trusts Peter with his pain.

Peter trusts Edmund with his weakness.

They both trust Lucy with their happiness.

She trusts them both with her safety.

I can no longer claim the same. Nor can Helen, it appears.

And Susan…no matter who she becomes or what happens, she will always love her siblings.

They have been a family, it seems, far longer than the eighteen years they have been the center of our lives. It would seem ludicrous if it didn't feel so right.

Helen claims I will learn to take comfort in that knowledge. And I'm trying. But for the moment, it is a bone-deep ache.

There is nothing hidden between Peter and Edmund. There is a wall three meters thick between them and me.

I hope their Professor friend's visit will help. Because right now, I feel completely and utterly lost. I don't know where my place is in their lives anymore. I don't know what my place is anymore. And it is not easy for a father to admit one of his sons has taken on his role—the role he thought he would play until his children were grown up.

I now recognize the feeling I had at the train station six weeks ago when I watched my two youngest children bid good-bye to their older brother. It happened again this morning, when I watched Peter and Edmund together on the porch, and again not five minutes before when they sat together on the couch.

It was jealousy…and longing. The jealousy alone makes me feel sick.

Isn't this what I wanted? To see my children loving each other, protecting each other? For my sons to reconnect? For all my children to reconnect?

And they have, far more beautifully than I could have ever imagined.

I just did not realize how great a sacrifice I would have to make in order to receive such a wish, and I shudder to think how Helen must have first taken it when she understood that.

Sending them away to the countryside was sacrifice enough.

And there it is. The countryside. Everything my children are now, everything they do, how they act, what they share, all of it comes back to that queer old manor in Coombe Halt.

I need real answers. These thoughts are getting me nowhere.

My wife has left Professor Kirke's number by the telephone.

Tbc.