AN: Yes, it has been forever since I updated this fic, but I finally got to it! Reviews would be especially appreciated at this time so that I know whether or not there is still interest in this story.

Chapter 14: Getting Back

Peter

Kiera wasn't dressed in veils and baggy robes any longer. It was amazing, the difference that a formfitting blue dress could make. Peter caught himself admiring her figure as she bent and lifted his young son in her arms. Jonathan giggled in delight as she placed him on her lap. "Aunt," he said, distinctly, placing his arms around her neck. Peter was impressed that his son already seemed so comfortable with her. If he were being honest with himself, the boy wasn't even totally comfortable with him.

Kiera lifted her eyes up and caught sight of Peter standing behind the column in the garden. Peter flushed as he thought of how he must look – skulking in the corner. Kiera lowered her eyes demurely and then gave Jonathan and enthusiastic hug. "That's right, darling," she cooed. "I'm your Aunt. Auntie Kiera." Peter couldn't help but contrast her tender manner with the way Ethnee had been with Catherine when she was a baby. Catherine had deserved a tender mother, even if she only had her for a short while.

Kiera sat the boy down and then gave Peter a curtsey. "You must excuse me if it was not my place, Your Majesty," she said. "But I do so adore your little son. I come and spend time with him everyday."

Peter had not known that this was the case. He waved his hand, grandly. "It's perfectly fine," he said. "Jonathan could probably use more of a – ah – motherly influence in his life."

Kiera lowered her eyes as if thinking about something sad. "You have no idea how I miss my own son. Jonathan looks like him, a little. Well, I suppose that isn't surprising. People used to say that Ethnee and I looked alike." She tilted her head slightly to the side. "Do you see it, your Majesty?"

"I – yes," Peter replied, a bit gruffly. Kiera was taller than Ethnee and her hair was straight, but there was something in the lines of the face and in the eyes that reminded Peter very much of his dead wife.

"Ah," she breathed, smiling. "I should be as lucky to be as pretty as Ethnee used to be."

"Don't be ridiculous, Kiera," said another voice, brusquely. Peter jumped. He thought that they had been alone except for Jonathan and the guards at the other end of the garden. Peter turned and saw Marna approaching them, holding her eldest son. He groaned inwardly. "Everyone always said that you were the pretty one," Marna told her sister. "Well, maybe not father, but Ethnee was always his favorite."

"What are you doing here, Marna?" Kiera asked, a bit irritated.

"You were supposed to bring Jonathan up to play with Gwain, remember?" Marna asked her. Kiera gave her sister a blank stare and Marna sighed. "Well, I guess that I shouldn't be all that surprised. Gwain's been looking forward to this all day, you know."

"Gwain's a baby," Kiera said. Peter had been thinking just the same thing.

"Doesn't mean that he can't look forward to things," Marna countered, and indeed Gwain was wriggling in Marna's arms to get down to where his cousin was. Marna sat him down. "Kiera," she said, "a dressmaker was looking for you just now – something about measurements for a cape you are having made. Better go find him."

Kiera looked as though she would protest, but she seemed to think better of it and merely shot her sister a look. "Of course," she said, curtseying to Peter and smiling up to him, shyly. She left rather quickly, her skirts in a flurry, and Peter was left staring after her.

"What do you think you are doing?" Marna asked him, abruptly, a moment later.

Peter looked at her, absent-mindedly, his mind still on her sister. "What? Nothing."

Marna threw her voice into a high pitched tone. "I wish that I were as pretty as Ethnee," she said, imitating Kiera rather viciously. "Ridiculous," her voice went back to its normal tone.

"We were just talking," Peter said, annoyed. There was no reason for Marna to look at him as though they had done something wrong.

Marna looked down at the boys who were giggling and talking to one another and frowned. "Kiera isn't right for you," she said. "I know that she's very pretty, but you wouldn't like her once you got to know her."

Peter raised his eyebrows, he thought that this sounded a bit harsh. "She seems very sweet."

"I'm sure she does," Marna snapped. "She's taken it into her head that she is going to flirt with you despite the fact that she is married with a child."

Peter frowned at this. "I would not dishonor her if that is what you are suggesting. Nothing will happen between us. But even if it did, is she not getting a divorce?"

Marna's eyebrows shot straight up. "Is she? It seems to me that she is just taking a nice little holiday from her marriage," her voice was that of a person who is extremely agitated. "Would it be possible for you to find someone outside my family to be your little sweetheart? Or would you make Kiera just like Ethnee?"

Peter gasped, but Marna stood her ground. Was Marna blaming him for his wife's death? "You forget yourself, my lady," he stated, very coldly. "I would do nothing to harm a member of your family. Besides, Kiera is a grown woman. She does not need you watching over her affairs. Perhaps you should work a little harder at interesting your own husband." Peter wished that he hadn't said that last part – Marna and Edmund were getting along better these days and it had been a petty thing to bring up. Not at all like himself.

Marna had never been the least bit daunted by Peter – except, perhaps when speaking to him in front of the whole court – and now wasn't any different. "Edmund is a grown man," she said, smiling obnoxiously. "He doesn't need you watching over his affairs."

"Ah," Peter said. She had won, of course, but it had been a spiteful thing to do, turning his own words upon him. He did not wish to bicker with Marna like a twelve-year-old. "My lady," he said, simply, bowing to her and taking his leave quickly.

Susan

It was the first ball that Susan had attended since arriving back in Narnia. Everything was just as it had been before she left. All the funny creatures prancing around, gladly. The decorations of flowers, tapestries. The people all dressed in their best clothes, skirts swirling about the room. Her ladies in waiting gossiping around her. Lucy whispering amusing little jests in her ear and Edmund having a bit too much to drink and being jolly. Everything was the same, but Susan was different. She couldn't enjoy it in the same way.

She danced with Edmund, but his good humor only grated on her nerves. Why was he continually so childish? "You're drunk," she said, pushing him away from her at the end of the dance. Edmund gave her a wounded look, but went away.

Susan stood up straight. This was the best that Narnia had to offer and she was determined to have a good time. Gritting her teeth, she looked around for a new dance partner. Her eyes fell upon a familiar face and she put on her best smile.

Her former lover looked like little more than a boy as he smiled back at her, but he was still handsome. "Susan, Your Majesty," Alberic said, as if hardly able to believe that she was paying attention to him.

"Alberic," she said, as he approached her. She offered her hand to be kissed and he kissed it happily. "I haven't seen you in ages," her own voice sounded insincere, silly. She kept speaking anyway. "What have you been up to?"

Alberic's smile was very sincere, if a bit pitying. Pitying? Was Susan now someone to be pitied? "I am well, Susan," he said. "I was sorry to hear about everything you have been through. It must have been awful."

Susan felt cold. "It wasn't pleasant," she admitted, giving a tremulous smile. "But it is all over now, thank Aslan. But tell me --"

But Susan never got a chance to ask Alberic whatever inane question that had been in her head, for at that moment, a young woman came up and latched herself onto his arm. "Queen Susan," he said, uncomfortably, "I believe that you know my wife, Lyla?" Susan looked at the girl, blankly, knowing that she should be able to place her. Reddish hair, a few freckles, a snub nose, but rather pretty, all the same. Nothing to Susan herself, of course, but not bad looking. "Of course," she said, in a flood of relief as she recognized the girl. "You are Marna and Ethnee's sister." Wife, he had said. "Why, I didn't know that you had married our Alberic."

Lyla smirked at her and Susan remembered, vaguely, that she had always been rather grasping. "Oh, yes, we were married over a year ago. King Peter was at the wedding. I would have thought he'd have told you."

"Well," Susan said, faintly, "I am happy to see Alberic so well settled."

"Settled and with a family on the way," she said, rubbing her stomach, proudly. Susan sniffed in disdain. It was not polite to call attention to one's condition at a public function, to people you hardly knew.

"I wish you both the best of luck," she managed to say it gracefully enough, but she left them as soon as possible. She wasn't sure what she had been expecting. A dance? More? To pick up her life again as though she hadn't been married and held captive and had two children? Susan laughed at the thought. Perhaps she had drank a bit too much wine as well as Edmund, though it wasn't like her.

She smoothed her dress and smiled at those around her. Everyone would say that Queen Susan was radiant that night.

Edmund

"I still sleep with her, you know," Edmund said, his head thrown back against the chair and his eyes half closed as if he couldn't stand to look at the man beside of him.

"What do you mean?" Peridan asked, quietly.

"We make love," Edmund sat up and practically yelled.

"With Marna?"

Why was he being purposefully obtuse? Peridan was not an idiot. "Yes."

There was a long pause. Edmund sneaked a glance over to see Peridan chewing his lip. "Well that's good then," he said, almost reluctantly. "She's your wife. It is natural that you should lay together."

Edmund laughed, harshly. "There is hardly anything natural about the two of us. It wasn't part of the plan. It wasn't part of the agreement."

"Then why do you do it?" Peridan posed the question almost as if it were an intellectual inquiry.

Edmund sighed and then shrugged. "I don't know. She's there. We're married. It is nice to be with someone who you know is always going to be there. It isn't usually like that with people like me and Marna, but we are tied together by marriage and by our children."

"Oh," Peridan said, simply.

Edmund stood up and walked over to the window. "It must be a wonderful thing, to be truly in love with your wife."

"It must be," Peridan answered him, absently.

Edmund turned, sharply, and looked at him. "Do you not love your wife, then?" he asked, thinking of the girl that he had never seen, but who others called pretty. The girl who had given Peridan four children.

"What?" Peridan asked, distracted. "Yes, of course I do. I wasn't paying attention to what I was saying."

"How did you meet her?" Edmund asked, sitting down. He was somehow eager to hear about it – someone else's good fortune.

Peridan shrugged. "It was a match that our parents made when we were children. We met when I was eight years old."

"Oh," Edmund said. It wasn't exactly romantic, but since when was Edmund interested in romance, of all things? "When did you fall in love with her, then?"

Peridan thought about this for a moment. "I suppose after we were married. We only met a few times before then. But after the marriage … well, we started to go through things together, we got to know one another. She is really an amazing girl."

"She is," agreed Edmund, who found himself distracted by thin bristling of hair on Peridan's upper lip. He had kissed men with full beards and men with smooth faces, but he had never kissed someone with such a scratchy little mustache. He wondered how Peridan would feel if he kissed him. Edmund was pretty sure that he already knew how he would feel if he kissed Peridan.

Reckless, he leaned in and pressed his lips gently against Peridan's. The other man pulled away almost immediately. Edmund had been prepared for reluctance, but he hadn't been prepared for the look of surprise and disgust that Peridan was giving him. He usually had a good instinct for these types of things. "I – I'm sorry," Edmund stuttered. "I shouldn't have done that," he gave Peridan a nervous half smile which was not returned. "I guess that I've just had a little too much to drink." That was a lie.

Peridan sat perfectly still, giving Edmund an unreadable look. "Say something," Edmund muttered, finally.

Peridan was still quiet for a long moment before he spoke. His eyes never left his boots. "Your Majesty knows that my love you is such that I would do anything for you. Even if it dishonored me, even if it were a disgrace, but …"

Edmund felt his face heat up. He should have known. Sometimes, when he was speaking to Peridan, it was easy to forget how obsessed with his honor the other man was. Usually, people who were very intelligent weren't very honorable. They might be a little honorable – everyone needed a little honor – but it was not the glittering temptation for scholars and government servants that it was for knights looking for glory. Peridan, though – he was both honorable and intelligent and that made him hard to read.

Edmund shook his head to stop Peridan's labored explanations. "The last thing I would want is to lead you into dishonor," he had meant his voice to sound harsh, sarcastic, but it came out far more gentle than he had intended. He wondered if he had ruined this friendship. Peridan was his best friend of late.

As if sensing his worries, Peridan smiled at him. "You needn't be concerned. We can just forget this ever happened." Edmund sighed with relief even as he wondered how Peridan could think it a disgrace to lay with a man and yet still forgive Edmund so easily for it.

Later, that day, Peter came to him brandishing a letter that Lucy had left him and everything was chaos.

Lucy

It had been easy enough for Lucy to get away. All she had needed was the help of a few reluctant friends, a horse, and some supplies. She wrote a note to Peter, so that he and the others wouldn't worry (even though they would) and in an attempt to explain herself. That last part was hard. Even she wasn't sure why she was doing what she was doing. She hoped that they wouldn't worry too much.

Under her armor with her hair neatly hidden in her helmet, she was able to pass through the countryside without so much as a raised eyebrow. Nobody questioned a knight traveling north on his own. If they had looked closer, then they might have noticed her shape and height, but the humans ignored her and the Animals weren't terribly sensitive to differences between men and women. At first, she was worried that Peter would send someone to bring her back home, but if he did so, then they never caught up with her.

Once she got to the North, she found a Narnian battalion and though there was some confusion at first, Lucy was soon recognized. They treated her with the utmost respect, assuming that she was there to help with the war effort. And why not? There were females in the Narnian armies, though not human women. Recovering captives was at the top of their agenda and Lucy was more than happy to help. She did not tell them that this was the real reason she had come – it sounded so silly and girlish, running away to rescue a lover. She was pleased when the commander told her that she had a good head for strategy just like Peter, even though she knew that it was mostly flattery.

Somehow, Lucy had thought that when the rescued Roydon that he would see her immediately and they would embrace. It didn't happen that way. The battle was messy and confusing and once it was over, Lucy's mind was immediately on seeing to the injured, both soldiers and captives. She barely even thought of Roydon for the next three days.

In the end, he found her, in her tent. His arm was bandaged, and he was thinner, but he looked otherwise unharmed. "Lucy," he said, giving her a small, somewhat broken smile. "I saw you after the battle – from afar."

Lucy nearly knocked over her inkpot. "I saw you too," she said. She wanted to hug him, but not because she was in love with him. She wanted to hug him because he looked so unsure. "I wanted to come to you, but there were so many people – so many people who needed me."

Roydon smiled again. "You are always so considerate."

Lucy looked away, a bit embarrassed. He sat down in the chair beside her and turned so that he was facing her. "Lucy," he murmured, "why did you come here?"

"For you," Lucy said. She didn't want to say it, but it was the truth and Lucy nearly always told the truth.

He took her hand. "For me?" he asked. "I wouldn't have asked you to take such risks, to go to such lengths. The knight is supposed to be the one who rescues the lady, after all."

"Don't you think," she said, quietly, "that the lady would rescue the knight if it were in her power? But it never is, in stories like that. She is always a weak, silly little thing. Not like a real woman at all. And the knight never needs rescuing he's always --"

She was cut off abruptly as Roydon leaned in and kissed her, softly at first, but gradually more intense. "Lucy," he said, drawing away, as if he would get up. Trembling, she grabbed his arm and pulled him to her for another long kiss and she knew that she was lost for his hands were all over her and his lips were eager.

Lucy lay, looking up at roof of her tent, barely visible in the darkness. She felt a cold tear slide down her face and wiped it away. It had been good – perhaps not everything she had imagined, but good, nonetheless – but then everything had been ruined in a single moment. Roydon didn't realize what he had done; he had been half asleep at the time. Lucy wished that she could forget it. She didn't blame him, exactly – they might have been happy but for that one little word – but once spoken, it could never be ignored. She couldn't go on with him now, knowing.

"Lucy," Roydon muttered, sleepily, beside her. He was smiling and it broke her heart because she should be as happy as he appeared right now. He rolled over and his eyes flitted open. "Are you crying?" he asked, as if trying to rouse himself.

She wasn't – not anymore. She pulled the blanket up around her breasts. "I think you should go," she said, surprised at how queenly and stern she sounded.

Roydon's eyebrows drew together, confused. "What's wrong, darling?" he asked, his arm encircling her shoulders. "Did I – did I do something wrong? Did I make you unhappy?"

She shrugged, unwilling to tell him.

"Just tell me what is wrong, and I'll try to fix it," he said. "I wouldn't want to hurt you --"

"You said her name," Lucy said, seeing that this was going to become a long argument if she didn't speak up. "It was afterwards – you were drifting off to sleep and I wrapped my arms around and you looked so happy. And you said her name. Susan's," she clarified at the confused look on his face.

"Oh," he said. "Oh, Lucy. Did I really? I don't remember it at all." He made a valiant attempt to hug her, but Lucy remained stiff in his arms. "Please forgive me," he begged. "I'll do anything."

Lucy shook her head. "I'm sorry. I understand. I just can't go on this way."

"I don't remember it," his voice took on a desperate tone. "Though I believe that it must be so because I know that you wouldn't lie and aren't one to imagine slights. Lucy, please. I love you."

Lucy began crying again and she knew that he saw. "Please don't hurt me anymore," she said, managing to fight back sobbing. "Leave."

"Like I said," he whispered, "the last thing I want is to hurt you." He began gathering his things. Lucy didn't look at him again.