With the passing of time, Helen proved unable to keep Edmund and Lucy apart. She tried, one has to give her full points for effort if nothing else, but in the end, it was all for naught. She could forbid Lucy to see him but she couldn't forbid Peter from inviting him over during tea and from the only available seat happening to be right beside-or at times, across from-Lucy. She didn't give up though, if she knew he was coming over to the house, she made sure to send Lucy away on an errand that she knew would take most of the morning or afternoon. But just as they had found a way to get Lucy out of wearing corsets, they also found a way for her to spend time with Edmund.

It didn't help that most of Narnia was rather fond of him now, in spite of Helen's attempts to drag his name in the mud so to speak, because he had officially been declared a knight having passed all of his courses.

Of course the first person he ran to tell was Lucy whom he found in one of the back gardens of Lord Pevensie's manor, taking her lessons outside with Tumnus because the weather was too fine to waste away in his dark study.

"No, that is not the correct sum." Tumnus sighed, taking the book out of Lucy's hands and looking at the problem for himself. "Close though." He read the problem over again and then turned back to her. "How did you come up with that answer?"

"Well I-" Lucy started before she saw Edmund racing towards her holding a notice with an official Cair Paravel stamp on it. She jumped up and dashed over a small soil-path to where he was standing out of breath, panting.

"I did it!" Edmund blurted out excitedly, thrusting the paper in her direction. "I was worried because it came later than it was supposed to but it turns out I passed. I'm going to be a knight and-" He paused for a moment and inhaled deeply, realizing suddenly that he was hyperventilating and his words were all running together in a rather awful-sounding slur. "Breathe, Edmund, breathe..." He had to remind himself.

Lucy read the notice and beamed at him. She known he would make it but he'd been so withdrawn and worried lately that it had rubbed off on her, making her feel almost as tense and anxious as he had. Now, she felt his relief and happiness just a strongly as he did, if not more so.

She let out an excited squeal and threw herself into his open arms so quickly that they fell over and squashed a bed of orange flowers.

Tumnus shook his head. "The gardeners are not going to like that."

"Lucy," Edmund gasped, trying to shake a couple of orange petals off of the shoulder of his tunic.

"Yes?"

"Get off me." The way they had landed, he couldn't sit up until she moved.

Lucy let go of him so that her knees slid into the moist black soil. Her stockings and the ends of her dress were probably ruined now but she didn't care, she didn't even notice that they felt damp now, she was still too excited.

"Sorry, I'm just really happy for you." Lucy apologized as he helped her to her feet.

"I can tell." He chuckled, brushing a layer of dirt off his tights

Tumnus smiled at them, choosing for the moment to ignore the fact that Lucy hadn't finished her lessons for the day yet.

"So have you told Peter yet?" Lucy asked him.

Edmund shook his head. "I wanted to tell you first."

Lucy slapped him on the arm. "Ed!"

"What was that for?" Edmund exclaimed, rubbing his arm.

"You've been training with him for years, you should have told him first." Lucy spoke sternly but she was smiling when she said it.

"Oh, he can wait." Edmund rolled his eyes.

"When are you going to be knighted?" Lucy wanted to know.

"Well, that's the thing." Edmund said, rubbing the back of his neck while he spoke. "The official ceremony isn't for another year but technically I'm already a knight, like all of the duties and stuff."

"What kind of duties?" Lucy asked.

"Well you know if there was a war or something..." Edmund's voice trailed off as he watched Lucy's face fall, she looked completely devastated. "Hey, look here, it's alright." He reached out and grabbed her hands. "I said if there was one-there isn't. There's nothing to worry about."

"But if there was one, they would make you go?" Lucy said softly, suddenly not liking the idea of Edmund being a knight as much as she had a few minutes ago.

"Well...not make me...I'd just have to go..." Edmund stammered, trying to explain.

"What about Peter?" Lucy realized, starting to feel a little sick to her stomach at the thought of the two boys she cared the most about in the world having to fight in a war-hypothetical or not. "Would he...?"

"Well technically, yes." Edmund said honestly. "But like I said, there isn't a war going on now anyway."

"I know it's just..." Lucy sighed, feeling his hands tighten gently around her own. "I don't know what I'd do if-"

"Lucy Pevensie!" An angry voice snapped.

Edmund quickly let go of Lucy's hands when he saw Helen coming towards them looking livid.

Lucy cringed. Hardly anyone called her, 'Lucy Pevensie' even though it was her name now according to her mother and she knew that tone. It didn't mean anything good, that was for sure.

"You are supposed to be having your lessons." Helen glared at Tumnus. "I trust you have a very good reason why you were letting her just stand around doing nothing when she was supposed to be learning something useful?"

Tumnus rose up slowly on his goat-feet and gulped. "Well, Lady Helen-you see..."

"I don't want to hear it." Helen practically spat at him. "Just do your job or I will ask my husband to dismiss you and the only pupils you'll have will be the gutter children."

Tumnus wanted to argue with her but as she was the wife of Lord Pevensie, the master of the house, and he was only a servant, such an action would have been considered an offence and in poor taste. As he was a very polite faun, he simply lowered his head respectfully.

"And you!" Helen hissed, turned to Edmund now. "What are you doing here?"

Lucy held up the notice. "He's a knight now, mum."

"A knight..." Helen wrinkled her nose and her lips turned up into a sneer. "It's pathetic that the nobility couldn't see straight through you." She pulled the notice out of Lucy's hands and shoved it back at Edmund.

"Sort of like how my grandfather and I saw through you when you first came?" Edmund said in a low but distinctive tone, raising an eyebrow at her challengingly. "We knew from the start what you were." He looked away from her and glanced to his side at Lucy before glaring back at Helen and looking her dead in the eyes. "You forget so quickly that we were willing to put all that aside and help you."

"We didn't need you." Helen said in a sharp, dangerous-sounding voice. "We would have made it on our own."

"Oh, really?" Edmund said, unwilling to back down. "And I take it your daughter is of marriageable age now?" He paused for a moment before adding, "No, you didn't seem desperate at all, I'm sure you would have made it."

Lucy stood gaping at him in disbelief. She had almost forgotten her mother's words from that first day when they'd moved in with the scholarly swordsmen but now they returned to her and buzzed in her ears. Her mother would have said anything, they had been in dire straights. How could she pretend otherwise?

Helen's face went red and without stopping to think, she reached out and slapped Edmund hard across the face.

Lucy gasped, feeling hot tears as they sprung up into her eyes.

Edmund didn't say anything. He didn't break eye-contact with Helen even after the slap and he didn't even so much as flinch. His hands stayed by his sides without even a suggestion of reaching up to rub his flaming cheek. In the calmest voice he could manage, he bid Lucy goodbye, saying nothing at all to the woman who had just smacked him.

"Ed-" Lucy started, taking a step forward before her mother grabbed onto her left shoulder, holding her back.

"I told you before and I'll tell you again," Helen hissed, her well-filed nail beds making deep imprints in Lucy's sleeve. "stay away from him, he's does nothing but cause trouble."

"No, Mum." Lucy whispered, choking back a sob which was had come in the form of a large lump in the center of her throat. "You're capable of doing that all by yourself."

The next morning as Susan helped her out of her corset which Helen had tied in the smallest of knots that day out of pure spite, Lucy seemed distant and broken and not at all like her normal chipper self. If Susan had been the one with the teary eyes and the monosyllabic answers, it wouldn't have been so strange because that was her usual manner of behavior. In Lucy though, it was plenty cause for concern.

"Lu, what's the matter?" She asked gently, as she finally got a hold on the final knot and pulled the lace out through it. In truth, although she didn't show as much, Susan had grown to care for her little stepsister just as much as Peter did if not more so. "Can't you tell me?"

"I don't feel well." Lucy whispered, wiping tears that even she couldn't explain away.

"Why?" Susan asked as she lifted Lucy's sleeves back up so she could slip her arms through them now that the corset was off. "What doesn't feel right?"

"Everything." Lucy told her tearfully, buttoning up the front of the dress. "I feel horrible inside."

Understanding what it was like to 'feel horrible inside' Susan placed an arm around her shoulders and led her over to a small couch where they could sit together.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

Lucy blinked up at her in confusion. "You don't like to talk about anything." Susan was the most quiet, withdrawn person she knew.

"I didn't say I would talk." Susan reminded her pointedly. "I asked if you wanted to talk."

"You want to listen?" Lucy asked, feeling more than a little confused.

Susan nodded.

It took a half hour but Lucy told her stepsister everything that had been going wrong in her life as of late. Most of it wasn't really new to Susan who had seen a good deal of it for herself, including what had happened in the garden the day before (She had been looking out the window but they hadn't seen her), but she listened quietly without interrupting as if learning all of this for the first time.

"I don't know what to do." Lucy whispered. "I don't even know why I feel as upset as I do right now."

"I think I know what's wrong." Susan said quietly.

Lucy looked at her curiously. "What?"

Susan gave her a weak smile. "You might not like the answer."

"What answer?" Lucy crinkled her forehead. "What are you talking about, Susan?"

"You know I'm the last person to say these sort of things but..." Susan started, pausing for a moment at Lucy's blank facial expression before going on. "...I think you're falling in love with him, Lucy."

"What?" Lucy exclaimed in disbelief, pulling away from Susan and jumping off of the couch.

Susan shrugged her shoulders. "I warned you."

"But why would you think...?"

"Because of how you act around him and how upset you are now...I mean...what else could it be?"

Lucy shook her head. She was only thirteen. There was no way she was falling in love with anyone, she had to be years away from that sort of thing. And there was no way Ed-but what if Susan was right?

"I don't feel that way about him-I don't think." Lucy felt her cheeks go red the way they often did when she told one of her rare lies. "He's a good friend but-" she racked her brain to think of something negative she felt towards him. It took a few moments but she finally came up with something. "He made me cry the other day, you know."

Susan looked sympathetic. "That's terrible. What did he do?"

"He left!" Lucy instantly brought her hand to her mouth, realizing what she'd just said. "Oh no."

"I stand corrected." Susan told her, standing up and walking out of the chamber. "You aren't falling in love with him, you're already in it."

Lucy stood in the center of the room, unsure of what to do with herself because she knew that Susan was right.

AN: Please review!