Serena threw another crumpled sheet of paper into the fire. She had several letters to write, and had barely finished one of them. Maybe it was because the first was for Ed. It would make more sense for her to move on the other ones she needed to send to Chambertin and Lucy, but thinking of what she would say in Ed's letter would nag at her until she sat down and put something to paper.

If only it weren't so damn hard.

She'd always thought that she was the decisive one, the one that clearly knew what she wanted while he tended to waffle between he wanted to do and what he thought he ought to do. But now Serena knew better. Ed was unequivocal: he kept everything in its own compartment and separate. And when things mixed, he unmixed them with the same dispassion with which Susan approached gardening.

Serena was a smart woman. She'd known it ever since she'd begged Allister into teaching her how to play chess, and beat him after a week's practice. It could be an annoying fact, like when her father's Imperial Council or even Ed complained about inflation and she knew that the quickest fix would be increasing the gold content in each coin for the short term and subsidizing grain for the long term. And she was therefore smart enough to know when giving up was the best—no, only—option.

Ed would get over it, she knew. He would pick up all the pieces, and put everything right back in its place until there was barely a crack or fissure in his unbreakable stronghold of normalcy. She most definitely could not do the same thing because, and here Serena's lips formed a wry smile, there were no pieces left for her to sweep into a dustpan, much less pick up.

While it may look as if…

Serena read the first six words of her letter, and promptly balled it up and tossed it into the fireplace.

"Hellfire." She swore. The Sister sitting across from her frowned disapprovingly. But that was just what Serena was: a fire that only a lunatic would set.

"Don't go being too smart for your own good." Mrs. Champlain had scolded her. Serena only wished she'd taken the advice. It'd been stupid of her to even think that she could've had it all. She'd thought all the nights spent lying awake planning could've culminated in some great triumph, but she'd miscalculated and misjudged nearly everything and everyone, so everything fell apart instead.

It was something Ed would have never done. He took things apart before he approached them. That was what he was always doing: studying things until there were no secrets left to reveal, weighing them on his mental scale. He wasn't calculating man; but he was a careful one.

Serena wished that, in all her plotting and maneuvering, she'd taken at least half the caution he did when pouring himself a cup of coffee. He always made sure there was never anything in the way, no one around to slam into him and a pot of hot liquid, a saucer to catch drips. And he'd still scrupulously fill any half-emptied cups at the table while he was at it, too. He didn't even think about it. Ed just seemed to have a sixth sense in that way.

Still, she admitted, no amount of prudence in her planning could have erased the fact that Serena tended to let her impulses make decisions for her. For all her intelligence and outward insouciance, she was still an emotional woman. If only she had stepped back from the situation and considered it. Considered things the way Edmund considered things.

She'd lost Satarra, a country nearly two million square miles in area that her ancestors had fought and died for. Its diamond mines in the north generated countless billions for the crown, and it had an army, forty thousand strong that could be mobilized in under a day. Those were just the facts that Serena had carefully found out but pretended not to know. And the only thing she'd really felt like she'd lost was, well…

People fell in and out of love all the time, she reminded herself. In fact, it happened so often it probably wasn't even love. A fleeting fancy, more like.

And with that in mind, she crossed out Dear Ed and wrote in King Edmund with an abrupt, unemotional comma after his name.

She considered that a good enough start, and put down the quill to take a walk outside. She could compose the letter in her head; Serena didn't fancy using up all of the convent's fine paper.

It was so cold the air stung, like a smug reminder that she should have bothered to grab a cloak in her rush to leave Narnia.

She walked over to the marble fountain at the end of the courtyard, taking care not to look up, because the sky was a beautiful clear blue, and blue meant Edmund. She sat down on the edge of the fountain to think. Serena had been born at sea, and no matter how faint or how distant, the sound of water was comforting.

She had made her mistakes, Serena knew, and now she had to begin to think about how to fix, or at least live with the effects. Returning to Satarra was out of the question, as was Narnia. Perhaps Helios would be able to help her, for the sake of old friendships…

The subtle sound of movement stirred her out of her thoughts. From behind a rosebush appeared the man that she'd convinced herself that she'd never loved. And, if her memory didn't fail her, Serena knew hadn't ever loved her, either.

He was dressed simply, like he always was. He also looked dusty and tired, with his eyebrows raised in a clear expression of surprise.

For some reason him suddenly appearing in front of her unsettled Serena more than the last time. And the last time, he had come bursting in with a bloody sword in his hand while her brother held a dagger to her throat.

But Serena had enough fight left in her not to take things sitting down.


She stood up the second she saw him.

"What could you possibly want?" She asked him acidly. Her violet eyes, which he'd once thought were like the sky at dawn were dark as midnight with fury.

He opened his mouth to reply, but stopped. She was wearing the same dress from yesterday, because he remembered giving her a linen napkin for the faint stain on her sleeve at breakfast that morning. He also recalled appreciating the deep, textured purple of her dress, which wrapped around her waist nicely and exactly as it should. It didn't look as if she'd slept at all, and her hair was coming loose from the silver and citrine clip holding it captive in twist at the back of her head. Wisps of it curled around her face. Her lips were the color of crushed peony petals, and he knew them to be just as soft. He thought she was quite beautiful.

What use was there for words at all, at this point?

"Serena," He sighed instead.

"What?" She said, looking more mutinous than remorseful.

"Forget it." He snapped back. He hadn't done the lying, stealing or cheating.

"Believe me, I have." Serena replied icily.

There was silence, with the only sound coming from the gurgle of the fountain. He felt his thoughts trying desperately to regroup themselves so that he'd have something coherent to say.

"I don't even think I have enough fingers to count everything you did."

"That would be ten." She spat. "You could very well just say ten."

"Well it is more than ten, isn't it?"

She huffed and crossed her arms, which he took as meaning that he was right.

"Goddammit, Serena." He pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling frustrated.

"Shut up." She said, refusing to meet his gaze.

"No!" He shot back—which was a first. He'd always tamely shut up before. "Didn't it ever occur to you that maybe what you were doing was, I don't know, questionable?"

"Yes, it did. I don't pretend to be innocent." Though she sounded more accusatory that repentant.

"Oh, you're the farthest thing from innocent." He fumed. "I suppose at least we know how badly you wanted to be queen, now."

"I never wanted to be Queen, I would've been happy to be a princess for the rest of my life." She said bitterly.

"Yes, and all your plotting was just a little side hobby." He said sarcastically. "I'd forgotten that you had the attention span of a bloody goldfish."

"You've heard Albion and the others talk. They never thought princesses—especially me—would ever amount to anything."

Sometimes Edmund wished he didn't understand her as well as he did. Now, for example.

"To prove a bloody point, Serena. To prove a bloody point."

"It was pointless anyway!" She shouted back. "Everything, Ed. I gave up everything for you."

"For me? You lied to me."

"Can you think of a better way?"

"Plenty!" He didn't quite recall the last time he'd been this angry. "You could have just told me, for example."

"And then what? You'd help me? Of course not!" She shook her head angrily, causing several more locks of hair to escape from her hairclip and hang loose around her face.

"I could've talked you out of it! How. Completely. Stupid." He hammered out. "When are you going to learn that there are more important things than proving a point?"

"Stupid? Do you want to know what's stupid? Going to war with Mede over that port—because no one else bothered to think that the only thing coming out of that war would've been dead soldiers." She said, which would've been an acceptable point, had it not been so morally ambiguous.

"You didn't have to lie for it!"

"You and your rules, Ed!" She retorted, as if having a conscience was a bad thing. "Do you think anyone would've believed me? I'm Oberon's silly daughter, remember?"

"There. Are. Better. Ways. To. Make. A. Point." He said, through gritted teeth.

"When you're you, maybe, but—"

"—that's not an excuse for lying—"

"—it never was! But if you think about it relative to—"

"—and you didn't just lie, you—"

"—people would've died—"

"—there's also cheating and stealing in there, and of course making me think that you—"

"—everything! I've lost everything saving your stupid neck—"

They were causing quite a scene, Edmund realized. He was also sure that if this continued, the nuns would unceremoniously jettison him from their convent without a second thought.

"Would you please just sit down so we can figure a few things out?" He demanded, now painfully aware that Serena knew that she'd more than risked her own life for him.

"Why? There's nothing left to figure—"

"Because I love you!" He bellowed, before he could even stop himself.

A stunned look crossed her face, and she promptly sat down without protest.

He shook his head, rubbing at his forehead as he did.

In any normal situation, this would have been the part where he heaved a sigh of relief. But Edmund had a feeling that it could either get a lot worse or a lot better. He didn't like that idea.

He recouped enough of his wits to finally say, "So you knew about Satarran law saying that—"

"Yes." She said flatly. "If I stab my brother, I'll have an appointment with the executioner the next morning."

He winced. "You don't have to put it like that."

"Decapitated." She hissed. "Hung. Drowned. Garroted. Impaled. Poisoned."

"Would you stop?"

"My personal favorite? Buried alive." She said; clearly pleased with the way he flinched.

"Dear God, Serena."

"And I suppose if they wanted to be creative—"

"Stop."

She did, but continued to glare at him murderously.

"How could you have been stupid enough to use my knife on Albion, if you knew that?" He finally asked.

"I don't know." She replied, and was quiet for a long time. "Because you would have done the same thing for me." She concluded.

He didn't have to think to know that it was true. Even when she'd betrayed him, he would have. It was amazing how illogical she'd made him.

Maybe it meant that she did love him, after all. A voice inside his head quickly affirmed it. He knew it was more than wishful thinking. He wondered how he could've ever believed that she didn't.

"You—"

"Don't make me say it again." She whipped her head to the side and refused to look at him.

Edmund regarded her curiously. Her death grip on the lip of the fountain that she was sitting on loosened. He could tell that maybe she'd just realized it herself. She'd probably spent her entire ride to the St. Angela's trying to think of why she'd stabbed Albion to save him.

Serena continued to stare intently at a bed of purple tulips and fading hyacinths at the other end of the courtyard. He wanted to tell her that their colors were just faint imitations of what purple should be, compared to her eyes. It was like comparing firefly lights to the sun. He imagined that maybe they were only violet because she was looking at them. Maybe the second she turned away they would fade to a bleached white.

He sat down next to her, and reached out for her hand; suddenly remembering that the first time she'd kissed him, they'd been sitting at a fountain just like this one.

"Serena, I—"There were thoughts and feelings that there were no words for, he realized. Sometimes there were things that even he knew to be ineffable. He kissed her, catching her lips the second she turned to face him again.

It suddenly dawned on him that there was something more than loving someone. There was also needing someone, practically the way he needed air. Her finger were tightly entwined with his, and something told him they belonged that way. If he knew how long forever was, he would most certainly—

"God, Ed, I—" Serena pulled herself free and took a gigantic gulp of air. She struggled to find something to say, and for some reason she looked more furious than anything.

"What?" He asked her, feeling slightly annoyed.

She rose from her perch on the fountain so swiftly; he could hear the air whoosh. She began to stalk away from him.

"This is so stupid." She muttered to herself.

"It's not." He said, standing and walking after her.

"It is!"

"What part, exactly? Because I'm quite sure that—"

"Everything!"

"No, none of it is." He insisted, following her in circles around the fountain.

"Don't even. It's so completely idiotic, I don't even have the words to—"

"It isn't stupid in the slightest way."

"To you! But for me? This is just pure—pure—pure—" She threw her hands in the air trying to think of the right word.

"Insanity? It's insanity. But it's not stupid." He pointed out. In truth, Edmund had long ago realized that sanity and Serena were mutually exclusive.

"It's ridiculous."

It suddenly occurred to him that he could just walk around the fountain clockwise, instead of chasing her counterclockwise. He turned around, and she walked straight into his chest, like, well, clockwork.

"I'm mad at you! I practically hate you!" She ranted, swatting at his chest but only laying a few glancing swipes. "You've absolutely no idea—"

He grabbed her hands and forced them down to waist-level. Her lips were pressed in a hard, trembling line, and he was quite sure those were tears he saw in her eyes.

"You could just say it, you know." He said gently. "It'd be easier."

"Say what?" She asked tightly, even though she looked like she knew.

"Just say it. You know it's what you want to say." He urged her.

"I won't. You know, the way here, Ed. I was about this," And here she gestured with her sideways nod of her head because her hands were still in his grip. "Close to finding something to jump off of."

He knew that it was true. It was the kind of brash, impulsive thing Serena would suddenly get it in her head to do. And of course, she'd change her mind in an instant if she sat down to think about it.

"Well, I'm glad you didn't." He said seriously. "But why would you want to, in the first place?" He asked, attempting to coax it out of her.

"I'm not going to say it." She said, setting her chin at a defiant angle. "I don't even mean it anymore, I—"

"I won't let you go." He said firmly.

"You won't let me go unless I say it?" She sniffed. "You have the negotiating skills of a six-year old."

"No. I wouldn't let you go, either way." He replied, in the way that made it clear that he didn't mean "letting go" in the physical sense.

He could see her struggling to recover as she mentally groped around for the right thing to say. It wasn't often for Serena to be at a loss for words.

"Serena." He said carefully, looking into her eyes deliberately and with the clear intention of convincing her that whatever she'd told herself as she'd made her way to the St. Angela's wasn't true.

"I love you." She said, softly and with an air of disbelief.

He released the tight grip he'd had on her hands. Now that he'd gotten what he'd wanted, he didn't have anything to say.

There was a tense silence, like one that had been set on a knife blade.

"Do you want to try that again?" She asked softly, reaching up in an attempt to flatten his windswept hair and rest her hand against the side of her face.

He nodded dumbly. He kissed her again.

He'd always wondered if she knew what he meant when he kissed her. Now he knew that she understood him perfectly. She always had, even if he hadn't believed it at first.

Her lips were cold from the winter's day; her hands a few degrees warmer because he'd been holding them.

He wasn't quite sure what the source of his lightheadedness was, lack of air or her. The latter, he hoped. What could something as mundane as breathing mean compared to Serena?

He enclosed his arms around her waist, and drew her closer. There would be time for words later, right now there were things to say that were purely ineffable.

She finally pulled herself out from their kiss, and buried her face in the curve between his neck and shoulder.

"I even think I love you more now than when I said it last spring." She whispered. "And I'm almost too sorry to even begin apologizing for the whole…thing."

"I really don't give a damn about the trees." He responded, and he knew that it was true. It had been a clever plan, and he was quite sure that if it were himself in her situation, he would have done just about the same thing. "You know the one thing I cared about."

"Yes." She said, and that was enough.

Serena let him go, and slipped his arms off from around her waist. They sat down, side by side, on the lip of the fountain again, except this time her hand was tightly held in his.

It was quiet again, but it was the welcome kind. Like when the orchestra paused so that the audience could properly soak in the great composer's newest work.

"I can't go home to Satarra anymore." She finally said, a trace of grief in her voice. "Can't ever properly say goodbye to my father, thank Chambertin and Meg, tell anyone the truth."

"Well," He spoke slowly. "I suppose you could always marry me."

"What?"

"I'd like you to marry me—if you want to, of course." The words tumbled out before he even had a chance to think about them.

"Ed, I—"

"You don't have to have an answer for me now." He said quickly. "But I want you to think about it."

"You do realize that I own next to nothing now, that I'm not inheriting any kingdoms anymore." She pointed out, in case he hadn't known.

"One kingdom between the two of us is enough, I think." He said. "I could even do without any kingdoms, as long as you'd marry me." He realized, with a small shock—but not necessarily a bad one—that he'd meant it.

There was another long silence. Even without looking, he could tell she was smiling.

"What now, then?" She asked.

"We go home." He said, turning to look at her. The dazzling kaleidoscope of violets and purples had returned to her eyes. He was almost glad there wasn't a word to describe them.

He stood, and pulled her up from her seat. They walked across the courtyard together and hand in hand.

"You'll be needing these, I suspect." The nun who'd opened the gate for Edmund said. She was holding the reins to both his and Serena's horses.

"You knew I wasn't staying, Abbess?" Serena asked.

"A girl like you, embroidering altar cloths for the rest of your life?" The Abbess asked, shaking her head. "Please. Besides, Abbot Francis and I knew that this young man would come to his senses sooner or later."

She laughed gently, and they joined in.

"Well, good luck to you both." She said, and reached up to give them both a kiss on the cheek.

"Are you allowed to do that?" The question popped out before Edmund had a chance to stop himself.

"I think God'll forgive me this time." The Abbess smiled. "It's not so much a sin when you're already taken."

"Or it becomes the sin of sins." Serena interjected snippily.

Edmund honestly expected the Abbess to yank Serena's hair out, at the very least.

Instead, she threw her head back and laughed out loud. Wiping away tears of mirth, the Abbess squinted at the sundial in the center of the courtyard. "You two should go, if you want to be home by nightfall." She said.

"Thank you, Abbess." Edmund said, taking the horses' reins from the Abbess' hands and helping Serena onto her horse.

"It was more than a pleasure, dear. Come back for tea once in a while, Serena." Said the Abbess, opening the gate to let them out.

The gate shut again, and they were left with each other and nothing else but the road ahead.

Edmund pulled himself onto his own horse. Beside him, Serena smiled as she surveyed the long, winding mountain path that lay before them.

"Are you ready to go home?" She asked.

"Yes." He said.

Edmund had always thought that the road between the end of Aldora's Pass high in the mountains was the most agonizing part of any trip abroad. It always seemed that he traveled too slowly, and that Cair Paravel never drew any closer.

He considered the way home. It wound, snakelike, through mountains, valleys and forests. And then he considered Serena, sitting neatly beside him. There probably wouldn't be much idle chatter or laughing about nothing in particular as they traveled home, he knew. But it didn't bother him. After all, they had many more years together to do just that.

To Edmund, the road ahead suddenly didn't seem so long.


I'm almost done with this story! It saddens me a little, because that means I don't have any more chapters that I can write from inside Serena's head, which is much more fun. She's just so much trippier—not in the high of reefer sense, though. (I love that: trippy. One of my reviewers (lemme see who it is: aha! Noel Ardnek) left it for me) Admittedly, Ed is much more poetic—I just don't get these great, epic metaphors when I'm writing as Serena. (Come to think of it, very few of my chapters are actually written from her perspective)

Wow, I just did a parentheses inside a parentheses. That's a little strange, but I guess it's grammatically correct, if not confusing?

Oh, and I plan to end this story with a two-part epilogue. The original Pourquoi Moi had a sequel, but I don't think it's necessary, and I'm too lazy to write it, anyway. But I promise that the epilogue'll bring this story to the same ending, so it'll be fine. I'm not sure if I even need to second part of the epilogue…but I guess if it's extraneous, you guys can let me know, and I'll delete it for the posterity :D

ALSO.

I've decided on the basic premise of my new Bones fic, which I'll try to have up along with the next chapter of Pourquoi Moi soon:

Now that Zack is out of his psychiatric facility, his therapist recommends/mandates that he write a clinical diary; for both her and himself to review. He hasn't changed too much, but everyone else has. Hodgins and Angela are married and expecting a baby, for example. So now Zack has a few tasks in front of him: get his job back, straighten out what's left of his life, get a girl, and more importantly, keep her.

I'm planning for the title to be "C:Users/ZackAddy/Desktop/CLINICAL_DIARY", but I don't know if FFN will let me use a title like that. Oh well. I'll let you guys know what it is when it comes out.