AN: Just so you all know, there are only going to be one or two more chapters in this fanfic after this. And at least one of them, if not both, if I decide to make them two separate last chapters instead of just one, is going to be pretty short. Also, there is some mild mature content, mostly implied, nothing too bad (have I ever written anything that was?).

The morning of the funeral was very solemn. There almost hadn't been one at all, but Edmund was in favor of going through the ruins of the witch's castle, finding the things they left behind (such as Lucy's pack and his gold Aslan-head dagger) and Ammi's body so that she could have a proper send-off. Eustace didn't want to go near the castle, even in ruins, and Lucy was ashamed to admit, even though she wanted her things back and for Ammi to be sent off right, as she deserved for sacrificing her life for theirs, the witch's former dwelling still made her skin crawl. The smell of bad magic was gone from there now, but the smell of bad dungeon wasn't; nor were the lingering bad memories she imagined the place was even more swarmed with for the former traitors than for herself.

Aslan, when they asked him about what to do, agreed with Edmund's idea, and that settled it.

Tumnus used some extra lumber he got from cutting down a tree (it had been on the witch's side anyway and would have made trouble for them if they hadn't) to add onto the coracle Lucy came to Charn by means of until it was long enough to fit Ammi's corpse lying down and they made preparations for the funeral.

It wasn't much, in the end, but it was still worth something.

Eustace was nice enough to find an old book Ammi used for writing in (similar to the leather one Edmund had kept a record of demistar names in) and suggested putting it under her hand in the boat.

"It really ought to be flowers," Eustace commented. "But they don't exactly grow here, do they?" Only he felt uncomfortable picking up a dead hand to put the book under it, so Tumnus did it for him.

"Ammi wouldn't have wanted flowers anyway," said Edmund. "You know how she was." His fingers fiddled with an old yellowed piece of folded parchment he'd found in the castle ruins.

"What is that?" Tumnus asked him.

"Ammi's last will in testament, I think," he answered. It looked really old, like it had been written years ago, but it was all they had to go on. Unfolding it, he read what was written and chuckled. "If anything ever happens to me," he read out loud, "for pity's sake don't have a big blubbering party, just light the bloody funeral pyre or kick the stupid boat out to sea or whatever and get on with your lives. And, Edmund, if there must be a speech, you give it. I think I can trust you not to make up a bunch of nice bull manure about me." He shook his head and dropped the re-folded parchment down into his lap.

"Well, it sounds like her all right," Tumnus had to say.

"Sure does," sighed Edmund, folding the paper up again.

Eustace looked down at the corpse sadly. "She really was quite beautiful, wasn't she?"

"She was a princess," Edmund said softly; "they always are."

"She really was one there at the end," Tumnus agreed.

"Well, this is goodbye," Edmund announced, swallowing at a lump in his throat and sitting up a little straighter in his wheeled chair. "So long, Princess. Thank you for everything." With that, he, Tumnus, and Eustace pushed the little boat out to sea and watched it float away.

Aslan and Lucy watched from a distance, saying nothing. Lucy remembered what Aravir had told her about a funeral in which she would stand on the shore and watch a little boat float away with a dead person inside of it. At the time, she'd worried it might be Edmund; never had she suspected it would be Ammi. She also thought about another morning Aravir had seen and told her about.

A morning when she woke married to an affectionate cripple.

Aravir had said it would likely come to pass unless she did something different to change the outcome, or else he did. Now that she knew Edmund was a cripple, she hadn't been able to stop wondering if he was the one the morning star had seen. It didn't seem very likely that she would meet another cripple and fall in love. But what if he didn't want her? After all, the woman he had wanted had just died.

Only, as she kept watching Edmund throughout the remainder of the day, she felt sorrier and sorrier for him. He looked sort of lonely, sitting in his wheeled chair, looking around blankly at the snow and the gray sky. She was practically overcome with a need to look after him and perhaps try to cheer him up, if that wasn't too insensitive directly after a funeral.

It was nearly the twilit hour, which was still far more gray than it was purple in this country, when Lucy finally mustered up the courage to approach the side of his chair, crouching down beside it.

"Are you going to be all right?"

"I told you yesterday, Lu," he said, not unkindly. "I'm fine."

"I thought," she said softly, "with the funeral and everything..."

Edmund shook his head. "No, saying goodbye isn't hard when you've already let go. I'm sorry she never had a family, though. I keep thinking it's a shame."

"She did," said Lucy. "She had you. And Tumnus and Eustace, as well."

"Some family," he sighed. "Sometimes I think she was the most stable-minded out of the four of us." He chuckled lightly. "And you know that's not saying a lot."

"Ed?" Lucy looked at him with a concerned expression.

"Yes?"

"What are you going to do when you can leave Charn again?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "I honestly don't know." Inhaling deeply, he added, "For the first time, there's no place I have to go. No purpose to things. I was a Traitor for a long, long time. I wanted freedom, of course, but now that I have it...I just don't know what I'm going to do."

"What about your family?"

"Well, you met my father," Edmund pointed out grimly. "I don't think I have to explain why I don't want to see if he has a spare room in that pathetic tent of his."

"So he was your father," noted Lucy. "I thought so."

"I'm too scared I might just kill him," he said, only half-joking. "I'm still furious over what he tried to do to you."

Lucy reached up and touched his hand. "Don't be. I over-heard Tumnus talking to Eustace about it; it was his suggestion that killed the witch, wasn't it?"

"You killed the witch, Lu," Edmund reminded her. "With the arrows."

"Yes, but your father's advice made her powerless first." She bit her lower lip. "I think we'll have to forgive him, Ed."

"Aren't you angry with him?"

"I was, but I think it's passed." Lucy shuddered slightly. "To be completely honest, I think, after a while, I was more frightened than angry, and that was harder to get over."

He remembered her having nightmares about it on that porch in Terebinthia. "He doesn't scare me."

"He doesn't scare me anymore, either," said Lucy. "He's just a sick old man. I almost feel sorry for him sometimes." Then, "but, I say, Edmund, what about your mum?"

"What about her?"

"Don't you want to look for her?"

"No. Even if I could, she'd be a stranger to me now. I was pretty small when she...Well, when I saw her last."

"You could come back to Narnia with me," Lucy blurted, her voice faltering and her cheeks going red. "Be part of my family again. Live with us all at the mansion."

He cocked his head at her. "What would Peter say?"

Lucy snorted and rolled her eyes. "He'll learn to love it."

He smiled at her, but it dimmed and didn't reach his eyes.

"What's the matter?"

"Oh." Edmund looked down at his lap. "I was just thinking it's a shame that we never actually got married." He squeezed her hand. "I would have been very lucky to have somebody like you. There aren't a whole lot of people who would do what you did."

Lucy didn't know what to say; her breath was caught in her throat. She didn't know where this was going. Was he wistfully bidding her-and whatever chance they might have once had if things had been different-goodbye? Or was he suggesting...asking her...

"You're going to make some fortunate nobleman very happy someday, Lu," he said, losing his nerve. They were friends now, nothing more. That was right, wasn't it?

So he wasn't asking her to marry him, then. At least, she didn't think so. But what he didn't know was that she couldn't imagine herself marrying any strange nobleman, before or after she became queen. There was only one young man she loved: the one who had put betrothal ink on her forehead during Aravis and Cor's wedding; the same one wore her snowdrop in his button-hole. There couldn't be anybody else, not for her.

"I don't..." Lucy stammered. "I mean, I don't know if I'd like that very much."

Edmund shifted in his chair awkwardly. "So what does become of you after all this? Besides going back to Narnia and taking King Frank's throne when he leaves it?"

"I don't know," she said. "Things will be...quieter...I think...than I've gotten used to."

"You think it might be terribly lonesome?"

"Don't you?"

"Of course."

She thought of what Aravir said, about being able to change her future mornings. What if she asked Edmund directly if he would marry her or not while she still had the chance? If she didn't, she might unwittingly be changing something the morning star had seen and eventually live to regret it. Maybe, in time, she would even find it a bigger waste than endless life as one of Bacchus's girls might have been. And that would be a shame. She didn't want to wonder; she wanted to know.

"Do you think," Lucy forced herself to say, "it would be less lonesome if you...if I...I mean, no, if you would..." This wasn't going well; she had no idea what she was saying anymore, and yet she kept forcing it out, confusing word by confusing word.

"If I would marry you?" Edmund blurted out on impulse.

Lucy finally met his eyes. "I...well...I...yes?"

He squeezed her hand again. "Yes."

Neither of them were exactly sure which one of them had just asked for the other's hand in marriage, but they were so happy (along with being so dashed confused) that they both decided not to question it, even in their minds.

The wedding was held the following afternoon, by means of a small ceremony and speech given by Aslan himself.

For the ceremony, Lucy wore the silver dress with chain-mail sleeves, none the worse for being a little wrinkled and smelling uncommonly like the bottom of an old deerskin pack. And although there were no flowers in Charn, Aslan made both her and Edmund crowns of twigs which, when he breathed on them, turned to silver. Edmund's circlet grew little silver leaves, and Lucy's formed tiny silver rosebuds.

Because Edmund was still confined to his wheeled chair, Lucy knelt down, crouching on her knees, during Aslan's speech so that they could hold hands and be eye-to-eye.

Tumnus and Eustace were the only witnesses. And Eustace started making some rather loud sniffling noises when Aslan finally pronounced them man and wife.

"Eustace?" Tumnus looked at him funny.

"I'm not crying," he lied sharply. "I've got something in my eye."

"Yes," muttered the faun. "Tears."

"What was that?" Eustace frowned at him.

"Nothing." He looked away faux-innocently.

Needless to say, that night, Eustace moved out of the cabin on the right and into the left one with Tumnus, and Lucy brought her pack over to her new temporary home.

And, that evening, Lucy, sitting on the bed in the cabin in a white night-shirt that came down to her kneecaps, felt quite contented with everything that was happening, even if it was going by so fast that this was the first chance she'd had to really think it all over and catch her breath; but she couldn't help feeling a little sad for Edmund. She knew (or thought she knew) that the person he had truly wanted to marry was dead.

It wasn't that she thought he had married her simply for the sake of being married or that deep down he didn't really want to be her husband, it was more that she imagined it must be very hard losing one's first love. In her case, it was rather different; Edmund had been her first. She'd lost him and it had hurt terribly, but they had found their way back to each other and the wound mended. Edmund, Lucy thought sadly, would never get to have the wound his first romance left on him healed as hers was. There would always be an unfinished love story in him.

She hoped he understood that she didn't mean to try and take Ammi's place, that she would never grudge him his memories with her.

It was then that Edmund came into the room, pushing the tall wooden wheels of his chair forward so that they would bring him closer to the bed and he could climb off the seat and onto the mattress.

Lucy smiled at him, but she seemed a little distracted.

When he asked what she was thinking of, he got quite a surprise.

"Oh, by the Lion, that's right! You still don't know." He had taken it for granted that she did, simply because light had been shed onto all the other secrets of his past recently, never realizing that there was one thing more Lucy needed to be told.

She blinked at him and crinkled her forehead. "Know what, Ed?"

Where to start? He scooted a little closer to her and put an arm around her shoulders. "Well, remember, back at the mansion, when we were betrothed and you walked in on me and Ammi?"

"Yes," she replied, finding it odd he even had to ask. Who was going to forget something like that?

"Yeah, uh..." He winced apologetically. "I may have set that up."

"What?" Lucy almost shoved his arm away in shock but ended up just twisting her neck to look up into his face instead, possibly to try and figure out if he was joking.

"The empty honey jar wedged in the door was my idea," he confessed. "The wine was Ammi's."

"But why would you want to hurt me like that?" She swallowed and gave him a pained look. "What did I ever do to you?"

"Nothing!" exclaimed Edmund, giving her shoulders a light squeeze. "Don't you get it, Lu? I had to go back to Charn and betray you, I had a deadline. I thought if you hated me enough you wouldn't come after me."

"Oh, Edmund!" she blurted, incredulously. "So when you came to see me after..."

He nodded. "I thought it would be the last time."

"But you were in love with Ammi before, weren't you?" asked Lucy, thinking of Paddy.

"Not in so many words..." Edmund stammered, wrinkling his nose as he tried to think of the best way to explain. "Or in any, really..."

"I don't understand."

"Lucy, Paddy was my son, but I didn't..." His voice trailed off then picked back up. "...I didn't actually sire him."

"Then who did?"

"Some low-life Archenlander." It felt strange admitting this, even to Lucy-who was his wife now and deserved to know everything.

"What happened to him?"

His expression hardened. "Don't know, don't care."

Lucy sighed. "I see."

"The witch wanted to know who was to blame when Ammi started to show." Edmund looked down, a little embarrassed. "I lied for her."

"Those marks on your back," Lucy realized. "You got them for something you didn't even do."

He looked back at her again and nodded, forcing a small grin.

Lucy leaned into his grasp and kissed him on the lips.

Edmund removed his arm from her shoulders and slipped both arms round her waist instead, kissing her in return. He eased himself backwards and pulled her down along with him so that she was on top of him.

In between kisses, he whispered, "This position is familiar."

Lucy giggled, remembering how they landed similarly on the balcony and that other time on the floor in the entertainment room. "Edmund!"

"What?" he jested, reaching up and tucking a piece of her hair behind one of her ears. "It's true."

They locked lips again. Lucy moaned softly as she felt her husband's hand beginning to go up the bottom of her night-shirt as he continued kissing her. She felt his gentle, almost uncertain, touch, light as a triggerfish; on her thigh, on her belly, on the small of her back, on her chest.

"I love you," murmured Edmund, breaking away from her lips and pulling her as close to him as humanly possible.

Lucy started crying.

Alarmed, Edmund put his free hand on her cheek, brushing away her tears. "What's wrong?"

"I'm sorry," she wept-whispered; "it's just...that's the first time you actually said that to me."

"Oh, Lucy..." He caressed her cheek, rubbing the side of her chin with his thumb.

"I love you, too, Ed." She locked her arms around the back of his neck.

He slipped his arms round her waist again, tightened his grasp, then rolled over so that he was on top of her now. She let go of his neck and he sat up for a moment to remove his shirt, then lowered himself back down.

Lucy lightly traced one of the whip-marks on his back near his shoulder with her middle and ring fingers. She pushed her neck upwards slightly and kissed the front side of the bare shoulder she was caressing with her fingertips. And Edmund, in turn, began kissing her neck; at first lightly, as he had at Aravis and Cor's wedding under her veil, the time she'd giggled and he'd stopped, then more firmly.

Outside, a sharp wind was blowing, making the tiny silver latches on the bay-window rattle.

"What was that?" Lucy whispered, her pupils sliding in the direction the faint pounding sound had come from.

"A small storm probably," Edmund murmured to her reassuringly. "Don't worry, they always sound like that here." He had been hearing noises like that on a fairly regular basis in Charn since he was quite small; such loud winds no longer fazed him.

The stormy wind was still raging in the morning when Lucy awoke with her forehead pressed against her husband's.

Opening his eyes, Edmund smiled at her. "Good morning."

"Good morning," she said back, reaching for his hand and intertwining her fingers with his.

"Do you want anything for breakfast, my love?"

Lucy blushed. "Yes, please."

"All right." He sat up. "Do me a favor and bring my chair round to this side of the bed, would you, Lu?"

"Of course." She planted a little kiss on one of his temples and got up, loosely retying the lacing at the front of her haphazardly tossed back on night-shirt and climbing out of bed.

Once Lucy had brought the chair over, Edmund scooted to the edge of the bed. Lucy held onto his arm and elbow as he eased down into the wheeled chair. Before she could pull herself up, he tilted his head and kissed her lingeringly on the mouth.

"What was that for?" she asked.

He grinned impishly. "What?" He widened his eyes with pretend shock. "I'm not allowed to say thank you when you help me?"

Lucy sighed happily. "You can thank me as much as you want, Ed."

"In that case," mused Edmund, reaching up and rubbing the side of her arm, "I think I need to make my appreciation a little more clear." He slid his hand slowly downwards until he reached her wrist and had wrapped his fingers around it, dragging her down to his level once more, kissing her again.

Lucy momentarily wondered if this was what Aravir had seen when she'd referred to her future crippled husband as 'affectionate'.

They fixed hard boiled eggs, buttered toast, and a few strips of bacon (or, rather, Edmund fixed them and Lucy was on hand to grab anything he couldn't reach since he was confined to his chair). It was a bit of a slow-going process because he seemed to feel the need to 'thank' her in a rather passionate manner every time she so much as handed him a silver-plated spatula or lifted the lid of the pot to check on the eggs, and they were both pretty hungry by the time it was done.

After they ate, they didn't bother with the dishes right away; Lucy put them in the sink and wheeled Edmund's chair to the window where they sat for a bit, drinking tea. At first, Lucy had been going to drag a chair from the other side of the room over and sit beside him, but Edmund said that was completely unnecessary and had her sit in his lap instead, wrapping an arm around the middle of her back and holding his teacup in the other hand.

"Edmund," asked Lucy curiously, gesturing at the blowing swirls of bee-sized snowflakes, "how long do you think the storm will last?"

"I hope this one lasts for ever," he replied softly.

It took her a second to figure it out, but from the expression on his face, Lucy gathered that he wasn't actually talking about the weather.

AN: Thoughts? Please review.