Author's Note: There was a request made for the Fall Fandom Free-For-All with this challenge:

the Pevensies are the bestest con-artists out there. Lucy is the best at pick pocketing and Peter is really good with a gun. Edmund can lie like no other and Susan can charm any man out of his pants and empty his wallet.

...which sounds like it would be really light and humorous. And then I got my hands on it. And, as many of you know, I seem to be incapable of doing light and humorous. Having tissues on hand for some of these chapters wouldn't be a bad idea.

This is written as a series of drabbles anywhere from 100 to 1000 words.

Finding Home

030. Death

As he watched the coffins being lowered into the ground, Peter felt tears welling up in his eyes. But, he swallowed hard and deliberately widened his eyes against the bright sunlight, refusing to let the tears fall. His parents were gone, and he was the man of the house, now, even if he was only nine, and that meant that he had to be strong. Even if he didn't feel particularly strong at the moment.

Beside him, Susan had tears silently streaming down her face as she watched dirt being shoveled into the holes in the ground. She had her arms wrapped protectively around Lucy, and the toddler squeaked when her older sister squeezed her too hard. She'd been crying, earlier, almost breathless from sobbing, but she'd stopped when Lucy and Edmund had joined them. She, like Peter, knew that she had to be strong for her family. It was what their parents would have wanted of her.

On Peter's other side was Edmund, who was as still and silent as when they'd first heard about the accident. Peter had heard his aunt and uncle whispering about it before the funeral, about how unnatural it was for a child to be so quiet, how there must be something wrong with Edmund. There had been talk of trips to a special doctor, like Edmund was broken, somehow, and needed to be fixed. Peter had been mad when he'd heard that. There was nothing wrong with his brother; he would cry when he was ready, Peter was sure of it.

Lucy, still wrapped in Susan's arms, had a confused look on her small face. She'd been calling for their mum every night since the accident, and Peter wondered if she understood that their parents weren't coming back. He wondered if she'd even remember their parents, later, or if she would forget their faces with time.

Privately, that was what scared him the most. That he could wake up one day and not remember what his mum looked like, or the sound of his dad's voice. And he had to remember, he just had to. Otherwise, who was going to remind Susan, Edmund, and Lucy if they started to forget?

To his horror, he could feel the tears that he'd tried so desperately to keep at bay start flowing down his cheeks. He took a deep, shuddering breath to try and stop the tears, but that only made the problem worse. A sob caught in his throat, choking him, and then he lost it. He started crying, great, bawling sobs in the middle of the cemetery. Crying like a baby for everyone to see, and that was embarrassing because he was supposed to be the strong one. He wasn't supposed to be falling apart.

But, he couldn't stop crying, just felt the sobs get worse, his entire body shaking from the force of it. Then, he felt something else – a small pair of arms snaking around his waist and holding onto him, hard.

"I wanna cry, too," Edmund whispered, burying his face against Peter's chest, and somehow, that made it all right.

He hugged his brother back, shifting his arms to include Susan and Lucy in their embrace, as well. And they stood like that for the rest of the funeral, blocking out everything but each other.