"I hope you find your way back to me,"Caspian whispers, and it's the last thing Edmund hears him say before they're swept apart in the press of Trumpkin and Trufflehunter and Reepicheep and Cornelius and Aslan and Edmund's siblings and all the goodbyes to be said. Edmund has no chance to say anything back, so he can only say it with his eyes in one long, last backward look before he turns and walks through the door in the air, and hope Caspian understands.

"I'm gladdest of all the horn brought me you," Caspian whispers, but only in Edmund's memory. His ear tingles with the brush of phantom lips against it, and then Susan comes whirling in, giddy and guilty, to tell him she's going to America, their parents have just decided, and it's wonderful, but also awful, and she's so, so sorry because it looks like he and Lucy are going to be staying with Aunt Alberta and Uncle Harold. Memory vanquishes memory, and Caspian's soft words vanish under Eustace's whining.

"I knew you'd return," Caspian whispers, but his arms dissolve as they wrap around Edmund, and then Edmund wakes. Eustace is snoring in the bed across the room, and it's the politest he's been to Edmund all summer. The sound grates like a file across Edmund's homesick nerves, but Edmund resists the urge to press a pillow over his cousin's mouth. It's the politest Edmund's been to Eustace all summer.

"I hope I am a king worthy of your legacy," Caspian whispers, fingertips tracing the carvings on the ruined thrones in Cair Paravel, and Edmund wants to tell him he is, he will be a king worthy of his own legacy, but he's only in Edmund's mind. His voice is only the hush of pages in the book Edmund's drifting through, distracting himself so he doesn't pick a fight with his cousin. Only a whisper, but still Edmund turns another page, hoping to hear it again. Caspian Sea mocks the map on the next page.

"I'm sorry." Caspian stood before Edmund, but whispered it to the floor, nerve broken at the last moment. Yet still he'd sought Edmund out, finding him in a back room of the How, cleaning a sword that did not need to be cleaned and breathing too steadily, to apologize that Edmund had had to face Jadis again.

"I should not have let it get that far," Caspian said. "I will not make a good king for Narnia, if I am so easily tempted by—"

"Shut up," Edmund said, and when Caspian looked at him, shocked, he told Caspian about a boy who'd once loved Turkish delight. A boy who had not been brave, or loyal, or clever, or anything else the time-eroded legends have turned his actions into, but only, in the end, enough.

"Then I think he was a very good king indeed," Caspian said, and his smile comes back to Edmund now, as Lucy drags him away, face burning, from a recruiting center that does not want him even as a foot soldier, because the Just King is needed to help carry groceries.

"I'm sorry," Edmund whispers to Caspian, but only in his mind, because he is busy screaming at a nine-year-old boy, and maybe Edmund is only a boy himself, and not a king at all.

"I hope you find your way back to me," Caspian whispers, but he's only an echo humming in Edmund's clogged ears while water drags him down, pouring from an enchanted painting. And oh, it's magic, oh, it's Narnia, what else could it be, what else has a hold on his and Lucy's bones this way, but home is never the same when they return. Edmund is not ready to visit Caspian's grave yet.

"Caspian! Edmund, it's Caspian!" Lucy calls in delight as they tread water, and a thousand years this time is only three.

Caspian grins as he walks to Edmund, and Caspian places a blanket firmly around Edmund's shoulders and his arm with it, and Caspian is warm and solid as Edmund leans into him. Caspian brushes his mouth against Edmund's ear as he puts the blanket about him.

"Welcome home," Caspian whispers, and he is real.

Caspian says many things to Edmund, there on the deck, while showing him and Lucy around the ship (a gorgeous Narnian ship, worthy of a king who has grown in three years into a man Edmund is not sure he knows), once he finally gets Edmund alone in his cabin. Edmund drinks in every word, but it is the whisper that finally cuts through to the inside of his head.

"What's wrong?" Caspian whispers, mouth hovering so close to Edmund's skin.

A moment ago, Edmund had been sure Caspian was about to kiss him, but now he pulls away. Edmund cannot blame him. Edmund wants nothing more than to lose himself in Caspian's arms, but he can't help holding himself stiffly, coldly. Of course, he could fake a warmth his insides can't feel; he was an accomplished diplomat after all. He half thinks he should, just because he's back again, he is with Caspian, and he so badly wants everything to just be alright now.

But he has been dreaming of Caspian for a year, and lying for two. He doesn't want to fake himself anymore, not to Caspian.

"I got the impression last time you wanted this," Caspian says, no trace of the hesitation that Edmund expects from the boy he remembers. "But if I was wrong—"

"No!" Edmund's cheeks prickle, and his neck itches with frustration. "Of course I—"

Of course I want this, he might have said once. I want you, all of you, for as long as we have. But he is still learning how to talk to this new, older Caspian, still remembering how to be a king in a land that doesn't care who he loves, still uncertain whether he can remember or if he's stuck inside the skin of an emotionally-crushed schoolboy.

"You're not wrong," is all he says. He walks away from Caspian to examine the paintings adorning the cabin walls.

King Edmund the Just and his siblings, riding through the Golden Age. Gilt letters mock him.

Once a King or Queen of Narnia, always a King or Queen.

"You're not wrong,"Edmund whispers. "I am."

Footsteps. He feels Caspian's presence at his back.

Warm, muscled arms wrap firmly around him.

"Tell me," Caspian whispers.

Edmund doesn't have the words. He tells Caspian anyway. About his cousin, and Caspian, and how everything's different there, and Narnia, and maps with Caspian's name on them, and a lot more, all jumbled up in Edmund's head and lodged under his ribs, doing him in.

And Caspian holds him. Holds him tightly and never lets go, solid as a tree, or a mountain, or a statue, except wonderfully warm.

At last Edmund runs out of words completely.

"May I show you something?" Caspian asks quietly, and Edmund nods. His back and arms ache with cold when Caspian finally pulls away.

Caspian moves to a cabinet built into the wall.

"I had the kings and queens of old painted on the walls, but I kept this, too." He turns back with a smile, mischief playing under the reassurance, and Edmund sees he's holding Edmund's electric torch. "It reminded me of you."

"Thanks," Edmund says dryly.

He walks back to Edmund, placing the torch in Edmund's hands and wrapping his own around them.

"Do you remember what you told me in Aslan's How, about the early days of your reign?" Edmund nods. "You have never been only King Edmund the Just." He pulls Edmund close to him, grinning. "And he is not the one I have been missing for three years."

Edmund's eyes slip closed as Caspian leans in. Warm lips press against his temple.

"You have always been enough, just as you are," Caspian whispers. He kisses Edmund's closed lids. "And every time you get lost—" He kisses Edmund's cheek. "—I will remember—" A much lower kiss, just to one side of Edmund's lips. "—and I will help you find yourself again when you return." His last words are practically spoken into Edmund's mouth.

"What if I don't return?" Edmund finally whispers the question that has haunted him in one form or another ever since he fell out of a wardrobe two years ago. What if he can't find his way back—to Narnia, to Caspian, to himself? He lets himself cling onto Caspian, one hand clenching a fistful of Caspian's vest, the other gripping his arm tightly, as though Caspian and Narnia will simply dissolve between one heartbeat and the next.

Caspian cups his face with both hands, thumbs gently stroking at the edge of Edmund's eyes.

"Look at me—Ed." Caspian stumbles before saying Edmund's name, and Edmund thinks he might have been about to say love instead. He feels himself blushing as he opens his eyes, and Caspian, too, looks shy, and also surer than Edmund has ever seen him. "Aslan did not bring us together so we could part forever. I believe that. You will always be a king again, and you will always be my king again."

Caspian's eyes are dark and steady and warm. Edmund stares into them for a long time, not letting himself blink. At last, he feels something inside him—a knot, a stone, a razor-sharp blade of glass that his lungs brush every time he breathes—begin to fade.

"Alright," he breathes, "I'm home." He finds Caspian's mouth with his own.

When they break apart, Caspian folds Edmund into his arms, nuzzling his hair.

"Welcome home," he whispers again, and Edmund believes him.