A/N: Smut incoming! This is from my first draft of Chapter 32 (used to be Chapter 25, just to give you an idea how much this thing has grown). Like the first deleted scene from Chapter 31, I wrote this version along the Disney movie plotline, so Addie's shoulder was all healed up thanks to Queen Lucy. Hence, a little Caslina make-up sex was in order.

Content Warnings: sexual content (fingering, sex)

Caspian

Through the whole short walk through the trees behind the How to the stream, Addie doesn't touch him. Caspian nearly reaches for her hand, but after his first two tries find only air, he leaves her be. Already she's pulling into herself, somewhere he can't reach her. Somewhere he can't follow. Again.

The gentle babble of water over sticks and earth seems far too loud in the silence stretched tight between them. It's not like her, to go so long without reaching for him. It's not like him, to give up on yearning for her touch so easily.

Caspian stops just before the ground goes soft under his boots. Addie bends down first, splashing her hands in the stream and wiping off her face and neck. He should be helping her; those should be his hands, soothing away the day's aches and dirt. And yet, he stays where he is. "Addie?"

"I think I'm more useful with a bow," she says, her back still turned as she crouches over the brook. "I'll still help keep an eye on Marcos though."

Caspian tries again. "Addie, this morning… I would speak with you."

"Now you want to talk?" She tugs her hair free from the strip of cloth holding it in a loose bun at the nape of her neck and leans down further, her wet fingers combing through her curls until they're wet enough they nearly hang straight. "We're speaking already."

Lion, she's not an easy woman. Caspian shifts from foot to foot. The ground is a bit too spongy still; if he sits, he'll walk away with bits of mud and grass stuck to his rear.

"And there's not much else to say," Addie continues, plucking a loose hair and dragging her hand through the grass until it slides free. "We're out now, and we're both alive. Isn't that enough?"

"No, it's not! Not when you left. Not when I spent a fortnight thinking you were dead." Caspian speaks too quickly, too carelessly. His tongue weighs heavy in his mouth, heavy enough he can't conjure anything to soften his tone right away. Dropping to the ground in spite of the mud, Caspian props his elbows on his knees and runs his hands through his hair until his heart quiets a bit. "I'm sorry," he says at last.

Addie hasn't moved from the stream's edge. She stands slowly when he doesn't say anything else, the hair tie dangling from between her fingers. When she faces him, her eyes are cold. "You said this is a war," she says lowly. "You can't protect me in war. You have to stop trying. You have to start trusting me."

Caspian's lips part, but she speaks again before he can.

"You can't get yourself killed over me."

"Like you almost did?" The retort is out before Caspian can remember to be gentle, because when has speaking sharply with her ever solved anything? Addie listens when he's gentle. But what gentleness is there to be had when she's determined to keep throwing herself on the ax? Doesn't she know what it would do to him?

Can't she at least try to understand?

This time, Caspian interrupts her just when she's forming an answer. "And you have to stop keeping secrets." Caspian draws his hands from his forehead to his chin, but the frustration scratches persistently under his skin. It shouldn't be this difficult, convincing her to let him help her. "You can't keep leaving me in the dark. It's dangerous for both of us."

Why doesn't she trust him? Addie lies with him in the same bed, begs him to touch her, tells him of everyone important to her, and yet she can't manage to tell him the things he truly needs to know. She can't seem to be fully honest when that's the one thing they need most right now. It's as if she's so afraid to lose him she'll do the leaving herself, just for some chance at making the choice on her own.

"What would you have done, Caspian?" Addie snaps. "If I'd told you I was going my own way to give you the best chance at surviving, what would you have done?" She wraps the hair tie around her fingers only to unwind them again. "Go on then, walk me through it. What would you have done?"

Caspian sinks his teeth into his tongue and prays for patience as he clasps his hands over his knees, but in the end it's no good. "I would have found you a way out that didn't end with an arrow in your back. As I should have, long before that night." It's a low blow, but there's no taking the words back now.

He doesn't want to. Not when his first sight of her alive came with blood and bandages over her dress and that soldier at her side. Not when he spent days making sure there was a place for her here among the Narnians and while he dreamed of her corpse sprawled in his study at night. Does she truly have no idea how terrified he's been for her, or does she just not care?

"And done what? Alerted your uncle with the preparations? Sent me away just in case?" Addie pulls her hair back and tries to tie it back, but little locks keep escaping until she huffs and settles for having a few stray curls hanging in her face. "Done whatever you thought best, damn what I wanted?"

"Yes!" Caspian stands so quickly the ground squelches under his boots. He refuses to sit while she towers over him, not when she won't listen no matter how he tries to talk with her. "If that's what it took to keep you safe, yes. I'd have sent you away to the very edge of Narnia if I had to. Beyond, if that's what it took."

Addie draws back as if he'd slapped her, but only for a moment. In the next, she's pulled up to her full height and set the fire deeper in her eyes. "I'd never have gone," she spits, throwing away the hair tie with her jaw set so tight the words barely squeeze through.

Lion help him, he doesn't care what she's thinking right now.

"You went with Marcos easily enough. I wonder, could I have bribed him to ferry you beyond Narnia? At least he seems to understand keeping you alive." In some distant corner of his mind, Caspian is dimly aware that he's only stoking the flames, and that Addie is standing so straight because her eyes are swimming and she can't bear to give any ground. But the rest of him doesn't care for anything but making her understand for once. She's treated her life like an afterthought for far too long, and in a war it'll get her killed. If this is what it takes to make her see sense, so be it.

If this is how she understands he can't lose her either, so be it.

Addie crosses the unbreachable distance between them in four strides. She pulls her arm back too early; Caspian catches her by the wrist before her palm can make contact, her skin burning against his.

"You manage to care for my life," Caspian murmurs. "Why can't you care as much for yours?"

Her other hand snaps up, but he catches that one too. Addie won't meet his gaze as she tries to yank herself away, first with the weight of her arms, and then all the weight she can muster. Caspian holds her fast. If he lets go, it feels too much like he'll never get her back again.

Addie thrashes against him twice, thrice, before giving up and leaning into his touch with her tears carving trails through the day's dust on her cheeks. "Did you ever consider," she whispers, "that I'd rather die than live without you? That if you died, I'd rather die with you than find a way in this world alone?"

Some honesty at last, but the rawness scrapes along Caspian's every nerve, scratching away at the anger wound tight in his chest. Now his voice is the one cracking as he begs her to understand. "Did you consider I feel the same?" The words claw at his throat, but Caspian pushes them out stubbornly. Let nothing go unsaid, not this time. "That I can't imagine my world - any world - without you in it?"

Addie's hands curl into fists, though she doesn't pull away from him this time. The ghost of rationality settles over her features, cooling the spitfire that blazed so desperately only moments ago. "You were always in more danger," she says, like it's simple. As if it's always been as easy as who was more likely to die, never that neither one of them can stand to see it pass. That it never should have been a decision either of them made on their own.

He wanted to talk, but that was before she wrapped this cold sweep of logic around her like a cloak, thick as a snowfall in the dead of winter. Now she's tucking away that fire even with her tears warm on her cheeks and her pulse thundering wildly against his fingertips. Now she's close enough to wrap her in his arms, but it would be like embracing a ghost. A shell. So Caspian does the only thing left to do; he kisses her.

He's ready for her to shove him away, perhaps scream at him with a new fury as if she didn't just confess to the same desperate need he's always had for her. But the moment his lips touch hers she falls into him with a vengeance, all biting teeth and graceless tongue. She tugs her wrists free and he lets her, because she's falling into him and finally he can wrap his arms tight enough to ease the tremors deep in his stomach.

Caspian tries to draw breath to give life to whatever words he can muster, but Addie bites his tongue when he tries to withdraw from her mouth.

To Tash with it.

Caspian abandons all good reason and patience as he tears off her clothes - first her shirt, then her pants and boots in the same frantic snap. Her hands shuck his clothes off too, far too quickly for him to object. Caspian turns and stumbles until he has her against a tree, her legs impossibly tight around his waist as she pulls at his lips like she'll never taste him again. There's no room to kiss his way down her body, not like this. Not with her legs so tight they might well bruise him, her hands tangled inextricably in his hair. Caspian's hand dives low until he finds her wet heat and he shoves two fingers in her without preamble. There's no time for gentleness now.

She clenches around him instantly, driving down into his hand like he spent an hour warming her up first.

Like this is the last time, and she can't miss it.

Caspian hesitates. He can't tell if the tears on her cheeks are fresh or the remnants of before, when they were so busy yelling at each other he couldn't think straight. But before he can pull back and ask if she wants to stop, Addie's taken hold of him and brought him to her entrance, never mind that he's still knuckle-deep inside her. Caspian tries for her name - it comes out strangled and half-spoken. Addie's lips silence him before he can finish.

He never could resist her. Caspian pulls out his fingers and sheathes himself to the hilt. It's not as smooth a passage as usual, but Addie wraps her legs so tightly he couldn't withdraw from her even if he wanted to, and a few thrusts later it feels as it should between them. Easy, natural, undeniable. Primal belonging desperately needed.

Caspian bucks wildly against her, trying to angle his hips so he can help her get there too, because he's approaching the edge too quickly and he can't, he can't fall over without taking her with him. He pushes the hand gripping her hip between them, just enough he can find that bundle of nerves between her legs, just above where they're joined. They're not careful circles he rubs against her, but she grinds down into him just the same, her mouth never leaving his even as he gasps in what little air he can get.

When she breaks, it's a quieter thing than he expected. For all this rawness between them, the pulse of her is slow, gentle, almost hesitant. As if she wasn't quite sure if she could, but her body decided for her. Caspian spills into her moments later, his thumb sliding away from between her legs so he can support her as she trembles. Her legs start to slide down, so he catches her and holds her fast.

His finish leaves him completely spent. Addie's kisses fade away into nothing as Caspian falls to his knees, scraping his arm as he goes since he had enough sense left to put his forearm between her back and the rough tree bark. It stings, but it seems like such a trifling thing.

She trembles harder against him, and it's only then Caspian realizes that it's not sweat dripping down his shoulders - it's her tears. Her chest stutters an unfamiliar rhythm against his as she wraps her arms and legs back around him again, hard enough the skin chafes from the force of it. If she squeezes her arms around his neck much tighter, he'll know firsthand what it's like to have something pressed at his throat so hard he can't get a full breath in.

When her sob breaks the fragile quiet among the trees, Caspian remembers his sense. He rubs careful circles over her back, even with the strange wrappings around her chest in the way. He croons her name until her neck warms from his breath and presses long kisses into her skin.

"I'm sorry, Addie," he says, over and over until the prayer finally seems to reach her. She draws in a deeper breath than before, a real one instead of those shuddering little cries he couldn't stop. He tries to pull out of her, but she finds new strength in her legs and holds him fast even as he softens inside her.

"Don't go," she chokes out. Her tears flow fresh again, hot and heavy against the crook of his neck.

"Never." The promise is too easy, but Caspian makes it anyway. "Never," he says again, and once more just in case. Just in case.

The stream babbles on at the edge of hearing. It shouldn't sound just the same as before, all gentle gurgles and tumbles, not when Addie's still crying in his arms and he can't seem to do anything to help her.

All the same, perhaps if they cleaned up, it might ease things. Caspian gets to his feet and pads over the muddy ground until the stream flows over his feet, cool and welcoming in the late afternoon heat. Stray pebbles bite into his knees, but it seems such an insignificant thing. Bruises will heal. Will this?

Caspian settles until the water flows up to his waist and goosebumps scatter across his skin. After a long moment of holding his breath, Addie finally takes a proper inhale and starts to calm. She breathes evenly, in counts of four, the edges of the wrappings over her chest tickling across his ribs with every breath she takes. Another apology tickles across his tongue, but Caspian can't quite find the shape of the words this time. He settles for holding her as tightly as he can without hindering her breathing. Lion knows she needs it as steady as it can be. Caspian counts each breath, storing the pattern of them away in his memory. Just in case.

He shivers, not entirely thanks to the cool water, and clutches her tighter, only long enough to find her heartbeat where her skin meets his.

Addie slackens in his arms, though her hold on him remains. She must be exhausted, after everything.

Caspian scoops up little handfuls of water onto her back, smoothing away the sweat and little bits of tree bark stuck to her skin. He covers every inch of her with his fingers, and still finds no scar from the arrow. Erased, as if it never was, before he could even see how bad it was. It's a phantom now, beyond his understanding.

Slowly, the water seems to help. Addie relaxes against him, and she doesn't fight it when he slips from inside her in the gentle rush of the stream. Her arms loosen from his neck and start tracing scattered circles over his back, light enough it nearly tickles. If she stretches her fingertips might reach the water, but she seems unwilling to move from his lap.

He won't ask her to. He'll sit here all afternoon, all night if she wants. If this is what she needs.

Her name falls from his lips again, so quietly the rush of the water nearly steals the sound away. And yet, she hears him; Addie nuzzles against his neck and sighs again. She's breathing steadily now, and it seems she can do so without forcing it. Her lips press under his jaw for the briefest moment, but it's enough, to be forgiven by a simple kiss.

"I love you," Caspian whispers. "I can't lose you, remember."

One of Addie's hands threads through his hair. "Then you know I can't lose you either." She shivers, her murmur a broken thing against his skin. "You know I love you too."

This time, Caspian is the one holding on so tightly his arms tremble. "I know."

They take their time cleaning up in the stream. Addie sticks close enough he can't quite see her face, though he'd be a hypocrite to complain about it when he trails careful kisses over her skin whenever there's space for it. Whenever she arches against him, or when her hands hesitate a moment, or whenever he can reach her. He tugs at the bindings over her chest once, but after she nudges his hands away he doesn't try again. Perhaps she needs the covering, as much as he wishes she didn't.

She's not trembling anymore, but she still feels like such a fragile thing. She shivers a little when she slides from his lap and stands quicker than he can. Caspian presses a furtive kiss to her hip before joining her, tottering for a second on the uneven ground before Addie steadies him.

Caspian finds a patch of grass firm enough to keep most of the mud from their feet and guides her behind him. It's his turn to steady her when she wobbles, one foot dangling precariously over a thick patch of mud. But Addie holds on, and they find grass enough to lie down on together. There's just enough sunlight filtering through the trees to dry them off. Caspian almost sits up so he can watch the dappled light play over Addie's skin, but laying there with her hand in his is too peaceful to ignore. She clutches him like a lifeline, and he's no better.

It burns into his soul, this rawness between them, but when she curls into his side with her fingertips tucked against his neck, Caspian drifts off into that nebulous state between wakefulness and sleep.

With so much to come, he can be forgiven for savoring the tentative peace. Just for a little while. Just long enough.