A/N: Almost all of my stories end up being Mary Sues in some way or other. I really don't want that to happen with this one. Any ideas on how to keep from that?

Chapter 2

A long and lonely summer passed. Soon it was the end of the holidays, and not soon enough for some. At the very same moment Peter and Edmund were saying goodbye to their sisters at the train station, Jennifer was at her grandmother's taking a break from packing. She had taken a walk in her grandmother's fairly sizeable garden and was now sitting under a tree, reading a book. It was a book she'd read before, one that was full of adventures and swords and castles and knights...one that made her long for another time, another place where those sorts of things actually happened. Of course, those days were long gone, so she had to settle for reading. And read she did. Only she wasn't reading for long.

There was a stream that ran through the garden that provided the most peaceful rushing sound, and it was one of those late summer days where it was warm, almost too warm unless you're sitting under a shade tree, which of course she was. She had just finished an apple, and she was a bit tired from the busy day. So she did what anyone would do. She fell asleep.

She woke up to voices around her. She thought it was her grandmother at first, but she soon heard more clearly, and she could tell that they were deep male voices that sometimes sounded strange...like the speech out of the book she had been reading only a moment ago.

"Is he dead?"

"Nay, brother. Look! He moves!"

"Wounded, perhaps?"

"I see no blood...perhaps he is sleeping?"

Something about the voices sounded familiar, very familiar in fact, though she couldn't place from where. She lay still, face down, hoping they would go away.

"From whence comes this stranger? Have we a highwayman on our hands?"

"What strange dress he has adopted!"

"Aye, strange...and yet familiar...like..." Suddenly the voice changed. "It looks jolly like our old clothes!"

"And it's no 'he' either...it's a girl!"

Suddenly she remembered how she knew the voices. She sat up like a bolt, and looked straight into the faces of her old friends Peter and Edmund. Or who had once been Peter and Edmund, for they sat astride magnificent horses, wearing kingly attire and long swords and on top of it all...crowns? Not only that, but she was in a breathtaking pine wood near a stream on a clear summer evening.

"I'm dreaming," she breathed. "Too much Camelot...right before going to sleep..."

"Jennifer?"

"Peter? Edmund? What's going on?"

"Well this is the last thing I'd expected! If this doesn't just make my day..." Edmund jumped off his horse and helped her up. She looked at him more closely. There was something different about him, and Peter too. She couldn't tell exactly what in the waning daylight of the woods though.

Peter dismounted his horse and embraced her as well. "What on earth are you doing here? This is a pleasant surprise!" The wide smiles of both boys confused her even more.

"Will someone please tell me what's going on here? Where am I, how did you get here, and what on earth are you wearing?"

It's the feeling you get when two of your friends are laughing at some inside joke of which you are on the outside. The two boys looked at each other and burst out laughing. This only irritated her more. The boys could see this, and they stopped (or tried to stop) laughing.

"I'm sorry, Jen. I really am," Peter said with a sympathetic smile. "Here, why don't you help us build a fire and we'll explain everything over some supper."

Once the fire was going and they were cooking two large rabbits, which were the fruits of the boys' day hunting (which is what Jen soon found out they were doing), Peter and Edmund began to explain to a still-bewildered Jen what was going on.

Of course, they started out by telling her all about the events of their stay at the Professor's: the wardrobe, the witch, the war, Aslan, and their long reign as kings and queens before returning through the wardrobe. They then proceeded to inform her of the things that had happened ever since they had returned the second time. They had been called up by the young king Caspian and fought his evil uncle Miraz, and after winning the battle, Caspian had surrendered his title to the Once and Future High King of Narnia.

"That would be you?" Jen asked Peter. He nodded with a smile. "But...how long have you been here?"

"Jennifer, it's been two years that we've sat on the thrones."

"Two years? I don't understand...what was the day you arrived?"

Peter couldn't seem to remember. Edmund thought a minute. "It was September 2. That was it! September 2. We were on our way back to school--"

"Wait!" Jennifer interrupted. "No. That's today! Today is September 2. I don't know what time it is now, but when I fell asleep it was about one-thirty." She sighed and shook her head. "I am so confused!"

Peter only laughed. Edmund was more helpful in explaining the time inconsistencies. When he was through, Jen sat back. "Let me see if I've got this right. The two of you, as well as Susan and Lucy, were kings and queens here a year ago, only here it was thousands of years ago. You're back, and you've been back for two years, only you've really only been here a moment. You're out hunting, and I fall asleep and all of a sudden I'm here and you find me?"

The boys both nodded. "In a nutshell," Peter said. "I know it means something...things like this don't just happen." He thought a moment. "Tomorrow we'll take you back to the castle, and you'll stay with us and we'll have a jolly good time, and in the meantime we all need some sleep."

Edmund nodded his agreement. Then he laid his hand on Jen's arm. "We're glad you're here, Jen. I know you'll love Narnia."

"I already do," she said softly, looking up at the moon, far brighter than it is here, and the unfamiliar star constellations between the pine boughs overhead, then followed Peter and Edmund in laying down and soon finding a swift, sweet sleep.