The whole night was so surreal. To be woken by Helen saying his children were…doing unnatural things, and then to go downstairs and discover that this was probably true…it was more than one man could bear. David walked fast and hard wishing he could find a pub. None were open at that hour, even though he had never needed a stiff drink more in his life.
Peter and Susan were…he half expected Susan to do something one day. She was too pretty, too good. Somehow he was sure she would take a wrong turn. Just not this one. Peter was far more puzzling. He had always been solid, dependable, obedient. He had been sure he did right as a parent by Peter. He could clearly remember the morning he had left. He had said a tearful goodbye to his family and looked back at them once, wondering if he would ever see them again. He expected the children to be grouped around Helen, but instead they were clustered around Peter. He had one arm around Susan as she watched, tears streaming down her face, while his other arm was around Lucy, who had hidden her face against her older brother. Even from some distance, David could see the wet patch of tears that Lucy made on Peter's shirt, but he didn't squirm or move away. He only held her tighter. Even Edmund hovered close by, allowing Susan to pull him into the group around his first born. For his own part, Peter set his jaw and kept a brave face, refusing to cry even when there were tears all around him. "Like a man," David had thought, and he began to respect his son. When he saw Helen place a hand on her eldest son's shoulder he knew that if anyone would keep his family together it would be Peter.
The few hard knocks he had dealt out had been good for the boy—or so he thought. Now he spoke like…like a queer, or a knight errant, or someone gone wrong in the head. He defied his father. He held onto Susan and defended her as…well, as a lover would. David was forced to admit the cold truth, as much as it disgusted him. After going to war, he thought he had seen the worst life had to offer. He was wrong. This was worse by far, not only because it was so disgusting, but because he had failed. Where was the strong young man he had left at the train station? Who was this stranger that had replaced him, a brash boy afraid of nothing and proud of his own sins? Somehow David had lost his family. He had lost his son. He would have paid a hundred pounds for some whiskey.
David pushed the door open and entered the room with angry strides. "Now what's all this?" he demanded.
Peter felt Susan shrink back behind him, so he threw back his shoulders and stuck out his chest. He wouldn't let anything happen to her. Hadn't he promised?
"Is it true, what your mother says?" his father demanded, breathing hard.
Peter hated the suspicion in his eyes. It was galling to be looked at in that way when he had worked so hard to be worthy of honor and trust. "We don't know, because we don't know what she told you," he said calmly.
His father's eyes narrowed. "Watch your tongue, boy," he said before turning to his wife. "Tell them."
Mum shuddered and looked at the floor, speaking in a rushed murmur. "They were in bed together. Holding each other—caressing each other. And she was saying 'Never leave me, Peter. I love you. I'd die without you.' He kissed her."
Peter cast a sidelong glance at Susan and saw that her mouth was open, aghast. For his part, anger and nausea fought with each other.
Susan managed to begin a weak protest. "But…"
Their father rounded on her. "But what? Is it true?"
He could hear Susan's breathing. "Yes…but…it wasn't…" He forced himself not to say anything, not to get angry and make it worse. It was so hard not to, though, with Susan so obviously upset.
Their father curled his lip in his hateful way of showing disdain. "You disgusting girl," he pronounced, while their mother sank into a chair.
Finally Peter's temper flared. "Don't you call her that!"
He couldn't help but feel it was a well timed outburst, since now his father's rage was directed at him instead of at Susan, who was still trembling behind him. He noticed his father's hand curled into a fist at his side as he demanded "Oh, and you feel the same way, do you?"
"And what if I do?" Peter shouted at him. "Susan means the world to me! She's my sister, and I love her." He refused to back down. They thought they could look at him and understand, but they would never have any idea. They would never know who he was, and they would never know Susan. He barely registered his mother, near tearful, imploring "Oh, Peter."
"But what in God's name were you doing in bed together!" Dad roared.
Aggrieved, Susan started to clutch at her hair. He hated to see her do things like that to herself. She would bite too hard on her lip or pull her own hair and seeing her put herself through physical pain tore Peter in two.
"Don't do that, Su," he said softly, trying to convey as much comfort as he could with the words. He turned to face their father. "She had a nightmare," he explained.
Peter had to endure mistrust for the second time. "At her age? Ridiculous!" their father scoffed. "You're not a child, Susan. Don't think you can fool us with that old line. This sort of thing was alright when you were kids, but now it stops."
"But we weren't doing anything wrong!" Peter insisted. He didn't know why their father should doubt him now, but he seemed fixated on the idea that Peter and his sister were doing…Peter couldn't bear to think of it. He wouldn't ever see Susan that way. He was physically incapable of anything but brotherly love.
Susan tried to placate their father. She stepped forward and tentatively touched his arm, beseeching. "Dad…Daddy…please…"
The tremble in her voice moved Peter, but their father was as hard and immoveable as granite. He shook her off, looking so revolted that Peter's eyes flashed with fury. Susan made another essay, even though she was bright red, and David shook her off more violently this time and slapped her across the face. "You stop it! You stop it right now!"
Peter was so angry he didn't stop to think. He couldn't. He was looking through that white hot light that colored everything when he was in a rage. He rushed to stand between his father and his sister with his fists curled and raised. He longed for a sword to draw, but he had none. "Try and hit her again," he defied his father.
"Peter!" his mother gasped. Her reproach was new, and he glanced in her direction. As he did so, he caught sight of Susan clutching her cheek. He remained firm and glared at his father.
"I'll hit you if you keep on, son," his father said, puffing himself up. Peter was neither impressed nor intimidated.
"Go ahead!" Peter challenged. "I won't let you treat Susan that way!"
But now Susan grabbed his arm. "Don't," she begged him. He glanced at her, a little less certain. There wasn't time to make any decisions though, because his father reared back with his fist. He let it hang in the air as if daring himself to hit his son. Peter readied himself. He stood resolute, ready to take whatever might come. He wasn't afraid—he had faced far worse before. He thought of Miraz and glared at his father.
Susan tried to get between them. "No, Dad! No! Leave Peter alone. I went to him…"
"Su, don't. I can take it," he insisted, pushing his sister behind him. "Better me than you."
"It's not your fault, Peter!" she said with an anguished cry.
"Nothing's either of our faults because we didn't do anything wrong!" He was going to stand by Susan whatever it took, but he was infuriated that she could even think of accepting blame. "I won't let him hit you for no reason. I won't."
Their father had been watching them with an expression of horror. He kept his fists up and demanded "Who says I have no reason? What do you call it, then?"
"We were comforting each other," Peter said stoutly.
He scoffed, looking at their mother, but he sounded less certain when he spoke. "Oh? What about? What have you two got to be upset about?"
"Nothing Dad," Susan said, hanging her head.
Peter turned to her, unable to understand how she could understate any part of it, even the pain she was feeling so acutely not a half an hour before. She was burying herself, and he refused to let her. "I'll tell you what," he said to his father.
"Peter—I don't want to talk about it!" she cried.
Their father wasn't listening to her. "Oh yes?" He arched a condescending eyebrow at Peter. "You tell me, then."
Peter spoke slowly, choosing his words carefully. "You sent us away in the middle of the war with no one but each other. You have no idea what we went through."
"I couldn't let you stay and have bombs rain down on your heads!" Mum protested, speaking for the first time in a long while.
For his part, Dad turned red. "And I suppose actually fighting war is a picnic, is it?"
"I know it's no picnic," Peter answered gravely, with the unmistakable tone of one who has seen battle.
This made his father reel a little. "As far as I can see, you went off to stay in the country for all of five minutes and had a gay old time! Even Edmund enjoyed himself."
Five minutes…Peter recalled what had been some thirty years for him. The time in which he had grown up, ruled a country and founded a family had been nothing but a handful of moments in this world. "You don't know what happened there," he said heavily.
His father crossed his arms. "Why don't you tell me then?"
"I—I can't," Peter faltered. Susan gave him a sympathetic look and touched his arm. Her touch gave him a little strength and courage, until their father yanked her away.
"You stop that!" he yelled.
"Leave her alone!" Peter roared, as furious that he should lose his best comfort as much as at seeing Susan treated in that way. "What's wrong with her touching my arm?" he demanded. He was going to make his father see how unreasonable he was being; how he was jumping to conclusions.
"She shouldn't be touching you at all!" he insisted irrationally, gripping Susan's arm.
"What madness! We're brother and sister!"
"Exactly!" he shouted, gripping Susan's upper arm so hard she winced.
Peter looked at her. The hopelessness of the situation was beginning to dawn on him. His father thought the worst, and if he tried to acquit himself and Susan with the whole truth, they would think him mad. They might laugh at him, and he couldn't bear that. He didn't know what to do. Susan gazed back at him, and though her eyes were just as hopeless, simply knowing she was there helped. Then she noticed their father's glare and she dropped her eyes to the carpet. Peter felt quite alone.
She started to cry under her hair. He couldn't see the tears, but he could see that her shoulders were shaking. Peter took a step towards her, but her father shook her a little. "You stop that," he said, and Peter thought he sounded downright spiteful.
Susan did stop. She also looked up at her father and shook him off. "Leave me alone," she said, "and leave Peter alone." He wanted to hug her. He knew how much this defiance cost her.
"I'll leave you alone when you learn to behave, and not before," was their father's autocratic reply.
"We already know how to behave," Peter said coldly. He couldn't bear it anymore, being pressed under the weight of a senseless authority.
"Peter, stop being so stubborn. Your father knows best," Mum said quietly and dully.
Her husband took no notice of her. "Apparently you don't! Apparently you have no idea what is appropriate behavior!"
Susan went to stand beside Peter, and Peter glared between his parents, his rage flaring up inside him. He could have done a dozen things to diffuse the situation, but he took Susan's hand. She squeezed it in return, but she would not look up. Peter thought it lucky she didn't, for their father was staring at them with a revolted curl to his lip. "Stop it. I mean it," he said.
Peter was not going to yield. Not when he was right. "No," he said simply.
Now their mother put in another meek protest. "Peter! How can you refuse your father?"
Peter held fast to Susan's hand and looked Mum square in the eyes. "He's wrong."
Susan shook a little beside him, but she didn't pull away. He knew he had to be strong for the both of them. After all they'd been through he wouldn't let anyone tear them apart. She needed him. And, if he was going to be truthful about it, he needed her.
Their father blew into his fist, deciding what to do. "Right. That does it." Peter had just time enough to exchange a worried glance with Susan before the verdict came. "You, young lady, are coming with your mother and me to America next week."
"No!" Susan cried immediately.
Peter felt his heart stop and sink like lead. "You can't!"
"Yes. I can," their father said firmly. "I'm your father."
"Please, Dad. Don't," Peter pleaded, forgetting his pride for a moment. Susan was far more important.
This did nothing. His father turned on him, his eyes flashing. "And you—young man—seeing as you obviously can't be trusted…you will go to Professor Kirke's for the rest of the holidays."
"Dad!" Susan cried. "Please…"
For his part, Peter had no words. He had lived his whole life, in Narnia and in England, trying to be worthy of trust and confidence. He had taken great pains to make it so, and now that was all thrown away with the suspicion of a moment. He reeled a little with the injustice of it all, and he felt that his hand was sweating in Susan's.
"That's my final word," David pronounced.
"I won't go," Peter said, finding his voice at last.
Susan tried another appeal. She moved toward her father, reaching out a trembling hand. He only sneered at it. "Don't you dare touch me. Not unless you want another slap."
"You'll have to hit me before you hit her again," Peter growled.
"Stop this madness!" Mum cried. "You'll do as your father says." Peter took one sidelong glance at her white face, and he thought his mother was a weak woman.
Hearing her mother's voice, Susan tried her other parent. She dropped her hand and turned to her mother. "Mum? Please…don't let him separate us."
She shook a little at her daughter's plea, but she remained unwisely stubborn. "Susan, dear, I think it's for the best."
When he saw the despair creep its way across Susan's features, David glared at Peter. "You see? This is exactly what we mean! This is why we're separating you. You'd think we were tearing her away from her…well, certainly not from her brother!"
"You don't know what you're doing!" Peter cried.
"It's unhealthy!" David insisted.
"You don't know!" he shouted back, and he was a little surprised to find that his voice was slightly ragged with tears.
"What don't I know! I know enough—you were in bed with your sister for God's sake!" his father stormed.
"It wasn't like that!" He didn't know what to do. He couldn't explain any more than that, but his father refused to believe.
"Then what was it like? What in the hell reason could you have to be in bed with your sister? And don't give me that nightmare rubbish."
Peter knew this was his chance. He had to say something now, while his father was listening. He went for broke. "Haven't you ever felt so empty, after a loss, that you just needed someone to hold you?"
"Hush," Mum said with a tremble. "Don't speak of things you don't know about."
Peter might have gone on; might have won his mother over. He might have been able to make some eloquence out of his sense of loss, but his father said with an uncomfortable sneer "You sound like a queer, son. I don't know which is worse."
"Shut up!" Susan screamed, very white. "Shut up!" Peter knew she was thinking of Edmund, just as he was. He couldn't say anything, though. He was concentrating on not hitting his father.
David raised his hand to Susan again. She jumped back even as Peter pushed her behind him. "Don't you do it!" he roared.
His father glared at him. "I'll do what I like. She's my daughter, and you are my son, and if you don't like it you know what you can do!"
"What, leave? Maybe I will!" Peter said brazenly.
He was instantly reminded not only of the impossibility but the foolishness of this statement by Susan. "Peter…don't leave me," she begged, and he was instantly pricked by guilt. He turned to her and put his hands on her arms. "I won't," he said with contrition. "I promised." She looked up at him with tears in her eyes.
Out of the corner of his eye Peter saw his father clench his fists. "You're disgusting, the pair of you."
Peter found his regal gravity even in the midst of his anger, and when he spoke he heard himself use the voice he so often employed as High King. "Don't say that about Susan," he commanded. "Say what you like about me, but you can't insult a lady like that."
David laughed bitterly. "A lady? Listen to you! Who do you think you are, a knight errant?"
Peter stuck out his jaw and said nothing.
"Well, you're not," his father continued. "You're a kid, and you're under my roof. This 'lady' is your little sister, with whom you have just been found in bed…so don't you try to tell me about right and wrong!"
"I know more than you think," Peter insisted quietly.
"You know nothing!" he spat in return.
Peter kept his voice low, refusing to shout at a lesser man, but his tone was unmistakably dangerous. "I know that Susan is every inch a lady."
Susan looked at him, her eyes filling. He saw the fear in them too, though, and he had to restrain from putting his head in his hands. How had this all gone so horribly wrong? Weren't things miserable enough already?
"Listen to yourself!" his father cried. "You sound like you're in love with her!"
"I'm not 'in love' with her," Peter said quietly. "I love her. I'm not ashamed of that."
Susan winced as she looked between them. "Dad, really…it's not like that. It's not…it never has been."
"Never," Peter vowed.
Susan nodded with wide eyes, trying to make him understand. Their father remained cold and cruel. "Don't you give him those puppy-dog eyes. They don't work on me. You will do as you're told."
There was a low, animal-like noise from the chair, and Peter realized his mother had been crying for some time. He didn't care, though. He thought of Susan and how hard she cried in his arms, and he knew he needed to be there for her. He had promised. "Don't, Dad," he said aloud. "This won't make us change."
"I will make you change!" his father raved. "I'll make you see! You're not to see one another until you can learn to be normal!"
"Please, Dad!" Susan cried.
"We are normal!" Peter said. Everything was slipping away too fast. He kept insisting, and his father refused to listen. They were going round in circles, but he couldn't give up and he didn't see any other way.
"No!" David thundered. "You're abnormal! What you're doing…it's wrong. And I'm going to put a stop to it once and for all." Peter saw his father move for him and he steeled himself to fight. Even if he wasn't the warrior he was in Narnia, he would face his father. He was not going to let himself be punished for nothing. He squared his shoulders.
Seeing this, though, his father apparently decided he was too big to tangle with, so he snatched at Susan and dragged her from the room. In all the years he had been High King he had never seen anyone disrespect Susan so, and he wasn't about to let that start. He sprang after them.
A/N: If there are any mistakes in this, blame me (Francienyc) and not rooty-boots. I'm posting this while she's globe-trotting and I'm sitting at home bored. So review and make me happy (and less bored) and give rooty a coming-home present.