Hey guys!

Just a small chapter before the actual thing begins and so I don't keep you guys waiting any longer.

Let me know if you guys like it!

Cheers for reading!

Chapter 7. "No matter the world, I just hope I get to meet you."

During the following weeks, that little cafe just a few blocks away from their schools became their safe haven.

Going back to school was proving to be more difficult than either Edmund or Lucy could have imagined. They pretended otherwise but well, as we all know, healing is not a linear process. And their schools, just like every aspect of their lives, they were haunted. Haunted with the memories of their siblings. Haunted with the stellar performance of Susan in every academic aspect. Haunted with Peter and his radiant presence that demanded respect, even when not likeability.

Lucy and Edmund, they were quick to understand just how much in the shadows they had been when with their still, they would have done everything to go back in the shadows, to have their siblings back. Yes, they had outshined them. Yes, they had thrived where they could only survive. Yes, they had been the oldest, amazing Pevensie siblings.

But they had also been their biggest cheerleaders. Lucy and Edmund had not gone a day without knowing what it was like to be supported without reserve. The Valiant and Just King had grown knowing that they were loved and that they were safe, because there was nothing the Gentle Queen or the Magnificent King wouldn't do for them.

Oh, how they wished for that back.

Because, now that that support was gone, there was hole in their lives, so big, so dark that it's pain was unparalleled.

Susan and Peter, until they met again, had been reduced to memories. Thousands of memories, scattered across thousands of moments in their lives. Memories that now filled their schools with even more melancholy. Memories that seemed even more intense because, when Susan and Peter made the choice to remain in Narnia, all memories of them were lost to the people who shared their lives in England.

Now, Susan and Peter were nothing but memories, memories only shared with Edmund and Lucy.

Now, the Pevensie Family had been shifted.

Father was Martin. Mother was Helen. Children were Edmund and Lucy.

To the world, that had always been the case.

Edmund and Lucy were not only haunted by memories, but also haunted by the fact that they and they alone were the keepers of their siblings. To the rest, they had never even existed.

So, the cafe became their sanctuary. A small, fickle, temporary sanctuary but a sanctuary in any case. It became the safe haven in which they could feel as the Queen and King away from Home, and not as the small children they had become once again. It became the place in which they could take those memories that haunted every single second of their lives and share them with the others. It became the place in which they could lay down their burdens for a second, take a deep breath, and carry on with their haunted lives for one more week.

On the third Saturday since their weekly meetings began, Lucy was already sitting on their usual table when Edmund came rushing through the door. She didn't look up from her hot chocolate as her brother reached her and, when he finally sat on his chair with an ungraceful squeak, Lucy could only shrug her shoulder as she shot her brother a small smile. "Anne has been working her wonders again. I just need a second to shake it off."

Edmund's worried frown quickly turned into an angry glare. "I'm done with this. If she doesn't cut it out, I'm going myself to that horrid school to set the little weasel straight before she gets any other ideas."

Lucy couldn't help but snort. "Because I need you to defend my honor, beloved brother?"

Edmund rolled his eyes. "It's not you honour I'm defending, you fool, it's you. You think I'm going to leave you alone to fight?"

Lucy smiled, her mood slowly lighting up. "You never have."

Edmund nodded seriously. "And I'm not about to start now."

Lucy sighed, reaching to clutch her brother's wrist as he rose to place his order at the counter. When he came back with a steaming cup of tea, Lucy leaned against the back of her chair. "I know she's just jealous I'm friends with Marjorie, but what am I supposed to do? Give up the only friendship I have because I am a threat to a weak person?"

"If that's the only reason why you don't want to give up your friendship, then maybe you shouldn't be friends with her." Edmund shrugged his shoulders when Lucy glared at him. "Look, I know how much of a pain is being alone. Believe me, I understand more than anyone, but maybe it's better being alone rather than having friends who are not worthy of you."

Lucy shook her head. "I know, but she is worth it. Marjorie is great, and so kind and such an amazing friend...she's just a girl. A normal girl. And I'm not. So there's not much I can bond with her without seeming like a crazy girl."

"How would you even get Narnia into a normal conversation, Lu?" Edmund retorted. "I get that we have been through more things a person could hope to go through in a lifetime but maybe you are being too exigent."

"But it's not even Narnia," Lucy exclaimed in return, widening her eyes when Edmund shot her a warning glare. "Sorry, I got too enthusiastic. It's not even Narnia. It's Susan and Peter, and the fact that they were so wrapped up in our lives that I don't even know how to talk about my life without having to mention the brother and sister that are now forgotten to this world."

Edmund listened with an aggravated expression contorting his features and when his sister was done, he could only sigh and rub his eyes in an exhausted manner. "Yes, that one is hard. We were so tight and close because of everything we've been through that the thought of being split apart never even crossed our minds."

Lucy nodded in agreement, her eyes brimming with tears that she refused to let fall. "How do you do it Ed?"

"Do what?"

"How are you so calm about this?"

Edmund shook his head with a smile. "I'm not calm. Believe me, I'm not. I'm just learning what my life without any older siblings is like. I'm the oldest one now, at least to everyone who knows us and who knew them. So much of what Peter used to mean to everyone else, it has now fallen onto my shoulders. I'm trying to live with that, I guess. Because I will be the best brother I can be and I will live my life to the best of my capabilities but I'm not him and I refuse to be him. I'm me. I am my own person."

Lucy nodded with understanding, softening her expression. "You are living one day at a time."

Edmund nodded as well, his eyes wide with the need of being seen, of being acknowledged. "I am living one day at a time."

'Oh, don't tell me I've caused that pretty face to swell up with tears."

Both siblings turned towards the counter, their stances defensive, their minds crossing through every battle they had faced with a straight face and courage in their hearts. And they needed it, for enemies existed in every world. Maybe they didn't have swords or arrows, but they had weapons, and they had armies. They always did.

This enemy had words for their weapon of choice. For an army, they had classmates of them. And for a target, she had the Valiant Queen.

And as Lucy locked eyes with Anne Featherstone, she wished to be in Narnia once again. Because if she was in Narnia, and not in England, then maybe her enemy would have been an army of fully-trained soldiers, and not a group of mean girls proficient at calling out every insecurity of hers.

"I mean, really Lu," Anne continued her taunt while her squad - a group of three older girls as mean as their leader - poorly covered their giggles behind their hands. "I can't understand what everyone sees in you. The world is such a harsh place, especially after the war...no one needs to be associated with someone as weak as you."

Edmund began to rise up from his seat, his hands clenched into fists, but Lucy refrained him by placing her hand on his shoulder. Instead, she rose from her chair and smiled as charmingly as she could. Slowly, she hid her other, trembling hand behind her wool skirt. "Careful now, Anne. This is a public place and it would do your reputation no favours if you were to be thrown out."

Anne narrowed her eyes at once. "Is that a threat?"

Lucy's smile was innocent, yet wider than before. "How could it be, when I don't have the power to follow through? As you said, I'm a weak girl."

Edmund opened his mouth to reply but then, a new voice intervened.

"However, as a worker of this shop, I do have the power." the waitress behind the counter said as she calmly wiped a glass before placing it on the counter. Then, she flicked her blonde braid with a smooth gesture and laid her enchanting, golden eyes on Anne. "You are now officially disrupting paying customers. I suggest you leave."

"I am a paying customer!" Anne jabbered on, her face turning red from anger and shame. "I just paid you for a coffee, you ungrateful rat!"

The girl shook her head with amusement as she opened the metallic till on the counter. She grabbed the coins Anne had given her and left them on the counter. "And I'm now exercising my right not to serve you. Thank you, but please take your business elsewhere."

As Anne left, still harrumphing ungracefully and followed by her squad, Lucy and Edmund rushed to the counter with a smile.

"That was so nice of you!" Lucy gushed as she reached the counter first. She smiled brilliantly at the young girl by the other side. "Thank you so much for your help!"

"We hope we didn't put you out by refusing her business," Edmund intervened. He too was smiling, but his gaze seemed slightly dazed as he studied the young waitress, and his usually pale cheeks were blushed. Lucy noticed all of that with a frown, the frown deepening when Edmund merely shook his head.

Choosing to ignore him for the moment, Lucy once again turned to smile at the girl. "Yes, of course, we hope we didn't cause you any trouble."

The girl laughed as she continued wiping the clean glasses next to the sink behind the counter. "Believe me, it was my pleasure. I know Anne Featherstone very well. She had just entered my school when I was in my last year. She was already an egocentric little girl and it seems she's become even worse with the years. I'm glad I helped you guys, especially since you're one of my best customers."

"You went to my school?" Lucy asked, her eyes wide with innocent surprise.

"You noticed us?" Edmund asked in turn, his cheeks even more red.

The girl laughed at Edmund's question and shook her head before winking at Lucy. Then, she dried her hands and extended one in Lucy's direction. "Yes, I'm a fellow survivor of that horrible prison. My name is Elizabeth Kingston but everyone calls me Beth."

Lucy opened her mouth to reply as she reached to shake Beth's hand but it was Edmund that jumped into the occasion. "I'm Edmund Pevensie and this is my sister, Lucy."

Lucy turned to glare at her brother but Beth smiled in recognition. "Oh, you are Susan's siblings! Oh, I miss her so much, how is she?"

At once, both siblings turned towards her with equally shocked expressions. "You remember our sister?"

Beth nodded, ignorant to the siblings' confusion. "Of course I do. She was my only friend in that horrible place. All she talked about was about her brave younger sister Lucy, her kind brother Edmund and her overprotective brother Peter. I never got to meet Peter, but she and I were close friends. How is she doing?"

Lucy and Edmund could only gape at her in silent shock before exchanging a look.

'So it seemed that Peter and Susan Pevensie were remembered by three people in England, not two.

Now, the question was the following one.

What the hell did that mean?

oOo

I thought I would give Edmund and Lucy a little friend :).

If you guys have read my other Narnia' fanfic, then you know who Beth is, at least in that story. If you haven't read it, now's the time. (Both stories are unrelated though, so no worries about that).

Cheers for reading and see you next time!