A/N: Can y'all believe we're at Part 3 already? Monachopsis completely dwarfed Flashover in size, and I spent so long in rewrites that it's weird to be past the Prince Caspian era. I kinda miss it already... but, there's so much good stuff coming I'm not too sad about it either! I'm in rewrites for Part 3 now and, I'll be honest, I've barely even started drafting Part 4. I'll keep y'all informed if I need to adjust the weekly update schedule, but so far, the schedule looks okay 😇
So, we all survived the descent to The Abyss. Now comes the fun part - the slow, fitful climb to the happily ever after. Part 3 is sort of a bridge between the Prince Caspian era and the post-Voyage era, so it'll be much shorter than previous sections. After all, I can't keep Addie in London forever... Now then, who's ready for a little adventure and a little (hehe) angst? 😈
Chapter 55 Content Warnings: alcohol as an unhealthy coping mechanism
Exulansis - the tendency to give up trying to talk about an experience because people are unable to relate to it—whether through envy or pity or simple foreignness—which allows it to drift away from the rest of your life story, until the memory itself feels out of place, almost mythical, wandering restlessly in the fog, no longer even looking for a place to land.
Part III: Exulansis
Chapter 55: broke to pieces
Addie
It's a dreadful, soggy sort of night. The mood is hiding behind storm clouds, like all the thunder scared it off.
Addie lies among the wet leaves and moss and muddy puddles and stares into the rain. She's crying - those ugly, loud sobs Mum hates because they make her cry too - and it's very polite of the sky to join her.
Something is wrong. Something hurts in her chest, like someone threw a rock and hit her. It twists and curls up tight and makes breathing hard, and that's not good, Mum always says to breathe, it's not good to cry so hard you can't breathe.
Where is Mum? She wants her mum. And her dad. But they're not here, so Addie lets the mud soak into her nice coat and her ringlet curls that the rain already ruined, and she cries.
There's an emptiness inside her, and she can't seem to cry it out.
Someone else should be here. Her friend Josie? No, Josie is back at their new house, with those strangers who said they have to work to earn their keep.
Addie doesn't like them - the stern-faced woman with crow-eyes or the farmer with rough hands and a scarred cheek. They're not Mum or Dad, and she's not supposed to be with them.
Mum is all alone; Addie should be with her. Mum's been so sad since Dad left for the war, and Addie's good at making her smile. That's where she needs to be. That's what she was doing out in this storm, even though Mum said to be kind and helpful to her host family.
But Mum was crying as she said that, and she didn't look like she really meant it.
Addie sits up, mud squelching between her fingers. London's a long way away; she'll have to walk for hours - probably a lot more - to get there.
A loud clap of thunder booms overhead and startles Addie to her feet. She takes a few steps before she trips over a gnarly root and almost loses her shoe. Scowling, Addie stuffs her dirty foot back into her loafer. Stupid mud, making everything so slippery. And what a rude, twisted tree, spreading its roots above-ground and not below. The other trees know they're supposed to burrow into the earth, not weave through the top.
Addie wipes her eyes and sniffs up at it. It's not even a very useful tree. Its branches are too high to reach, and too thick to grip properly. If a tree isn't good for climbing, what business does it have taking up space? Dad said trees are better than buildings because you can climb them and, if you're good at it, you can see for miles and miles. In London, there's nothing to see but rubble and factories belching smoke.
Addie huffs and wipes her hands on her coat. Mum would scold her, but she's already covered in the stuff.
A train'd be so much faster. She could sneak aboard, go back home where she's supposed to be.
Oh, that's not a nice thought. Something about it hurts, like when she swallowed too-hot tea and her tongue felt like cotton for two days.
Better not to think about that, whatever that is.
She may as well start walking to find train tracks. She can follow them to a station, and then stow away.
Addie glowers up at the storm, squinting against the sheets of rain. She could listen for a train whistle if that thunder would keep quiet.
No sense in waiting for it. She won't get to Mum any quicker standing ankle-deep in muck.
Addie sniffles, wipes her nose, and marches into the forest.
Bollocks, it's cold. Mum would cuff her for muttering the word, but Mum's not here.
Addie shrugs her soaking coat tighter and spits a speck of dirt. Mum can scold her dirty language when she's here. Or when Addie gets back to London. It's been so long since she was there, years and years -
No… that's not right. She'd be a big girl if it'd been years, wouldn't she? She's still small.
Anyway, Addie misses her mum, and that's plenty reason to stow away on a train. Mum'll be too relieved to scold her, won't she?
In the distance, cutting through the rolling thunder, a shrill train whistle blows.
Yes! Addie breaks into a sprint, boots slipping as she weaves between the trees and skids into an open plain with grass half as tall as her. She's found the forest's edge, and the orange-yellow lanterns flicker a welcome in the tiny town at the foot of the hill. No train yet, but the bright white beam chugging closer has to be it.
In her rush, the wet grass gets the best of her. Halfway down the hill, Addie slips and tumbles head over feet, squealing the whole way before flopping into a puddle.
Coughing, Addie spits out a mouthful of grass and tears off again, hands and knees and her scratched cheek stinging.
The train's crawling, wheels squealing along the tracks as it enters the station. The town is six buildings at most, and the station is a squat shelter at the edge, lit by a single lantern. It's little more than a ticket booth and a wooden platform - nothing like the London stations.
Addie scurries down Main Street and slides into the shadows just as the train screeches to a stop. The conductor leans out and waves a yellowed lantern.
"All aboard," he calls, barely audible over the drum of rain. "Anyone out there?"
"No passengers here," comes a gravelled voice to Addie's right. "Stay dry, mate. It's a blustery one tonight!"
Addie inches up the three rickety steps to the platform. A peal of thunder covers the creaking wood. Addie flinches, but she can be brave; she doesn't need to cover her ears. The thunderstorm is her friend right now.
The train whistle pierces the sound of the storm. No, it can't leave yet, it just got here!
Stealth abandoned, Addie scrambles onto the platform and dashes for the nearest train car. It's not that far, and she's small and quick and she can slip past -
"Whoa there!"
A hand closes around her arm, the conductor's lantern waving wildly.
"Please," Addie hiccups past chattering teeth. "I need to go home!"
No, not home, London. There's a difference, somehow.
The conductor's weathered face looks ghostly in the dim lantern night, but his smile is kind beneath his trimmed moustache.
"That accent… where are you coming from?"
"What?" She doesn't have an accent, she's just talking.
Addie sniffles and swipes at her cheeks with her free hand, smearing mud. Which is silly, because she's drenched from the rain, anyway. "I have to go to London to find Mum. She's all alone, and I don't like it here."
The conductor lets her go and pats her shoulder, grimacing as his hand comes away filthy.
"Blimey, look at you, duds all a mess. Oi, Harmon! Y'know this girl?"
Addie tries to dash inside the train car, but the conductor pulls her up short.
"Don't fuss, just trying to get you where you belong," he says with an infuriating pat on her sopping head. "This train's not headed to London."
A grizzly old man in a ticket master's hat peers out of the ticket booth. "Eh? What's that?"
"The girl!" shouts the conductor. "Know 'er?"
"Never seen her!" says the ticket master. "Proper mess, ain't she?"
Addie tries and fails to twist out of the conductor's hold. "I won't be a bother, really, you won't even know I'm there -"
"This train's headed west to Devon," says the conductor. "Where'd you come from, little lady?"
Addie stomps a foot, mud squelching in her shoe. "My name's Addie and I'm not a lady! I just want to go home!"
The conductor sets down his lantern on the steps behind him and steps off the train, his hand like a vice around Addie's arm. "Alright, alright, but this train won't get you home. Here, come out of the rain. Harmon, you've got a new charge!"
The ticket master? He might fall asleep and then she can filch a ticket to London. He must have the train schedule.
Addie lets the conductor cover her with his coat and lead her to the booth's side door. It swings open on creaking hinges to reveal an old man with a scraggly grey beard and a smoking pipe in his mouth.
"Tiny thing, aren't you?" Harmon wags a wrinkled finger at Addie's head. "What d'you expect me to do with this?"
"Ring the sheriff, you old coot," says the conductor. "See where she came from. Probably one of those London evacs."
Addie stays quiet as Harmon grunts. "We had a few of 'em this morning. Think she's a runaway?"
Runaway? The nerve!
Addie scowls up at Harmon's grumpy old face. "It's not running away if I'm trying to get back to Mum. And you're not my mum."
Harmon grumbles to himself and retreats inside the booth. The door hangs open, the "Ticket Master Only" sign rattling in the wind.
Blinking against the sheets of rain, Addie squints into the tiny, dark town and the flat lands beyond it. It'd be a wet, miserable night out there alone.
The conductor nudges her toward the booth.
"Be good now, missy. Harmon'll look after you."
It does look dry inside, though it probably doesn't feel much warmer than out here. That's alright - she won't be here long.
Addie slips inside. The conductor clicks the door shut and takes off for the train.
With a wave of his spluttering lantern, the train's whistle blows and off it goes, wheels whining as it chugs out of sight.
"Well, girlie, you got a name?" At her silence, Harmon huffs and takes a puff of his stinky pipe. "Sheriff's asleep at this hour, and he's a grumpy old codger - worse than me. Go on then, what's your name?"
Addie sits in the farthest corner and pulls her knees into her chest, shivering. "Adelina. And you're Harmon."
He snorts and blows a cloud of smoke. "Not much for manners, are you?"
Mum would chide her for being rude, but Mum's not here. Mum…
Addie swallows a lump in her throat. Mum sent her away, because of… something that seemed important at the time. But that was a while ago, and it can't be more important than being together.
That means Mum will be happy when she gets home. Mum'll be relieved because then she won't be alone and Addie will be so good, she'll make dinner and do laundry and make tea and keep the house spotless so Mum won't be so tired after work and Mum won't ever want her to go away again.
"Adelina, eh?" Harmon coughs and packs down the burning leaves in his pipe. "Don't know many Adelinas. Where'd you come from?"
Addie hugs her knees tighter. "London."
"Where in London, little miss Addie? You mind if I call you Addie?"
"That's my name," Addie says. "I'm only Adelina when I'm in trouble."
An echo prods the back of her head, like when she scratches too hard and her skin tingles after. She's been called Adelina other times too, in nicer times by a warm, deep voice.
"Maybe I'd better stick to Adelina," Harmon is saying. "You look to be in plenty of trouble. Can't say's I blame you - I wouldn't like being shipped off to strangers either."
When Addie looks up from the puddle forming at her feet, Harmon's face looks a little kinder than before.
She smiles back. Maybe she won't have to sneak a ticket. Maybe Harmon will help her find Mum.
Addie wakes wrapped in Harmon's patched-up coat with a strange man kneeling in front of her. She shies away, clutching the coat to her chest even though it stinks of pipe smoke and burnt tobacco.
"There, there, don't fuss," says the man. He has a round face with crinkles around his eyes and a wide smile. "I'm Sheriff Harvey, here to get you home. That's what you wanted, isn't it?"
Addie jumps up, almost bumping heads with the sheriff. "No, London. You'll take me to London?"
He smiles too toothily, and she doesn't like it. "I'm here to take you home."
Addie swallows and looks around for Harmon. He's standing outside, his pipe tucked into his breast pocket as he waves at the sheriff.
"Go on, Miss Addie," says Harmon. "Sheriff Harvey'll see you somewhere safe."
Addie's lip wobbles. She thought Harmon understood.
"I need to get to Mum," she whispers. "Can't you just put me on a train?"
Sheriff Harvey shakes his head and reaches for her. Addie dodges, retreating further inside the booth.
"Your Mum sent you out here," says the sheriff. "And she did the right thing. London is very dangerous right now."
What does danger have to do with it? If London is dangerous - she remembers the fires and the ground shaking - then Mum shouldn't be there alone. Dad asked her to be brave, and isn't being with Mum the brave thing?
Addie juts her chin and scowls. "But Mum's there. I have to get to Mum."
It's very, very important that she finds her mum.
Sheriff Harvey rambles on about evacuating and bombs and it's the best thing for her, being safe in the countryside. He doesn't understand.
"Now then," says the sheriff, "do you know which town you hopped off at?"
Addie bristles. "Why? I don't want to go there."
Sheriff Harvey pats her head, his fingers heavy on her damp hair. "I know you don't, but your hosts must be looking for you."
"No they're not." Addie pushes his hand off. The door beyond the sheriff is narrow, but if she scrabbles past Harmon, she might make it. "They're not my family."
"No," says Sheriff Harvey. "But think of your poor mum. You wouldn't want her to worry, would you?"
Of course she doesn't, but… but…
"They're not Mum," Addie whispers. "I don't want to go with them."
"Don't lubb, it's only for a little while." The man waves toward Main Street. "Here, why don't you meet ol' Tilly? She's a pretty horse - you'll like her."
Addie peers out the window. A horse stands tied just below, one hoof cocked and its grey-tipped ears twitching.
Addie's hands ache from the cold as she shrugs off Harmon's coat and lays it over his rickety wooden chair. She doesn't blink, so her eyes are big and watery when she faces Sheriff Harvey.
"Promise?"
The sheriff smiles again, still crouched in the doorway. "Promise. Come along, sweetheart."
There's a sliver of daylight to his left.
Addie dives.
She does alright at first, dodging Sheriff Harvey and tumbling off the steps and into rain-soaked Main Street. But Harmon is quicker than he looks; he plucks her up by her coat collar, holding her aloft as she kicks and hollers.
"I won't go, you can't make me!" Addie yells, swinging her tiny fists and scratching anyone who gets too close.
She tries, really she does, but there are two of them and Addie isn't as strong as she should be. Sheriff Harvey and Harmon get her astride the sleepy-eyed bay and Addie calms herself. It's not that she's giving up, mind you, she's just being nice to the poor horse. It has grey in its whiskers and mane, its fur is patchy, and it looks as tired as she feels.
With a grunt, the sheriff mounts up behind her and Addie wishes she'd tried harder. She's cold again, shivering, and she doesn't like feeling this stranger's bulk pressing behind her.
Three towns later, the sheriff leaves her with the crow-eyed woman and her farmer husband - the Shaws - and tells her to behave and make her mum proud.
Addie can't help but think Mum would be much prouder if she'd made it home.
Caspian
The strange thing about grief is its fitfulness. During the day, Caspian finds solace in duty, in ruling, in laying out his chessboard of political pieces and planning careful moves, balancing domestic concerns with foreign affairs. There is still politicking aplenty to do, though the most troublesome Telmarines left through the twisted oak.
As she did.
The unsettling thing about grief, Caspian decides with a half-empty wine glass sloshing in his hand, is how easily it returns. It pulls away in the daylight, because he's used to filling the sunlit hours with his kingship. But at night…
Under the unforgiving eye of the moon, the grief surges, pulls him under like a riptide and tosses him round and round until there is nowhere else to go but down.
And so, down he goes.
Wine helps for the first hour or two. It dulls the knife's edge of longing into a throbbing ache - unpleasant, but bearable. If Caspian drinks enough, the memories are sweet when they hammer at his skull.
He can survive the blurry visions of soft pink lips and brown eyes flecked with hazel, the ghost of a work-calloused hand, and a forbidden whisper in his ear. He can even stomach the memory of bare skin, of frantic kisses by candlelight and grasping hands tearing off clothes.
He can bear it. So long as he thinks of her in pieces, he can bear it.
Caspian drains his goblet and sets it between his papers and his nightly cup of tea, cold and untouched.
He despises his desk now. Doctor Cornelius assigned a steward to tame his copious stacks of missives, edicts, and petitions, and he ought to be grateful. The steward, a soft-spoken, unobtrusive badger, even found his long-lost paper weights.
What he truly needs is a bigger desk. He should be in the king's chambers, in the study double this size with a desk as long as he is tall.
Caspian doesn't want that desk, and he no longer likes this one. It feels too clinical - purged of all the comforting chaos of furniture put to good use.
Purged of memories, too.
The steward cleared the books piled on the desk corner and stacked Caspian's diplomatic histories in their place.
Caspian's temper got the better of him. He summoned the badger at once and ordered every storybook returned to its proper place by the window.
Those were her books. Books Caspian picked out for her, because she was reading nothing but politics and court manners, and he knew how Addie despised -
The danger of drinking is that sometimes, Caspian is not strong enough to keep from thinking her name.
Do as you will, Adelina. Run.
The wave beckons, frothing as it crests and towers over the fragile pieces of himself Caspian holds together.
It is his fault that Addie is gone. He will… he will never forgive himself for that. As long as he lives, he will direct inward the ire she should have shown him in those last moments.
Yet, when their eyes met, he found no malice - no fury, no bitterness, no hate.
How he wishes she'd hated him, at the end.
Caspian's gaze strays to the window seat - her seat, though Bruna fluffed her indent out of the pillows before Caspian could beg her to leave the study be.
It's fitting that it lies empty.
Untouched.
Preserved, frozen in time.
Caspian's breath catches. The cushions look inviting - expectant - as if they're waiting for someone.
For her. Just like him.
Caspian lurches to his feet, the study a hazy mirage around him. He should have taken dinner - he knows better. In these past weeks, Caspian has well learned his limits. This was his third glass, and if he wants a prayer of dragging himself upright come morning, it will be his last of the night. When he drinks the tea, he will have a quarter hour before it drags him into a deep, dreamless sleep.
He sleeps too well with that damned tea. His mind is clear, all memories of battle and bloodshed tucked away, but when Caspian wakes -
He forgets.
He forgets his bed is not shared, that the pillow beside him is cold, that he sleeps alone, always, now.
He forgets she isn't here.
On his first morning without her, Caspian's feet carried him halfway to the kitchen before he realised what he was doing.
He knew as he regained sense that he wouldn't find her there. Still he went, because he hoped the assembly was just a nightmare, and she could not be gone.
Hope has made a fool of him.
If she were here, she'd scold him for missing dinner. She'd march him down to the larder herself, their fingers laced together, and they would filch a midnight snack by moonlight, free to linger as long as they wished. How pleasant it would be to walk the halls together with no fear of assassins.
How lovely it could have been, had he just believed her.
Standing, Caspian puts his goblet on the desk and swigs from the bottle - an old vintage, one of three remaining - apparently a favourite of his uncle's. Caspian finds no appeal in the sharp, tannic taste, but it offers the same oblivion as any other bottle.
He spent so long wishing she'd tell him the truth that he didn't listen when, at last, she did.
Caspian is so occupied with moping that by the time he realises where he's sitting, it's too late. The precarious picture of the undisturbed window seat is broken.
He shouldn't sit here. This is her seat, and Caspian promised himself he'd save it for her.
The pile of throw pillows crinkles.
Caspian gropes blindly until his fingertips find a parchment's edge. It's ragged, torn by his own hand what feels like a lifetime ago.
Caspian's arm trembles as he smooths the scrap of paper. His slanted, swooped handwriting stares back at him.
I must meet with two lords tonight; I won't be long.
Yours,
X
His first note to her. In his princely days, Caspian left this note as her bookmark when he was out late politicking with lords that still abandoned his cause. She would search for him otherwise, and he couldn't have her wandering the castle - it was dangerous. The first and only time she did, Caspian made damn sure she never had cause to again.
Addie was so, so reckless. Love made her reckless.
Caspian's other hand curls into a fist. He can't think of her love, or he won't be able to bear it. Her… care. Her concern, no different from the concern she showed to her family.
Yes, he can live with that.
He understands, now, how Addie became such an accomplished liar to herself.
The smile at Caspian's mouth is a bitter, broken thing tainted with longing. He has no choice but to live with it, this reality where she is gone beyond his reach.
When Caspian's eyes drift closed, her voice floats to his ears, whispering his name over and over, urgent and wanting and her.
Caspian opens his eyes to the same empty study.
He has lived these two weeks without her. It's foolish, perhaps, for tears to drip down his face for want of her presence. He knows very well Addie isn't here, and a fortnight should be sufficient time to indulge in missing her.
What is two weeks when he thought they had the rest of their lives? When the ring he commissioned collects dust in the bottom of his wardrobe, when the king's chambers have lain empty because Caspian can't bring himself to abandon these rooms?
He should. These princely accommodations are awash in memories of Addie, and he needs to let go -
Caspian's grief seeps into the pillow behind his head. One day, he must find a way to set these memories adrift.
But not tonight.
Caspian wakes to an unfamiliar hand jostling his shoulder. His head pounds as he squints into the daylight and finds Bruna's impassive face staring down at him.
"It's morning," Caspian blurts. An obvious observation if ever there was one, but with such a punishing headache assaulting his temple, coherency is inconceivable.
"It is," says Bruna. "Half past ten, to be exact."
"By the Mane!"
Caspian jolts upright, grimacing as the world spins around him. He knew from the sunlight streaming through the window that he overslept, but so late? He's missed breakfast and his daily briefing with his closest advisers - Doctor Cornelius, Trumpkin, Reepicheep, Trufflehunter, and Glenstorm.
Bruna politely steps back and busies herself dusting bookshelves as Caspian scrambles from the window seat and stumbles toward the bedroom.
"Forgive me, Sire," Bruna says, her back turned. "But you cannot continue like this."
Caspian hesitates in the doorway. His hands are rough as they rub the lingering bleariness from his eyes. "I know."
Silence descends, laying thick in the midmorning light. Dust specks float through the air as Bruna's rag restores the bookshelves to their gleaming glory.
Caspian clears his throat. "Have my things moved to the king's chambers - today, if possible. But leave these rooms untouched."
When Caspian glances over his shoulder, Bruna curtsies. "I'll see to it, Sire."
It's for the best, Caspian tells himself as he dresses for the day. It's past time he took residence in his official chambers and freed himself from the chokehold of memories and prayers to Aslan that never receive an answer. The Lion disappeared the same day she did and has not been seen since.
He will visit these rooms where he fell in love with her, where she was still his, when the loneliness is too much. Otherwise, he should… he must leave this hallowed ground undisturbed.
He has lost many loved ones before, and he survived.
He will survive it again.
He must.
A/N: Y'all know I couldn't resist some good Caspian wallowing content. I promise we won't be in the dumps with him forever!
So, anyone surprised with where Addie ended up? Any theories on how she gets back? 😏
Guest: Thank you so much for the kind words! I can promise I'm not leaving this story til I finish it; these idiots are getting their happily ever after if it's the last thing I do 😅
Chapter 56 Preview:
"I don't know how to do this," Caspian whispers. "I don't know how to do this without her."
With a sigh, Doctor Cornelius sits in Caspian's chair, sinking into the cushion worn slightly pale with use.
"You will learn, my king. In time."