Hello everybody. This is my Christmas oneshot! I know that I should be working on Finding Narnia: Aftermath, and I am….but it's coming along very slowly, so here's something to keep you all occupied. A huge thank you to phoenixqueen for being my beta. :)

Usual disclaimer applies…everything here belongs to C.S. Lewis. The title belongs to Switchfoot, after the song This is Home. It isn't a very good title, but I couldn't come with anything else that I even sort of liked. So that's what it is. Check out the song and it might make more sense.

This is my gift to you, my wonderful readers. :) Let me know what you think!

Happy Holidays!

Peter:

Cold air nipped at my face, stinging but all the more wonderful because of it. The gentle breeze stirred my hair, bringing with it that liberating scent of freedom. The sharp, crisp air was a delight to my senses, and I breathed deeply, savoring the moment.

My feet, rendered to a ball of wooly socks inside my boots, were freezing. I paid them no attention, for my very soul was warm from the spirit in the air, and that was all that mattered to me at the moment. My immediate surroundings were strangely and peacefully silent, and in the distance I could hear the shouts and yells of my subjects as they frolicked in the meadow. Susan's ringing laughter reached my ears, pulling my eyes open.

The light momentarily blinded me, and I blinked. The snow was neon-blue. I blinked again and my eyes cleared, revealing the beauty of the scene in front of me.

The deep snow coated everything in sight, including my sisters, whom I could see running about by the training fields. The world was quite literally glittering, a dazzling sight in the weak winter sun. The tiny snowcrystals sparkled merrily, seeming to call to me, pulling me forward. I knelt and brushed the ground hesitantly with my bare hand, leaving an indentation in the perfect expanse of white.

It was colder than I had been expecting. It looked so warm – glowing, almost – that it was a bit of a shock. I brushed the ground again, marveling at the contrast.

I caught a flicker of movement in my peripheral vision, and I whirled about in surprise. The next second I was spluttering and wiping snow from my face and hair. It was so cold! Why did it feel so good?

"Lucy!" I cried indignantly, failing to hide my smile. The slight figure in front of me laughed; a clear, beautiful sound that brought all the warmth back into the snow. I grinned at her and dove for the ground as she sprinted off.

"Susan!" she shrieked, laughing and panting all at once. Her cheeks were flushed and her hair was sticking up everywhere. "Susan, look out!"

My Gentle sister turned and yelped in surprise as my snowball hit her squarely in the arm. Lucy ducked as my second one sailed over her head. Then the fauns and satyrs were upon us, and the fight was on. Most of them sided with the queens, but a few brave fauns helped me fend them off. I'm afraid to admit that we were hit with about three snowballs for every one we actually threw.

I spotted Oreius standing off to the side, and I struggled to him, laughing as Susan bombarded me with an armload of snowballs. Judging by the amused look on the centaur's face when I reached him, I was quite a sight. My cloak was covered in snow and my chaotic hair likely was as well, but I didn't care.

"Oreius!" I laughed, grabbing his hand. "Help!"

He took one good look at me and burst out laughing. I stared at him for a moment, feeling a broad smile steal across my face. It was wonderful to hear him laugh. In all truth, it didn't happen very often.

"Why are you asking me?" he managed finally, jerking his head back towards the Cair.

My gaze snapped towards the castle. Edmund was standing at the base of the stone steps, watching as we ran around like – well – like children. I felt a twinge of inner pain even as a second, mischievous smile crept across my face. Why was he watching and not participating? If he thought for one moment that he was going to be allowed to get away with that, he was sorely mistaken.

"Good question, Oreius," I said, and I took off running. The general's quiet laughter followed me as I bounded away, making a beeline for my brother. The snow where I was running was soft and powdery…which, I discovered, made the ground rather unpredictable.

Ten yards from my brother, who was watching me approach with a mixture of amusement and apprehension, I put my foot down and suddenly had cold snow all the way up to my knee. I yelped as my other leg shot out from under me, sending me sprawling face-first into the powdery coolness.

Edmund burst out laughing. The wonderful sound was enough to make me forget my embarrassment, and I snorted into the snow, regretting the action immediately as some of it got into my nose. I spluttered and wiped the fine crystals from my face, succeeding only in getting more of the stuff into my eyes and hair, seeing as my hands had been coated with it in the first place. Edmund laughed even harder at this, and I gave in, rolling onto my back and laughing along with him.

"Brilliant, Peter," he choked, grinning at me.

I stuck my tongue out at him in mock offense, then scrambled (carefully!) onto my feet and joined him at the top of the steps.

"Oreius didn't see that, did he?" I asked good-naturedly, looking back to where the centaur was quietly observing the snowball fight between my sisters and the few fauns who were still on my side. Edmund whacked me teasingly on the arm.

"It doesn't matter, does it? Because I saw you, and you know that I'm going to tell him." I groaned and whacked him back.

"You wouldn't!" I protested. He merely grinned mischievously at me.

"That depends," he replied, avoiding the point. I laughed and flung my sopping hair back from my eyes, knowing full well that he would do nothing of the sort. He gave in. "No, you're right. I wouldn't." He grinned at me, and for a moment we stood there, watching the distant snowball fight. I was the first one to speak, and I didn't bother to beat around the bush...we were past that.

"Why won't you join us?"

He looked at me in surprise. He apparently hadn't realized that it was that obvious.

"What do you mean?" he asked, trying to feign innocence. On anyone else it might have worked, but I knew him too well by now to be fooled by his diplomatic mask. I gave him a look, and he recoiled with a sigh, defeated.

"Is it because of…her?" I asked, unwilling to bring up the subject of Jadis. I had the feeling that she was responsible for this, though. My suspicions were confirmed as Edmund looked away, pretending to observe the snowball fight. I waited, knowing that he would answer.

"Do you remember the last time we had a snowball fight?" he asked quietly. I drew beside him on his left, watching the girls without seeing them, my mind on a different snowball fight, in a different place. Much like this one, Edmund had been absent from the game. Only, there had been a slight difference. It hadn't been his physical self that had been missing, but him. His stubbornness, his faith and his loyalty, his quick mind and well-phrased words…all of that had been missing.

"Yes," I said simply, nodding. The first time Susan and I had entered Narnia, Lucy had started a snowball fight that had ended abruptly by Edmund snapping at us. I winced. Not only had he been a different person – selfish, resentful, and arrogant – but he had also been under Jadis's spell. She had turned him against us because she had seen his resentment towards…well, towards me.

I shook my head to clear the memories. Too many people had insisted that I was not at fault for Edmund's betrayal – including Edmund – but I still had not forgiven myself for being so harsh on him in the first place.

"That was different," I said, strongly. "The situation was different…you were different."

He shifted uncomfortably.

"I know," he said, avoiding my gaze. "And that's why…" he hesitated, then plowed on, gesturing to the distant snowball fight. "When I see all of this…the snow…it reminds me of her, but it's more than that, too. It reminds me of what I was like, before we came here. And Peter…" he turned towards me, gazing up at me with pleading brown eyes. "I don't want to feel like that again. Ever."

My heart went out to him. My poor little brother didn't deserve to be burdened like this, afraid to play in the snow for fear of bringing back old memories. I drew him to me, and to my surprise, he let me. As I hugged him, trying to ward off the cold that was now seeping back into our bodies, I searched for the right way to show him that this was different. That this wasn't the Narnia he had been introduced to, that he wasn't the person he had been when he had first come here.

I found my gaze drawn once again towards the distant snowball fight, the shrieks of laughter coming to me as if through a long tunnel. I frowned at the realization, looking for the source of the tunnel. I grew still and listened closely, listening for…something. All I heard was the silence around us, and it was then I realized what the tunnel was.

I pulled Edmund back just enough to let him see that I was smiling.

"What?" he asked, perplexed. I put a finger to his lips and said,

"Shhh. Listen." He frowned and did as I asked, and I waited, knowing what he was going to say and ready to give him the answer.

"Peter?" he asked after a few moments. "What am I listening for?" I fixed him with a piercing gaze, willing him to see what I saw, willing him to understand.

"Love," I replied, and I watched as understanding suddenly lit up his eyes. He gaped at me for just moment, before he shut his mouth and listened, wonder flashing across his face. I looked back towards the girls, listening to that strange, quiet silence that took up the space between them and us.

It was the sort of silence that was only heard when the snow fell on a deserted country lane, or when the four of us had been lulled to sleep by Aslan's breathing after the Battle of Beruna. I could also remember hearing it a long, long time ago, in a place that seemed both foreign and familiar, when Mum and Dad had been with us during the holidays. I could barely remember the scene, as fuzzy and vague as it was, but the silence stood out like a blinding light in my memory.

It was the same silence that had surrounded us after we had cured Edmund at Beruna, the one that I had heard when I had taken the moment to listen. It was at once many things and one thing, a myriad of forms for one simple subject. It was Edmund and my dear sisters. It was my subjects and my people, my teachers and my students. It was Aslan. It was Narnia.

It was love.

It was the one thing that had been lacking during Jadis's reign. And it was this wonderful, indescribable thing that tore Edmund's doubt from his mind; that erased all shadows of Jadis and his former self. He looked towards the snowball fight with a blinding smile, the realization still dominating his thoughts. And I could see, by the sparkle in his eyes, that he was no longer looking at it with the same trepidation and guilt as before. Perhaps he was no longer able to. I had the strangest feeling that, once found, the silence was not the sort of thing that could be easily forgotten.

Edmund looked at me, grinned, and hugged me tightly, nearly cracking my ribs.

"Thank you," he whispered. I nodded, hugging him back much more gently. No words were needed between us – we just understood. He smiled up at me once more, and then took off towards Oreius at a full-out sprint, his laughter ringing through that wide space of silence. I watched in quiet awe as, instead of shattering, the silence seemed to grow and become louder because of his laughter. It was a beautiful, beautiful sound.

Far off, I thought I heard a lion roar. I closed my eyes, savoring the moment, letting the silence surround and consume me, letting the crisp winter air tickle my nose. It might have been my imagination, but I wasn't cold anymore. And somehow, I knew why.

Edmund might insist that I had showed him the silence, but he was the one who had led me – if only unintentionally – to it. I opened my eyes to the blinding whiteness, and winged a silent prayer to Aslan as a second realization hit me.

Thank you, mighty Lion, for showing me Narnia.

And with that greater, wonderful silence surrounding me, I took off towards the snowball fight…towards my brother and my sisters, towards my adopted family and my personal silence.

I ran. And in one fleeting moment, an unexplainable certainty washed over me. This feeling, truly, was Christmas….and was home. It didn't matter if I was in Narnia, Archenland, or even Spare Oom. Something told me that I could find this silence anywhere, regardless of the time or the place.

I only had to listen.

...and then I got hit by the snowball.