"Now I bear little resemblance to the king I once was"

-East by Sleeping at Last

—

"Edmund!"

"Ed!"

His door opened.

"Edmund?"

The bed lowered as his older sister sat down.

"Ed, you said to wake you when I got home."

Edmund buried his face in his pillow with a groan.

Amusement crept into Susan's voice, "Ed, you don't want to miss your lecture."

"Alright, alright," Edmund muttered into his pillow. "I'm getting up."

"Good. I'll start dinner then." Susan's light footsteps crossed to the door, shutting it behind her as she left.

Edmund rolled over onto his back, staring at the gray ceiling of the flat he shared with his sisters. He'd shared this little room with Peter only a few months ago. Till his brother's job had pulled him away from his siblings to Cambridge.

Edmund swung his feet over the edge of the bed, running a hand through his hair. His cane was nowhere to be found.

He could hear Peter scolding him now, putting on that doctor's voice he was so fond of using; "Stop leaving your cane in the living room, Ed!"

He smiled faintly, limping over to his dresser to change. By the time he was done tugging on a jumper he'd stolen from Peter, Edmund could smell coffee.

Aslan bless Susan.

He found his cane propped up against the wall in the tiny hallway.

"Don't even think about coming out here till you've fixed your hair!" Susan called from the kitchen.

Edmund smiled, "Wouldn't dream of it, Su. How was work?"

"Same old." He could hear her shutting cupboards. "Some law books came through that you would've been interested in. I wrote the titles down for you."

Edmund leaned his cane on the bathroom wall, pausing to run a comb through his hair. "Thanks Su."

He grabbed the cane again, limping out to sit at their little dining room table.

His hair was not to Susan's satisfaction, and she attacked it with a comb just as enthusiastically as he attacked his dinner.

"Lu up yet?" Edmund asked around a mouthful of toast.

Susan shook her head. "I'll get her up soon." She finally set down the comb, and sat down at her chair across from him. Her hair was still pulled into the neat bun that she wore to work.

"Peter called."

Edmund paused, fork halfway to his mouth. "He did?"

Susan nodded. "He asked how your leg was."

Edmund frowned, eyes darting to the cane he still had to use. "It got smashed during a railway accident. How does he think it's doing?"

"Edmund…" Susan admonished.

Edmund ignored her, drinking his coffee.

"He worries."

"Peter always worries."

Susan set her fork down. "He's a doctor, Edmund. He knows what he's doing. And he knows you."

"Next time he calls back, tell him I'm still using the cane like he said to."

"Call him and tell him yourself."

Edmund glanced at the clock sitting on their bookshelf. Both items had belonged to their parents. Before the train accident.

The clock read about 6:30.

Edmund finished his coffee in one gulp. "I can't Susan. I'll be late for my lecture."

He stood up and grabbed his cane, limping around the table to kiss his sister on the cheek. "Tell Lucy not to have too much fun on the night shift."

The other nurses found it odd, how the sight of blood never scared her. Never made her squeamish. How she didn't balk at the screams of patients. How, at nineteen years old, she was so calm when they brought in trauma patients.

It was perfectly normal to Lucy.

She'd seen soldiers scream and sob. Seen them succumb to their wounds. And she'd healed them too.

But that was in another world.

Here, she was Lucy Pevensie, dependable nurse.

Edmund had coined that when he'd picked her up from work one day. It made Susan smile.

"Ms. Pevensie?"

Lucy looked up from the paperwork she was filling out.

"There's someone on the phone for you. Says he's your brother, up in Cambridge."

Lucy was unable to keep the smile off her face. There was only one person in the world who'd call her on her night shift. "Thank you Patsy."

She hurried down the hall to the only phone on the floor, and picked up the receiver.

"Lucy Pevensie speaking."

"Lu, it's Peter."

"Peter!"

She could see him smiling as he said, "Sorry to disrupt your shift."

"It's alright. It's slow tonight. Susan said you called; I'm sorry I missed you."

"Night shift wears you out. Listen," his voice took on a serious tone, "have you noticed anything off lately? Maybe with Edmund?"

Lucy paused, slowly saying after a moment, "No… not that I've noticed. But I haven't really spoken to him for a couple of days." There was a long pause, and she asked, "Peter?"

"Sorry, I'm still here."

"Why do you ask?"

"Just, a feeling."

Lucy swallowed, lowering her voice. "What sort of feeling?"

Her brother's voice was equally quiet as he answered, "A Narnian feeling. And not a good one."

"Like the one you used to get before battles went poorly?"

"Exactly like it Lu. Exactly like the feeling I got the morning of the train accident."

"I'll talk to Susan, maybe she's noticed."

"Thanks Lu, you're a brick."

Lucy smiled. "Edmund stole a couple jumpers from you."

Peter grumbled something she didn't catch, then said, "Just let him keep them."

Lucy giggled, then glanced back toward her paperwork. "I'd better go. I love you Peter."

"Love you too Lucy."

Lucy hung up the phone, unable to tell if the feeling growing in her gut was a Narnian feeling or not.

Edmund fell asleep during his lecture. It wasn't his fault that the professor had a monotone voice. Or that Edmund already knew about all the laws the professor was lecturing on.

It was a required credit. So Edmund was taking the class.

Thankfully, he was awake when the professor assigned a book on the history of London traffic laws, to be read in preparation for the next lecture.

He'd have Susan check out the required reading from the library she worked at.

It was unusually cold, especially for the middle of July, when he stepped outside to walk home. Edmund just shrugged it off, glad he'd worn Peter's jumper, as it was warmer than any of his.

There was a hole forming on the toes of his left shoe. It had been forming for weeks now. He noticed it even more now because of the cold, the way it was seeping into his very bones. The toes nearest the hole in his left shoe were likely going to be numb by the time he got home.

How Edmund had managed to hide the hole from Susan, he wasn't sure.

Actually, now that he put some thought into it, she probably had noticed. But she likely also knew that there wasn't space in the budget for a new pair of shoes.

After the train crash, their parent's money had paid for their own funerals, for Edmund, Peter and Lucy's hospital bills, for their little flat and it had put Peter through university.

Now, Peter, Susan and Lucy's money was putting Edmund through law school. And he hated it.

It had taken Peter away from them; shipping him off to Cambridge because the jobs there paid better. He knew his brother hated being away from his siblings. It had made it so there was only one time of day when Edmund, Susan and Lucy were all together.

Edmund had tried to suggest he drop out, but he'd been shot down immediately.

"Ed, it's the closest you can get to Narnia," Peter had said over the phone.

And Peter was right. Debating laws, proving people innocent, putting murders in jail, was the closest Edmund could ever get to who he had been in Narnia.

It would cost him time with his family to get there.

Edmund slept fitfully that night. His dreams were filled with snow and ice; probably brought on by the unusually cold weather.

He eventually gave up on trying to sleep, and got up. He limped out to the main room of the flat, squinting at his parent's clock in the gray predawn light.

It read only about 5:30.

Lucy got off her shift at 6:00, if Edmund recalled correctly. It had been a couple weeks since he'd been up early enough to walk her home from work.

Perhaps he'd surprise her, take her to a bakery on the way back to the flat.

With his mind made up, Edmund hunted for warm clothes, found his cane where he'd left it in the kitchen, wrote Susan a note, and set off.

He gasped when he set foot outside.

A fine layer of snow covered everything in sight. It was bitterly cold. The cold was, familiar was the word that came to mind.

Edmund hurried back upstairs, found his threadbare winter coat, tugged it on, and grabbed Lucy's coat as well.

He'd never walked the two miles to her hospital faster than he did that morning. The city woke up around him as he limped along.

Men and women exclaimed in surprise as they found their city muffled under a blanket of snow. Cars slipped on the icy roads. Edmund caught snippets of a radio broadcast saying that the unusual July snow only seemed to be covering London.

Edmund slowed for a moment, staring at nothing. Then he sped up, ignoring the pains in his leg as he practically ran to get his sister.

His fingers were numb by the time he stumbled into the waiting room. Far too late, he ruefully realized he'd forgotten gloves.

A nurse came to check him in, but Edmund waved her off.

"I'm just here to pick up my sister. She works the night shift."

The nurse smiled in understanding. "May I take your name? I can let her know you're waiting."

"Pevensie," was all Edmund said. It struck him that he wasn't sure why he felt the need to be cautious. It was just a feeling, tugging at him.

The nurse nodded, vanishing through a door.

Edmund sat down, his good leg bouncing up and down. He gripped his cane tightly, and for a brief and vivid moment, he could see himself sitting in a Narnian war camp, gripping his sword.

It didn't take long at all before Lucy came hurrying out to meet him.

Edmund wordlessly passed his sister her coat, the look on his face telling her not to say a word. Not here, not now.

Lucy tugged her coat on, and took the arm Edmund offered. They left the hospital, Lucy slowing her pace so Edmund could keep up as he limped along.

The moment they were out of earshot of the hospital and any other pedestrians, Lucy said, "I don't like this sudden winter one bit."

"Nor do I. It feels," Edmund paused, struggling for the right words.

"Magic," Lucy finished for him after a moment.

"It feels like deep magic. A horrible, deep magic."

They turned a street corner, and both stopped walking.

People were packed onto the sidewalks, practically pushing each other down to get out of the street.

The horrible feeling began to overtake Edmund.

"Make way! Make way!" a voice called down the street. A sniveling, raspy voice. "Make way for your Queen!"

Edmund was a head taller than Lucy, so he saw the dwarf first. He almost laughed out loud to see it walking down a London street. The laugh never got past his throat as he saw who was riding in the ornate carriage the dwarf walked in front of.

The dwarf's eyes swept over the crowd, landing for the briefest moment on Edmund and his sister.

Lucy gasped, but Edmund was already pulling her back around the corner, moving faster than he thought he could.

They hurried back the way they'd come, and eventually hid in a recessed doorway.

Edmund just prayed to Aslan they hadn't been seen. Prayed that the dwarf, who'd all those years ago helped her hold him hostage, who'd tied Edmund to a tree with a gag so tight it throbbed, didn't recognize the young man from Finchley who used a cane.

So, what do you think? Leave a review and let me know!

The next chapter should be up in two to three days!