*peaks nervously out from behind boulder and dodges flying vegatables* omg i am so sorry! I have been crazy crazy crazy busy since school started! I have had this in my head for so long but haven't had the time to get it down. Plus i was very stuck on the ending and had a little spasm of writers block. And just a little shout out to obsessedchick hang in there! The telmarines will get whats coming to them very, very soon. And i promise there will be a ton of Edmund in the last chapter and things will start looking up for him in a bit. And maybe someone else who was not in this chappie...

Enjoy and review!

Edmund had been in that cage for three days.

Three days of rocking and swinging and tripping and dripping and tipping and flooding over and starvation and sickness. He couldn't remember ever being so miserable in his whole entire life.

He had never felt so sick either. It was like his body was waging war on him. He was vomiting nearly every hour, his brain was throbbing and pulsing so violently he was sure his cranium was going to burst into a million pieces and clatter on the iron floor of the puny cage.

He had also never been so cold either. Bumblehoof was not a very bright giant and did not realize that pouring bucketfuls of water into the cage for drinking water nearly gave Trumpkin and Edmund hypothermia. What with the water and the freezing cold cave and the damp air it would have given a polar bear pneumonia.

Edmund hadn't seen any light for days. He could barely make out Trumpkin's small, soaking wet, decrepit figure any longer. Edmund did not think he would ever be able to get the water out of his ears and it literally felt like he was frozen in a block of ice. He was positive he had caught some sort of horrid disease that would surely kill him one way or another, even if and when they got out of the hellish cage.

A fit of coughing seized him again and threatened to tear a hole in his throat. He could hear Trumpkin groaning and moaning next to him but the forlorn little sounds did not even register with his brain. All he could think about was how he was failing.

He had made it about three miles. But Caspian, his sister's husband, his brother needed that cordial now. And he could not get it.

Caspian was tired. He was so tired. All the time. And he was angry, so angry, all the time. And he hurt, so much, all the time.

He would be turning twenty one in almost exactly one month and he felt like he was rounding seventy. Every morning he was greeted with the horrible creaking and groaning of his young joints, a head ache so severe and crippling Lucy had been scared that he would go blind from the pain he complained of behind his eyes. It was like a tiny swordsman was standing inside his head and stabbing through his brain and into his eyes every time he opened them. And no matter how much water he was brought, he could not get the awful taste out of his mouth. He truly could not think of anything more acrid and bitter than this horrible poisonous residue that coated his tongue and the inside of his cheeks. And the worst part was that it would not go away.

Susan tried so hard to make it go away, giving him every good tasting beverage and tonic and food she could think of, but they all made it worse. And not only did he feel like he was eighty years old, he felt like he was an eighty year old snake.

His tongue was excruciatingly dry and his skin was a bizarre combination of scaly, dry…and slimy. It revolted him every time he switched from lying on his side to lying on his back and could feel the sheets rubbing across his slimy scaly self. But somehow Susan still insisted that the feel of his skin did not revolt her and make her want to vomit.

She had stayed with him every second she possibly could. She would still kiss him despite his dry and crusty lips and would still even crawl into bed with him; how was beyond him. Even little Lucy would sometimes sit at the foot of his bed and read her famous stories aloud to him or draw silly pictures to amuse him (he particularly enjoyed the ones of Peter as a baby).

But nevertheless, for the past five or six days, regardless; Susan was there. Trufflehunter and Cornelius had told her just the other day that they should not sleep together but she was still the first thing he saw in the morning when he woke up and the last person he wished sweet dreams to at night.

Being away from her, even when he was asleep; was agony. There was still this part of him that was terrified he would wake up and she would be gone. And not just gone as in down the hall, gone… as in forever. Gone as in away.

Gone as in never again.

Gone as in he would never see her again. Gone as in over. Gone as in what was supposed to happen. Oh that thought was so painful he could not even process it!

If he ever lost her, he would lose it. He would have no will to go on and lead his country or even to live. The thought of how much more it would hurt after knowing what could have been and having the chance to live it would have made never seeing her again a thousand times more painful.

And so even as he was just lying in bed, obsessing over the empty spot next to him, he swore he would never let that happen. He would never let the best thing that ever happened to him slip through his fingers again like he had as a very young man.

He would hold onto her until his entire body ached and burned and screamed. He would keep her next to him as long as forever would take. Because he had promised her.

That day on the beach, when he finally told her that he loved her…he had made her a promise. A promise to respect and cherish and adore and love and do all the things you should ever do for anyone you would die for…for her.

He had made a promise to her that he would be that man Susan had always wanted to sweep her off her feet and be her reason to live.

He would never let anything hurt her again. He would keep her safe and happy until the very moment he stopped breathing (and he prayed to Aslan that moment would come before hers so would never have to live without her), he would protect her. He would take care of her with everything he had.

That day he had stood before the legendary High King Of Narnia, begging for his blessing to become his brother in law, that eternal promise to take of Susan he made to Peter was so much more than a promise.

It was a life. He had promised Peter a life. He had promised Peter to give his life to his sister. He had promised that from that moment on Susan would be his life. He was no longer Caspian.

He was Caspian and Susan.

Because when he was not with her he was only a half of something bigger than a whole. Peter did not take anything having to do with Susan or Lucy lightly at all.

And neither did Caspian.

And right now, he was only a half.

But right now, 2 am and he's tossing and turning and flipping and flopping all over the place like a fish out of water. He hadn't seen Susan for three hours, forty nine minutes and thirty seven seconds and he was going crazy.

What if something had happened to her? Tonight would be the night if any; there was no moon, it was absolutely pouring rain, he didn't know how the horrendous earsplitting thunder had not woken up the entire castle by now, and the lightening, oh the lightening was beginning to set Caspian's teeth on edge.

Yes, tonight would the night something would happen. If any.

He flipped his pillow over onto the cold side and flopped onto his stomach one more time as a ridiculously bright bolt of lightning flashed right by his window.

You're being paranoid Caspian. I am sure she's fine. It s just another night, she'll be here in the morning. Would you relax? Nothing is going to happen.

He groaned and flopped onto his other side, pulling his pillow over his head and all but screaming into the mattress.

Another fifteen minutes of maddening frustration later and the Telmarine who saved Narnia tore his covers off his legs and jumped out of the bed with a snarl of irritation.

He muttered various curses at the pain that greeted him, already feeling at least six bruises coming to surface on his temporarily fragile arms and legs. His fingers shook as he grasped the bed weakly and staggered up to his feet, suddenly feeling lightheaded and exhausted.

The cherry pie pan on the nightstand was almost empty.

He absently pulled on a nightshirt-the very one he had been wearing when he met his wife and her family- and slowly, very slowly, started to shuffle towards the door.

The hallway was cold and dark. His head spun and circles spun before his eyes. His breathing grew shallower and shallow but he did not notice. He could not breathe. He could not see.

But he could hear.

Distant, faraway, soft sounds that caught him off guard and made his spine tingle. Using the wall for support he painfully made his way down the hallway, his shoulder braced against the stonewall the whole time. It must have taken him at least three times as long as it would have normally but he was drawn down the hall by the sounds. He was going the opposite direction from Susan's old bedroom but the sounds-words, he discovered- were pulling him down the hallway.

Four or five times he thought for sure he was going to pass out again and he had to stop and rest several times but he had to find the two people that were speaking. Whatever they were speaking of, it was not good.

As he got closer he could almost make out the voices. One definitely male and the other…well, he hadn't actually heard the other person speaking yet. However, the man sounded very guilty about something . But whatever it was, he was either very ashamed or very, very sorry. Or both.

They must have been fairly close, perhaps the courtyard corridor or the kitchen corridor. Whoever they were, they were discussing something very important.

Caspian was no eavesdropper but he is human and so to say…curiosity got the best of him.

He stopped for perhaps a minute to catch his breath and try to see straight again and then bravely braced himself against the wall, took a deep breath, and slowly, made his way down the hallway. It took perhaps four or five times as long as it normally did but he hardly seemed to notice anything else but the searing pain that was blasting through him with every step they took.

What seemed like hours later, he was making progress down the hallway. He could now almost hear the conversation. The way the man's voice was getting louder and louder and more desperate and high pitched sounding made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. Something…was wrong. There was something very not right about this conversation and he felt in his gut that he should know exactly what it was but his head was getting in the way.

He instinctively tensed when the man's nervous pacing like a caged leopard could be heard echoing throughout the hall and his voice was going up an octave and getting louder and louder. This man was beginning to get angry.

Sweat started to dribble down Caspian's temples and neck as he feebly slithered along the wall, hidden in the shadows.

He heard just a faint whisper of the other softer, gentler voice; Most definitely a feminine speaker.

"I don't believe that. I know you, you are a very good person."

"If you knew why I am speaking to you right now you would not think so."

"But you're a good person!''

''I AM SUPPOSED TO KIDNAPP YOU!" the man shouted.

If it had not been for his superb battle reaction training and reflexes, he would have surely slid to the floor and had a stroke.

His brain froze for that moment in time. Everything went darkHe knew that second voice. It was a voice he would know half dead and deaf in one ear.

It was Susan's.

Peter had never given much thought as to how he would die.

Death had stared him right in the face THOUSANDS of times. There was not an inch of his body not scared with a near death experience but yet he had never given that much thought to what would end it.

He was not afraid of death. He believed that life could be so much worse than death that just being finished with it would not be so bad. Perhaps it would be lovely; being dead. No more papers to sign or knights to train or wars to fight or suitors to ward off. Maybe…it would not be so horrible to die.

The horrible thing would be seeing it all slip away.

Before every single battle he had ever fought in, even as a sixteen year old boy, he prayed to Aslan that if he was destined not to come out of that battle alive, no one he loved would be there. He prayed that the last thing he would ever see would not be Edmund screaming his name or Lucy sprinting to his side with her cordial only to see him slip away and leave her.

His only request for Aslan would be to spare him his family. He did not wish for a quick death and would welcome agony with open arms as long as he did not have to see his family slip away and fade as his heart stopped thumping. As long as he would not feel that brief moment of panic knowing that this would be the last time he ever saw them alive.

He never really thought about how he would die.

But dying as lived seemed a pretty good way to go.

So as he was standing there in his nightclothes, arm bandaged and all, surrounded by a dozen Telmarine troops and facing ten or fifteen crossbows, he welcomed what would come. He would die for the same reason Caspian would throw himself in front of Susan if even one trigger was pulled. For his family.

For Edmund who was god knows where right now trying to save Caspian. For Lucy whose throat was being held under the blade of a knife. For Caspian who held his sister in his arms and tried even in his illness to be her hero. And for Susan who did not deserve to be the cause of any of this.

Yes, dying here, in the hallway of Cair Paravel, surrounding by loved ones would be a good way to go.

Caspian couldn't breathe. This, this was without a doubt one of those moments where he was inches away from a heart attack. He hobbled the last few feet to the corner as quickly as he possibly could and with every ounce of strength he had left, pulled himself around the corner.

"What is going on here?" he croaked in a feeble voice as loudly as he could manage, which was barely above a whisper but was nevertheless heard by the two now identified characters.

Susan closed her eyes as if cursing herself for a moment and Inego took one look at the decrepit young king-his king- and let out a sort of whimper and began trembling most vioilently. Susan opened her eyes and took a deep breath, forcing a calm look across her face.

"Sweetheart. What are you doing here? You should be resting, love." she said in a strained-everything is okay and I am not being threatened- voice.

Caspian vaguely remembered hearing the same voice coming out of his mothers voice years and years ago when a four year old Caspian had wondered into the hallway frightened because he had heard his mommy and daddy screaming at eachother in the hallway. Its was the classic -mommy and daddy were just having a discussion go back to bed honey- voice.

Inego yanked his crossbow off of her torso and flung it on the ground, holding his head in his hands and whispering nonsense to himself. Susan, however, stayed put against the wall. Caspian tried his best to straighten himself up and let go of the wall, doing his best to hold his head up high and strut over to his wife. He made it half way there before his knees buckled and spots appeared before his eyes. He dug his nails into his palms as he struggled to catch himself as he began to pitch forward.

Susan immediately rushed forward and grabbed his upper arm gently and pulled him upright. She moved to put his arms around her shoulder but he shrugged her off and fixed his intense eyes on Inego. The one man he thought he could trust with his life and more importantly, his family.

The instantaneous rage he felt welling up inside of him gave him strength and he advanced on the poor man with surprising speed. Inego's eyes went cloudy when Caspian grabbed the front of the man's shirt, as if Inego had totally forgotten he was not alone.

"I better have an explanation by the time I count to three do you hear me!One. Two-."

"THREE!

Caspian did not even have time to look around to see where the horrible voices were coming from before he was crumpled on the hallway floor, the wind knocked out of his lungs and a lump blossoming on the back of his head.

Dozens of ear drum shattering battle cries and yells rocked the hallway as a seemingly endless sea of Telmarine soldiers disguised as Narnian guards poured into the tight space, swords and bows drawn and poised. His world was spinning and he was seeing stars put there when he looked up there were several things, several undeniably real things happening-that torn his soul apart.

One of them were points. Lots and lots of points. Points of the blades, points of the armor, points of the arrows, points poised for delivering death.

The second was cold blooded murder. Everywhere, in their eyes, in their faces, in the way the held themselves.

And the third thing, oh the third thing was so horrifying he could not even process it. The third thing was Susan. Susan in the middle of all of these things.

Susan, in the midst of twenty swarming men with murderous intentions, trapped against the wall. She did not stand a chance. Even without her bow the Gentle Queen was by no means defenseless and she fought quite well in hand to hand combat... but there were so many of them.

He had never wanted anything as badly as he wanted to move. But he couldn't. His body was...giving up on him. The amphatike was not working its way out, no not at all. he couldn't make his body do what he wanted it to. He couldn't run, couldn't fight, couldn't protect. He couldn't save her. His love and his life, he could not protect her when she needed him.

He thrashed and writhed and tried desperately to haul himself up off the ground to get to her. He had to get to her. She was screaming and hitting and yelling and calling for him. She was calling for him and he couldn't get there. He couldn't get to her when she needed him.

He screamed and yelled and called for her until bile flooded into his mouth but every time he got close to getting back up, at least four Telmarine aimed a kick to his rib or gave him a shove. But Caspian was angry.

And in his anger, there was nothing Caspian couldn't do.

One of the men shoved Susan too hard and he heard a thump against the wall.

And he lost it.

With a yowl of absolute rage, Caspian threw the Telmarine off of him and sprang off of the ground like a cat. An enormous, angry, vicious cat. Several of the Telmarines whipped around at the surprising sound and their eyes widened when they saw the look in the King's eyes.

As if possessed Caspian lunged at the closest man's throat and threw him into several of the others with as much force as he could muster. Six Telmarine spies tumbled to the stone floor, their armor clanking and clattering eeriely. Caspian whipped around to face all the others, his eyes positively flaming. Even in the heat of battle, Susan had never seen him like this.

It reminded her of the night he was poisoned.

If the Telmarines were to make it out of the palace alive with the queen before being caught it had to be done now. But the king should not have been there. The King should be dying in his bed right now. Everything had been planned out. King Caspian would eat the pie and would slowly begin to die in his bed. King Edmund was away. King Peter was weak from the nearly fatal cut in his arm. And dear little Queen Lucy would be asleep in her bed.

Queen Susan was just a woman, they had thought; she would not put up much of a fight. They would be through Calormene before anyone even discovered she was gone. The Prince would be most pleased to have his lovely little minx in his palace and King Kasim would be delighted that the plan was working.

But the plan was not working. Queen Susan could most definetly put up a fight and all though he had looked frightfully ill, Caspian was obviously not on his death bed.

The startled Telmarines scrambled back up, bewildered and well, angry. But nothing compared to the anger Caspian felt.

The only time he had ever felt this strong was the moment of greatest shame in his life; the night he was poisioned. He leapt and lunged and swung and yelled and screeched and kicked and screamed and fought like all of Aslans country was falling down around him.

He spun wildly to the left after cutting down another Telmarine and laughed when his fist connected with the jaw of an enemy. But as he leapt into mid air, he caught sight of his wife fighting like the wolves of Jadis were snapping at her heels. The Susan in the hallway vanished and left behind the Susan on the battlefield. The Susan who looked more beautiful than anything he had ever seen but scared him a heck of the lot more than she should have. The fierce and intense look in her eyes as she pulled her arm back and let the arrows fly unbidden before hurling another arrow into the enemy.

His gentle beautiful sweet queen was right now, well...terrifying. He was snapped out of his flashback when the blade of a sword swished inches from his side. And then he his body went back on auto pilot.

He was a totally different animal. His muscles moving beneath his skin and rippling together like a well oiled machine.

Just as his shoved his fist deep into the gut of yet another man, he caught something out of the corner of his eye that horrified him beyond anything he had ever dreamed of.

"What's going on out here?" the small, shocked little voice squeaked through a massive yawn.

Little Lucy, barefoot and yawning in her nightgown, had stumbled right in the midst of all the chaos of the attack on her way to check on Susan.

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