Disclaimer: I do not own The Chronicles of Narnia, no matter how much I want to. :P

Hi!!! I would once again like to say thank you to all of my reviewers. I enjoy reading all of your comments and I'm so happy all of you are enjoying it! :) Please continue to review, it helps me tremendously! Well, here is chapter 4!

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Chapter 4: Unexpected Occurrence

Someone was gently shaking my shoulder.

"Peter," the person said. I recognized the voice to belong to Susan.

"Wake up, Peter," she urged. Wake up? Had I passed out? Then I remembered Lucy. My eyes shot open.

"Where's Lucy?" I asked, my voice sounding a bit panicked as I sat up without thinking about what I was doing. I winced. My side seared with renewed pain, almost worse than what I had felt earlier. I suppressed a groan.

"I'm right here, Peter," Lucy answered. I felt her take my hand and give it a gentle squeeze. Thank goodness! I thought. Lucy was okay. I looked around and saw Susan and Lucy to my left side, followed by Edmund at my right. He placed a hand on my chest and slowly pushed me back down to the ground, looking worried.

"You okay, Ed?" I wondered. My ribs suddenly flared up again; it took everything I had not to yell.

"You just took an arrow for our sister and got knocked out cold, probably damaging your ribs even more, and you're asking me if I'm okay? How are you?" he questioned.

"I'm fi- ah!" I yelled, my voice finally betraying me. I clutched my side. Edmund put his hand on my shoulder, keeping me from lurching forward.

"Peter, you are not fine," he added sternly. I tried to contradict him, but I couldn't speak; the pain was overwhelming. I must've fallen on them harder than I thought.

"Just relax, Peter. We're not going to make you move," Susan pointed out. I nodded, inhaling slowly; I didn't want to strain my ribs even more than they already had been.

"Peter, I'm so sorry. If it wasn't for me you wouldn't be hurting worse," Lucy said, her eyes beginning to tear up. I squeezed her hand harder.

"No, Lucy. Don't blame yourself. I would do it again if it meant I'd be saving you," I declared. I hated that she was blaming herself for this; it was anything but her fault. Goodness it hurt to speak; I'd really need to restrict the talking. Lucy laid down beside me and put her head on my shoulder. She sighed.

"Thank you, Peter. That's twice you've saved me today. I love you so much," she put in. She looked over at me. I smiled.

"Love you too, Lucy," I added. We had such a close relationship; she'd do anything for me. And I'd do anything for her. Right now I had to be strong for Lucy. I couldn't let her know how much I was hurting; she'd only blame herself.

"Peter, honestly, how bad are your ribs?" Edmund asked. Well, this wasn't helping with the confidentiality, now was it? I couldn't lie to my siblings, though.

"As bad as earlier, but I can manage," I answered. And I would. I'd do whatever it took to get all of us back to Cair Paravel safely.

"Do you mind if I take a look?" Edmund wondered. I shook my head. Lucy sat up and scooted slightly away from me, still holding my hand. Ed pulled up my tunic and gave me a somewhat quizzical look.

"Peter, how hard did you fall?" he asked. I shrugged.

"Hard, I guess,"

"Well your ribs have been disrupted. I don't believe anymore are broken, but I do think they could have possibly been damaged a slight bit more," he said. Wonderful, I thought to myself. Oh well, I couldn't change what happened earlier.

"Will you need to wrap them up any tighter?" I asked in a quiet voice. I wasn't going to waste my well-needed energy on speaking.

"Probably so, Peter. That way they'll heal properly," Edmund explained. I nodded.

"Go ahead," I told him. I just wanted it to be done and over with. I would try my best to keep quiet and hide my discomfort from my siblings, especially Lucy. Susan helped me sit up; it was quite painful. I was successful at staying silent, though. I gave both her and Lucy a smile and they returned the favor.

"All right, Peter, are you ready?" Edmund inquired.

"Yes," I answered. So once again Susan positioned herself behind me while Lucy held my hand.

"You never cease to amaze me, Peter. You truly are magnificent. I owe you everything," Lucy put in. There was a slight sparkle in her eyes, as if she was really admiring me. I suddenly felt a tug at my side and then an explosion of pain. I bit my lip but recovered easily. This whole hiding-my-pain thing was becoming progressively easier. I went through these motions a few more times- me and Lucy speaking, I keeping my expressions to myself- and then Edmund was done.

"Thanks, Ed," I declared.

"No problem. I just wish I wouldn't have had to do anything," he replied. Yes, so do I, I thought to myself.

"Well, what are we to do now?" Susan questioned.

"It's still dark out, my guess is it's about four thirty, but we should probably get a move on. We were just attacked and there's a chance that there could be more of them around here. I do wish we knew who they were. They appeared to be dark-skinned, but it was hard to be sure in this deprived light. Anyways, we should get going, unless Peter needs to rest," Edmund answered, looking at me. I shook my head.

"I'll manage," I promised.

"Are you sure you don't need to rest first? You've been through a lot in these previous hours," Lucy wondered.

"No, I'm all right," I said. Well, I hoped. I still hurt terribly, but at least my siblings didn't know that.

"Okay, well, then, let's get you up," Susan put in. She didn't sound convinced on her decision, but I wasn't going to rest and keep us in danger in our location. I put my arm over her shoulder and then Edmund came over and I did the same with him. They stood and brought me up with them. Ouch. I closed my eyes and took in some fresh air. I'd be all right after a moment or two. I stepped forward when I felt I could. My siblings joined me and we walked towards Bill. They helped me onto him and then mounted their own horses. Lucy rode over to me on Midnight.

"Well, are we ready?" she asked, mainly looking at me. I nodded, as did everyone else. So then we were off. Edmund led us but I wasn't far behind. Lucy was beside me and Susan was in the back. We rode for what I guessed was a few hours, seeing as the sun had rose, but then hunger overcame us all.

"So, what's to eat? Is there anything out here that's… edible?" Susan questioned.

"It wouldn't hurt to look," Edmund said, bringing Zylar to a halt.

"Lucy and I will go this way and you two can go the opposite," I suggested. They all nodded so Lu and I headed west while the others traveled east.

We searched for a few minutes and then Lucy exclaimed, "Peter, look!"

She was pointing her finger in a northern direction. My eyes followed it and I saw a rather large apple tree.

"Hmm, how peculiar for an apple tree to be out in these unknown woods; would you trust it?" I wondered. Lucy hopped off of Midnight and walked to the tree. She pulled off one of the red fruits and cut it open using a dagger hidden in her boot. Though she never wanted to use it against someone, I required her to carry it as a safety precaution. Lucy showed me the inside of the apple. It was the normal off-white color with a tint of shine glazed over the top, such as to be the sweet juice.

"Here, Lucy, hand it to me," I said, extending my hand. She did as I asked, and I lifted it to my nose. It smelled as a normal apple should. I took a bite. Lucy's eyes became wide. I swallowed, and nothing happened.

"Lucy, it's fine. It's just a regular apple," I assured. It was a very good apple at that, but then again anything could've tasted good to me after what I'd gone through in the past day. She bit into her half. Her face lit up.

"Wow, Peter! This is quite delicious!" she exclaimed. I nodded.

"We should take some back for the others," Lu added. So the two of us gathered as many apples as we could carry comfortably and brought them back to where we started from.

"Susan, Ed," I yelled out. I heard a rustling in the leaves and out came my siblings on Zylar and Avery. They were holding handfuls of some sort of berries; the type I couldn't tell from here.

"Oh, you have apples! We found a bush full of ripe raspberries and a creek back there in a clearing. We'll take you back and all get a drink; the water is very fresh," Susan declared. First of all though, we exchanged fruits and ate in nearly silence. The raspberries were the best I'd tasted in a while. They were so moist; the juices seemed to flow throughout my mouth and they were very sweet.

Later on Susan and Edmund led us to the freshwater stream. It wasn't very far back into the woods; it was quite easy to get there on horseback. I hopped off of Bill and bent down to the water. It hurt my ribs, but that wasn't very unusual at this point in time. I stared down at my reflection in the clear liquid. My hair was tousled around and my cheeks were slightly flushed. My eyes looked a bit duller than the bright blue color that they usually expressed. The sleeve of my tunic was stained with blood, but it didn't look too bad. All in all I didn't appear too shabby except for where you could start to see the bandages under my shirt; I didn't like accepting the fact that others could tell I was injured. Shaking off the thought, I lowered my hands and put them underwater. I pulled them up and took a sip. Goodness the water was delicious. I didn't realize how thirsty I had been until this moment. My mouth didn't feel parched and dry; it was now cool and refreshed. And the taste… it was wonderful.

"It's almost like the flavored tonic back home," I said. It did seem that way; it had a certain zest to it. The others nodded in agreement. Lucy and Susan, the only ones with canteens, filled them up so we could share the water later. We stayed there for a few more minutes and then made our descent towards Narnia.

We rode for a couple hours and rested, rode a couple and rested, and kept this routine up until dark. We made good time today; for once we weren't ambushed, thank Aslan. All of us were terribly tired so we stopped for the night in a small clearing. I got off of Bill, my body feeling very stiff from all the day's riding. I slowly stretched myself onto the ground and tried to make myself comfortable. I lay on my back, staying off of my aching side. Lucy laid the closest to me, then Edmund and Susan.

"Good night, Peter," Lucy said.

"Night," I whispered to everyone. My vision faded to black and my thoughts slowed down as sleep overcame me.

____________________________________________________________________

The rising sunlight forced my eyes to open. I yawned, stretching out my arms. My eyes scanned my surroundings. Susan and Edmund were still sound asleep and Lucy… Lucy? Where was Lucy? I stood up and walked around, making sure I hadn't overlooked her or anything.

"Lucy!" I yelled out. No answer.

"Lucy!" I screamed again.

"Peter, what are you doing?" Edmund asked in a tired voice.

"Did Lucy go somewhere?" I wondered. He shook his head as Susan sat up.

"What about Lucy?" she questioned, confused.

"She's gone," I answered. And she was. We searched all over the perimeter, but our youngest sister was nowhere to be found.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

A/N: Cliffhanger, possibly? Sorry, but I have to stop at some point. :) Well, what do you think?? Please review!