Lucy sat outside on one of the benches in small garden behind the school kitchens. The courtyard gardens were much nicer, but the one back behind the kitchens was ideal for solitude. It was an overlooked sort of place; nothing much grew besides a few herbs that weren't tended often. Nobody ever came by except for an old yellow tabby, which was the kind of company Lucy liked when she was upset.
Hugging her knees to her chest, she looked for all the world a lonely schoolgirl, which was exactly what she was – only she wasn't. She was homesick, but missing Narnia was only part of why she was troubled. She was thinking of what she had learned when she and her mother had gone to Aunt Alberta's for tea. It had been many weeks previous, before the start of term, but she still felt the same numbing shock.
"He loved you, you know," Eustace says casually, unaware that his words pierce her fragile heart. "Asked Edmund's permission and all of it – he wanted a betrothal, until you were older. He harped on and on about it while you were upstairs at Coriakin's. And even though he wasn't too keen on the idea, we both saw that he meant it, and Edmund agreed in the end. But Caspian couldn't tell you – you had to find it your own, that was the condition. I suppose we just ran out of time."
Ran out time. Never come back to Narnia. The worst thing he could have said. . . She squeezed her eyes shut tight. Hearing it after the fact was ten times worse than knowing at all.
She had already been melancholy since coming back – trying to embrace this life as Aslan had commanded, but unable to let go of her time on the Dawn Treader or the look in Caspian's eyes at their final parting. Because even though she had always known they would be returning, even though she knew she shouldn't, Lucy fell in love with him. And then the three of them had gone back to England.
But to find out that all the while he felt the same! It changed everything about the voyage. All she had said, everything they had done together, they way that she acted around him. . . different, now, to know that he had felt the same. It was so much more to lose.
"Lu," says Edmund, and she turns round again to face him. His eyes are wary. "I know you're hoping we might stay much longer this time, but we mustn't expect it to be anything. Aslan could choose to take us back at any moment. I know how badly you'd like to get to see Narnia again, and I think – I think there's another reason, too. But there aren't any guarantees. Just remember that, before you make any promises."
There wasn't anybody around and it was nearing darkness, but Lucy buried her face in her arms anyway. Edmund had known after all, and he must have been watching even more closely than she'd suspected. Even Eustace had known! So they had all been watching her: Edmund, Eustace, Caspian. . . And she had imagined she hid it so well.
How foolish she was! They would have seen her blushing, her soft smiles, and known the source. It made her more a child than ever. Of course she would not know; she went forward guided by her heart, unperturbed by implication, never looking for underhand. Oh, to go back and do it over again. . . but then, she had never meant it to happen in the first place.
She watches him. She sees his free and easy manner, his cheery laugh, his newly-born confidence. She sometimes thinks that this is what Peter would have been like, had he not been weighted with such responsibility all his life. Caspian is a merry king; she is glad that Narnia has his good heart to lead them. He is handsome too, but she pushes that thought aside.
Lucy rested her cheek over her folded arms, thinking of how it all began. He was already her dear friend and she loved him, in a way, from the very start. And as the days passed she found that she cared for him more deeply. She tried to avoid the feeling at first, of course, because they always knew they would be returning.
It was her nature. Lucy was a feeling girl, and she couldn't stop herself from loving. Peter used to say that love spread out from her like sunshine. It was very true: Lucy made new friends wherever she went. Each time she went to Narnia she found more people to hold in her heart. More people, she reflected, to leave behind.
It never bothered her much before, having to go back and start again, to be the girl she has already grown out of. Here she feels the difference more acutely. Something in his smile and the sparkle of his eyes makes her long for the days when she was tall and shapely, when men called her more beautiful than the stars.
Whatever her feelings, she had known the wisdom of keeping them to herself. She wanted most to spare his feelings, and perhaps protect her own. This love was new and strange. It was different from what she recalled of her old life. There had been no exchange of jewels or trinkets, none of the customs of courtly affection. Even without them she felt an incredible connection, a draw beyond those fancies.
They were so alike! So often he had finished her thought, or spoken the very thing in her mind. They had the same spirit, the same wanderlust. A love for thrill and adventure and discovery. He was a dreamer just the same as she. With Caspian, she could talk of things she couldn't with Peter or Susan or Edmund; of wonder, of colour, of feeling.
"You might be gone tomorrow, and yet. . ." Caspian leaves this sentence unfinished. He looks very young suddenly, vulnerable, as if he does not understand the meaning of his own words. His arm is warm beside hers, and she feels a strange compulsion to take his hand in her own. She knows better than to act on it. Moments pass and his expression fades away. Her heart burns and she struggles, wanting more than ever to reach out to him.
Her eyes closed. How she would have loved the time to grow up once more, the chance to fall in love, together. She knew it was not right to hope for it; after all, she had already lived out an entire life. It was selfish to expect another. All the same, she had hoped, and here she was. Not exactly brokenhearted, not quite bitter. Not sad. Only wishing there had been another way.
Even now, when hope was long dashed and Caspian himself long dead, she wondered. What if they had not come back? What if she had been older? Eustace's words echoed through her mind: "He wanted a betrothal, until you were older." She looked to the west, where the sun was setting behind the trees. What if she had thrown wisdom to the winds and declared her heart?
She should not feel this way. But she knows things, remembers things from a time when she was even older than Caspian. Memories flit through her mind: being twirled across the marble floor, gentle fingers that lace her corset, the taste of a man's lips on hers. Caspian smiles and her breath catches, but she checks herself. Only a girl, only eleven, only a child that knows nothing of love. . .
Long ago she had been a queen of legends. Golden and beautiful and eloquent, a woman worthy of him. She had lived then with hardly a care for love. It was unjust irony in so many ways. How many suitors, great men and kings and princes, had she turned away? Only to find the one she loved during so a finite journey, when she was made a child again and he was intended for another.
It was silly to be upset. Caspian had returned to Narnia and married and lived. Lucy had her life in England. But she dwelt still on the voyage, on the secrets on both sides, on the dreams forever unfulfilled. Aslan had brought them back and the implication was clear; theirs was not a love to last. It was never even acknowledged.
Caspian comes to say good-bye, tears in his eyes. There is a long moment of silence, and then he pulls her into his arms with terrible finality. She wishes she could stay there forever. Suddenly she understands everything – how he feels, how she feels – and she realises, without a shred of doubt, that they will never meet again. It makes her bolder. She reaches up and takes his face in her hands: Their first kiss, and their last.
The matron's voice called faintly. Lucy went inside.
A/N: This definitely has a weird rhythm, and the oneshot-writing was extremely forced. Fitting a story around the flashbacks (which were very easy for me to write) just felt wrong, so I eventually ditched everything except for those bits. I couldn't think of a title for the piece, so I called it Forward because I had to reorganize everything consecutively. Snort.