Reepicheep was sprawled across the edge of the railing of Lord Faa's Dawn Treader, his long mouse-tail wrapped around it exactly twice and helped him keep perfect balance no matter which way the ship happened to twist or which side it happened to suddenly pitch toward for whatever reason.

Lucy was about a foot or so to his left with her elbows propped up against her part of the railing; she was leaning over-ever so slightly-looking down into the water below. Although she appeared to be staring diligently down at the beautifully clear-yet also shadowy at this particular late afternoon hour-sea, in actuality, she wasn't really seeing it. Her thoughts were far away.

It didn't matter that her body was there on the galleon belonging to the King of the Gyptians; her mind was with Edmund, who she believed to be imprisoned in Svalbard.

"Do you think it would have hurt this much, Reep?" asked Lucy, speaking for the first time in nearly two hours, pulling away from the railing and taking in a deep, rather sad-sounding, breath of the salty air.

"Do I think what would have hurt this much?" Her dæmon twisted his head to look at her, twitching his whiskers pensively.

"If we'd actually been torn apart," Lucy explained softly; "back in Bolvangar, I mean. You remember, when they put us in that horrid thing-with all that wire fencing…"

Reepicheep shuddered, having to tighten the loop he'd made with his tail to avoid slipping off from the horror of that memory. It had been too awful for words; they'd only been eight years old then.

"Do you think," Lucy went on, "that if they really had done it, torn us apart, it would have felt like this? Do you think it would have hurt as much as missing Edmund does now?"

Reepicheep understood; he missed Ella just as badly. "I don't know."

"Neither do I," she admited. "But I think it would have been similar. The only difference is that losing Ed isn't fatal, even if it does sort of feel like it ought to be."

"Mmm," hummed the mouse-dæmon in agreement.

Smiling, Lucy whispered, "Do you remember how he saved us from being cut apart that day?"

"Yes."

"I was so angry with him afterwards," she laughed lightly to herself, "when he lied to me."

"Angrier still when he tried to steal the silver pocket watch," Reepicheep reminded her, smiling a little.

"That was the last time we saw him for four years." Lucy's expression changed from wistful to desolate. "I hope it's not that long until we see him again." She wiped at her eyes; there weren't tears there-yet-but there might as well have been.

"It probably won't be," Reepicheep told her, not sounding terribly certain in spite of his desire to comfort his broken-hearted little mistress.

Sighing, Lucy spread out her elbows along the railing and lowered her head onto the back of her hands. "Reep?"

"Yes?"

"I'd rather hear his voice again than nearly any other sound in the whole of all the worlds." She said 'nearly' only because there were two other beloved voices she also longed to hear-Peter's and Aslan's. Especially Aslan's.

Suddenly there was a heavy warmth over her shoulders that felt like wool and, lifting up her head again, she saw Farder Coram standing there behind her. He had limped towards her and placed a blanket over her shoulders, having noticed she was shivering. His beautiful tabby-dæmon let out a low, comforting sound similar to purring and stared up at Reepicheep with a warm, loving expression very unusual to see in a cat looking at a mouse. But it was no odder, Lucy supposed, thinking it over later on, than it was for an owl to look at a mouse tenderly, as Ella did in Reepicheep's case.

"You looked cold," Farder Coram told her.

"Thanks," said Lucy.

"I understand what it's like to miss someone-or worry about someone-like this," he said, coming over and leaning on the railing beside her. "Did your brother ever tell you what I told him about your birth mother, Lucy?"

She shook her head. "I don't know, he never said very much about it."

"Probably just as well," he sighed. "Did you know that I used to be in love with her?"

"You were?"

A sight rush of pinkish colouring rose to the old Gyptian's cheeks. "Silly, I know."

"I think it's sweet." Lucy shrugged her shoulders. She had never been fond of Lord Asriel, and she knew too little about the lady who'd given birth to her to form any opinion of the woman, Helen Pevensie was her mother as far as she was concerned, but her adoration of Farder Coram made her want happiness for him. "You should have married her."

He chuckled lightly at that as if it were a very extraordinary thing for Lucy to have said. "Oh no, not me, they wouldn't have let me. We'd have been ill-suited her and me; them nobles would have never allowed it. Even if I hadn't been nearly three times her age, I was still a Gyptian regardless. Besides, she loved Lord Asriel, and he loved her." He smiled to himself, remembering. "I got to give her away as a bride, though. Good old Sarah." He shook his head.

"I bet you would have treated her well," Lucy said; Reepicheep had scurried down from the railing and was standing on the deck, cleaning his face. "Better than Asriel did, I believe." She couldn't bring herself to say 'father'. Mr. Pevensie was her father, not the cold, unfeeling, heartbreaker of a nobleman known as Lord Asriel.

"He treated her all right, mostly," said Farder Coram tightly. He didn't mention that Lord Asriel had cheated on the woman; Lucy wasn't stupid, she knew Lyra wouldn't even exist if Asriel had been a faithful man. It was best to leave some blanks to be filled in on their own. But the 'mostly' at the end of his sentence seemed to hover in the air for the remainder of the conversation, saying all that Farder Coram himself would not.

"And you still miss her."

"Yes, of course I do." His expression was distant, slightly guilty. "Less since I got married, I have to admit. Part of me was in love with her memory; but it would've never worked anyway. And I'm glad she married Lord Asriel."

"What?" Lucy's brow crinkled and she frowned deeply. "How can you be glad? When it ended so badly…"

"It didn't end badly, Lucy," he said softly, his voice full of emotion. "It ended well. They had you."

Lucy merely stared at him silently now.

"As for me," laughed Farder Coram, "it took a while, but things turned round. I have a wife who I love very, very much, and who loves me, a useless old Gyptian-and I don't even know why she does."

"I do," said Lucy, finding her lost voice again.

Of course Serafina Pekkala Le Fay loved Farder Coram. The fairy's years had made her wise, and anyone who had any sense or wisdom or true heart at all couldn't help loving Farder Coram. He was too good-natured not to love.

"So, you see, I do know what you're going through." Farder Coram moved a lock of Lucy's hair behind one of her ears. "Sarah's dead; and every time Serafina leaves, I don't know for sure that she's safe-there's an awful lot of dangerous stuff them fairies have to take care of, especially a queen. But some things we just have to take on faith. I worry for her and feel sorry for myself every time, but she comes back. Edmund'll come back for you, too." He added, with a wink, "Even if it's us who've got to go find him."

For a while, they said nothing further, content simply to look out at the sea and the sun, which was setting now. They drank in the sweet pink and orange and the streaks of red along the horizon as the sky went from blue to hazy purple.

"Farder Coram?" Lucy had a question.

"Yes?"

"When Lady Sarah-my birth mum, I mean-told you to keep me safe, it wasn't right after that you took me to that other world to live with the Pevensies, was it?"

He shook his head. "It weren't a terribly long time 'fore I had to step in and take you, but, no, not right away."

"Where was I?" She wanted to know. "Where did I live then before you took me away?"

"You lived in your father's house, of course. He wasn't home very often, and Ma Costa was employed to look after you and Lyra."

"Yes, I think I knew that part," she admited. "I even had a dream about it once."

"It wasn't until Edmund Coulter was murdered that I felt the time had come for me to take you, to keep my promise to Sarah."

"Why?"

"Don't you know?" Farder Coram's eyes widened and they flickered between Lucy and his dæmon for a moment. "Or, at least, I'm sure you could guess, Lucy."

She shook her head; she didn't know and honestly couldn't guess.

"Lord Asriel was convicted of killing a man," the old Gyptian said pointedly.

"Yes…"

"There was a lawsuit, they could have taken you away to Lion-knows-where…they wouldn't let your father have you any longer. Ma Costa couldn't have you or Lyra, much as she'd grown attached to you both-she was a Gyptian, you were nobly born children."

Lucy grimaced at that.

"I know it isn't fair," said Farder Coram, in a nicer, softer tone, "but that's the way of the world; that's how it is."

"Once we get the Ruling Powers sorted, we had better do something about that." Reepicheep looked very fierce (for a mouse) while his human was saying that.

"If anyone can manage it, you might." He laughed and shrugged at that.

"I am glad that I didn't have to stay with Lord Asriel, even if he is my father." Lucy hated the thought of, not only having never met the Pevensies, but also having had to grow up in Lord Asriel's home. Given, he mightn't have been there often, off exploring and all that, but the thought of seeing him when he came back…She despised and feared him too greatly for what he'd tried to do to Susan to have any respect or tenderness towards him.

"He didn't treat you badly, you know." Farder Coram felt he had to defend him. "While Ma Costa was scrapping Edmund Coulter's corpse off of the floor you and Lyra both wouldn't stop howling your heads off. Lyra had quite a set of lungs on her-always had, always will, I believe. He held you both until you stopped weeping. And, you don't know this, but the reason Lyra was put in Jordan was because Lord Asriel took her away from where the courts had placed her; and then he dared them to undo it."

"Why would he…"

"She was put into a foster home by the law; the head of that household was a man who works very prominently with the Ruling Powers. Asriel would not suffer to have her raised by such a man, better the Master of Jordan than wicked persons."

"Did Lord Asriel know you took me?"

Farder Coram's bony chin turned inwards, as if he was trying very hard to remember. "Well, in time he did. I've never been certain if he knew from the first-I didn't tell him when I took you away, too scared the courts would get wind of it and try to stop me-but he knew after a while. Lord Asriel himself never said much about it after the fact. You know he's a very…er…reserved nobleman."

"That's one way of putting it," mumbled Reepicheep.

"You know," Farder Coram went on after a pause, "even though I knew the Pevensies would take good care of you-that they would protect you-I felt horrible giving you up. I knew it was impossible to keep you, that you wasn't any safer growing up Gyptian if we'd keep you with us, as hidden. But I felt…I was miserable for days afterwards."

"You wanted to keep us," Reepicheep stated.

"More than anything," he sighed. "Digory Kirke, one of the people helping me smuggle you into that other world-and the only one to stay behind and not to return to the world he was born in, at that-was sorry to leave you, too."

Lucy wondered what it would have been like to have been raised as a Gyptian, as if she were Farder Coram's daughter or little niece. She wondered how she would have liked that. Of course Farder Coram would have treated her very well, but she would have never lived with the Pevensies-she would have never met her beloved adoptive parents, or Peter. Also, the notion of being a stolen nobly-born child raised by Gyptians was fine and jolly exciting in theory, however, in reality, she could see how it might have been quite a hassle. It had been bad enough having to hide Reepicheep for eight years, concealing from nearly everyone that she had a dæmon; how horrid it was to imagine having to hide all the time to avoid being spotted and taken away from the Gyptians because they were 'only Gyptians' and would have never been allowed to raise her! No, Farder Coram had unselfishly done the very best thing for her, and she loved him all the more so for that.

"It would have been interesting to have been raised Gyptian," Lucy mused, speaking her thoughts aloud, "but I think you did the right thing."

"Aye, the right thing. Also the hardest thing. Poor Ma Costa wanted you both so badly. She knew she couldn't have you, of course, because of my promise to Lady Sarah and also that we somehow knew that your half-sister staying behind wouldn't be dangerous, that things would work out for her, but we couldn't say the same for you, not for certain. All the same, as Lyra was still in this world, you can't imagine how much Ma Costa wanted to keep her. She wanted to keep her even more-I think-than I wanted to keep you, if you can believe it! She was in court constantly, impossible as it clearly was, theys never give a child to a Gyptian."

"I think Lyra would have made an excellent Gyptian," laughed Lucy. "Better than I would have."

"Maybe, maybe not." Farder Coram shrugged his old, weary shoulders. "Ma Costa says that your average Gyptian is a water person but Lyra's something even more wild than that-a fire person. She's got a sort of loveable deception about her that we Gyptians can't harness, not in her and not for ourselves."

"Where is Lyra just now, anyway?" Lucy wondered aloud, suddenly realizing she hadn't seen her half-sister for many hours by this point.

It was unusual for Lyra to stay below decks for so long. She was so free-spirited that it was a wonder she was able to will herself to descend from the open-air decks where she ran along, talking-and colourfully cursing at, or along with-this or that Gyptian crew member to the cabins below. And yet, there had been none of the usual signs of her presence.

Reepicheep anxiously climbed up onto the railing again and peered down, wrinkling his nose nervously, as if he thought Lyra and Pantalaimon had jumped over-board or that some other similar disaster must have occurred.

"I'm going to go look for her," Lucy decided; Reepicheep hopped down and followed his human below deck.

Together they checked most of the cabins, but they didn't have to stay searching in any one area for too long because Reepicheep would have sensed Pantalaimon's presence once he came into close enough range. All the same, just as she thought she was starting to run out of places to look, Lucy wondered if there was anything made of cedar-wood on the Dawn Treader; she resolved to ask John Faa later. Cedar-wood was said to have a sleepy, blocking effect on dæmons, and she thought that perhaps it could have been cedar-wood that had protected her from the Ruling Powers when Edmund hid her and also that was keeping Reepicheep from tracking Pantalaimon now.

It wasn't cedar-wood, however, in this case-impeding their search for Lyra. It was simply that they hadn't checked the right place yet. They finally did, a long, low-ceiling, storage space under the level the servants' cabins were on. Down there, many useful things were kept. There were strings of ham and bacon and onions hanging from the beams, barrels and bottles and casks filled with water and wine; also, folded hammocks and extra charts of stars, seas, islands, and narrow strips of land. Many crates of grains and vegetables were stored on the port right-hand corner.

Reepicheep detected Pantalaimon near where the wine was; he scurried over, concerned, Lucy following.

There was some reason for Reepicheep's concern, Pantalaimon was acting-and looking, too, they realized when they were close enough to see him-rather odd. His normally sleek white fur was all bristled and standing up involuntarily, though not with rage or fear, merely with a sort of unexplained silliness. Lucy was sure at once that if Pan could still have shape-shifted, he would have been shifting into all kinds of nonsense shapes for no particular reason-just for a lark, really. Pan was…how to describe it…giddy?

Within seconds of coming near Pantalaimon, Reepicheep was aware of Ratter, acting with very much the same oddness, only slightly more controlled. Billy Costa was down here with Lyra, too, then.

"Lyra?" said Lucy, raising the small lantern she'd carried down with her for light to see by.

When she finally saw her half-sister, she nearly dropped the lantern from surprise.

For some reason she had not thought of the possibility of there being any romantic interest between Lyra Silvertongue and Billy Costa up till then. Yet, when she saw them together she felt at once that she ought to have guessed long before, even though she hadn't seen any signs that would have clued her into it.

Billy had a hand on one of Lyra's elbows and both of them were leaning so that their faces were close together. Their lips barely touched when they saw the light from the lantern and Lucy standing there.

Shocked, Lyra turned away and promptly vomited onto the wooden crate behind the one she was using for a sort of seat.

Being rather innocent-natured and not having seen by fourteen very many more cases of drunkenness than she had at age eight or nine, Lucy might not have guessed right away what the matter was if it hadn't been for the smell of alcohol mixed with the vomit. The wine casks were right there, after all, and that did explain Ratter and Pantalaimon's giddiness. Lucy may have been clean-minded, but she wasn't a dim-wit.

"I can't believe some adults like drinking this much," Billy slurred, his eyes not quite focused on Lucy yet, so that she wasn't sure he even recognized her by that point. "I don't think they really like it."

"Yeah, they do," murmured Lyra, vomiting again.

"Ugh." Billy groaned.

"And so do I." Of course, she didn't, really, that was a lie told mainly out of stubbornness, but she might have meant it-or thought she meant it-at the time, as she had yet to experience a hangover.

Billy recognized Lucy and sobered up a bit. "Lucy, you ain't gotta tell my mum, do you? She'll give me a clout, and John Faa'll be in a rage, too."

Lucy shook her head, uncertain. She didn't know what was going on here, and she didn't approve of over-drinking, but she wanted to help Lyra, who she doubted would be able to stand up from the crate without falling over.

Gyptians drink wine with their meals, not to get drunk or to celebrate anything terribly important, usually, but to enhance flavors and the like. It's just part of their culture. Lyra, on the other hand, had only had wine, as far as Lucy knew, perhaps twice in her life. The Master at Jordan College had sent the housekeeper up with some for her to take a bit as medicine when she'd had a bad stomach aliment back when she was about eleven (Lucy remembered that because she'd caught the aliment from her and had had to take the same wine a day later upon the Master's orders, despite the fact she thought it tasted pretty awful) and once Mrs. Coulter had let her try a drink at a fancy dinner party. During the latter, Lyra had spat her sip back into the glass; it'd been served too warm to taste right for one, and too strong for a young girl not used to alcoholic beverages to swallow easily, for another.

Billy, who was used to wine, though not over-indulgence in it, would probably be fine. And yes, he'd likely get himself a well-deserved clout from (or at the very least have his ears boxed by) someone who loved him-and Lyra-and knew they had acted stupidly and that Billy shouldn't have encouraged her; if not from John Faa or Ma Costa, then surely from Farder Coram or one of the many other tight-knit Gyptians onboard. But that was nothing to worry over. Gyptians were generally good with handing such matters. They weren't lenient, not by any stretch of the imagination, but they weren't too harsh, either.

So with a sort of half-shrug and a rather confused blink in Billy's direction, Lucy helped Lyra to her cabin and into a cot where she could rest.

Early the following morning, Lyra's eyes snapped open. She found herself resting comfortably, except for her head which rather hurt. Attempting to sit up, it hurt even more, and with an intense pounding added to it, so that her hand flew up and she muttered, "Oh God, Pan, are we dead?"

Her white ermine-dæmon was curled into a ball near her feet. Without lifting his head or turning to look at her, he grunted that he wished they were.

There was the sound of something being wrung; it wasn't loud for someone without a hangover, but for Lyra at the moment it was borderline deafening.

Squinting, she peered over the edge of the cot she had slunk back down into and saw Lucy fixing a cool compress for her forehead.

"Lucy?"

Reepicheep climbed up onto the edge of the cot and went to sit beside Pantalaimon while Lucy placed the cool compress on Lyra's forehead and spoke to her in a low, soothing voice.

"Am I dead?" she repeated.

"No," said Lucy shortly, not because she was cross but because she hardly knew what else to say.

It all came flooding back to Lyra a second later, and she moaned, "I've been a bloody ass, en't I?"

"What happened?"

"Well…" she stammered, her eyes flickering to Pan, who offered no help whatsoever, curling up even more tightly to avoid the conversation. "Me and Billy Costa was down near the wine casks, right? And we were bored and all, so we played cards for a bit, only then some of the cards was missing so we stopped. Then we played truth or dare."

Lucy must have winced because Lyra stopped talking for a moment, expecting her to voice whatever displeasure she felt. But it wasn't in Lucy's nature to scold and she wanted to hear the rest of the story, so she said nothing.

"Well, I dared him to open one of the wine casks," Lyra went on. "And he said, 'I ain't gonna', and I teased him sayin' he was 'fraid of wine and all."

A faint laugh escaped Lucy's throat at this; she couldn't help it because of how easily she could picture the looks on both Billy's face and Lyra's during the conversation and also that of their dæmons.

"So then he says, 'no I ain't'; and I says, 'yes, you are'. Then he opened it and had some; and I wanted to know what the wine tasted like. I think he was gonna say I wasn't allowed try it, 'cept at supper, maybe, if Ma Costa said it was okay, only he was pouring himself a second glass by then and he didn't notice till after."

"Well you both got awful drunk," said Reepicheep, directing his comment at Pantalaimon.

The ermine was pretending to be asleep (clearly he wasn't, as his human was wide awake, but he pretended anyway), though, so Lyra was the one who answered.

"I wondered what it was like to be drunk," she said, showing some remorse while not quite to the degree she ought to have been.

"Well, I hope you're satisfied now," whimpered Pantalaimon, finally lifting up his head and giving his human a sharp, reprimanding look. "And that you learned something."

"I learned that exploring storage rooms on sailing ships is interesting," she replied stubbornly. Her dæmon grunted and curled back up again, apathetic.

Lucy managed a smile. "Billy Costa probably got a clout."

"Probably, I s'pose." Lyra yawned, groaned, and flipped the cool compress over, pressing the other side to her forehead. "What did you tell the grown-ups anyway?"

"The truth," Lucy told her honestly. "I just left the parts about the wine and you being in love with Billy Costa out of it."

"What?"

"Well, I wasn't going to lie." She tried to defend herself, misunderstanding Lyra's sudden exclamation.

"No, no." Lyra waved that off impatiently. "It ain't that. What you said about me being in love with Billy."

"Don't…I mean," Lucy stammered, "aren't you?"

"With Billy?" Lyra's brows furrowed. "Billy Costa? You dreaming?"

"I thought…"

"Why?"

"You were about to kiss him when I found you…I assumed you had feelings for him, that's all. I swear I didn't tell anyone, though; I wouldn't." Lucy's cheeks went a little red.

Lyra knew her half-sister didn't tell lies, especially not stupid ones like that would have been.

"Oh," she moaned, shamefully. "God…"

There was a knock at the cabin door.

"I'm never getting out of this cot again!" Lyra pulled the covers over her head. Pan stuck his head under the blankets very like an ostrich putting his head in the sand.

"Who is it?" Lucy answered the knock.

"Me, and I've wonderful news."

She recognized the voice; it was Farder Coram.

As soon as she let the crippled old man in, she saw that his eyes were bright and he was practically beaming. "I wasn't able to tell you last night, as you left to look for Lyra before it happened, but we had a visitor."

"Who?" Lucy's eyes widened with surprise. Who could possibly visit them on a galleon in the middle of the ocean?

"You remember Ramandu's daughter, my wife's niece?" Farder Coram asked. "You and Lyra once used your alethiometers to find out the name of her lover."

"Yes, of course, go on."

"She's seen your Edmund."

Reepicheep jumped off of the wooden edge of the cot and climbed onto his human's right shoulder, gazing up at Farder Coram in disbelieving wonder.

"Is he all right?"

Farder Coram smiled. "She said he seemed fine to her aside from a few bruises and a cut on his lip that she could see even at a distance."

"Where did she see him?" Lucy gasped. "In Svalbard?"

"No, that's just it!" He was unable to contain his joy for the happiness this would bring her any longer. "He's not in Svalbard any longer! He's escaped-he's free."

"He got away from the armoured bears?" Lucy whispered in a dazed, dreamy sort of voice.

The old Gyptian nodded. "I don't know all the details yet, Ramandu's daughter was in quite the rush and hurry, and she weren't able to tell me more than basically that. I think we should have you and Lyra consult your alethiometers so we Gyptians can come up with our next move. Lord John Faa's uncertain just now as to what we oughta do."

Lyra climbed out of the cot, tossing the covers aside, going to fetch her golden compass.

"I thought you said we were never leaving the cot again," Pantalaimon said smartly.

"Hush, Pan." She found the pouch she kept the velvet-wrapped gold truth measure in. "My head hurts too much for chatter."

Lucy grinned and fled to the cabin she was still sharing with Billy Costa to fetch her silver pocket watch. Edmund was safe, he'd escaped from prison, and-armed with that glorious news-she felt like she could fly. Maybe she could even fly right to him; where-ever he was.

AN: Please review.