AN: Hmm, I've noticed that the site seems to be having that problem with errors again...dang...I can't even get into the book-themed section of the site without getting an error and a refusal to let me access much of anything. Thankfully this bug doesn't seem to have extended to the log-in/upload area yet so I can still try to post this...I just hope it's readable when its up and that you readers can actually access it without coming to a page that says "error" instead. Well, here's hoping!

"Jordan College?" Susan repeated, to be sure she'd heard John Faa correctly.

"Have you lost your marbles?" Maugrim demanded, adding onto his human's point.

Lord Faa sighed and leaned heavily on the one arm propped on the edge of the long wooden table in the middle of the counsel cabin. "It's probably for the best that we make fast and clear out from going into port towns for a bit…after what happened to Caspian in Narrowhaven and all…"

"Of course," said Susan, impatiently. "But, Your Grace, we aren't in a port town; we're in the middle of the ocean. This is where it's safe."

"We can't all stay here for ever, Su," said Edmund, Ella bobbing her head from where she was perched on the high, oak-wood back of his chair. "John Faa may live here most of the time, but he isn't used to keeping so many others on with him."

It was true; John Faa had enough to feed and clothe and shelter his courtiers and closest blood-relatives on-board the Dawn Treader on a regular basis, and he could afford guests and the occasional roping when circumstances changed and need arose, but he couldn't keep them all-all of the extra Gyptians, Peter, Susan, Edmund, Lucy, Lord Asriel, and Lyra-on there with him for ever.

Soon it would be time for the clan Ma Costa and Farder Coram belonged to to return to the ground near (and owned by) Jordan College. If they left within the next few days and met with decent weather and no dire accidents, they would arrive only a little earlier in the year than usual. As long as the Ruling Powers themselves didn't come after them, no one would take much note and things would just go on as they always had.

"But it en't safe, is it?" Lyra's brow furrowed. Part of her would love to return home, to the place where she had grown up, back to all of the familiar sights and smells and lifestyles of the college; but she couldn't imagine a more obvious place for them to be caught. Surely the Ruling Powers would never let her, Lucy, and Edmund-an alethiometrist-live there peacefully. Not for long, anyway.

John Faa explained, though he already had twice before, that this was not to be permanent. He thought it best if Farder Coram had the opportunity to seek advice from the Master of the college. The Master loved Lyra almost as if she were his own daughter and was quite fond of Lucy as well; he would never betray them. Of course there would be Gyptian spies all over the place, likely going unnoticed, who would alert them to all possible arrivals of anybody working for the Ruling Powers. After they'd been warned, it would be reasonably easy for them to flee into the Gyptian camps, to be hidden and protected. Besides, they didn't know what to do next. The Stars and Fairies had given them no further instruction as of yet. Lyra and Lucy tried to ask the alethiometers, as did Edmund, but got no comprehendible answer.

Still, Susan wasn't convinced; she kept insisting that they ought not to go near Jordan-it was too dangerous, she pointed out several times. Maugrim growled, noticing that no one was agreeing with them.

Finally, Peter turned and glared at her. "We're going back to Jordan-John Faa has arranged it all and explained why-can you give it a rest now?"

"I was just trying to be realistic." Her voice faltered slightly towards the end of her sentence.

"No," her husband scoffed, "you're trying to be smart." He wouldn't even give her direct eye-contact as he glowered crankily. "Shut up."

Susan folded her arms across her chest, getting fed up with him more and more quickly. She didn't know what his problem was. For the last two days he'd been irritable and snappish with her. He never smiled or said anything even remotely endearing; and he pushed away an attempts at affection-whether physical or emotional. Everything she did seemed to make him either apathetic or angry. What was more, she even got the sense that he was trying to avoid her altogether for the most part.

Maugrim growled and the fur on the back of his neck stood up testily. The wolf-dæmon didn't know why Peter was suddenly being so cold and distant towards his human, but he hoped he would stop it soon and was even planning to bite him if he kept it up for too much longer.

"I think it is just as well that we go to see the Master," said Lord Asriel, lightly patting Stelmaria on the side of her snowy flanks. "I haven't seen him for a while myself."

Susan scowled, taking the nobleman's wanting to do the opposite of what she felt was safe as a personal offense and another reason to hate him. She could hardly help being moody, all things considered.

"Costas," John Faa looked up from some records he seemed to have been thumbing through briefly, "Caspian will stay in your family's tent."

"Wait." Peter put up a hand, his expression looking even more ticked off than before. "Why is he coming?"

Caspian, who was sitting only a few feet away from Peter, crinkled his forehead, wondering why Peter said 'he' with such utter contempt. He couldn't remember having said or done anything to upset Peter. But it wasn't just anger in his icy stare; there was also the look of a man who'd been betrayed and slapped across the face, one deeply hurt.

"Peter," said Farder Coram in a kindly voice, "Caspian can't be a going back to his land-holdings on his own, with only a few men at best, in his condition. He'll need more time to heal proper en all. Besides, it's up north and it'd be too far out of the way for the time being."

Farder Coram was right, and Peter knew that, but it didn't mean he had to be happy about the result of the matter, either. He just continued to brood in a frustrated manner.

"You know what?" Susan finally snapped, not at Peter but at the whole congregated group in general. "I think this is the most absurd idea ever…and I jolly well think I will be as stubborn as anyone else in this cabin and refuse to go to Jordan College whether or not the majority of you do." Maugrim grunted for emphasis.

"Now, Susan," began John Faa, about to gently remind her that, Gyptian though he was, he was still a king.

"Susan," Peter cut in, slamming a foot that had been tapping in annoyance since Farder Coram had explained why Caspian had to go with them down on the cabin floor with a hard thud, "you are my wife. And if I'm going to Jordan College then so are you, whether you wish it or not."

"You can't make us go anywhere," Maugrim barked, his lips curled up into a snarl.

"Try me." This time Peter's eyes met Susan's and refused to back down. She knew he meant what he said.

"I'm going to bite you," Maugrim out-right threatened him.

"I'm not scared of you," Peter scoff-laughed.

Maugrim took a threatening step forward, his teeth still bared.

"All right," Peter gave in, his face recoiling slightly. "You scare me a little…sometimes…" Susan's expression was void of any pity and was every bit as intense as her dæmon's. "Both of you," he added.

"I still think it's foolhardy, going back to Jordan like this, and I'll say so until I'm blue in the face," groused Susan, after a pause.

"Buck up," Peter told her rather harshly. "I'm sick of your sulking. If you don't like being with me then…" His voice trailed off, he didn't know what else to say, because, really, he wasn't referring only to her not wanting to go to Jordan with him.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"What do you think?" His eyes, she thought, actually looked a little moist. He must not have gotten enough sleep the night before.

"Why are you being so hard on her?" Caspian put in innocently, honestly concerned, having noticed the recent change in Peter's manner of dealing with Susan.

"You stay out of this," Peter told him bitterly.

"Pete," Edmund tried to cut in, sensing now if he hadn't before that he'd missed something. This was about more than just travel plans; there was some deeper issue at stake here that he couldn't figure out.

"Ed, please." He waved him off.

"Ooh, words of wisdom from the alethiometrist," Lord Asriel muttered sarcastically to his snow-leopard. "Sorry we missed that."

"Ha ha, very funny," Edmund sneered.

Lucy reached over and patted her boyfriend on the shoulder; Reepicheep made a face at Stelmaria.

"Ahem!" John Faa cleared his throat and banged a well-worn wooden gavel down on the table to regain control of the bickering group.

None of them really wanted to stop arguing, still worked up to no end, but they obeyed the king and stopped speaking their thoughts aloud; though their dæmons were still giving one another looks to kill, some of them still snarling, grunting, or growling under their breaths.

The journey to Jordan College was dour and unpleasant. Aside from Lyra, Edmund, and Lucy, everyone seemed to have something against somebody else and tempers remained unbearably short. Even Lucy saw sense and didn't attempt to cheer anyone one; mostly she just sort of sat in a corner of the Costa's ship and talked with Reepicheep. Sometimes Edmund sat next to her, but there really wasn't much to be said aside from questions they both knew the other had no answers for.

Farder Coram seemed more tired than usual and spent most of his time stroking his tabby-dæmon and staring out to sea. Every once in a while he'd get this look on his face, a dazed-almost sleepwalking-kind of expression, and Lucy thought he was peering out hopefully, wanting to see someone. But if it really was loneliness for Serafina and her grey goose that was breaking his heart and making him so weary, his longing went unanswered, for neither the fairy queen nor the goose came to him.

Billy and Lyra spent more time together than they were accustomed to. They had their fights, as always, but unlike everybody else on board, they seemed to get over them as quickly as ever and it got dull just watching Peter glare at Caspian, and Susan mutter inaudible complaints to Maugrim, and Edmund and Lucy sitting side by side not doing much of anything, and Farder Coram all worn and pale and lost. So, in the end, all they had to keep themselves sane and amused was each other.

Lyra was surprised to find that Billy Costa had a sense of humour that wasn't always smart-mouth or practical joke based. And Billy was just as surprised to see that Lyra could sometimes be, dare he think it and risk a clout if she should discover a way to read his mind, sweet. He knew she wasn't wicked or bad, that she could be kind when she felt like it, but she was not a person who wore her heart on her sleeve; she was more likely to carry a rock or a mud-ball on or up it and hurl it at anyone she disagreed with. Now, however, he saw a different side of her; a side he found he rather liked. There were even moments when he wondered if all those childhood years of imaginary war had been a bit wasted, if it wouldn't have been more fun still to have been on the same side, instead of opposing one another and plotting and throwing things at one another in the clay-beds and wheat fields.

Their dæmons were growing closer together as well. Ratter and Pantalaimon tackled and scuffled with one another for sheer happiness when their humans came in sight of each other; they stood side by side with only minimum space between them as their master and mistress talked.

The day came when they were finally off the ship and on Jordan property. Things had not improved between Susan and Peter, but others had grown closer. Lucy and Edmund were as tight as ever; Lyra and Billy were thick as thieves; and Gael and Rhince (who was coming along as an attendant for Caspian) had become-for lack of a better term-friends.

With Farder Coram's sudden distance, Gael had tried to re-attach herself to Edmund, only he seemed keen on spending most of his time with Lucy. Wise little thing that she was for her tender years, she continued to think the world of Edmund from afar, still considering him her favorite person, and for company's sake alone-just to have someone to prattle to-started following Rhince around.

Edmund was, at first, pleased with this to no end, glad that Gael would get to know and understand her father, even if she didn't know she was his daughter, like he had never understood or been able to love his. Then, without warning, when they reached the fields near Jordan, Rhince told Edmund something that upset him. He was planning to leave Gael behind at the college, to grow up there. Already he had spoken to Lord Asriel and arranged it all; she would be well cared for by the Master and scholars and would be able to get a more well looked upon education than the Gyptians could offer. And the alethiometrist was utterly appalled.

It wasn't that he didn't want what was best for Gael, he really and truly did. It was merely that he could not handle seeing his half-sister's story begin all over again. The dewy, cloudy morning he heard Gael refer to her father as 'Uncle Rhince', he thought he was going to be sick. Here it was, all starting again. Gael would grow up believing her father to be her uncle. She would be as lost as Lyra had been; and it wasn't fair. Part of him wanted to blame Lucy, as it was her idea to tell Rhince the truth in the first place, but common sense and love told him it wasn't her fault. Lucy couldn't control Rhince's manner of bringing up his daughter, and she'd only wanted happiness for Gael just as he did. So it was with Rhince-and only Rhince-he had the falling out. The two men got along all right in groups, but they never could reconcile themselves to be remotely pleasant on a one-on-one basis again.

It was eventually decided that Edmund, Lyra, and Lucy had no business leaving the Gyptian camps in this time of political trouble without the Master's knowledge so that he could protect them. Because of this, Peter and Susan, along with Farder Coram, Lord Asriel, and Rhince, taking little Gael along with him as he planned to hand her over to the Master that very day, went on their own to the college itself.

"Gael," Edmund beckoned to her before she left. "Be a good girl, all right?"

"Of course." She hugged him goodbye, not knowing yet that the college was to be her home, thinking she would be back at the Gyptian camps by the next morning at latest.

"Here." He took a folded up picture of an alethiometer he'd drawn and handed it to her. "Don't show it to anyone or tell another living soul where you got it, but I want you to have it, all right?" If they didn't meet again, at the college or anywhere else, he wanted her to have something to remember him by.

Ella let out a friendly hoot as her master pressed the paper into Gael's hands.

"I won't tell," she promised, grinning at him as she unfolded the paper and saw the drawing. It was a very, very good likeness to a real alethiometer. Only someone who had studied truth-measures as intently as Edmund could have drawn it. "It's pretty."

"Well, that's not exactly what I was aiming at," Edmund laughed, "but I guess it's true anyway."

"When I grow up," Gael announced, smiling at him, "I want to be just like you."

"Listen to me, Gael," said Edmund, leaning forward and kissing her on the forehead. "When you grow up, I want you to be just like you." Ella lightly rubbed one of her wings against Pattertwig, currently in the form of a sparrow.

"If that's what you want," she sighed agreeably.

Lion willing, Edmund thought, she won't be like me. He didn't like the idea of her struggling with the life of an alethiometrist, he wanted something better than that, safer than that, for her. Maybe that was all Rhince wanted, too, even if he showed it in the wrong way.

When the Master saw Lord Asriel, Peter, Susan, and Farder Coram enter the empty (aside from himself) retiring room, his eyes widened, and his raven-dæmon flew over to Stelmaria.

Rhince entered behind the others, leading Gael by the hand.

"Lord Asriel," the Master said when he had recovered from his shock, "after all this time!" Looking at Gael, "Oh, please, not another little girl!"

"You will take her." Lord Asriel did not phrase this as a question because it wasn't one; the Master would take her, and that was that.

"Yes, yes," said the old man, moving on. Of course he would take her; he'd known from the second he saw her that he would, that she would grow up there, and that Lord Asriel and this other fellow leading the child would come and go as they pleased. The story was brought round full circle.

"Please, Master," said Farder Coram, hobbling forward. "I was a wishing to speak with you, Sir. There are some urgent matters."

"I dare say there are!" the Master agreed grimly, his lips stretching into a grimace. "Did you know that the Coulter boy is now an alethiometrist? And Lady Marisa is dead, killed in some so-called accident in the North? That the Ruling Powers…and Lyra and Lucy…they are…all right?"

"They're all right," Peter assured him. "They're perfectly safe."

"Near?"

Peter hesitated. Then, "Well, near enough."

"I see." The Master drew in a sharp breath. "Last I saw you was before that second threat of Rabadash's."

"Lord Rabadash is dead," Susan told him off-handedly.

"Ah." The man registered this. "Your child…Lord Asriel did not…"

So he had heard about that, had he? Lord Asriel did wish they wouldn't harp on it so. "No, I didn't kill it."

"Him," Susan corrected, through her teeth; Maugrim bared his. "Not it."

The Master seemed to understand what had happened. "Scholar Pevensie, perhaps you and your wife should retire to your room while I talk privately with these three and the little girl."

Peter's brows sunk in and his forehead crinkled. "You don't mean you've kept it empty for me all this time?"

"Not intentionally," he explained, shaking his head. "That cat of yours found her way back here-came with the Gyptians, I think, though I could be mistaken-and refused to let anyone else live in there. She hisses like crazy if we try to put a border in that room. We've tried to remove her, but she keeps coming back."

"You don't mean…" He found he could still laugh, and did. "Doe actually came back here and…"

"Oh, yes, made herself right at home." The Master clicked his tongue. "For over two years."

"Well, as happy as I am that Pevensie is going to be reunited with his faux-dæmon," simpered Lord Asriel insincerely, helping himself to some poppy-seeds in a silver container that stood on the table in the center of the room, "I think we can move on to a more pressing subject, don't you?"

"Certainly," said the Master.

After leaving, Peter and Susan didn't speak, Maugrim trotted silently at their side. Instead of going upstairs to their room, they sat on a bench directly out-of-doors on campus, not even glancing at one another.

It was a familiar area. In fact, it was where they had married each other and exchanged the rings Peter bought.

Biting into her lower lip, sick of being angry with him, wishing their fight could be over, Susan finally whispered, "Do you remember what happened over there a few years ago?"

"Yes," he said, forcing his voice to sound cold. "I remember."

"Why don't you like me as much now as you did then?"

"Susan," Peter answered, shaking his head, "I love you every bit as much now as I did then, if not more. It's hardly my fault that you…" He shook his head again.

Stunned and beyond puzzled, she whispered, "That I what?"

"Oh, hang it all!" Peter exclaimed. "I know you wish you hadn't married me, all right?"

Susan's eyes narrowed. "Peter, what in heaven's name are you talking about?"

"I'm sure you'd be happier if a Telmarine Gyptian had 'ruined' you instead of me," he muttered.

"Ruined?" Maugrim echoed, looking at Susan with a brow raised.

"Wait a moment." Susan reached for his hand. "Peter, look at me."

He did, and she saw that there were tears in his eyes.

"Why exactly did you say 'ruined'?" She squeezed his hand to make sure she still held his attention. "Is it because you heard me say it, or because you just felt like using that term for whatever reason?"

"Dash it, of course I heard you say it!" Peter snapped. "And yes, I know about Caspian. And I hate myself."

"You hate yourself?"

"Yes, if you must know, I do." He sighed and tried to pull his hand away from her, but she wouldn't let him. "I've spent days and days trying to tell myself that I don't care if you want to leave me or not, that you're not happy with me. I've been trying to make myself stop caring. But I can't, Susan, I simply can't do it." A few tears escaped and rolled down his cheeks. "I do care…I don't want to be horrible to you and treat you harshly, but I do want to keep you. I don't want you to walk out…and I guess that I thought if I let you think even for a moment that you could…that I cared enough to let you…"

She let go of his hand and gripped both sides of his face. "Stop blubbering, Peter, and tell me exactly what you think you heard."

"I didn't think," he began.

"Tell me at once," she ordered, "or I swear I will let Maugrim bite you-and hard, too."

He gave in and told her.

Maugrim burst out laughing, and Susan's shoulders shook wildly from repressing her own laughter.

"Oh, Peter, honestly!" She let go of his face. "Do you want to know what I was saying to Caspian? First of all, I wasn't saying I was interested in him, I'm not. Also, I'll have you know I could have had him before I came to you here at Jordan, but I didn't want him. I didn't want him then, and I most certainly do not want him now, do you understand?"

"But…"

Leaning close to him, she told him exactly what she'd meant by 'ruined'.

"Wait, so you never had any intention of leaving me for him?"

"You're an imbecile, do you know that?" Maugrim grunted at him.

"No," said Susan, wiping away the remainder of his tears.

"I've been such an ass," he realized.

"Well, honestly, you were." Susan wasn't about to deny it.

"I'll have to make it up to you somehow," he told her, smiling warmly. "This is something you should feel free to hold over me for a while."

"Hmm, perhaps not." Susan fluttered her eyelashes flirtatiously at him. "I think I have an idea about settling this once and for all."

"Do you?" His eyebrows shot up. "Do tell."

"Well," she told him, "there's an empty bedroom in the college…no one needs us at the moment…"

"I'm liking the way this is going," he announced.

Maugrim rolled his eyes. "Why do I get the feeling I'm going to end up staring at the wall again?"

They ignored him and went on flirting.

"Let's go then." Peter stood up from the bench and looked back at his wife expectantly.

"Oh, but it's all the way upstairs," she moaned with pretend-exasperation and exaggerated exhaustion.

"That's no problem, my love." He reached down and swept her up into his arms. "I'll carry you."

"All the way?"

"All the way," he promised, and tightened his grip and pressed his lips against hers.

AN: Please review.