AN: I think this is a very important chapter for the Lyra/Billy pairing (though a tad random, I'll admit, only I thought that kinda suited them and I couldn't come up with any other way to write the scene or anywhere else to add it in later in the story; and remembering to write in their 'accents' the whole time they were fighting and yet trying to keep it from getting over-kill/OOC was giving me a bit of a hard time, so I digress), but for the most part it is largely a short set up chapter for some things that are going to be happening in the story. To the annon. reviewer (M), I'm sorry this isn't an Ed/Lu chapter like you asked for in your last review, but don't worry, there IS going to be more Edmund/Lucy in this story, I promise; they just didn't fit into this chapter.

"Slow half-wit!" shouted Lyra as she dashed through one of the many the wheat fields near Jordan, currently in a race with Billy Costa. Pantalaimon scampered along at her side as she mocked Billy over her shoulder, sticking out her tongue.

A few stray hairs blew into her mouth, perhaps as punishment for her taunting, but she only felt more exhilarated than ever as she lifted her hands and stuffed two fingers between her lips to remove them, without stopping for a proper breather.

In a few moments he caught up with her and stood directly in her way so that she couldn't keep running-all the more so since she was nearly dying with laughter, holding her side. In her excitement she'd forgotten that Billy Costa was taller and faster now than he had been in the old days when they'd played at war as little children. As he was nearly a year her junior, she had found it fairly easy to out-run (and out-wit) him in those days.

Now, he was too quick for Lyra and had tackled her to the ground, pulling her down by her waist, before she managed to catch her long-lost breath.

They wrestled for a bit, making a rather nasty mess of the wheat around them, bending the tallest stalks without taking any notice. Soon, however, it became plain as day that while Lyra was the more clever, finding several ways to make up for her smaller size and not being helpless in the least, Billy was the stronger of the two, having managed to pin his companion to the ground so that no matter how much she struggled she couldn't break free. Their dæmons were fighting, too; and Ratter had gotten something of a death-grip on Pantalaimon's slim, snow-coloured ermine form.

"Alright, Lyra, yous got to say 'mercy' now."

"Says who?"

"I dunno, it's just the rule, I think," Billy told her. "Cause I won and all."

"I en't given up!" Lyra protested indignantly. "I never said nuffin 'bout being done."

"You can't move," he pointed out. "Hows you gonna win? Admit it, I won. Good game, though."

"Never!" She squirmed some more under his weight, but to no avail.

"Mercy! Mercy!" Pantalaimon gave in, knowing his mistress wouldn't.

"Pan!" she exclaimed, twisting her head to scold her dæmon. "How you could betray me like that?"

"Ratter bit me."

She considered this. "I thought I felt something prickly."

Billy, still not having let her up, laughed.

Frowning up at his face and staring him straight in the eyes, Lyra spat out, "Cheater!" but it was not unkindly meant.

"I ain't a cheater," Billy defended himself, his eyes gleaming playfully.

"Let me up already!" She noticed he was still on top of her.

"Huh?" The young Gyptian looked stunned-and a trifle dazed, as well-like his mind had momentarily been on something else and he'd forgotten all about letting her up. "Oh, sorry."

Getting up, Lyra noticed that Billy's expression had completely changed; he was just sort of staring at her as if he had been blind his whole life and had sudden been, magically and miraculously, given the gift of sight.

"What're you lookin' at?" Lyra pouted, not bothering to straight out her hopelessly wrinkled, dirt-stained clothes as she bent down scooped up Pantalaimon, uncomfortable with the way Ratter appeared to be goggling at him. "Your face's gone all funny, Billy."

"Is it?" His cheeks felt hot and he knew he wasn't thinking clearly, but he didn't feel weak or feverish.

"I'm going back to camp," she told him, starting to walk away. "You oughta, too, Billy. You look as if you seen a ghost."

"Lyra," he called after her; his tone was soft while his voice was loud enough so that she could hear him without straining. "Will you marry me?"

Poor Lyra was so startled she almost lost control of her arms and dropped Pan. She turned round half-way and looked at him, gawking. "What?"

"I'd be a good husband."

Her mouth was slightly agape and she blinked repeatedly. "I-I-I'm sure you would, Billy." She glanced at Ratter, who was on her human's right shoulder now. "But why…"

"It would be like a truce," Billy Costa said, looking down at his feet, unable to meet her eyes, beginning to feel embarrassed, "only better. It could be real nice, yer know, being on the same side."

"Oh, Billy, no." Lyra shook her head. She was not in love with Billy Costa and she would never marry him-they were friends, and she wasn't yet fifteen.

"You won't marry me?"

"No," she said, her cheeks beginning to flame up a bit. "And it was real stupid of you to ask. It en't funny."

"You think it's a joke," Billy noted, shaking his head. "No, Lyra, it's no joke. I's really askin'."

Pantalaimon's fur stood on end. "No, no, no," Lyra closed her eyes. "I can't believe you would…"

Billy Costa's already dark eyes went even darker as they flashed with a sudden sting of wounded pride. "It's cuz I'm a Gyptian, en't it?" Ratter started making a hissing sound under her breath.

"How dare you!" Lyra raised her hand to slap him across the face.

How dare he accuse her of not liking the Gyptians? Of not liking him for being Gyptian? She loved the Gyptians, without them she didn't know where she would be. And now this…this…stupid, stupid boy who pulled marriage proposals out of thin air, had the blasted nerve to imply that she-Lyra, friend of the Gyptians-would ever be so shallow as to look down on them.

He grabbed her wrist before her hand made contact with his face. He held it firmly, not with meanness, but with a tight enough grasp so that she couldn't strike him.

"Yous got some nerve," he told her flat-out. "You always were thinkn' you were better than me cuz you was raised at Jordan and I was just raised travelin' on boats en all. And then you expect me to believe you ain't refusing to marry me because you think I'm not good enough for you? You think I'm stupid?"

"Yes, Billy, I do," Lyra snapped, making a motion in which she threatened to kick him in the shins if he didn't release her wrist at once. "I think you are the very, very stupidest idiot I've ever met. You ask me to marry you without any warnin' and then you get mad when I say no! You don't even love me."

"Who says I don't?" he demanded hotly. "Who says? Don't be silly, Lyra. I do love you."

"You en't never said you love me," she insisted stubbornly.

"Course I have," he huffed, stamping his foot. "Just now I did."

It was then that Lyra realized where she had seen the new look on Billy's face before. She had seen it on Peter, much as he had tried to hide it, when Susan had first turned up at Jordan. Peter Pevensie couldn't hide his feelings, and neither, apparently, could Billy Costa-not any longer. But she couldn't imagine being married to Billy…or loving Billy…it was madness…it was insane…she didn't…she couldn't…he was…she was…they were…

"Oh, Lyra, yous angry with me, en't you?"

"Well, yes."

"See, we've gotta get married."

Lyra wrinkled her nose. "Why we gotta get married for? You don't make sense."

"We fight," said Billy.

"Yeah, so?"

"And we always make it up again-or at least truce-ever since we was little."

"Yeah?"

"That's marriage, right?"

"What is?"

"Always fighting and then making it up again," Billy explained. "We's doing that so often already…wouldn't it be more convenient to just be married to each other? Much easier to fight all the time if we was married."

Strangely enough, that made some sense to Lyra's wildly misplaced practicality. "We do fight a lot."

"I don't like fightin' anyone else so much as I like arguing with you," he confessed. "And yous always bossing me around-just like a wife would nag. And you was almost raised Gyptian yourself…"

Good gracious, bloody heavens, dash it all…Lyra thought she would faint as the realization that she did love Billy Costa after all hit her as hard as if she'd just run full-speed into an enormous brick wall. She hated the thought of Billy arguing and making it up again with some other girl, some nice Gyptian girl his clan picked out, all their lives long, all because she was dumb and refused him now. This was her chance. Her only chance.

"Billy, I've changed my mind," she announced. "I'd like to fight with you for ever, and I want to marry you." Exchanging a look of faint youthful insecurity with her dæmon, she added, "Not right away. You know it can't be right away, right, Billy? You en't expecting me to marry you tomorrow or nothin', I hope." She was well aware that marriage didn't come simply for the asking, although that was how they mostly seemed to start. Edmund and Lucy weren't married yet, and she knew they both wanted to be.

Billy assured her he was expecting nothing of the sort. She was even a little amazed at how he softly mentioned he would wait for her. Not only would he wait for her, he would wait for her 'as long as need be'.

"But," he faltered, "there's one thing…"

"What?"

"You could kiss me, don't you s'pose?" A hopeful, impish grin formed on his face.

Pantalaimon was on the ground again, having left his mistress's shoulders, and he and Ratter were talking in hushed tones that were detected as little more than buzz-like humming noises ringing in their humans' ears.

Lyra ignored the buzzing and grinned back at Billy.

When Lucy had informed Lyra, during that ghastly hangover for which-it must be admitted-she still had yet to sincerely repent for, that she had almost kissed Ma Costa's son while drunk, she had nearly been beside herself with overwhelming shock. Shock, and what she thought was horror. But it wasn't horror, not for Billy; she knew now it couldn't have been. Deep down, as likely as not, she had already begun to fall in love with him.

Part of her wondered, as she suspected it always would, whether or not she would have fallen in love with Billy Costa had Roger Parslow not died. Roger was her best friend, only her best friend. They had been too young in the days before he was lost-died and then cremated-to be romantically attached. There was no guarantee, really, that even if she could summon Roger in front of her, grown-up and alive, still his wonderful self, she would fall in love with him and forget-or never realize-she loved Billy. But did know her own mind, change as it would-and did-without her permission, and she couldn't say for certain, either, that she wouldn't have chosen Roger. She wasn't settling for Billy. There was no comparison because both boys were separate to her. Her memory, too, was muddled-patchy in some places. There were days that stood out, days she knew both young Roger and young Billy Costa were with her younger self; and yet she could not envision them standing side by side.

It was as if they belonged to different worlds; to two different Lyras. One Lyra would never grow a day older than twelve; she remained crouched in the snow by a burning corpse. That corpse wasn't there anymore, but the first Lyra was still there. The second Lyra came into existence when, as she'd told Peter when he had asked if she would be all right, she said goodbye, when she moved on. Part of her was always with Roger, part of her was the rose she had placed on his dead body. The other part of her, the part that remained whole, the only part with the chance to live on as he would have wanted her to, was not; she had already said goodbye.

Now it was time to remind herself of that as she, Lyra Silvertongue, daughter of Lord Asriel, keeper of the golden alethiometer, said hello. The goodbye was over. Here was to Billy Costa, her Gyptian betrothed…and new best friend.

Lyra leaned forward and kissed him on the lips. She didn't protest when he slipped his arms around her and returned the favor…again, and again, and again.

Meanwhile, upstairs in their old room at Jordan College, Peter and Susan laid sprawled out on the top of the rumpled sheets, blankets, and comforter on the bed.

They were pretty much done, so Maugrim didn't have to stare at the wall and was, instead, resting somewhat listlessly on a long-cushioned reclining chair in the corner. His long gray tail hung close to the carpeted floor where, Doe, watching it swing back and forth, looking very tempted, crouched down in pounce-mode, utterly mesmerized.

Maugrim looked at the cat through the slits of his half-closed eyes and growled, "Don't even think about it," baring his teeth.

The cat let out a low, excessively pitiful-sounding mew and trotted back over to the other side of the room, closer to the bed, certain her beloved master who had finally returned would protect her from the threatening wolf-thing that refused to let her swat at his long, bushy tail.

Peter was paying no attention to the cat, however; and Susan only vaguely registered the animal through Maugrim's intense annoyance over the matter.

She was wearing the soft gray shift her husband had put on under his tunic earlier, resting her head on his currently bare chest. She sighed contentedly as her eyes stopped following a stay afternoon sunbeam that had broken through a small slit in the heavy curtains (and landed on irritable Maugrim's nose) and closed. Everything was so quiet and peaceful; she was so relaxed and sleepy; and all the stress of recent misunderstandings had melted away into nothing.

Suddenly, the door swung open and a familiar voice boomed, "Pevensie, what the devil are you two doing in bed in the middle of the afternoon?"

"Playing croquet," Maugrim sneered sarcastically, snapping his teeth at the intruder.

"Please tell me that's not…" Peter began, hesitant to open his eyes.

"It is," Susan moaned, already aware that it was Lord Asriel and Stelmaria.

"It is just me, or do people really like walking in right after we…"

"I've noticed a pattern myself," grumped Susan, sitting up.

"What do you want?" Peter sighed to Lord Asriel, reaching for a jerkin to cover himself with.

"Do you remember the priest from the Ruling Powers who tried to poison me in the retiring room when Lucy was twelve?" he asked them gruffly, not seeming to actually care if they truly did remember or not.

"Um, no," said Peter shortly.

Susan climbed off the bed and reached for the dress she had earlier tossed haphazardly across a small wooden chair Doe had decided to sit on. "Get up, cat."

Doe let out a low, hissing noise and a pathetic parrot-like gurgle as Susan lifted her up so she could grab the dress.

"Pevensie's wife, you remember him," said Lord Asriel.

"No, I don't."

"Yes, you do."

"Fine, she does." Maugrim didn't have the slightest clue who Lord Asriel was talking about-and he knew Susan didn't either-but he wasn't about to argue stupidly when there was really no purpose to such mindless bickering.

"He was one of your mother's lovers, I'm fairly sure."

"Don't be disgusting," Susan told him, shaking her head in disbelief. Could he be more vulgar? Ugh, yet another reason she couldn't stand him.

"What disgusting? It's the truth."

"You don't know that." She wasn't sure why she was defending her mother-in fact, she barely realized she was doing so.

"I do," insisted Lord Asriel, "she had a few of them." He himself was just the one everybody was aware of because he'd been the one who'd gotten her pregnant and suddenly had a 'niece'.

"All right, enough." Peter wrinkled his nose. "What about the dashed priest?"

"Oh, nothing," yawned Stelmaria coolly, flicking her white tail calmly to one side.

"Only that he's returned," Lord Asriel added, darkly. "He's invited himself to call on the Master."

AN: Please review.