AN: At long last, without further ado, I give you...(drum rolls and sighs of relief-on my part)...the last chapter of Alethiometrist's Silver! (Hope you all like it, or at least find it worth the wait.) If anyone is wondering: yes, as I did leave some loose ends to this story, I'm considering at some point in time doing a third installment to my His Dark Materials/Narnia crossover fics, but I make no promises, and I don't know WHEN I'll write it if I do; it depends on a lot of different things. We'll just have to wait and see as far as that goes.

"No!" Lucy cried out, semi-loudly, looking despairingly at Aslan. Her Edmund couldn't be dying-he couldn't!

"I'm sorry," said Aslan, reaching out and placing a heavy paw on one of her shoulders. "He did not deserve this."

"Oh, Aslan," she whimpered, leaning her head to the side, daring to rest her cheek lightly on the back of his paw, which felt as though it were made entirely of glossy golden velvet, "can't you…I mean, please, couldn't you…" She swallowed and glanced down at Edmund as he started coughing hollowly again, before turning her attention back to the Lion. "Isn't there anything you can do for him?"

"Lucy," began the Lion.

"I love him," Lucy whispered brokenly.

"I know you do," said Aslan.

"He's an alethiometrist," she fumbled, franticly searching her brain for anything that would help, though she couldn't imagine how. "If he dies…the Ruling Powers…He has to stop them; he has to."

She knew as long as Aslan willed it and backed them up-much as losing an alethiometrist would be a tragic blow as far as having someone who could read a truth measure near at hand-they'd likely still win without Edmund, but she couldn't bear the thought of losing him. They might not need him; still, she wanted him with her.

And Lucy herself did need him; he was part of her, and if he died, she felt she couldn't go on, not even if Aslan asked her to, try as she might.

"I will do for him what I can," Aslan said after a pause that felt-to Lucy, at least-like it lasted for ever, and took his paw off of her shoulder, coming closer to the back of the sleigh. "Before anything else, he needs proper sleep; he can't sleep with all that coughing."

Lucy's face went very white. She was afraid. Yes, poor Edmund was exhausted, and of course she wanted what was best for him, only she was scared to death that if he stopped coughing and wheezing altogether (especially now, after all this traveling) and went to sleep for real, he wouldn't wake up again.

"Lucy," murmured Aslan's rich, soothing voice; "you must trust me, dear one." He spoke with a wondrous kindness Lucy had never heard in any other person or creature's voice before; but there was also the faintest hint of a growl, or reprimand, under it.

She nodded. "I do, Aslan." And she did, with all her heart; he was, after all, the very last-and most precious-thing she had left to believe in.

Aslan bent low and breathed on Edmund. A pitiful moan that made Lucy want to fling her arms around him came out of the former alethiometrist's chest, and she willed herself to stay still by grabbing hold of Reepicheep and pressing him tightly to her abdomen as if her dæmon was an anchor, holding her firmly in place against all odds.

The moan died away, and she thought her Edmund looked very peaceful as he slept. It looked, on the whole, like a healing sort of sleep; the very thing he needed and wanted most in the world.

Ella did not stir, and Reepicheep didn't have the heart to look for her where she rested close to her human; not right then.

"Lucy, come with me," Aslan ordered. "We will take a walk; there is much I need to tell you."

"Couldn't we talk here?" she all but begged in hopes of staying close to Edmund and watching over him.

Another low grow suggested itself and she sobered up. "I'm sorry, Aslan. Of course I'll come with you at once."

As they walked under the northern lights, Lucy watched, awestruck, as the many colours reflected off of Aslan's fur like the cheerful light of a fire's glow glinting off of a golden wedding band on a lady's finger as she sits knitting in the late evening.

"You will keep on fighting the Ruling Powers," the Lion told her. "I promise you won't have to do so alone."

Of course I won't be alone, thought Lucy, as long as you're helping me.

"But your brother will be going back to his own world tonight."

"And Susan?"

"She goes with him, of course. There is a little child in that world that needs them, and a set of grandparents who can't do it all on their own."

Lucy sighed. Aslan was right; but she would miss Peter and Susan dreadfully, and she was a little sorry that she wouldn't have them by her side as she went on fighting the Ruling Powers; this was rather too much at once.

"You may well sigh," Aslan said, not unkindly, "but this is how it must be."

"Could I ask…" Lucy began, shakily.

"Ask your question, dear heart."

"When will they come back to this world, Aslan?" Her eyes widened eagerly. "When will I see them again? Could it please be soon?"

"Dearest, once they have gone this time, they will never come back."

"Never?" she gasped, disbelievingly. "Aslan!"

"Peter belongs to that world," he explained sort of quietly, "and Susan has chosen to be with him; her part in all this-as far as her duty to this world-is over. They are grown up, you know; and they have many responsibilities of a different sort in that other world. As far as it depends on them, they will help you still, for Digory Kirke and his dæmon can get a message to them if the need arises. That is one of the reasons he needed to stay there, as a consul between the worlds, for the true chasms and opportunities to cross grow rarer. When the professor dies, Susan-with her Maugrim-will become the next consul from this world in his place. They will not return here, but you must stay."

"I see," said Lucy, with fresh tears on her face.

"Come now." Aslan smiled at her. "Things will not always be so horrible for you. You'll find happiness again. Sooner, I think, than you imagine."

Something white came flying swiftly along the black sky, blue stars, and rainbow lights; it had wings, so it appeared to be some kind of bird.

Reepicheep realized first, the fur on the back of his neck prickling up on edge. "It's a dæmon!"

"It can't be…" Lucy's eyes widened as her dæmon's real meaning struck her and she recognized the owl.

"Hello, Lucy." The owl-dæmon landed on a lone branch sticking out from a snow-dusted pine-tree. "Reep."

"Oh, Ella!" gasped Lucy in a voice full of something like delighted surprise but much more intense and pure, a feeling that reached around her heart and embraced it tenderly.

Ella was no longer pet-like or stupid. Now she wore as intelligent an expression on her elegant face as ever before, and her great eyes sparkled, glowing as if she knew some wonderful, fascinating secret that Lucy and Reepicheep were not yet in on.

"Where is he?" Reepicheep turned his head this way and that, searching for Edmund, who was no where in sight. "I don't see her human."

Aslan grinned at them, shaking his mane. "Ella is not the same kind of dæmon she was before; in many ways she is as greatly altered from her former life as she was changed by the cruel operation at Bolvangar. The difference is, however, that this is as much as good as intercision was bad and wicked."

Lucy beamed, her whole face lit up as if candles of hope were burning inside of her, all at once too thrilled to speak. She wanted nothing more than to ask right away for the Lion tell her more about this 'change', and to explain about Edmund's current absence, how his dæmon could be so far from him. In spite of this, she remained silent.

If she had met Ella on her own after seeing poor Edmund so ill and near death, she would have been petrified. Meeting her with Aslan nearby, clearly pleased, having some sort of hand in the matter as likely as not, it wasn't half so scary. There was something deeper here. What was more, she knew he was going to explain it-if not presently, then surely soon enough at any rate.

"Edmund has been healed by my breathing on him," Aslan went on, "and the ties that connected him to Ella previously have not returned, but they have been created anew. Eleanor Glimfeather is like a star's dæmon, or a fairy's; she can go as far from her human as she likes."

Although she didn't say so out loud, Lucy found herself wondering why Aslan-since he apparently could have-didn't just made Ella's link to her human the way it had been before.

Answering her unspoken question, "Things can never be the same way twice. An experience as traumatic and wrenching as Edmund and Ella suffered through at Bolvangar is not the sort that leaves no mark, no extreme change. I have only made it so that the change is not the sort that destroys; after all, he is part of the solution to all this evil. Who will understand better than him, now that he's been through all of this? And an alethiometrist who has a fairy-like dæmon, one that can leave him and take messages and spy, is no small advantage to your side, Lucy. Did I not promise you wouldn't be alone?"

Wordlessly, Lucy kissed Aslan's nose. "Thank you," was all she could think to whisper, much as it felt inadequate in expressing her joy.

"There is one thing more you might like to know," his voice had the faintest hint of being, while not sad, certainly bordering on grave. "Lucy, after you defeat the Ruling Powers, the time will come when you will no longer be able to read the alethiometer by instinct. Having Edmund on hand, perhaps, if it is your wish, you may learn to read it again, the way he does."

Still overjoyed from knowing that Edmund was going to live, Lucy was not as struck by this blow as she would have otherwise been, but she still blinked rapidly, feeling rather stunned.

"Lyra…Will she lose her ability to read the alethiometer when we've defeated the Ruling Powers, too?"

"Dear one," said Aslan, patiently but with unwavering firmness, "do you really need to know that now? It concerns her and her story, not yours."

"Come, we will go to your alethiometrist now." Aslan began to walk back the way they'd come, and Lucy trotted by his side, burying her cool hands in his warm mane; Reepicheep rode on his mistress's shoulder.

When they reached the sleigh, they saw Edmund standing in front of it.

He was alone, but not for long. Within a minute Ella was flying back towards him, and his wrist was stretched out for her to land on.

Throwing her arms round his middle, Lucy clung to him.

Pulling away from her, Edmund lowered himself down on one knee. Ella flew off of his wrist, up onto his right shoulder.

"Lucy, you've been a perfect alethiometrist's assistant," he said in a low, endearing tone. "You even came and rescued me from Bolvangar."

"Edmund-" she began, not realizing yet what he was building up to.

Shaking his head, he cut her off, "But there is one problem."

"Problem?"

"I don't want you to just be my assistant in studying the alethiometer, I want you to be my wife."

Really, it had never been a question of either of them wanting to marry each other, so much as it was the matter of so few opportunities. All the same, he had never flat-out asked her, and so he did; for his memories had all returned to him, including the lost moments at Bolvangar after the operation, during which he had been stupid and slow, and she had done the best she could to rescue him. Deeply as he had loved her before, there was something about her unyielding spirit in saving him that made him respect and admire her all the more so.

And Lucy, of course, said yes to his proposal.

Aslan roared: it was a calling roar.

At once, Lucy knew it would-and could-be answered, no matter now many miles stood in the way (even if it had been whole worlds in-between); it was that powerful. She also knew (Edmund did not) whom the Lion had to be summoning, and felt a little sorry, because she was going to miss them so dreadfully.

Peter and Susan and Maugrim appeared by the sleigh. Peter looked taken aback; Susan and Maugrim were panting a little, like they were a bit short on breath from unwittingly-yet instantaneously-answering Aslan's call; but they said nothing to the great Lion, knowing somehow that he was the one who ought to speak first, that he'd called them there for a reason. They saw Edmund and Lucy but did not run to them (the moment was too solemn) glad as they were to see that they were safe, having been so worried about them.

Now that they had two witnesses, Aslan married the alethiometrist and the daughter of Lord Asriel right there on the spot. A few vows were exchanged and their dæmons stood close together, whispering something their humans only faintly over-heard through their connection, rather like a soft buzzing in the back of their minds.

When the little ceremony had come to an end, Aslan took Peter and Susan aside and told them what he had already explained to Lucy before. (It was Reepicheep who told Edmund, by the way.)

Teary-eyed, but still understanding, although less so in Susan and Maugrim's case as opposed to Peter's reaction, they went to bid goodbye to their siblings.

Susan took Lucy aside and they talked; and Peter and Edmund did the same. And so the brothers-in-law and the sisters-in-law said their farewells. It was very sad all around. The glances exchanged between Maugrim and Reepicheep were heartbreaking, full of the kind of deep emotion one only sees between close dæmons who do not expect to meet each other again. There is no need to dwell on those moments.

Then Edmund went to Susan; and Lucy to Peter.

Susan hugged her brother so tightly that he thought she was going to suffocate him, but he didn't really mind, because he was clinging to her, too. Maugrim seemed wary of Ella, initially, sensing a change in her. The wolf-dæmon quickly over-came this, however, realizing that the change was not for the worse, and he nuzzled the soft white feathers on her left wing with the tip of his nose.

For a bit Peter and Lucy could say nothing at all. They were both choked up; the parting for them would be the hardest of all. It didn't matter that they weren't related by blood, they were the very closest sort of siblings that exist.

"Lucy," Peter said, holding onto both of his baby sister's hands while he spoke, "I have an idea."

"I'm sorry you're not coming back."

"It's not how I thought it would be," he told her. "It isn't so horrible. Aslan is right; we aren't really needed here anymore. I'm sure there's something important that Susan and I are supposed to do back in my world; and of course my son needs me-and his mother-back. The only thing that makes me sad is leaving you and Ed."

"What was your idea?" said Lucy through her tears.

"I was thinking about how some things-certain places and objects, rather-in the professor's college are almost exactly like Jordan." He looked very thoughtful. His eyes were bright, but whether it was with pensiveness, or else simply the same kind of tears as his sister was struggling with, was uncertain. "There's a north-facing window-seat in Digory Kirke's study that is parallel with the Master's at Jordan (you remember, the dark apple-wood-and-oak one, with the top that lifts up like a chest?); it even has the same engravings at the bottom, and the professor carved his name into both. I remember seeing both seats and thinking it odd, though I didn't say anything about it before. As they're in the same position and everything, I thought perhaps you could sit there, maybe one day a year, on the Jordan side, in this world; meanwhile I would sit on the other side, back in mine, and we'd in a sense be able to visit each other. At least, I'd know you were sitting on your end, thinking of me, and you would know you had an elder brother sitting on the other end, remembering you. I wouldn't be able to see you, nor you me; but we'd know. I was thinking that Jordan College will be out of your way, and of course you know I don't attend Digory's college, that I go to another university, but if we could try…" –he looked away from her, and she knew he was crying and needed a second to gather the rest of his thoughts. "We could try to be there, just that once, every year."

"It could be at noon," Lucy suggested, "right on the stroke of it."

Peter nodded. "At noon. On the anniversary of the day they brought you into my world and left you with us for eight years."

It was a good plan, and Lucy thought Peter very clever for coming up with all this, but it wouldn't be the same-she knew it wouldn't. Being with a friend in spirit wasn't the same thing as being with them for real. She wouldn't be able to reach out and squeeze his hand. He wouldn't be able to hug her if she were sad. They would, they knew instinctively, speak to each other, and know the other was telling them about their life now, only it wouldn't be the same as being able to have a real conversation; they couldn't hear each other anymore than they could see.

Peter was thinking the same as she was, or else he knew what was on her mind from her expression. He told her to cheer up, that he still believed what he had told her long ago; there really might come a time when all the worlds were one. When they were in that place, when things were very different, he promised again, they would be able to see one another for real and there would be no reason to be sad any longer. For now, though, all they could have was the solemn promise that they would, without let-up, go to the window-seat in their respective worlds, just that once every year.

As he embraced her one last time, Lucy pushed up onto the tips of her toes so that her mouth was close to one of her brother's ears, "I'll be keeping my eyes out for you."

"And I for you," he softly assured her.

"I suppose that's it, then," Susan announced, her face pale with resigned sorrow, wholly welcoming her future and destiny, though it seemed to take something unexplainable that no one could pin-point away from her for ever after that.

Aslan once again opened the door in the northern lights and the husband and wife, and the wolf-dæmon, went through it.

Susan never looked back. And although he never mentioned it, Edmund always did feel-whenever he couldn't sleep at night and found himself thinking of the last time his sister was ever in their birth world-that he would very much have liked her to, and he wished she had.

Peter, for his part, did look back; and Lucy and Edmund remembered long after the fact seeing a faint trace of rainbow colours shinning off of his cheeks which were cased with a frozen wetness from his tears shed with Lucy earlier that made them reflective.

"Come on, Lu," said Edmund to his wife after a bit, taking her hand. "They're gone, and we'll freeze if we stay out here longer than need be. Look! Aslan's restored the sleigh. Let's go home."

"Home?" she repeated, as if perplexed.

"Are you asking where it is?"

"No, Ed," she replied, "because I know where it is; it's where ever we're together. The flat was home, when it was the both of us…so was the Gyptian ship, when you arrived on it. Here could be home, only you're going to leave it-and so am I."

"Don't bring up that blasted flat," he teased her. Ella clanked her beak.

Reepicheep fake-scowled. "I loved our flat," Lucy insisted, grinning, squeezing the hand he still held.

Home may have been where ever the alethiometrist and his wife could be together safely, but they had to stay somewhere literal, which could get troublesome at times seeing as they were still wanted by the Ruling Powers. But that goes without saying; and the tale of how Alethiometrist Belacqua and his love who was once known as Lucy Pevensie, and her half sister, Lyra, finally over-threw their adversaries for good, thus living reasonably happily thereafter, enjoying freedom whenever time between their raids against certain persons and organizations that were still persecuting the Gyptians long after the Ruling Powers were vanquished permitted, isn't this story. The important thing is that when they got to where they needed to be, Edmund began to teach Lucy all of the symbols of the alethiometer so that when her instinct failed her, she might still read it, never having to go without understanding her silver pocket watch.

It was exciting for Lucy and Reep, actually, those lessons. While they could be hard-going at times, moments when she thought she would never be able to remember all those different meanings, she enjoyed herself.

In fact, the alethiometry lessons were among the first things she told Peter about at noon, the following year; while visiting Jordan College.

As for Peter and Susan and Maugrim, they found themselves feeling quite wet the further in they walked from the door Aslan had opened for them. It took a minute or so for them to realize they'd begun to wade rather than walk, and for a few moments they felt themselves completely immersed in water. Then, with no spouts or bubbles to warn them, they were shooting upward. Peter grabbed onto Susan's waist, and Maugrim pressed himself as close as possible to the thigh of his mistress.

When they came to a stop, they stood breathlessly in the basin of the fountain back at Professor Kirke's college, shivering from the rush and the unexpectedly cool air that was hitting their backs; the water was dead calm, lapping gently against their calves, no longer trickling down from the top, no longer a portal into another world; and Maugrim was panting, shaking droplets from his fur as Susan shook some off of the tips of her soaked hair.

A few feet away, the professor himself sat in an iron-backed garden chair, smoking a pipe, reading an improving book. He wasn't careless; something about him, a frown line that was not from age alone, suggested he'd worried about them; also, his dæmon, perched on the back of his uncomfortable chair, looked anxious and gave her master away.

But when Digory spoke, it was gentle and in an off-handed tone. "Ah," he said, closing his book, "there you are. Welcome back."

AN: Well there you have it, then! Please review and tell me what you thought.