Chapter Twenty: Things That Should Not Be

//And hours become days,
days become years//

It was a strenuous struggle for Buffy to bring herself back to consciousness. All she could see in her mind was an impenetrable murky cloud that did not want to let her pass and re-enter the world, but she fought past it – she had no alternative on that matter. Her first thought was that she was all of a sudden warm, dry and comfortable and not freezing to death in an ocean. Forcing herself to do so, she opened her fatigued eyes and looked around her surroundings.

She observed that she was in a sparsely furnished room – it only contained a bed, a chair and some sort of cabinet. Shaking the remnants of the cobwebs from her brain, she went to get up from where she lay on the double bed and realised she was only wearing her slip, that someone or something had removed her clothes.

Pulling the bed clothes back around her, she sat there and endeavoured to concentrate on what she could remember. Buffy could picture the five of them in Lucy’s and her room, the painting, the feeling of magic and then sub-zero water. There was something else there nevertheless, teasing the boundaries of her mind and senses.

The door to the room out of the blue flew wide open and there stood Peter looking more delighted and untroubled than she’d seen him since their last rendezvous. As she looked at him the last few seconds of her memory came flooding back, like a tidal wave and she could remember seeing Caspian and Trumpkin. That could mean one thing and one thing only, they were back. Although she did not see how that was possible, Aslan had told Peter and Susan that they could not return and she had taken Susan’s place… It was extremely confusing.

“Is it true? Are we really back?” she asked him.

“We’re back,” he told her, exhilaration radiating from him like a small child at Christmas.

“And everyone…”

Peter sat down on the bed next to her, “Is alive and well. From what I have seen anyway…”

“I can sort of remember seeing Caspian and Trumpkin…”

“And Reepicheep,” Peter informed her. “They are the ones I have seen and spoken too. Su is aboard, but was resting, but Caspian has assured me that we will see her at dinner tonight.”

Buffy smiled at him, a little sorrowfully. It was lovely that they had been allowed back, but the reason for this eluded her and was slowly driving her insane as each second flew by. Shoving it back she asked, “Where are Ed, Lu and Eustace?”

“Ed and Lu were with Caspian… last time I checked,” he answered. “I was sort of preoccupied with staring out at the ocean and then I realised you weren’t there and came to get you…”

Buffy kissed him quickly, “I get it. But you never mentioned where Eustace was…”

Peter huffed, “I don’t know, or care… He is somewhere on board.” At Buffy’s glare he sighed, “All right… I’ll find him.”

“Let me get dressed and I’ll help.”

He looked her up and down and offered ever-so ingenuously, “Do you need some help?”

She left the bed and picked up the dress that that someone had so agreeably laid out for her to wear, “Why do I think you would be more hindrance than help?”

“Because you know me so well,” he replied coming up behind her, pushing her long hair aside and kissing her neck.

For a moment she gave in and leaned back against him, until her good sense prevailed. “Peter, we can’t… We don’t even know whose room this is…”

He turned her around to face him, “It’s mine… Well – uh – ours, in fact.”

“Ours?”

“I sort of told Caspian we were married,” Peter acknowledged.

Buffy just stared at him, “And Lu and Ed just let you say this?”

“There could possibly have been some bribery involved.”

“Pete…”

He put his arms around her and looked at her with roguish blue eyes, “Buffy… If I didn’t say that they would separate us and then I’d spend the next however long we are here, trying to sneak into your room. Admit it; you know that is what would happen? This is why this is so much simpler. Besides it will help us to acclimate to married life…”

“In that case,” she told him. “I hope you plan to do nothing but sleep.”

“Why?”

She smirked at him, “Isn’t that what married couples do?”

Eventually she and Peter emerged from their cabin, to find Edmund waiting for them on the deck. From his smirk, Buffy could just tell what her impish soon-to-be brother-in-law was thinking. “Took you both long enough,” Edmund said. “I suppose you were involved in doing *married* things…”

“He wishes,” Buffy told Edmund. “So do you know where Eustace is, because Peter seems to have lost him?”

“I did not loose him. I simply didn’t care enough to find out if he was with us here or not,” Peter answered. “And why do you care, anyway?”

“He’s our responsibility. We are supposed to be looking after him,” Buffy reminded him.

Edmund laughed, “Don’t agonize, Buffy. Eustace the nuisance is in the cabin I regrettably have to share with him. He’s in good health; even though he is convinced he is dying from some mystifying disease and has taken to his bed to slip silently into the gentle night.”

“Like Eustace ever does anything quietly,” Peter muttered mulishly.

Ignoring her fiancé/fake husband Buffy asked Edmund, “Where’s Lu?”

“She and Caspian headed off to the mess hall for dinner. We are supposed to be joining them there…”

“Lead on, Ed,” Buffy told him as she grabbed hold of Peter’s arm.

The three of them walked along the deck until they came to a generously proportioned room, filled with conversation and boisterous laughter. It was quite a sight for them to take in, Telmarines and Narnians in reality enjoying each other’s companionship. They were called over to a outsized table at the back of the room where their friends and – missing – sister were seated.

The two male Pevensies rushed at the vanguard towards their sister, but Buffy held back. She allowed them their moment of greeting, of reuniting with the misplaced piece of their family, before she joined them. As Susan stood up to welcome her brothers, Buffy’s eyes more or less popped out of her head in astonishment, the once slender girl was now enormous with child.

Buffy was somewhat entertained by the paleness of and shock written across Peter’s face when he caught sight of his sister and took in the prospect that he was scheduled to become an uncle. She guessed it was one thing for him to know that Susan had stayed behind to be with Caspian and another to see that they had been rather… occupied.

After the reunion, they sat at the table to catch up on what had happened while they had been departed. Buffy was very nearly impressed by Peter’s self-discipline and the detail that he had not tried to kill Caspian as of yet, but she also knew that the peace would not last with those two. The assemblage sat there and listened to the narrative, beginning with Susan and Caspian’s wedding and ending in Caspian’s guarantee to Aslan to seek out the seven missing Lords of Narnia.

“If this is your mission,” Peter questioned Caspian. “Why did you bring Su along in her condition?”

Caspian looked more than a little uncomfortable at his brother-in-law’s enquiry. “We did not recognize that Susan was with child. If I had known, we would not have set out. The promise to Aslan could have waited until later.”

Edmund interrupted before the two obstinate monarchs could begin to fight again. “How long has it been?”

Susan answered, “Three years.”

“Two for us…” Buffy replied, she would have continued but noticed that Susan was looking at her. “What?”

“That ring…” Susan said, a smile breaking out. “Peter, do you have something to tell us?”

“Don’t get him started,” Edmund joked. “I beg of you…”

Lucy joined in, “It’s not a pretty sight.”

“Hey!” Buffy objected good naturedly.

“Sorry, Buffy,” Edmund told her. “But Pete has corrupted you.”

“Very funny Ed,” Peter mumbled.

Caspian patted his wife’s hand, “Peter informed me of this earlier. He and Buffy are wed.”

“My Queen,” Reepicheep said to her.

Buffy smiled half-heartedly at them all, and then tuned out as Reepicheep began to talk of the ‘utter east’ and Aslan’s country. All she could think about was that when they were through there, she was going to exterminate Peter. She was not going to be compassionate and have it over quickly; instead deliberate and torturous was his providence… for putting her in this uncomfortable position.

End Part

Lyrics:

Faith Hill – Stealing Kisses