Peace

Summary: The chronicles end well for all our heroes, but someone has to pick up the pieces of broken lives at the railway accident. An insight into one of the site worker's thoughts and feelings as she finds the bodies.

Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters, every thing belongs to C.S. Lewis.

Author's Note: This has the slightest, and I do mean slightest bit of AU in it, because I know at the time of the accident, Peter and Edmund were not actually on the train with the others, but waiting on the platform. Just take it as a slight stretch of imagination.

The area is silent and peaceful, but it's not the healing peace you can find when you sit outside on a windy day or the peace you feel when you lay on the dewy grass and just let the rain wash over you, not caring about your clothes or the mud or how others view you. No, this is the saddest type of peace in the world there is, and my job makes me encounter it every day. It's the peace of another soul leaving the earth. It's the peace that happens when the war is over and you have to pick up the pieces of what little remains. It's the peace that is painted in pain and tears.

And here, at this particular death sight, there are so many fragments of lives and souls left behind, this peace and silent breaks the sound barrier. And this is my job, to pick up the fragments as one sweeps up the shards of the broken glass vase. I do not have time to dwell on the loneliness and pain that radiates from the sites.

It's been a few hours and the smoke and burning scent has started to fade away, to be carried by the wind, wherever it blows. But I can imagine what this area looked like four hours ago- a terrible explosion, screams and shouts, and the look on the passenger's faces when they stared death in the face.

And then, even worse than the explosion and the noise is the sudden stop of everything. Some times it would be nice to say the entire world stops revolving just for a moment at that point in time, that the entire world grieves for just a second before continuing on.

It would be nice, but it's not the way it works. After all, when this tragedy happened, I was just doing my job somewhere else. There was no defining moment of the catastrophe. It just happened, and now was the time to start moving.

I pass by the strangled bodies, arms and legs everywhere. Some of them are flung out, as if they were trying to jump off a bridge and hope for the best when they realized what was happening. Some of them are curled into balls, forced into the smallest of spaces. I do not know whether they were bracing themselves or it just happened when the train derailed.

Their expressions carry a range of emotion, from shock and amazement to wonder to fear to pain. Some of their faces are marred too badly to read. Most of them, however, have vivid and strangled expressions.

Most of the bodies are spread out, maybe a couple or two and one family, but most of them seemed to have been lone passengers. I wonder about their families and if they have been contacted yet. In some ways, it seems it would have been better if all the family was together, as they are in life.

As I move among the wreckage, I spot a set of seven bodies tangled together. They do not look related to each other, but there is a familiarity that runs in the veins of their web of arms and legs.

The two oldest, a gentlemen and a lady, are on the outside of the group, as if they were trying to cast a net to keep the younger ones safe. They look too old to be the parents of the five young adults, but their love for them is apparent all the same. Their arms form a circle and there is determination on both of their faces, but neither of them looks particularly upset. I wonder if they realized what was actually happening or were just reacting.

I gently move their bodies to the side, wondering if any would find and claim them, or if they had been lost with the only people who ever would.

If possible, the other five are even more in a tangle. The tallest, and who I presumed would be the oldest, is on top of the two others, the second oldest boy and the oldest girl, pinning them down with strength and might. His arms are flailed out across the other two, the youngest, as well, as if he wanted to protect them all from whatever was coming. I gingerly turn his body onto his back. I cannot help but to gasp as I view his face.

Even in death, this young man has an aura about him that just seems to demand respect. The expression he carries is one of nobility and magnificence, and fierceness. A fierceness to protect the others that I guess to be his younger siblings. But the determined, hard, look is not unkind. It is simply passionate, as if he threw his entire will and passion into reaching his siblings before they hit the ground.

I survey the area- I need to move the young man to the side, and yet I feel as if I simply cannot separate these five bodies. I let the eldest be for a moment.

The next two, a young girl, maybe eighteen at the most, and a boy not much older, are facing each other. Even in death, he has his arms in a brotherly embrace, protecting his sister, caring for her. He was talking the moment he died- his lips are frozen mid-syllable. I cannot help but to wonder what he was saying, as there is a smile etched on the young girl's face.

The next two are also tangled as well. They boy has a slightly surprised, but not overly fearful, look on his face. The girl is looking towards him, and I can just tell from the expressions they both carry they were interrupted by death in the middle of an important conversation.

I move the five bodies together. It is a difficult procedure, but I manage it. I cannot bear to separate them even by an inch, and I make sure to put them by the other two I had moved earlier. As I stare at the seven, they all have one thing in common.

There is a peace in every eye. It is not the broken, hurt, peace I feel when I look at the wreck site or the peace that happens when someone's broken cries stops, but the peace you feel on a sunny, windy day. The peace you feel when you let the rain drift and wash over you. The peace that not even death can steal.