Characters not mine.

(Originally written for the movie characters challenge at comment fic. Prompt was for Edmund, "Why does he have to be the incorruptible one now?")

When the ice had come crashing down between them, and Edmund had finally opened his eyes, it was to see Peter staring at him in shock. Caspian and even Lucy had looked surprised themselves, but it was the emotions that had flicked across his brother's face - anger, shame, shock, frustration - that dominated Edmund's attention. He sheathed his sword as calmly as he could, and tried to keep his voice as even and dry as possible, even though it wanted to shake with fear and . . . and betrayal, which he'd never imagined he'd really feel towards Peter.

"I know," he said. "You had it sorted."

Then he stalked off.

A beat or two behind him, he heard the swish of skirts and the patter of soft-soled boots before Lucy threw herself at him, hugging him tightly from behind. "Edmund," she said into the back of his tunic. "Thank you."

"Lu, get off."

But even as she started to oblige him, he felt his own fingers wrapping around those of his little sister. He turned around to face her, but he kept ahold of her hand. It was less awkward than the hug, and gave him to opportunity to look at more than her hands or the top of her head, to see the expression on her face. Gratitude and fading fear, certainly, but there was something in it on top of them. Pride, almost.

Something twisted in Edmund's gut like a knife, and he dropped her hand like it was on fire. That look should have been for Peter.

Lucy wasn't ready to let go, yet, and she touched his elbow instead. "Thank you," she repeated, more quietly this time.

"I shouldn't have had to."

"Ed?"

He slumped against the wall and reached up for his temples. Lack of sleep, worry, and leftover adrenaline were all pounding in unison against the back of his eyeballs. He wanted a nap. He didn't have time for one, any moment now Peter or Caspian would come to find him and talk about the coming fight with Miraz. If it was Peter, he'd be dabbing at the cut on his eyebrow and pretending that Edmund hadn't been being sarcastic, that he really had had it sorted, that he was still the big brother and High King of Narnia he'd been a thousand years before here, who would never have thought twice about swinging his sword at the White Witch, not the boy he was.

Lucy put a little more pressure on his elbow. "Ed?"

"Lu, the first thing I saw when Peter and I raced in there was her. Not the werewolf, not the ice, not Caspian or Nikabrik or anything obvious. Her. Jadis. Even though I could see right through her. And her hand reaching through the ice like it was so much water, and back into the world, back into Narnia."

Lucy squeezed, but she didn't say anything. Edmund ground his teeth.

So he'd gone for the werewolf, the one leaping over the stone table, leaving Peter to handle what was going on on the other side. It seemed safest. After all, Peter had stood against the White Witch before, longer and more successfully than Edmund had. She'd never gotten a grip on him before, like she had on Edmund.

"You know you can't do this alone. . . ."

But Peter had shoved Caspian out of the circle and just stood there, hadn't he? Listening to her?

"Peter didn't move."

"I'm sure he was just scared, Ed."

"She wasn't real yet!"

She had been real enough to be terrifying, though. Edmund could attest to that. He'd wrestled with the werewolf, kicked it down and killed it in enough time to peer over the table and see Peter shove Caspian out of the way and skitter to a stop in the circle, in front of her. And to see the grim, delighted smile that crossed her face when she looked at him. Edmund had expected that to make Peter explode, like everything else seemed to these days, for it to make him lunge for his sword and drive it into her heart. . . . But it hadn't.

Edmund had had to do that.

Lucy slid to the floor, tugging Edmund's arm down with her, and he found himself drawing his knees to his chest, curling into himself, and reminding himself that he was too old to cry. "I mean, dammit, Lu. I . . . Caspian I understand. That was all a thousand years ago for him. Not Peter."

"He was just scared," Lucy said again. "It wasn't . . . wasn't right, but he was just scared."

"You know you can't do this alone. . . ."

But Peter wasn't alone. He had Edmund, and Susan, and Caspian, and Lucy. And perhaps none of them were perfect, and perhaps they were all as scared and lost as he was, in a world that had shifted without them, but he wasn't alone. Not ever.

He swallowed, as though he could force the betrayal down with the bile. "I know," he said. "It scares me more."

Because Peter was annoying, and he might be more tetchy and temperamental now than Edmund had ever seen him before they had left Narnia the first time, but he was the big brother. The High King. The leader.

Lucy's hand moved from his elbow to his shoulder, and she squeezed again. Edmund glanced at her and tried to smile.

"You know you can't do this alone. . . ."

She was talking about Aslan. They all knew it.

Edmund leaned back against the stone and tried to swallow the betrayal again.

He'd gotten so used to being Judas. The weak link, the betrayer. Few other people had mentioned it, after Aslan had forgiven him, but he'd internalized it. And the first time in Narnia, even when they had been adult kings, Peter had been careful. He'd let his brother go up against any troll or show of strength that Edmund thought he could handle, but he'd been more selective about letting Edmund go up against guile. And because Edmund understood that the White Witch was not something any of them would ever forget, he hadn't really objected to having Lucy along most of the time. To having someone who could make sure the veil was pulled from his eyes.

He'd gotten so used to being Judas.

But it wasn't Peter he'd betrayed. He'd been part of it, sooner or later, but it wasn't Peter. If it was any of his siblings, it was Lu. But mostly it was Aslan. And Peter wasn't Aslan. Peter was a son of Adam, a human. Peter was allowed to fail sometimes. He didn't have to survive the temptations of Christ.

Edmund reached out, wrapped an arm around Lucy's shoulders and pulled her to his side. She curled against him, the little sister who never stopped believing in any of them. "You were really brave, though," she said.

Edmund took a deep breath, swallowed again. "Why did I have to be the incorruptible one now, though?"

Lucy smiled and leaned her head against her brother's shoulder.

Edmund sighed. He'd gotten so used to being Judas. He still felt that if the Witch had almost gotten any of them, it should have been him. But unlike Judas, he'd gotten a second chance. And, he supposed, he was the one on his guard to keep from becoming Judas again.