Disclaimer:M'yeah…you clicked on the guy's name to get into this section of the site. Any place and any name in this story that sound familiar…all his!

The epigraph is from a poem by ee cummings

A/N:Eustace's thoughts are in "//" I usually stick to good old italicized thoughts… but these seemed right for him somehow.

Cartographilia

somewhere I have never traveled gladly beyond

any experience, your eyes have their silence

in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me

of which I cannot touch because they are too near

-

1st stanza, 'Somewhere I Have Never Travelled'

Eustace blamed Geography, he really did.

It happened on a Sunday; when all balmy-blissful things of the weekend seemed to flicker into dusk. A day when Eustace basked in the aftermath of lazy sun-on-skin feeling and the cooling droplets of an afternoon swim; and his spirits burned brighter than the indoor fire...

...He should have seen it coming.

It was another one of those days for Jill, who scurried through her schoolwork like mad, and after second--or third, or fourth--thought, showed them to Eustace for a final trimming-down. He could hardly fathom why she still did it; Eustace had his habit of telling things as they were, and she had walked out on him several times before.

But he was still Scrubb, and she was hopelessly Pole; and that day, she came back.

So when he cast an austere eye over her badly drawn maps and said not a word, Jill just shot him a weary look. He knew what was coming all right. She slapped them across the table then tossed back her hair; Eustace fiddled with his worksheet and didn't bother to hide a smile. "Back for more, are you?"

Jill groaned and pulled the maps towards her side of the table. "Oh don't you start! Blasted Geography; I burned the skin off my nose under the big beech… all afternoon..."

"Crazy thing to do," Eustace said mildly, and then he sighed, "Don't work yourself into a fever, Pole, all right?" He reached across the table; they played tug-of-war with her sheets of paper and he won (or maybe she let him; she'd better not have). He fumbled in his pocket. Maybe a closer inspection was in order. Maybe the damage would right itself if he looked at it with his reading-glasses on, and his head tilted this way...

...no it wouldn't, it really wouldn't

He creased his forehead and tried not to show a smidgen of his distaste because… because…

"Well these…aren't…all that … horrible." he said forcibly, trailing off with too many pauses, so he wasn't sure where his words ended and where they began...but he was sure of one thing: the continent of America had gotten lost somewhere amidst Jill's squigglings resulting in a hilarious juxtaposition of East and West. Poor, unfortunate globe. //Really Jill, what sane, seeing person would mistake the Indies for America?You're not silly Columbus… //

"No you won't say anything more … the atlas must have been missing a page or two…" Jill slapped both hands over her disaster and Eustace propped his book up to conceal a grin. He slipped his reading-glasses off, polishing them on his trousers as Jill slunk over to his side of the table, like some lithe, tiny cat.

And instinctively, Eustace felt himself shrink and hunker into his seat, not an easy feat. Not since his body had one day made up it's mind to be to be all limbs, and Jacob Spivvins -//you traitorous git of a roommate,you//-, had taken to calling him spider-legs. Jill was so slight and he'd grown so much, that he always felt some subconscious need to make up for it when they were side by side.

She was sun-warm when she pushed up next to him; she stretched out, casting a quick look all about them. And then she leaned even closer, whispering "D'you have your maps right now, Eustace?"

Eustace yawned; her warm skin and leafy summer-scent made him feel unaccountably sleepy. "Finished them some days ago..."

"Not these beastly things," Jill said impatiently, wadding them up at her side, and kicking hard at the table legs. "No, I'm talking about….the ones your cousin sent you." Jill's voice hitched and her eyes gleamed with something more than the dancing firelight

Eustace dropped his workbook on the table.

"They're…they're tucked up between my books, somewhere." he said in a lower voice. Not a worthy place for their secret kingdom, but it really couldn't be helped. He shrugged, suddenly and strangely alert. "I can't take them everywhere I go, you know"

The common room was suddenly silent; even the fireplace seemed to snap and crackle twice as loud. They were on that tremulous note of secrecy; Jill had spoken dreamy and low, her cheeks flushing with colors that he knew well.

He felt the smallest of shivers bolt through him, but he didn't forget to cast another quick glimpse around. He'd been alone when she came in...still, you never knew. Eustace had learned more than a thing or two about nosy little blighters listening in when they were not wanted.

Jill made a funny noise, and Eustace turned to her. "I say," she knit her brows, "you keep them between your schoolbooks? "

"Blimey, what do you take me for?" Eustace held up his hands "I'm not as stupid as that. I tucked them into the jacket of those detective books Ed sent. But those're in the dormitories." Satisfied with this, Jill curled tighter into the little nook of a sofa he was occupying. She balled herself up, not looking the least bit finicky about their close quarters; that was just like Pole. He shuffled a bit, pulling his hands into his lap.

"Doesn't matter if you don't have them," she said, turning sober; her eyes gazing very far away. "I know them like the palm of my hand"

"The back of your hand." Eustace corrected in a tired voice, the rise of his spirits suddenly quelled.

Suddenly he was cold. He did knew Edmund's hand-drawn maps of Narnia and it's bordering countries by heart--he knew far, far, far too many of his stubborn thoughts by heart. //Four bleeding years. It's never been this long, has it?// They might be summoned in a snap, when Narnia needed them once more //when, when when when//, but what about the time, the too-long stretch of forced holidays, and frightfully boring schoolmasters, and parents being all sorts of difficult… what about all that time, when they wanted Narnia?

Slowly, Jill ran her hand over his left arm, pulling it towards her lap. And there was such a look on her face, that Eustace sat very still.

When all was said and done, she brought him back.

He'd been fool and brave enough, to fling himself against sea-serpents; and he'd gone to the edge of the world and then toppled over it's border; and he'd almost, almost, gone to it's deepest fathoms... They'd be shivering from the beastly cold, and snarling things that they both knew neither of them meant, and Harfang was miles of forever away, but she'd been there. Jill knew why he'd rather be there.

"Oh, wait and see! I do mean the palm of my hand." Jill shot him a grin; in her singularly satisfied way. She stroked the underside of his hand, summoning Eustace from his Underland-bound thoughts in a jolt.

He took in the curious sight of her wandering hands and felt every kind of peculiar. What was she on about? He couldn't remember the last time she did that. //Never, yes, I think that's it.// She cradled his left hand in her right one and prised it open; her fingers dancing circles on his palm. Jill knocked their knees together, and gave a hiccupy laugh.

"Aslan's How," she said softly, tapping the center of his palm, "River Shribble...and Beruna over here..."

And Eustace, whose erratic thoughts could have rushed from the utter East to the far Western Waste in the space of a minute, snapped back to Geography; and to Jill Pole in tracing a far-off kingdom on his palm.

He shrugged a little and kicked her back lightly; this was one game he could play and not feel stupid about. She touched his knuckles once, gently, before continuing.

Jill made a small cross on his palm, and ran her thumb along the slightly inky soles. "And northward to Ettinsmoor ...see, I do know the points of a compass, Scrubb!" she said rather sharply; but this time Eustace wouldn't have dreamed of contradicting her. She ran two of her fingers over the soft part of his wrist, ghost-light.

Eustace was thinking of maps, maps, nothing but maps; he didn't know why his breath came out the way it did. He tried not to shiver; the skin of his wrist was paper-thin, but Jill's fingers felt both hot and cool and his pulse capered.

But the windows were open and he was warm as could be...he knew he shouldn't have stayed too long in the sun.

After about a million years, Jill left his wrist alone; and went on to his fidgeting thumb, hooking her pinky snug around it. Eustace held his breath, meeting Jill's eyes, as she said, with a touch of whispery incantation, "The peninsula... Cair Paravel, and onwards, the Eastern Sea."

The common room seemed to blur and dwindle to her whisper; soft and low like that, it stirred crawling things inside him. Never mind that she'd lost him somewhere along the Shribble or that the lines she was tracing could not hold a candle to Edmund's replica; much less to the true Narnia. If Jill said it like that; then so it must be.

Eustace shut his eyes, opened them, shook his head, and tried not to think. His other hand was growing clammy, so he clenched it around the reading-glasses he'd placed on the table. //All your fault if they break, Pole.//

Making a small pensive noise, Jill turned towards him.. "Scrubb, I have gotten it right this far, haven't I?" she demanded, and drew knees up to chin, guiding Eustace's palm on them, so that her breath brushed his wrist. Another inch and she could have kissed it; Eustace's own breath stopped.

"Y-yes." //yes, yes. Pole, whatever's the matter with me? // Eustace fluttered his perused fingers, and she jerked her map-drawing hand away, looking wary. "It's just..." his hand was tingling, "It tickles" he said in a hurry.

It didn't.

Jill blinked a bright, curious stare at him and his stomach dropped. "I didn't know you were ticklish..." she mused and got her teasing expression. "Golly, and you were being so nice and quiet, and…and un-Scrubb-like--"

"Oh, just go on, for heaven's sake!" Eustace rolled his eyes, fighting to look irritated. Sod what any scientist might say; he was living proof that too much sun could give your brain funny ideas.

Still, he wasn't haughty or forceful as he would have liked. Jill raised her eyebrows a fraction, taking her bottom lip between her teeth and Eustace was oddly transfixed once more. She uncurled his hand with her small one; she had slender fingers and fingernails bitten to jagged crescents. He half-sniggered and made a laughing noise, deep inside his throat. //She swore she stopped doing that.//

"Right then, Glasswater would be right about... here." she said under her breath, scratching those raggedy half-moons against his skin. Between his thumb and forefinger; it truly did tickle this time, but he shivered for a different reason.

He was only dimly aware of a breeze drifting through the windows, of the spit and hiss as the firelogs settled in the hearth. With settling edginess, Eustace chewed on the tip of his tongue, and let his forehead brush the top of her head.

//No...bother this...//Too many curls, tangles of them around her face, smelling like toffees and peppermint and summery, out-in-the-sun-all-day Pole. Eustace narrowed his eyes, looking at her with suspicion. Then he found he couldn't quite look her in the face when she held him like...like this. Jill was so vivid, and uncontained, yet no one else's hands but hers could do it like this.

He watched with strange awe, as she ran her thumb along the bumps and volleys just below his fingers... and for one trancelike moment, the landscapes on his palm made perfect sense. Those were the dips and grooves of a mountain country, he reckoned.

And right now he had to say something, anything.

"Tha...that's Archenland, I'll wager." he said, taking a shallow breath, his voice stumbling all over again. Jill shook that bothersome spiral of curls from her shoulder, blinking up at him.

Criminy, but even her lashes would look tangled and bright. "You'd be spot on," Jill answered, still studying him curiously. "Gosh, what is wrong?"

//Oh, bugger.// Eustace thought rapidly, trying to keep his face impassive "Just that...you missed something, Pole."

He slapped his glasses on the tabletop, hard enough to break them, or maybe scratch the perfect wood varnish…he couldn't care less, it was the diversion he needed.

"Here, " their shared seat creaked as Eustace stretched his legs, tracing another path with his free hand. "Right here," he said again, tapping his palm. "You forgot the forest, did you? Lantern Waste would be right here over my radial carpal bone"

"Carpal thingummy what?" Jill didn't bother to hold back her snicker…well he liked that!

And on an impulse, Eustace scooted down, so that their shoulders touched, and not-so-gently jostled. He didn't give two bits if Jill was a girl...

...And besides, she pushed him back a little too forcefully. "Really, the things you keep in your head, Scrubb!" Still laughing under her breath, Jill gave him a well-aimed elbow to the ribs.

A not-at-all-painful elbow to the ribs. Eustace pushed her right back, smirking. "Pah, at least my head's got something in it, that's the principal thi...Ow!"

Lion's Mane, but Jill could stomp like anything. "Jill!" he hissed in pain. "Dry up! It's Basic Anatomy, anyone could see that!...Oh no you don't..." .

Hah, two could play at this game. Jill yelped, "That was my foot!" But she retaliated in the next instant; Eustace let out a half-growl

"Oy! That was mine---and you've got those heely shoes on..."

"Oh, right then, that's it!"

With that Jill broke their play-tussle, making a grab for his hand. Eustace had been prepared to pounce, but for some positively batty reason, he surrendered in a second and let her hold him still.

"Fine then, Scrubb; Lantern Waste on your...whatdyoucallit bone, if you like!" Jill giggled and gave a hard poke right at the dip in his palm. Eustace sighed, just letting her do as she pleased; he was torn halfway between mirth and crossness, and it was all...

//all…wrong…that's completely the wrong spot...and hang it all, that's not the radial carpal.// Eustace grunted, still out of breath from their tussle, and a taunt sprang to his mind…

But then …he snuck a wary glimpse at her bent head…she had gotten everything right, so far: Paravel's jutting peninsula with Glasswater nestled in between; the flat plains stretching along the kingdom, the forking groove was somehow a river cutting through.

It was well-documented in himself now, he knew them like the bones of his hand...but she ran ahead of him, and gotten lost in graceless wanderings, and it turned out right after all.

Eustace whistled between his teeth. That was Pole all right.

Jill was far too warm against him, and he tensed. Was this Pole? This creeping flush of heat, and a faint roaring in his ears, like some distant Great River, all because she got him to sit still, and leaned into him, and felt like pale, afternoon Eastern sun on the Dawn Treader's deck... It just wasn't...well it didn't make a particle of sense, so he made up his bewildered mind.

He saw his chance when she coaxed his hand flat and still again; and her fingers wandered forward-- southwards as per the directions they'd set. And he couldn't lie, his four fingers convulsed, and blood from them shot into his palm, when Jill found the desert.

"Calormen," she said, gnawing at her lip; a slight waver in her voice. Eustace had stepped outside of himself; it was the only way to make some sense. Jill pressed her fingers flush against his, and…he couldn't possibly be doing this, it was a knee-jerk reaction that made his blood surge, that made him reach out to grasp, entwining her fingers in his stubborn grip.

He and Jill were…oh no, he wasn't…

His head was spinning, once, twice; it was the vertigo of a dragon's flight; it was a leap off another towering cliff; she'd made him fall.

Jill held onto him too, until he was falling too fast, until there was no trace at all of the coldness that had risen up inside him. There was some distant ring of logic in his light head; faintly, he thought of the western Waterfall, she'd missed that by a mile.

And the gorge to the North, and the River Rush, and Beaversdam and...

...And...he and Jill were...

...holding hands and it was too terribly quiet…

With a start, he realized that she'd tightened her fist around his; that they were both holding on, as if for dear life. Jill drew a quick breath and he could have sworn she trembled.

//Say something Eustace… say something Eustace...//

Just when did crackling fire make such a racket in a stone-walled common room? The fire, Eustace decided, could go and boil its ruddy head. He gripped Jill's hand a little harder…warm and quivery though it was, the palm of her hand felt silky as rose-leaves. .//Huh.// Well, he had a deft hand at Botany after all….Eustace took a deep, shaky breath, wincing at himself.

//…If I don't say something soon…! //

And just as he licked his desert-dry lips, and made a small throaty noise, she let him go.

The world reeled, made sense, dwindled to Jill untangling herself from his grip. Eustace almost gasped, and then he clasped his own hands together; smarting from the sorely-missed contact.

He squirmed in his seat; firebursts on shut eyelids, firelight on rapidly seeing eyes.

"Pole..." he tightened both his hands together until he winced, until he might have broken all knuckles.

Grasping that thought, he blurted out "S-sorry Pole, I...I almost shattered every one of your carpal bones back there... " With a touch of guilt, Eustace looked at her slim hands…he would just as soon jump off another ruddy cliff than hurt Pole deliberately.

//...Ugh no, not really. //

//…Well…yes. Really.//

"…Eustace?" When Jill reached out to cup his knee, Eustace flinched against his will. Jill drew back, surprise and slight hurt in her eyes; and he instantly felt like the world's biggest prat. "M'sorry," he muttered again.

"Oh," Jill murmured, half-to-herself, "You are ticklish..."

...No, he honestly wasn't. It struck him, strangely enough, that he'd known her for so very long, yet she didn't know that.

So strange that he was perspiring under his shirt from her contact; from the way his palm had stuck damply against hers; from her hair tickling against his cheek, as she looked up at him.

"Easy, Scrubb." she said quickly, more strangeness settling on her face. She had tilted her head a bit, keeping him in her peripheral view and her tone was soft. "It's…it's all right. You didn't mean to…it's all right."

And with that, Eustace let out his hindered breath. He quite saw that she was as edgy as he had been; knew that she'd trembled and tried not to look at him when they'd held each other's hands...he knew her.

Some deeper, buried part of him knew too, that whatever went wrong, she held on to him, even when she'd let go…that no matter what they got thrown into, he did the same for her.

"I think I did pretty well… at least up till Calormen." Jill stared down at her hands, looking as bewildered as he felt.

"More than usual," he said; thinking they could very well stop babbling things they didn't mean and look at each other. Eustace sighed at himself and grabbed the first thing that came to mind; the thing that had started it after all: Jill's wadded-up debacle of a world map. He ran a hand over crumpled paper, flattening it out on the table.

"You'd better get on with your Geography, you know," he said in abrupt tones, changing to his blunt voice in an instant.

Jill's pensive look turned stormy the way he knew it would, and Eustace couldn't help it…the grin across his face could have rivaled the Ford of Beruna.

"Oh come off it Pole! All right you're nearly an ace at…" he looked all around the empty room again, and went on, still grinning "…Narnia, Archenland, and everything, but these ruddy maps could use more than a bit of…Ow!"

Jill had damn near crushed his foot to the floor, and was now wearing a smirk that was an awful lot like his own. Eustace groaned, rubbed his aching foot, and tried to glower but it was hopeless; he had a crazy whim to burst out laughing.

He was speculating insanely again: that he would maybe let her get away with treading all over his shoes and he'd jolly well have his revenge, and…

//…maybe…maybe, she'd take his hand again, and let him follow the Dawn Treader's path from the harbor at Cair Paravel all the way to the World's End; right on her small, silky-smooth palm, because he'd really be quite an ace at that.//

Eustace was blushing or something like it… and that did it, he leapt to his feet.

"I'm going up to the dorms, then." he said grudgingly, his laughter gone, his cheeks tingling with heat. Jill uncurled in her seat, looking instantly sorry.

"Oh don't get shirty, I was only messing about!"

"I know…don't do that again," Eustace warned, but more warmth pooled in his chest as he stooped over to sweep his scattered possessions from their table. //It's only me…you can do anything you want Pole, you ought to know that.//

"I really should," he straightened up on unsteady legs. "Spivvins'll be wondering what I'm up to. Said I'd look over Geography with him as well. He's much worse than you are, if you'd believe it." he added, trying mightily not to relish in the affection fighting to take over Jill's face. Then she peeked at his standing form and looked away, fidgeting with the fingers that had traced Aslan's kingdoms across his hand. Eustace had gathered up all his things, but he stopped in his tracks, a creeping instinct coming over him. He fisted the hand she'd marked, stirring a light shiver up his spine.

"You know, your Geography maps…" he began on that instinct; and Jill gave a very rebellious sigh.

"…aren't really all that horrible!" Eustace finished, almost choking on his words. //Blimey, a full-on lie…// But then , he'd never linked hands with her before and felt like it needed to mean more…never backed down when she gave him one of those blasted kicks… and he'd never, never paused just to look at her like this before.

"Eustace," Jill burst out laughing. "You had better get going. I think you're the one who's worked yourself into a fever!" She finally met his eyes, her smile complete… and there was no mistaking it, they stared at each other far too long, heat simmering just beneath his own cheeks.

Jill broke it first, turning her slightly flushed face towards the fireplace, and Eustace exhaled slowly. "I'll be off, then," he told her, speaking fast, and sweeping his sweat-damp hair out of his eyes.

She gave a nod, still watching the leaping flames, as Eustace near-bolted out of the common room, calling over his shoulder, "Cheers, see you tomorrow!"

Later that night, when Jacob Spivvins asked him why he looked like he'd met with a ghost, Eustace merely grunted "Too much sun…m'sick, I think." penciling more lines across his roommate's atrocious maps.

He didn't add that he'd seen things that could put silly ghosts to shame…and Jill Pole could back him up on that.

Even later, after Jacob was sound asleep, Eustace stealthily snuck out one of Edmund's books, carefully sliding the folded papers from its jacket.

By lamplight, he smoothed out the intricate, beautifully drawn maps of Narnia and it's bordering countries. Eustace held them up, whistling in wonder. He'd have to think of a way to thank his cousin properly; these maps were near-works of art—he ought to know.

//Aslan…Narnia…the Eastern Sea…everyone…//

In their unspoken wait, they'd always found ways to bring it all home.

And even when he didn't…

His fingers ghosted over his left hand, at the spots where Jill had marked him. With those bare, wandering hands, and perpetually bitten fingernails…she'd be Pole and he still wanted to be back there. //With her…he couldn't imagine it else. With Jill, to snipe at, and to laugh with, and to draw their hopes out on his outstretched hand… and one day they might be back to stay, and…with her, he'd always be back, and he'd be happy.//

He shut his eyes. He swallowed hard. He shivered all over, again.

That was when he rolled over on his back, cursing the root of the forces that had stirred up these peculiar things in his mind, and in his blood:

Yes, when it all came down to it …Eustace Clarence Scrubb blamed Geography

He really, really did.

(I do not know what is it about you that closes

and opens only something in me understands

the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)

nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

-

4th stanza, "Somewhere I have never traveled"

A/N: The tiniest germ of an idea for this story came while I was listening to the Chili Pepper's 'Zephyr Song"; the line "Can I get your hand to write on?" to be exact. I've no precise idea how Eustace and Jill came out of it, but if your narrator is Eustace…forget it, he'll be stubbornly, irritably insisting that the story be told. :squeezes Eustace!muse affectionately:

And in case anybody wondered 'bout the title..."cartography" is 'the science and art of creating maps'