Even after only a few short hours together, dinner and some time in the family room, Mr. Pevensie knew his children had changed. His wife confirmed it when he brought up their reactions to the horns.

"I didn't want to worry you," she explained, her face tight and upset, "But they've been so different since they got back from the country."

"In a good way or a bad way?" Mr. Pevensie asked, worry coloring his voice. If he should die and she was left alone with them again… (it was his secret, the doctor's words, and he meant never to let them know, not while there was still a chance for a happy ending).

"Both," Helen said as she slid under the covers. "Edmund's so much better now. He'd gotten quite unmanageable, and he and Peter were always at each other's throats. But they're very close now, and I don't have complaints from his school about bullying anymore."

"But?" Mr. Pevensie prompted, feeling her reluctance to worry him.

"Every single one of their teachers has told me they're model students, well behaved and good, but they never volunteer any answers or seem as if they're really engaged in what's going on. And then…" she hesitated again. "Then there's the nightmares," she finished. "Edmund never goes more than two nights without one, and Peter's almost as bad. When they first came back, it wasn't as often, but it's gotten worse and worse."

"This war is awful," Mr. Pevensie said sympathetically, and then he didn't ask any more questions.

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He woke later that night to Edmund's screams, and bolted out of bed and towards his room. For a moment he was back in battle, running towards death and bloodshed because there was nowhere else to go and you could hear your mate screaming and you had to make it stop make it stop make it stop, and then he wrenched open Edmund's door and saw his sons.

Peter was holding Edmund, was whispering fiercely, his words like fire lighting the darkness as Edmund clung to Peter desperately.

"It's all right, Ed, I'm here. I'm here, and she won't ever get you, not ever. Let the world fall to ruin, but she won't get you." Edmund was sobbing, his hands clenching and unclenching on Peter's shirt almost mechanically.

"I tried so hard, Pete, so hard, and she won," Edmund said, his voice broken. "I can still see her eyes in the dark, and Aslan's face is fading already."

"She's dead and gone now, it's all right Ed," Pete whispered. "Now shhh. Sleep. You'll wake mum again." Mr. Pevensie stepped slowly out the door and closed it behind him, listening until Edmund's sobs changed to deep breaths and he heard Pete's sheets rustle as the older boy returned to bed.

Slowly, Mr. Pevensie walked down the stairs, unable to keep back the doubt that filled his mind. What was wrong? What memories could Edmund possibly know that would prompt that fear and anguish in his voice? And who was 'her'? He'd like to break her nose if his son's nightmares were her fault.

---------------

It was Peter's voice that awoke him next. Mr. Pevensie was drowning in the grief and loss that filled it, suffocating in terror, and then he was opening the door again to find Edmund holding Peter, who was drawing in deep shuddering breaths.

"I'm so sorry, Ed, so sorry," Pete whispered, grief in every tone of his voice. "I thought I'd get there in time, I thought your wing would hold longer, I thought you were safe. I should have thought, should have remembered, should have known-"

"It was my job to know, remember Pete?" Edmund interrupted, his voice firm and calm, but Mr. Pevensie could see the rigid lines written across his face as he held Peter, could see the remembered pain in every line of Edmund's body. "I'm the Spymaster, it was nobody's fault but mine. You couldn't have known that the dwarves would break rank, they'd never done that before. And I didn't die, remember? Lucy was there, it was all right."

"So much blood," Peter said, his laugh catching and turning into a sob. "I meant to protect you always, and I couldn't. But I tried, Ed, I really did." Edmund laughed, and smoothed Peter's hair with his hand as he pulled the rumpled covers up about the older boy.

"I was King too, Pete. The battle was my place as much as yours."

"I know," Peter said, and his eyes fluttered shut. "And we're alive. So it's… it's all right." It sounded as though he were repeating something he had been told hundreds of times but never really believed. Edmund nodded, and Mr. Pevensie turned his eyes away and left again, feeling guilty, as though he had intruded on something supremely private.

--------------

Helen was awake and waiting when he got back to bed the second time.

"Do the girls ever have nightmares?" he asked.

"Susan had one twice, and Lucy will cry out in her sleep every so often, but it's never so bad as the boys," Helen said. Mr. Pevensie hesitated.

"The way they were talking," he said after a moment. "It was all death and war, but where have they ever seen that? They weren't even in London for the Blitz, and the way they talked… it was like they'd walked with death." He paused, his arms reaching out in the darkness to hold Helen close to him. "Their eyes," he said. "They were soldier's eyes." (King's eyes, something in the very back of his brain said, but like the others, it never reached his thoughts.)

A/N: I'd just like to mention that this isn't meant as a continuing story- it's meant as a series of fics centered around the same idea and general time (when Mr. Pevensie comes back from the war on a sick leave for a few months). I'm not sure what all will end up happening, but it doesn't really have a plot, so...

.. - Thanks! I'm glad you liked it.

BundiBird - That was the first scene that came to me, and I tried to make the reactions fit the person. Thanks!

Coralyne - It's something that's always intrigued me, because they would have been so different after they came back. Thank you.

bookwurm23 - It's one of my favorite subjects too (can you tell?). Glad you like it! Thanks.

LunaNigra - It'll be 'continued' in that any fics I write that fit it will be added as new chapters to this. XD

SpangleyPony - I don't know where it's going myself. XD Thank you!