So, finally the first chapter of my next adventure! For those of you who don't know, I just finished a smashing Draco Malfoy / OC. Anyway, I decided to write about Caspian X because, he's quite dishy and probably has less issues that Draco--though I guess we'll see about that. I thought about writing this story in first person, but I decided against it, due to the fact that people seemed to like the third person thing I had goin' on. So, what I'm trying to say is, if in this chapter, you happen to come across of 'me' instead of a 'she', I did try, sorry if that one escaped my notice. I sort of riped the title from Proust In Search of Lost Time, but it will makes sense as the story progresses. Anywoo, I don't own anything that's credited to C.S. Lewis. I only really own Josephine. So, dearies, read on and review.

Chapter 1

Josephine Whitehall threw her pathetic 1987 Ford Topaz in drive and cranked the Three Days Grace—she had just finished the final dress rehearsal for her school's production of Hamlet and that made her angsty and slight romantic. Josephine had been cast to play Ophelia, which surprised her because she was not really that big of a theatre bug, she just really love the Western Canon and therefore Hamlet was a personal favorite— Josephine had spent the whole summer understanding Ophelia's madness and despair.

The drive home from the high school wasn't really that far—she just didn't particularly feel like trudging through cornfields at nine o'clock at night in October. Josephine glance at her speedometer and realized that she was speeding; probably due to the fact that her Nana had just rented the new Liam Neeson movie, Taken; and she wanted to fantasize about having a CIA badass for a father.

Not that she knew who her real father—or mother—was. Josephine had been adopted and named by Phyllis Whitehall a few months after birth. Phyllis—who had always wanted children—had been quite old when she adopted Jo; so instead of having the little girl call her 'moma' she told the child to call her 'Nana'. Phyllis Whitehall was a physics professor at the local university; she also enjoyed shopping and planning parties—if Josephine had had any friends Phyllis would have had the best times organizing birthday parties and the like. Phyllis was also a beautiful storyteller; when Josephine had been small and unable to sleep her Nana would tell her stories about the magical land of Narnia, of Aslan the lion, of the Pevensie family and of King Caspian X.

Josephine absolutely adored hearing, thinking, writing, and dreaming about Narnia. When she had been five years old, she had this strange quirk where she would close her strange eyes and run full throttle into closets and wardrobes. In retrospect, she could see how silly she had been, but at the time all she could think was that instead of a wall she would land in Narnia and lovely adventures. It never worked, of course, and Nana finally put a stop to it when she broke her left arm after a particularly intense episode where the closet had been chalk full to the ceiling with unwanted Christmas presents; needless to say, almost everything fell on her, including a fifty pound amp. Even then, when she was twelve years old, she had a strange phase where she would only sleep in her closet.

Josephine was awakened out of her wandering thoughts when she saw the turn off for her driveway. She proceeded up the gravel road until the old farm house that Nana had bought when they had moved state-side, came in to view. Both of Jo and her Nana were legally citizens of the United Kingdom, but Nana had been offered a really good position at the university in Wisconsin when Jo was about three, so they had moved and she didn't really remember England at all; much to her sadness. The house in question was rather small with the majority of the rooms on the ground floor and just two rooms plus a bathroom on the upper floor—which Nana had designated were all for Josephine.

After parking her car off to the side of the single car garage—which housed her Nana's Chevy Malibu—Josephine walked into the house via the side door in the kitchen. The kitchen was a bit outdated with orange flower wall paper which added an excellent psychedelic touch. There were dark wood cabinets with glass fronts; behind the glass were Nana's fine china that she only ever used for holidays and the rare company. The appliances were all gleaming new.

"Nana, I'm home!" she call as she made her way through the kitchen to the hallway. "You are not going to believe what happened at practice! That fink weasel, Tony—you know, the kid that sort of looks like Johnny Depp and is playing Hamlet—tried to stick his tongue down my throat during the scene where Hamlet goes bat shit crazy and slams Ophelia against a wall. I mean for Christ sake, Hamlet's breaking off their affair! And there he went, gross slobbery tongue…oh!" Josephine stopped dead in her tracks as she rounded into the living room.

Nana was sitting on her usual blue wing backed armchair next to the fireplace—the Wisconsin winters made the fireplace rather necessary in the old house. She had her snow-white hair pulled into a low lying bun; her blue eyes were animated. Of course she's not the reason Josephine stopped talking; no, standing across from Nana next the blue and white paisley sofa—he had stood when I entered the room—was the most gorgeous, most handsome man Josephine have ever laid her eyes on, she thought, and that included the time she had seen Heath Ledger on her school trip to Los Angeles in the eighth grade.

He was tall with the perfect ratio of broad shoulders and narrow hips. His skin was the color of caramel and his shoulder length, thick hair was the color of chocolate. Jo's eyes wandered over his strong face; he was ideal with his lovely slanting cheekbones, strong square jaw, and full lips. And when she reached his eyes, she had to remember to breath—they were deep soul-full pools of black ink that would draw a person in deeper and deeper.

"Josephine, close your mouth; it's deeply unattractive." Nana chided. She shook her head, waking herself out of her dazzled stupor. Jo took another glance at the guy and noticed he was dressed rather oddly—instead of jeans and a t-shirt like normal a normal teenaged guy, he was wearing strange brown cloth pants, tucked into big black boots that went practically up to his knees and also a white billowy shirt with some sort of a blue woven leather armor vest. Jo raised an eyebrow and started to back away into the hallway.

"I'm assuming I've just stumbled into the twilight zone or something…so I'm going to go." she pointed awkwardly behind herself, back into the hall as she retreated.

Nana sighed. "Josephine, you ridiculous girl, sit down; I have something I need to tell you." Josephine sighed to let them know how put upon she was and slumped over to the overstuffed green chair and flopped down; it was never good when Nana had to tell her something—last time it happened it was because their puppy got run over by the neighbor; Jo still quite upset about that, actually. Nana gave her that disapproving British look she has and Josephine immediately straighten up and sat 'like the lady that she was'. She started taking her long blond hair out of the bun she usually wore for rehearsal and stuck the pins on the octagonal blue end table next to the chair; all the while glancing at Mr. Hunk through the corner of her violet eyes.

"Jo…" Nana seemed to be at a loss of words for once; Josephine decided to help the older woman out. She put on her prettiest smile and turned to the weirdo in armor.

"Hi, I'm Josephine Whitehall; I assume you know Phyllis?"

"Phyllis?" His eyebrows contorted in confusion as he spoke with a rather delicious accent somewhat akin to the way the school's Spanish exchange student, Marcello, sounded. Jo motioned to Nana.

"You are referring to Susan?" He asked.

"Susan? Nana?" Now it was her turn to look confused-- Nana's name was definitely Phyllis; Josephine could say so with certainty because she had seen the woman's driver's license.

"Caspian!" Nana exclaimed, exasperated that he'd apparently let the cat out of the bag.

"Caspian?" Jo questioned.

"Josephine…" Nana tried to start again.

"Caspian!?" Slightly hysterical this time—Jo could only think of one person named Caspian, and he was definitely a figment of imagination.

"Susan…"

She cut him off, because he was obliviously wrong. "Phyllis."

"JOSEPHINE!" Nana thundered.

"Nana?" Nana sighed heavily and looked as if she was trying not to have an aneurysm. She smoothed out the nonexistent wrinkle in her knee length black skirt and cleared her throat.

"Josephine, you remember when you were young I used to tell you stories about Narnia, Aslan, and the Pevensie siblings?"

Josephine raised her right eyebrow and glanced at their guest; slowly putting two and two together. "You've got to be kidding me. I spent a year throwing myself into wardrobes and never found anything and now you're telling me…?" Out of the corner of her eye she saw Caspian—if that's who he really was—try to stifle a laugh at her childhood antics; well, she was glad someone found them amusing.

Nana had a completely serious expression on her wrinkled, still rather pretty, face. "It was all true—those stories, it's what happened to me and my two brothers and sister." She paused for a moment, as if in deep reflection. If what she said was true, then her life had been extremely more desolate that Josephine could have ever imagined. She shook her head and her eyes lost the far off quality that they'd had for a moment. She looked at her guest. "May I please introduce you to his Majesty, King Caspian X of Narnia and Telmar."

It took a moment to sink in, then Jo snorted with amusement. "Yes, and I'm Anastasia, the last Grand Duchess of Imperial Russia. Phyllis, if you were worried about me being a lesbian—which, I am decidedly not—, you should have just asked, not dressed some stud-muffin up as Sir. Lancelot and ambush me." she tossed her waist length hair in a rather snotty manner.

"I am not worried about you being a lesbian, just about not having friends." Nana snapped just as Caspian interjected: "Excuse me, but what did you just call me?"

"I called you a stud-muffin and I don't want friends, Nana; having friends means conformity to social norms and expectations." Really though, it hurt Josephine a little inside to hear and admit that she didn't have friends.

"Queen Susan, what exactly is a 'stud-muffin'?" he seemed genuinely concerned; also his voice with its accent was really lovely to listen too.

"Queen Susan? Oh, you've got to be kidding me! I'm going to bed. G'night Nana, good night imaginary childhood hero." She stood up and stretched her five foot five inches frame before spinning around a bustling out of the room as fast as she could; obviously Jo had been clocked in the skull during rehearsal and was blacked out in the dressing room at school having a really weird cranial hemorrhage educed dream. Maybe if she went to sleep, she would wake up…if that makes any sense.

Josephine mounted the rickety green stairs to the second floor that housed her bedroom, bathroom and a sort of open loft area where she kept my book overflow. Nana slept downstairs in the bedroom behind the living room and across from the kitchen. There was a dining room across from the living room, too; and wedged between that and the kitchen was a small guest room—which may or may not have been a butler pantry at one point. There was also a full bath stuck behind the stairs. So really, after Josephine went off to college, if Nana wanted to install stairs outside and turn the loft into a kitchenette / living room combo, she could turn the upstairs into an apartment; though she'd never do that because, firstly, she loved her 'granddaughter' too much, and secondly, she wouldn't like some new non-Josephine person living in her house.

Jo went into her bathroom to get ready for bed. The room was pretty small with a plain white sink, toilette and show crammed in; there was almost not room to stand. When she had been fourteen, Nana let her repaint the dull white walls to a bright sunny yellow with purple and blue pansy; so the room seemed bigger that it is. After braiding her long pale hair and washing her face Jo took a good long look in the mirror. In her opinion, she hadn't been a very attractive child, but now she though—and Nana confirmed—that she was rather pretty. Her once chubby face has lost all of their baby fat to reveal delicate cheekbones and small red lips. Her nose, once too small, fit her oval face better now, too. Okay, so she looked like every other pretty face, but, her hair was naturally blond and she had exotic, large, ever so slightly slanted Tyrian purple eyes framed by thick black lashes. JO stuck my tongue out at Mirror Josephine, mad that she had to look so average—besides her eyes—and shuffled off across the hall to bed.

Ah, her bedroom. It was—in Josephine's opinion—the best room in the house; Nana let her go crazy decorating it, so the room simply screamed 'Josephine Whitehall' in a very girly voice. The walls were light blue with gold painted crown molding that matches the ceiling. There was a wall of dark bookshelves opposite the door with a matching wooden desk placed before the middle two shelves. The wall to the left of the door is solid floor to ceiling windows—they didn't have neighbors in the back, so Jo usually didn't worry about weird creepers looking in her window, though she did have red velvet blinds on them just to be on the safe side. Immediately to the left of the door was a chest of draws with pretty brass flower handles. On the opposite side of the door; wedged against the wall was her full sized sleigh bed with a roman style couch at the foot and a light blue and purple checked bed spread. On the walls that were not glass, were covered with movie and music posters—her favorite being a tie between the Basshunter poster and the moody Edward Cullen poster. Because, while Basshunter's music is great, honestly, Edward Cullen was sex on a stick.

Josephine quickly disrobed and threw the clothing in her white wicker hamper. She hopped into bed in her black undergarments and thought about the next day.

Ah, the first Friday of the month—the high school that she attended always gave that day off for some inexplicable reason. Honestly, like teenagers need more opportunity to get smashed on a weekend. So tomorrow Jo had no school, was not scheduled for work and there was no play practice—because, obviously, it was a good idea to give the cast the day before opening night off; just so they could get suitably freaked out and forget their lines and cues. She rolled over onto my stomach and hugged my stuffed panda while shoving my head under the pillow. 'Tomorrow might actually be good', she though absently, then she remembered Nana's weird guest who was probably in the spare bedroom right now listening to the washing machine—Jo had made Nana put the washer and dryer upstairs because the basement was too damn creepy; there were cobwebs and strange side rooms with no light bulbs. And it smelled like rotting corpses. Okay, really, Jo didn't actually know what a rotting corpses smells like, and secondly she was pretty sure that their basement didn't smell as such, but it was still a weird smell. So, anyway, she had told Nana that if she wanted Jo to do her own laundry, that the machines would have to go upstairs.

Josephine sighed again and relaxed her back muscles, which were sore from pretending to be dead at play practice. Well, whatever tomorrow brought, she was resolved to camp out in front of the television and watch girly movies—Nana could do what she pleased with Caspian.

[~*~]

Caspian was indeed lying on the small twin sized bed next to a strange humming machine that Queen Susan had said was for washing clothes. He was currently trying to piece together why he was where he was. He could remember how recent events had transpired to lead up to his current situation, but he couldn't understand, exactly, why those events had happened.

The most frightening part was that Queen Susan and her siblings had left Narnia not six months before this current point and now Susan was a matron of at least seventy-five years old. He had come to seek advice from High King Peter, but Peter was dead, as well as Edmund and Lucy—only Susan remained—Susan and her granddaughter.

The girl, Josephine, was really very intriguing—physically and otherwise. Firstly, she had yellow hair and purple eyes; Caspian had only ever seen one other person with blond hair—King Peter—and he certainly had never seen any human, or any creature besides, with purple eyes. Besides that, he had never met a creature who spoke so freely around him; it was almost obscene, but Caspian found it slightly refreshing. No one ever spoke to the king in such a way, but then again she didn't believe that he was king—well, not exactly that she didn't believe he was king, it was that she didn't believe he was who he said he was. But he supposed that being informed that your childhood bedtime stories were not fictional, as you always believed, would be rather hard to comprehend. Maybe, in the morning, he could make better head way.

Caspian sighed and shifted slightly on the narrow, but quite comfortable, bed. Tomorrow, perhaps, would be better; he could explain the situation better and maybe Susan, or Josephine, could offer some advice. He stared up at the white ceiling and wondered what sort of world he had inadvertently thrown himself into.