War was not easy, even on those with the strongest constitutions. Men see things… Things that make the hardest-hearted among them weep. Friends, brothers, are lost out there in the fields with naught but a fleeting memory or word or trinket left behind from them. The lucky ones make it out, even if they're missing a limb. The unlucky die out there with their brothers. And then the men return home to their family, provided they themselves did not die in the blitz, as far too many did. They return home to their loving wife who has gone a bit grey from the last six years, but her spirit and glow is still there, and their children who were once rosy-faced and clearly children, but now nearly-grown themselves. And he can tell they are happy to have him back, but at the same time… There is something different about the children. There was something off about John Pevensie's children.

Of course, he had expected them to grow; it would be nonsensical to expect them to stay the same after six years. Yet, the change was startling, especially when John was confronted with the sight at the same train station where he had been dropped off six years before. Peter was barely twelve when he left, his voice just beginning to crack, and now was a strapping young man who startlingly resembled John's own father. Susan, dear Lord, was as lovely as her mother had been in the days when they first met; gone was the toothy, slightly gawky, girl in ribbons he had left behind. He supposed Peter and Edmund had done their jobs, however, and kept her safe from the boys she didn't want hanging around. Speaking of Edmund… Thank the Lord that boy grew up. He used to be one of those little boys who needed a firm hand, constantly both in competition with and admiring his brother, and John would be lying if he said he was completely sure that Ed would be alright after these six years. He seemed to be a good lad, the sarcastic, clever sort, but with a good head on his shoulders. And little Lucy, well, she was still a ray of sunshine, but clearly the most changed. She had been such a little thing when he left, all skipping and singing and requests for bedtime stories, but now she was on the brink of adulthood, and following in the steps of her sister. He missed so much, far, far too much while he was off fighting that war. John felt as if he missed the bulk of his children's' lives, and it tore him to shreds.

When he spoke to his wife about their changed demeanors, he found that she too had noticed the difference in their children, but had been unable to wrangle a word out of any of them. When asked, all they would say was that, "The country had been lovely" and that "We enjoy being so close to each other at school". His children had somehow become exceedingly adept at answering without answering, and John wanted to find out what it was that they were guarding so closely. They were his children, after all. If it was a problem, he could be there to help.

Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, depending on how you look at it, John was not without demons of his own. Thankfully Helen was still the deep sleeper she had always been; that the war had not managed to change the fact that his wife could sleep through an actual train wreck was comforting, in a way. Besides, his nightmares were not important enough to burden her with. They happened. It was difficult. One must not dwell on the things which are unchangeable; the only good would come from moving past and beyond.

Besides, a strong cup of tea would fix most things, especially after six years with the Army's shoddy excuse for tea.

As John walked down the stairs, however, he found that perhaps he was not the only one who needed tea late at night, for the voices of his sons—sons he was just beginning to re-recognize by sound, for their steps were much heavier, and their voices much deeper than before—were a quiet murmur following the dim lamplight into the sitting room from the kitchen. He paused, listening in.

"At least it wasn't her this time, Ed. Shuddering Wood was rough; even the girls still remember it. You're not alone in this." Peter's voice rumbled.

The scraping of a chair accompanied a standing shadow and subsequent footsteps. Edmund, judging by the shadow. "Comparing this to her is negligent; of course I still dream about her. That whole situation was my bloody fault!" He took a raspy breath, the frustration audible from the stairs.

"Ed… You were a child. By the Lion, we all were children! Su and I handled that whole situation badly, and Lucy was far too young to really be of any help. You have to stop blaming yourself for that."

"But I don't particularly, and that's the hard part! I should, because my actions were foolhardy and selfish and infantile, but at the same time I know that it's all been resolved, and I've been forgiven." The shadow of Edmund gestured in an angry hush. "I was forgiven far too long ago to let this still affect me, and it clearly does, considering I wasn't even dreaming about it tonight!"

"What part of Shuddering Wood was it this time?"

"You know what part." Edmund laughed, a grim chuckle. "The part where I make a foolhardy decision, yet again, the ramifications are almost too harsh too handle." John felt a sudden kinship to his son, and this mysterious Shuddering Wood incident. His dreams involved the corpses of men younger than his own sons, and the atrocities of the battlefield, but whatever had happened to his boy was clearly unsettling.

"Ed…" Peter was clearly resigned to something, and so John decided to join his sons in their conversation, and perhaps weasel something out of them in the process. He resumed his walk down the stairs, a little louder than before so as not to startle them. "Who's there?" Peter asked.

John entered through the doorway into the kitchen, to find Peter leaning back in one of the small breakfast table chairs, his arms crossed. Edmund's hands were gripping the back of another of the chairs, his knuckles turning white from the pressure. "Mind if your old man joins?"

"Tea?" Peter offered, nodding towards the kettle. John nodded, and Edmund fetched a cup from the cabinet so he could fix a cup.

"You're both up late." Their father commented some minutes later, sipping his tea and sighing in contentment at the taste. "This is certainly better than the stuff we got on the front." He noticed the amused look his sons shared, but refrained from prying. He knew his boys; they wouldn't open up too much to that. "Anything the matter?"

They gave nearly identical shrugs. "Mostly good. Just some things. It'll be resolved soon." Edmund commented, and John clearly knew it was an invasion of the truth. He was surprised by his son's next statement, however. "Are you alright? War can be…altering, especially after such a long time."

"Pat Walsh came back a few months ago." Peter filled in hastily. Patrick Walsh was a few years older than Peter himself, and the Walsh's were close family friends. "Ed and I have spent a bit of time with him, and he's told us some things."

John relaxed, but was at the same time aware he was entering into new territory. It was a step to remember that his sons were not children anymore, and instead young men who he could communicate with beyond just the boundaries of son and father. They understood war, and death, and the burdens those were, at least on a superficial level. It was not something he was used to, but appeared they were far too familiar with. "There are nightmares." He said. "Like tonight."

"Does Mum know?" Edmund asked. His father nodded. "That's good. It'll help if she knows."

"Your mum is a very astute woman. I haven't been able to get anything past her for twenty years, and I don't think it'll begin now." John chuckled. "But yes, she knows, and it helps. But sometimes… Sometimes it doesn't."

"Sometimes nothing does." Peter said grimly. "The bindings of shed blood are not ones taken lightly. Sometimes their stain only fades with time."

John wondered when it was that his son became incredibly wise, and when he learned much of anything about war, or the bonds of brotherhood which fostered on the battlefield. And yet, somehow, he knew that his eldest knew exactly what he was speaking of, and his younger son did as well. Somehow or another, his sons became incredibly knowledgeable on the practices and outcomes of war, and yet were far too young to actually be so. He did not know exactly what to make of it, nor if he really wanted to know why.

"The bindings of shed blood are not ones taken lightly. Sometimes their stain only fades with time": Peter's words reverberated through his head continuously, even as he and his sons finished their tea and conversation, and eventually wandered up to their beds. Something had happened to his boys. Something beyond war and evacuation and a basically-absent father for six years. John recognized in Peter and Edmund the same souls which he found in the men he returned from war with.

Something was different about John and Helen's children.

AN: So... It's been a while. Hi everyone! Yes, it's been like three years. I honestly can't even fathom that, as literally so much has happened in the last three years of my life. Good lord, I was a junior in high school when I last updated. It seems so awfully long ago, and I know I've changed dramatically in the last few years. Anyways everyone, for the few of you who still care to read this, I'm basically in the middle of finals week for my freshman year of college, and I got an itching to write. And then inspiration struck for this little piece. I'm honestly hoping to write a few more over the summer as the Narnia bug has been biting at me, but we'll see how it goes.

Thank you all so much for reading and reviewing, and I hope you all enjoyed it! This was my first endeavor into the consciousness of John, and the first piece for Narnia that I've written in three years, so yeah...

-Abi