clovenbuttercup | Caspian/Edmund: Reality Check (2/3): Joy

Title: Reality Check (2/3)
Chapter Title: Joy
Characters: Caspian X, Edmund Pevensie, Lucy Pevensie, Other(s)
Relationships: Edmund/Caspian, Caspian & Lucy Pevensie
Setting: Dawn Treader
Notes: Filmverse, although the encounter with the Sea Serpent is in its bookverse setting. This happens in the same timeline as, and is a direct sequel to, Light & Shadow.
Rating: M
Warnings: None
Summary: Edmund wakes.

You’ve spent days here, watching over an unconscious Ed and waiting for time to finish the work Lucy’s Cordial began. Your reality, or what passes for it out here on the open sea miles from anywhere, has narrowed for you to the walls of this cabin and the man in the bed.

Since Drinian’s unsuccessful attempt to pull you away from your vigil over Ed, no-one else has tried. The chain of command on this ship began with you before all this happened. But you suspect, when the idle thought crosses your mind as you sit here, Drinian now takes his orders from Queen Lucy. Something that on someone else might have been a smile flickers across your face at the idea.

The lamps are lit in here, but you’ve become so focussed on Ed that your sense of time and place has suffered for it. You’ve no idea whether it is dawn or dusk outside, and care even less. Time has ceased to have much meaning for you. You sleep little because you worry Ed might slip away from you to Aslan’s Country while you do. This fear does not stop you from dozing, though, and your grip on Ed’s fingers loosens a little as you drift off. You are almost asleep when you feel movement against your fingers.

You are awake in an instant.

You have wanted this to happen so much you wonder if it’s possible you might have imagined it. In case you didn’t, you give Ed’s hand a gentle squeeze anyway. And there it is again, the faintest of squeezes in return, and you dare to hope. Your history and character have never permitted you the luxury of Lucy’s endless positivity. You’d almost believed Ed would never wake. If things are what they appear to be here you doubt you will ever again be so happy to be wrong.

There is more, albeit slow, movement from the bed. Your heart is full of hope and it beats faster in your chest, something you notice in passing as much of your attention is focussed on Ed.

‘Come back to me, love. I miss you so much.’

You want to ask him to open his eyes and look at you, but refrain. Wouldn’t he be doing that if he were able? And indeed there’s movement behind Ed’s eyelids and they are fluttering. After all this time it seems he’s coming back to you. You move to sit on the bed beside him, wanting to be closer. The chair you’ve been sitting in for days is no longer close enough.

And then his eyes are open, and he is looking at and recognising you, Aslan be praised. And your heart’s so full of joy it’ll burst if you try to speak. Instead, you caress his face with your fingers and smile up at him.

‘Cas…’

His voice is a little rusty from disuse (how many days has it been?), but you think it’s still the most beautiful sound you’ve ever heard.

If it hadn’t been for Lucy’s Cordial… You squash the thought before it has the chance to take root. Why think about the what-ifs, when Ed’s now awake and needs all your focus and attention? Instead, you pull your joined hands up to your lips and brush a kiss across his knuckles, keeping eye contact with him the whole time. You see what look like tears in his eyes. This prompts you to turn his hand in yours so you can drop an open-mouthed kiss on the palm, and you watch Ed’s eyes close for a moment at the feel of it. The tears escape and roll down his cheeks, and you use the pads of your thumbs to wipe them away. Then, because you can hold back no longer, you lean forward enough to lay gentle kisses where your thumbs have been. Aslan, you love this man.

’Me… too…’

And you can’t help but grin down at Ed as you realise you must have spoken that last part out loud.

‘Always, Ed,’ you say. He needs to hear it and you need to say it. And if your voice wobbles, choked with the strength of your emotions, you neither notice nor care.

Ed is alive and awake. And, for now, nothing else matters.