called_lioness | (no subject)

(no subject)

Susan's nagging her.

Well, not nagging, Lucy admits as she climbs out of the bath and grabs her robe. Not nagging, but asking questions, like "rings" and "dress" and "WHEN are you getting married, Lu?" and Lucy's rather decided she should probably find out the answer to at least some of those questions.

So, she decides as she slips on nightgown and finger-combs through wet hair, she will just have to, when Caspian returns.

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"On second thought," he amends quickly, "I think we should be married tomorrow."

She laughs at that and says, "If only," pulling her hand back to clasp both behind her head and grinning up at him.

"But Susan would kill us. Besides, I need to get you a gift yet."

"I haven't a need for any other gift," he says, laying down beside her and resting his head on her shoulder. "You're marrying me, after all."

"I want to give you one, anyway. Mum did for Father." She turns her head to kiss his neck, gently, for a moment. "Let me."

"All right." It's less permission than agreement, and he closes his eyes, breathing her in.

"How soon? And, well...it'll have to be here, I suppose, so it ought to be outside."

"Very soon," is Lucy's response as she kisses down to his shoulder, then his chest.

"Not that I mind how things are," she adds, looking up at his face and brushing the back of her fingers against his cheek.

"But I want you. As my husband as much as anything else. And I am," she repeats and kisses his forehead again, "impatient. How soon do you think we can?"

"Most of those we would wish to be here are available fairly often," he muses, "so I suppose it comes down to how quickly we might be able to organize it all."

"How's next week?"

...All right, she's not serious.

Entirely.

But she's a little hopeful.

"I'm fairly certain that's out of the question," he laughs, "but perhaps by the end of the month, or shortly afterwards. I'm not certain--what do we need to have? Flowers we can gain easily enough, rings I am less certain about. What else?"

"Vows," she sighs, rolling back onto her back to study the ceiling. "Of some sort. We don't need rings, really. And I suppose...an alternative idea, for a celebrant, if Aslan shouldn't be able to."

The ceiling is unhelpful, really, in providing answers.

"I've no clue."

"We needn't decided everything this instant, Lu," he says, kissing her shoulder. "Everything will be managed."

"But if we don't," she mutters, making a face, "it still has to be decided."

And she rather dislikes that idea.

"I do like the idea of the end of the month," she adds, quietly.

"Aye," also quietly, and he shifts and pulls her up against his chest.

"Then the end of the month it is."

"31st?"

She's content, really, to rest her head on his chest and listen to his heartbeat, and it's enough that she can't help smiling as she asks the question.

"Think I'll figure out a gift for you by then. Unless you've got an idea?"

"There's nothing I could want more than to be your husband," he says, and although his smile is very warm, mayhap there is something.

One thing.

One impossible thing.

But he just runs a hand up her back, and smiles still.

"What about you, my Lucy? What could I give you?"

"You make it difficult, my lord," she sighs, mournfully, and reaches out to touch the smile after a moment.

Because it's warm, but there's something to it that makes her quirk an eyebrow, a little.

"I've you," she says back, lightly, and a little bit teasing, "so what more could I want?"

Except there is the one thing, and while Lucy smiles well enough her eyes show it.

Because it's easier, really, if they don't say it, or she's thought it would be.

"I know," he says to what she doesn't say, and his eyes are earnest, because there's no use in lying, no use in trying to pretend. So he presses a kiss to her cheek, and lets himself think, just briefly, about it, and how sweet it could be, before he pushes it once more to the back of his mind.

She closes her eyes for a few moments and doesn't say anything, because it's sweet to think about, yes. "It's never going to go away, is it?" Lucy asks, finally.

"No," he answers, his voice soft. "I don't think it ever will, Lu."

He almost adds an "I'm sorry," but thinks better of it, and kisses her shoulder again instead.

"I can't--" think of a way, she means to say, and finds that's not truthful. Not entirely.

So instead she tilts her head back to look at him and brushes at his hair.

"If I could give you a child, I would," she says, finally.

It hurts a little more, really, to say it out like that.

"We can't," he tells her, almost a whisper.

"Lu, it's impossible. If there were a way--"

But he stops himself short, because it hurts, and he's always known this, and what's hurting the most, really, is the fact that he still hopes. Hopes for the impossible.

He almost hates this place for giving him that hope.

"I just...I still want it. Because it's you, and me, and--"

She shrugs, a little, and looks away.

She doesn't agree that it's impossible.

She knows.

But she won't say it.

"So do I," gently. "I've not even married you yet, but I still wish there were some way."

"If there was," quietly, "even now--" And she stops, and bites her lip, and shrugs a little.

"If I'd imagined this before, it wouldn't have been--not much, I suppose, like how it is," she says, running a hand along his arm. "I think I would've thought a lot of it was impossible or silly. But it happened."

"I thought it was impossible even to see you again," he tells her, lifting her hand to kiss her palm.

"And here we are."