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[called_lioness]

It's not an overly large house, in Finchley, but it's large enough to hold a family.

It doesn't, now, but it looks like it still could. There's enough rooms and enough furniture, and in one of those rooms there's a wardrobe, and when the door opens and she steps out, Lucy blinks, and starts to laugh.

Comments

[the_seafarer]

Caspian blinks and bangs an elbow into the wardrobe door as he steps out, but his attention is otherwise engaged.

"War Drobe?" he hazards, turning towards her with a slight smile.

[called_lioness]

"Of course," around her giggles, "where else?"

She's still grinning, as she looks around, though the laughter fades.

"And Finchley, too. Well."

Well. Well.

And what now, really, she wonders, as she turns and looks around the room, before pushing her hair back.

"Well," again. "Here we are."

[the_seafarer]

"Here we are," he agrees, and walks further into the room, looking about with interest before turning to face her again.

"Your home?" Turns again. "Is this your room?"

[called_lioness]

"It was," she answers, absently, as she looks out the window. There used to be a tree outstide it, but there's just a stump now.

"No. Peter's. Mine's across the hall."

[the_seafarer]

He follows her gaze to the window, and looks out with obvious interest, walking over to lean against the sill.

The buildings are large and awkward and strong, and he smiles, delighted, watching the movement down below.

"Do you want to go see yours? Where would you like to go, Lu?"

[called_lioness]

"I've seen it before, you know," nudging him with her shoulder, "so whatever you like, after visiting my parents. And--yes, actually," she finishes, straightening and stretching a bit.

It's another moment before she actually walks over to the door, and it's several, if she's honest, before she goes in her room and just stands there.

It's much like she remembers it, really. Perhaps a bit neater than the last time she'd been in there.

[the_seafarer]

He hasn't followed her, quite, but Caspian stands back in the hallway and watches her shoulders, watches her head lift, and says nothing while she looks around.

It's very quiet, here.

[called_lioness]

It used to always be louder than this.

There are two stuffed animals on her bed, and one doll--none of which she'd seen for years, really, before...well, before--and she picks the doll up, gently, smiling a bit at it and carefully smoothing the old skirt and string hair.

"Aren't you coming in?" she asks, finally, as she sits on the bed and looks in the direction of the hall again.

[the_seafarer]

A few steps in, and the bed dips as he sits next to her, looking around. The stuffed animals grab his attention and he picks one up, turning it over in his hands curiously.

"A lovely room," he says, and smiles over at her.

[called_lioness]

"I always liked it. Su and I used to share it," she answers quietly, smiling down at the doll.

"It used to be larger." Even if she hasn't really grown, since she left, it still seems smaller, somehow.

[the_seafarer]

"A shrinking room?" He looks mildly amused, but puts down the stuffed animal and drops his hands in his lap, looks over at her.

"Do you suppose Su is about?"

[called_lioness]

"Wasn't what I meant," she mock-glares, and sticks her tongue out at the first question.

At the second, though, her amusement fades and she stands, quickly. "I'd hope not, but we should probably head out before we tempt fate."

She doesn't want to see Su today, if she can help it.

[the_seafarer]

"We'd better be on our way, then," he agrees, and stands. Still, it's a moment before he makes a move towards the door, and even then he moves slowly, reaching down to take her hand. "Maybe we ought to find your parents?"

[called_lioness]

Lucy looks a little amused as she takes his hand and moves out the hall and towards the front with him. "Well, it won't be hard."

[the_seafarer]

He makes a face as they walk down the hallway. "Well, no, I suppose not," he begins, but then they are at the door and stepping out into the day and he stops speaking, to look.

Cars, he thinks, are the oddest things he's ever seen, despite the photographs of London proper that Lucy had showed him, and he stares as one goes by, rumbling along.

[called_lioness]

And everything else aside--which is rather quite a bit, all right, but still, everything else aside--she grins to watch him, and enjoys the look on his face.

"Welcome to England, then," she says cheerfully, still smiling as she watches him.

[the_seafarer]

"Rather more to it than what I saw before," cheerfully, and he takes her hand a little more firmly.

"Which way do we go, then?"

[called_lioness]

"And more to see after," she grins, "but if we're to see my parents, then we may as well head towards the cemetery," nodding her head to the left. "Walk or bus?"

[the_seafarer]

"Walk, please," he says, watching the cars rumble by, a little bemusedly. "It's a nice day, and we might as well get some air. Later, mayhap. On the way back, if we get tired."

[called_lioness]

"As you like," and she's glad to walk with him, for all she ducks her head at times, and feels silly for it, but--

--Well.

It's awkward.

And it--a different it--is also crowded, in a different way than London Below's markets ever are, and she likes the bustle, and realizes again that she'd been missing it, as they walk down the pavement.

"So what do you think?"

[the_seafarer]

He's been looking about, with interest, with disbelief, and now he shakes his head.

"Busy," he answers, half-smiling. "It smells different. It--I don't know, Lu. It's hard to say, truly."

People walk by without even giving them a second glance, and it feels marvelous, to walk hand in hand with Lucy down a busy street, no matter what street it is.

And so he can honestly answer "I like it," when she asks, and smile down at her.

[called_lioness]

"I'm glad of that," she smiles back, and the thing is it's her world, and she has him there, even if just for today, and it's not a thing she ever thought she could have, and she likes it, and grins again, as they walk.

She doesn't smile quite so much when they reach the cemetery, but it's still there, for all her steps are slowing.

[the_seafarer]

It's a nice cemetery, as such go: green and neatly kept, and peaceful, and Caspian's hand is warm around hers as they walk in through the gate. Perhaps there is a pause, before they step past the entrance and onto one of the paths moving straight and slow through the rows of stones and the short grass, but Lucy's head is high and they're walking, all the same.

[called_lioness]

"I don't know..." and she trails off, and frowns, and turns about.

She doesn't know where her parents would be, but she does know where her grandparents were, and after a minute she finds the row.

Ah. Well.

There they are then.

"Told you it wouldn't be difficult," she says finally, and a bit quietly, because she can't think of what else to say, just rubs the back of her neck and looks.

She didn't think to bring flowers. She probably should have done that.

[the_seafarer]

"So you did," but it's soft, and he looks for a long moment at the stones and the names carved in them, and tries not to think about a stonre nearby that would have much more familiar names sliced into the soft gray stone.

Instead, he lets go of her hand to put his own at the small of her back, and when he speaks, he leans his head close, leans his forehead against her bright hair.

"Do you want me to stay?"

[called_lioness]

"Oh yes," softly, "please."

It's easier to lean against him, a little, than to stand straight, so she does. "It didn't seem quite real before," Lucy says finally, and kneels down after a moment to look more closely at the stones.

"They were very young, really."

[the_seafarer]

"It never seems quite real, I think." The hand that had been at her back moves to her shoulder, and Caspian moves to stand behind her, warm and solid at her back. The dates on the stones are sadly close together, and he nods in silent agreement.

"I'm sorry you cannot truly see them," he says. "I would dearly have liked to have met them."

[called_lioness]

"They were--well. They were my parents," she says finally, and traces the engravings with her fingertips and glancing at the next stone over long enough to see the name before looking back at her parents'.

"It'd be bloody awkward if they were alive, though, wouldn't it?" she adds, trying for light, before falling silent again and just looking for a few moments. Lucy rises suddenly, quickly, and brushes her skirt off, not looking up.

[the_seafarer]

"I imagine it might have been somewhat hard to introduce me, aye," and it's light, as he helps her up with a hand at her elbow. She doesn't yet look up, so he watches her down-turned face, and doesn't glance at the other stones.

[called_lioness]

"I could say you were from Cardiff," she offers with a half-smile, glancing up at him and not looking down, before rubbing the back of her neck again.

"Thank you."

[the_seafarer]

"It would never work," he half-laughs. "I haven't any idea what that might be, or where."

But he smiles at her, and shakes his head.

"No, thank you for taking me here. I always wanted to see your world--this London of yours, and I'm gladdened to have seen it with you."

[called_lioness]

"Well, I'm not sure the graveyard's all that exciting, but..." Lucy shrugs, and sticks her hands behind her back, making her way back to the gate.

"I'll miss it, admittedly. London, not the graveyard."

[the_seafarer]

"Ther was more to see than the graveyard," he reminds her, following. "Your house, and the streets, all the people here...it's marvelous. Those pictures of yours don't do it justice at all."

He pauses, just slightly, before catching up with her.

"You have already missed it. Lu..."

But there's nothing he wants to continue with, nothing he wants to tell her. There are of course, things he should tell her, that she doesn't have to miss it any longer, that she can stay now--

But Caspian is selfish, mayhap, and so says nothing, though what is left unsaid is left hanging in the air.

[called_lioness]

"Caspian..." and it's entirely possible she's rolling her eyes at him, for all she's smiling when she looks back.

"And yes, I've missed it. And I'll miss it when I can't come back. But--come on, I want to sit," she says finlly, deciding to do that before saying anything else, "and there's a bench up ahead."

[the_seafarer]

He makes a slight amused frown back at her, and directs his steps to the bench to take a seat with her.

He has also adopted a somewhat reluctant 'all-right-so-I'm-listening' expression.

"But what?"

[called_lioness]

"But I'm asking Adam to take it back, anyway," she answers, watching people walk past.

[the_seafarer]

"You still have time to decide," he reminds her, but his arm goes around her waist and a great deal of the stubborness has gone out of his voice. A middle-aged woman, walking by, sees them and smiles.

[called_lioness]

He's flicked, idly, for that, as she puts her head on his shoulder.

"Do you want me to stay, Caspian?"

[the_seafarer]

"...of course," he answers, a little surprised by the question.

"Aye. With all my heart I want you to stay. It'd be terribly lonely without you." A smile. "And Aslan only knows what the twins might do to me."

[called_lioness]

"Then if you think it would be lonely for you if I left," she asks, raising an eyebrow and resting chin on her fist, elbow on her knee, as she looks at him, "why on earth did you think that I'd want to leave, or that it might not be lonely for me to do so, when you were saying how it wouldn't be fair to ask me to stay?"

[the_seafarer]

He opens his mouth to answer, and closes it again, turning the question over in his mind.

"I wanted you to make your own choice," he says, finally. "Not because of what I wanted, or what you might have thought it would do to me. That if you stayed, it would not be because I asked, but because you wanted to. Because you decided to."

[called_lioness]

She smiles, a little, and closes her eyes at that.

"I want to stay with you. I don't want--I don't want to have to do everything that comes with that. But I want you most, and to stay with you. And that is what I'm going to do. Because it's what I decided. But you could ask me to stay anyway."

[the_seafarer]

A slight smile, at that, and he nods, once, twice.

"Then stay with me?"

He reaches out to run his hand over her shoulder, the back of her neck, down the curve of her back.

"For I don't know what I might do without you. Come back. Stay forever."

[called_lioness]

"I can manage that, I think," she promises, and smiles a bit more widely than she was. "Possibly even longer."

[the_seafarer]

He leans over to kiss her cheek, and when he sits back again, his smile is very bright.

"Then I am glad," simply, and then he laughs, less from mirth than from joy.

"Though we might be hard-pressed to find something longer than forever, even in Milliways."

[called_lioness]

"I'll just have to stay long enough to find out if there is or not, then, won't I?" she says cheerfully. "It's an important question that needs answering and all."

[the_seafarer]

"I'll be around when you find the answer," he promises, grinning. "The the twins will be long grown up, with children of their own to torment me."

Raising her hand, he kisses the back of it lightly, and looks down the street.

"Shall we stay here for a while, or be on our way?"

[called_lioness]

"And they shall learn to love you, I'm certain, as much as their grandmothers did," she laughs, and then it fades, for all she's still smiling, as her eyes close again.

"Just stay here a little while longer. And--and then I think I need a few moments alone before I go home. But for now, just a little bit longer?" Because it does smell different, and not very good, really, and there's noise and crowds and it's London--and that's really it. It's London, and it was home, and right now, she thinks a few more minutes in it with his shoulder under her head are all she wants.

[the_seafarer]

He nods, and wraps his arms around her waist, and watches the world that he knows so little of move by--people walking, cars rushing, horns and laughter and talk and wind.

But Lucy feels the same in his arms, and he'll be waiting for her when she makes her own way back, so for now, they can sit, and talk a little, and mostly be silent until it is time to make their way back to the house.