𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝑨𝐑𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐑, peter pevensie

𝒙𝒍𝒗𝒊𝒊 . . . charlotte's ticking clock

✰ —— 𝐖𝐄𝐃𝐍𝐄𝐒𝐃𝐀𝐘 𝟐𝟒𝐭𝐡 𝐒𝐄𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐌𝐁𝐄𝐑 𝟏𝟗𝟒𝟏 ——✰

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐋𝐎𝐓𝐓𝐄 𝐊𝐈𝐑𝐊𝐄 𝐇𝐀𝐃 𝐀 ticking clock of fourteen days until a man from the war office drove her out of the gates of St Finbars and packed her onto a train with Mr Pevensie, heading to the countryside on a snaking rail track all over again. She was happy to be going, she really was. Except, Charlotte still hadn't figured out what she was going to have to use as a cover story.

Fourteen days was two weeks, and two weeks meant a fortnight. A fortnight to get her already perfect grades in order, just like the letter had suggested she do with her valuable, dwindling, time.

So, Charlotte was meant to be in the library, helping Anna and Susan with their upcoming maths exams. ( She and the former had quickly become joined at the hip, and neither Charlotte nor Anna were ever seen without the other ) Even though half of the time, Charlotte didn't understand how letters correlated to algebra, formulas, or equations surrounded by factions and brackets in the slightest, and wanted to slap Pythagoras and his bloody theorem right across the face.

It didn't help that she'd been taught to learn the names of all the great mathematicians and scientists by heart from the young age of eleven years old.

Regardless she wasn't there, but instead in a storage cupboard with Peter, his hand riding up her thigh and his lips pressed to her neck. She had been convinced someone would accidentally walk in on them, or worse, Anna would put two and two together when she realised the usually punctual Charlotte was ten minutes late and begin to look for her. She would be abandoning the flashcards that Elsie had made for her — ones already crammed full of notes in her tiny handwriting — on the table with Susan and Edmund.

Peter had insisted that she was just being paranoid, but Charlotte had instantly yanked him up by the collar of his shirt and clamped her hand down over his mouth when two sets of footsteps sounded from the two ends of the corridor. The pair stood with their chests pressed together in the shadows, away from the dim flickering light of the gas light bulb swinging on a thin wire from the ceiling.

Charlotte slowly removed her hand from Peter's mouth and pointed to the brass switch behind and above her shoulder, "Flick the switch." Her voice was barely a few octaves above a whisper.

"But the lights'll go out." Charlotte rolled her eyes as Peter bluntly stated the obvious with raised eyebrows. "I know. That's exactly what I want to happen."

The stretching shadows covered the floor and shelves in the small cupboard; the patches of grease vanished from the flickering light. There was only one thing visible through the cramped space, that being the crack surrounding the door locked tightly in the frame. "Harrison." Peter's hand that was hovering in mid-air stopped on Charlotte's head. "Lou—"