The Next Four Months

(Peter)

"Peter!" I turned to see my sister- the elder of them- running along the corridor to catch up with me. She held her long scarlet skirts in one hand so she could free her lnnfeet. Her dark hair flew out like a river behind her, her crown slipping a little.

" I thought so, I knew it but I wasn't sure and now I am and oh Peter I have to tell someone but I can't tell Caspian and oh, I never expected that-." I held my fingers to my sisters lips. This was the sort of thing that I would have expected from Lucy not Susan, it was rare to see my sister so happy. She was grinning with a smile I hadn't seen since I was a young boy, only twice other than then had I seen her grin like our younger sister- once on the day of our coronation and once on her wedding day.

She'd always been happier here, in Narnia, than she was at home but since she was married she seemed to be the happiest ever. There was no doubt that there was real and true love between my sister and King Caspian and there union had brought so much happiness to Narnia also. The Narnians had became acustom to the story of their young King and Queen, we had even been invited to a play put on by school children which showed the tale of them. It wasn't hard to remember how much I'd disliked Caspian at the beginning and I could still remember the first time I had seen him look at Susan with the predator's eye that I knew well from my time as a school boy. The look in his eye suggested that he wanted to take her and have his way with her. I was protective, more so than I had expected I would be but Susan and I were exactly eleven months apart, she was as close to me as a twin but still distant enough that she was a baby to me.

It was needless to say I'd learned that Caspian's look of longing was more than just for one aspect of love, when I first saw them share a kiss I felt strangely proud- proud of them both- Susan for being able to show the rest of the world what she really thought rather than just her siblings. And I was proud of Caspian as a brother, like I would have been had I watched Edmund treat a girl with such respect.

Now there was something more, a look of love was present in Susan's blue eyes when she stopped in front of me. A look of hope.

"I must tell you quickly but you have to promise not to tell Caspian, if he were to find out now he wouldn't leave with you and there is not a chance that you are going alone into uncharted water. There's going to have to be a change however because it wouldn't be safe for me to go with you, I have spoken to Lucy and her and Edmund- reluctantly I might add- are staying here while you and Caspian go out to discover these islands."

"Susan," I laughed, taking a gentle hold of her shoulders, "you aren't making a lick of sense."

She took a deep breath letting it out with a 'hmm'. Her eyes became focused on the floor and she chewed her lip for a while.

"I don't really know how to say this," she muttered before looking back at me.

"Well I was advised not to go on this trip by the doctor because it could be unsafe in this... State for me to travel so far and for so long and after a while I would just get under your feet and slow you down and I don't think it would help the sailors traditions for a baby to be born during a voyage."

I was stunned, did she mean, was Susan really? She answered my question herself with less smiling eyes, eyes that were more cautious, that were more Susan.

"Peter, your an Uncle." Those words were whispered. She looked a bit nervous because I was so shocked- she probably didn't realise how much it effected me. My baby sister, the one who yelled at me and put me in my place, the one that cried on my shoulder and made me see the other side, the girl I'd walked down the aisle in a long white dress, was going to be a mother. I tried to picture it, Susan with her body swollen with child, Susan carrying a tiny baby with long fingers, Susan holding the hands of a teetering toddler in a long dress. She seemed so young to me, too young to have a baby of her own but she wasn't so young, she had reminded me on so many occasions still I couldn't quite grasp the idea.