"I never really expected to say so, but it's nice to be back in our flat." Lucy spoke as they unlocked the door, appreciating the peace after the bustle of London.
"I suppose it's starting to feel a little like home." Susan added, her tone was rather sceptical.
"He would not shut UP crying for you lot." The 6 half jumped in the air, their attention immediately at Ben, whose eyes were on an incredibly excited Goose.
"I just got back from his walk- I haven't been here all weekend." He added quickly, standing from the sofa. "I'm off, don't worry. Good to know you all got back in one piece, though."
"Thank you for looking after Goose." Lilith spoke, hugging her friend.
"It's fine, he's decent company." The brunet chuckled over her shoulder slightly, catching Peter's eye, who acknowledged him with an appreciative nod.
Both boys had settled their differences over the past few weeks, supporting one another through numerous rounds of CoD and the presence of their ginger.
"You lot should come round for a few games some time." He spoke, releasing Lilith, "Before you have your hands full." He added, nodding towards Sanya's stomach, the girl just sitting on the sofa, reaching for the remote.
"There's still four months left." Sanya rolled her eyes.
"It'll fly by like it was nothing." Susan said sagely as she sat down next to her, switching the channel to 'Love Island'- something Sanya found extremely irritating which everyone else adored.
"There ARE some things which are not supposed to be procrastinated." Edmund said, eyes glued to the screen.
His ex wife made a split second decision, which quite shocked him.
"Fine." She stood up again. "Let's go shopping for baby stuff then."
"What?" He asked, flabbergasted. "But- but-" Money? It's already evening? We don't know exactly what to buy? Money? "Love Island is on."
He was just surprised no one hit him.
"I can come with you." Ben said. "Being secure in my masculinity-" Susan winked at him and he blushed- "I can say that I've been to plenty of baby shops and I know how to get good deals."
"And I can tell you exactly what to get, so you don't splurge unnecessarily." Lilith said too, mind already planning. "Mothers at the nursery do talk a lot about things like this."
"We are definitely coming if it means we get to pick out baby clothing." Lucy spoke for her older sister and she, both brimming with excitement.
"What IS it with you girls and shopping?" Peter shook his head.
"I don't get it either." Sanya said sympathetically before adding hopefully, "Does that mean you won't come?"
"Of course I'll come!" Peter was quite surprised. "It's my nephew!"
"The entire Strange Bunch then. Call Haz and Tom too, then it'll REALLY be a party." The Just said sarcastically but Sanya took it seriously.
"Don't be stupid, Ed, they're in London and we LITERALLY just left them."
"I was being... sarcastic." He defended himself. "Obviously I don't want him-THEM here to shop with my wi- for our child."
Before it could very possibly turn into a full scale argument, Susan, ever the peace seeking mediator, intervened, "Perhaps we should start leaving? It IS already almost 7."
'But Love Island...' Edmund thought sadly but got up nevertheless.
"You're still hungover... aren't you?" Ben spoke amused, noticing both Susan and Lilith trying and failing to hide nausea as they departed the bus. "What did you lot get up to?"
"We saw Far From Home- as planned- we went on the Eye too- then Haz suggested clubbing..." Sanya began, clearly not too impressed by where their trip had ended.
"And then Jonathan suggested to show us some REAL London nightlife." Susan finished, sparing Ben the details.
"Oh! I kissed Tom Holland!" Lilith remembered, beaming.
Ben looked as if he were about to ask HOW said kiss came about, but Peter gave him a quick, warning shake of the head- he was NOT about to put up with another one of Lilith's fangirl outbursts.
'A severe case of fangirl', Sanya had put it.
"Anyway- we're not far." The brunet spoke as the reached an escalator.
"The clothes will be so SMALL!" Lucy squealed, her eyes already in adoring the mental image.
"Well... that's kind of the point." Edmund replied.
Susan was about to swat him for his sarcasm- but it WAS the truth.
"It must be a nightmare for people shopping who refuse to know the gender... how would you NOT want to know?" the Gentle Queen pondered, rather than assaulting her brother.
"People like surprises?" Lilith offered, not too sure herself. How WOULD you buy everything without knowing?
"Or just buy neutral colours." Edmund pointed out, who was still not quite over being dragged down to London for a weekend then to not even be able to come home to watch Love Island, but to be dragged out to by miniature clothes at 7pm.
"We best shop fast. It's only open another hour." Lucy spoke, her eyes on the sign as they stepped into the shop.
"You DO realise we're having a son, right?" Edmund asked as he saw Sanya grasp a tiny lavender lacy dress in her arms. He himself had been looking for more practical items like baby formula or a crib or a stroller instead of clothes but he couldn't help seeing what Sanya was doing.
She gave him a soppy look, which probably was for the dress, as she answered, "Maybe in the future..."
Edmund wanted to scream. "How- I- you.... I'm not a sperm bank, you know!"
"As if you wouldn't come running if I asked you for another baby." She snorted but unwillingly stowed the dress back before moving over to the boys' section of newborns.
A soft squeal caught Ed's attention and he saw Sanya hold up a little outfit, highly reminiscent of the 40's. "This even has a little cap like you did!"
It WAS adorable, he had to admit. "Wouldn't it be a little too big for a newborn?"
"He'll grow." She rolled her eyes and put it the shopping cart just as something caught Ed's eye.
He leaned up and plucked a onesie off the top shelf.
"Look!" He held it up to Sanya, who felt like crying. "Snuggle this muggle!"
"Our baby will not be a muggle but put it in- what, Lucy?" She asked suddenly as his little sister scampered up, excited.
"Peter found the most adorable little crib! With a free mobile on top of it!"
"Peter?" Edmund asked, half laughing. "I thought he was too 'manly' to look for stuff."
"He melted when he saw a little lion pullover." And then Lucy added conspiratorially. "Lilith is getting alarmed, really."
"Well, come on, I want to see this crib!" Sanya said then, impatiently. "Is it within our budget?"
"Why are YOU asking that? Even you're not following the budget!" Edmund shook his head at her as he pushed the shopping cart over to the rest of his family.
"Yes, it's all very cute but- Sanya! Finally. Okay, so. Here's the real question- would you prefer the crib to last longer than a week, or have lions on?" Susan queried, sending Peter a pointed look who looked expectantly at their pregnant friend.
"It's fitting!" He argued, really not quite understanding why the True was not jumping at it.
"Sorry, Pete. We're not buying a new one each week." Edmund spoke when it was clear they'd agreed on the matter.
Just as the Magnificent began muttering something about 'betrayal' and 'meant to be', Ben's head appeared over one of the racks, squeaking some sort of rabbit toy.
"Are they sure this isn't a dog's toy?"
"No! It's ADORABLE!" Lucy replied, in which Ben shrugged and threw it into the basket, "You can let baby and Goose argue over it then."
"Now for bottles and- oh, you could do with another bumper... look, baths are on Sale!" Lilith spoke, glancing to the clock. Twenty minutes left and all they had were clothes, a squeaking rabbit and a lionless crib.
"What is that?" Sanya asked as the shopping attendant held up some kind of a... pump after Susan had finally the sense of ask the employees exactly what to buy.
"A breast pump." He said, looking down at Sanya's young and confused face. "It's to pump out breast milk to store for the baby."
Susan balked, "I didn't know they had those."
"Uh... can you show the most cheapest yet working one?" Sanya thought this one was too fancy.
"We're on a budget." Lilith added.
"This IS the most affordable one."
"WHY are there so many kinds of diapers? It's the same bloody thing." Edmund swore at the racks, holding a whole pack of nappies in his arms.
"Well, I-" The employee was scared which was dumb because this kid was like 16 and she was well into her twenties. "Recommend this one-" she pulled out a blue one "and also buy as many as you can. Babies need them a lot."
"Joy." Peter said sarcastically, still smarting over the lionless crib.
"We'll take.. 10 packs." Ben said before looking at Ed's inscrutable face. "No, 20, no actually-"
Lucy facepalmed.
The shop attendants were far from sad when the group of mostly clueless teens left, minutes before the shop shut, their arms well and truly full.
"A decent haul, guys." Lilith spoke as the shop's shutter's clamped shut behind them.
"And we're all now decently broke once more." The Just added- 40 packets of nappies, they'd ended up with, and still THAT didn't seem enough.
"It WAS necessary." Sanya half scolded him, "And you can catch up on 'Love Island', so today was really quite successful."
Edmund perked up slightly, having forgotten about catch up TV, "And we're passing McDonalds!"
"So..." Ben started the question which was in everyone's mind as they sat down at McDonald's. "Who is going to be assembling the crib?"
"I can help." Sanya said. "I loved building up toy cars for S-Salman back in the day."
Lilith rubbed her back comfortingly.
"And she's pretty good at this eggos thing." Lucy added, beaming as her fries arrived.
"Legos." Edmund corrected, just as the rest of the food came... apart from Sanya's McChicken. "And I'll help too, of course."
"We ALL will." Susan said before adding sheepishly. "I'm not good with manual labour though... I can help with instructions."
"Translation, you're a bossy bitch." Ben laughed but there was no malice in it.
"When it counts." Susan flirted and Peter nearly threw up his burger.
"Really? Right in front of my food which has NOT ARRIVED- oh thank you." Sanya's mood changed at once as her burger(s) came, accompanied with many apologies for being late.
"See, as great as your 'Golden Age' apparently was- you never had chicken nuggets." Lilith pointed out, making some true use of her BBQ dip.
"We didn't. But we had a healthy population." Peter replied pointedly, still refusing to admit the burgers were growing on him.
"Fair, fair."
"15 years." Ben spoke, surprising them slightly, "I remember you telling me months ago... that's a LONG time. Don't you lot miss it? Must've been better than this shithole.."
"Of course we do." Peter said at once. "There's no place at all like Narnia."
"We'd give anything to go back, really." Lucy added.
"Not anything." Edmund shook his head and shared a soft smile with Sanya.
"It truly was amazing. The happiest time of my life... marred with bad, of course, but you can't have one without the other." Lucy continued, remembering.
"The Golden years of our life, right, Su?" Edmund prodded his sister, who was sipping at her cola.
"It was alright." She gave a small smile. "I think I'd rather stay in our world than go back, to be honest, but Narnia was great."
"You're telling me you wouldn't jump at the chance to arrange another Ball?" Peter teased slightly, suppressing his surprise at his sister's answer.
"Well, l suppose... it was all rather stressful in retrospect, though. And in the end, it was all for pompous princes and drunk Fauns." She added, taking a bite of her burger.
"C'mon, Su. You LOVED those Balls!" Her brother pushed slightly, his teasing tone faded.
She shrugged, "Nothing like the parties here, though."
Lilith half expected the Gentle to add something along the lines of, 'oh, but the Dryads WERE stunning' and for her eyes to light up the way they had when she'd first told her of their reign.
But they didn't.
She didn't.
"Really? There's nothing you would miss about Narnia?" Lucy pressed, getting angry. "Nothing?"
She might as well have screamed Caspian's name.
"The jewellery." She nodded. "That fantastic sapphire set I wore for my 21st was my favourite."
Lilith wanted to yell at her, and she was sure everyone else wanted to as well.
"Su-" Peter started in a dangerous tone.
"Drop it." Sanya said quietly.
The bus ride back was in mostly a stony silence.
Ben kept his eyes to his phone, attempting to break the tension here or there, but glares from various members of their party had silenced him.
Susan had tried her best to pretend nothing had happened, yet her forced, overly cheery tone had fallen on deaf ears and so she'd dropped it, accepting silence.
Lucy was still looking half between hitting her sister and tears when they left the bus.
Peter had stayed quiet and tense- clearly trying to reign in his anger and make sense of his sister.
The Just had also kept quiet, but a thoughtful quiet, his arm absentmindedly round Sanya's shoulder, which she decided it wasn't the best time to remove.
"Here, look! Sanya was right- it's on catch up." Susan spoke once they'd split from Ben, gotten back to the flat and dropped the bags in the corner.
"I'm not really in the mood." Her younger brother replied quite mildly, heading for his room, "Maybe tomorrow, Su?"
The Gentle gave an exasperated sigh, dropping her cheery persona once more, "YOU'RE mad at me too?"
"No one ever said we were mad." Peter shot from where he'd began busying himself with trying to cram the baby stuff in a small storage cupboard they had, Lilith not quite daring to point out it all certainly WOULDN'T fit- and so passed him things, waiting for his realisation to present itself.
"Oh, of COURSE you're not." Susan replied sarcastically, her attention now far from the TV screen.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Peter dropped a baby bottle, which Sanya picked up and hit him on the head with.
"It's clear you're mad at me. All of you, except maybe Sanya- and Lilith." Susan glared around. "So why don't you all just spit out whatever you want to say!"
"Maybe this isn't the best time-" Edmund started to say, struggling with the crib parts.
Lilith watched, sure Peter would explode.
But it was Lucy who snapped.
"You've giving up on Narnia!"