Chapter Text
Lilith Griffiths believed in fairies and happily ever afters. Perhaps that was why she got along so well with the Pevensie boy next door. Susan was all logic, even though she was only a year younger than Peter and two years younger than her.
He called her a tree when they first met because of her brown hair and green eyes. She tossed a buttercup back at him in revenge and called him a buttercup, even though his hair was the wrong shade. And children so adore teasing each other, and by the time their friendship was a year old, tree had turned into Tree and buttercup into Buttercup.
Susan read under the tree while they played pretend in Mrs Pevenise’s garden under the mother’s careful watch, carefree in the way only young children could be. Edmund joined his sister when he came two years later, and their father taught them chess. Lucy joined them in their pretend play two more years later.
Then the war came.
Peter became jaded and stopped believing in ‘such foolish things’. Susan tried to emulate her mother, fussing over Edmund and Lucy when given half a chance and trying to keep Lilith and Peter in line. She succeeded somewhat, but Lilith did her best to ensure Susan had a childhood. For her part, Lilith desperately missed the old Peter. She found some comfort in Lucy’s imagination, but it still hurt that her best friend abandoned the childhood wonder she insisted on clinging to. He was still her favourite Pevensie, though.
She still imagined the fairies dancing in the backyard, but it was a little harder to believe in happily ever after when she was scavenging in garbage heaps, and bombs were falling from the skies.
Then, their fathers left for the war, much to her never-ending ire, and times became lean. She spat venom at the fact that only men were allowed to be in the army, and if Peter hadn’t agreed with her, she would have seriously contemplated burning the house down. It wasn’t fair that boys and girls had to have different jobs, she told him that afternoon, pointedly avoiding her mother after the hour-long screaming match about Lilith’s aspirations to sign up for the army if it dragged on that long. “It’s just not fair. I want to fight too! Just because I’m a girl doesn’t mean I can’t fight!”
Peter had smiled at her, though it came out more like a grimace. “If I’m ever a leader, you can fight alongside me.” It wasn’t enough by a long shot, but his bright blue eyes had gleamed with determination, so Lilith took it anyway.
Then, she and her mother lost their house and moved in with the Pevensies. Mum eventually became a nurse and was shipped off to parts unknown, but Lilith was never very close to her, so it was okay. She sent letters occasionally, and Lilith would read through them and write one back at Mrs Pevensie’s insistence, but mostly, she just wanted to throw them in a fire. They never told her how her mother was doing or gave her the affection she wanted—just pieces of fluff and assurances that the war would be over soon.
“What am I supposed to write back?” She asked Peter when he found her leaning over a piece of parchment with only the date and a ‘Dear Mum’ written at the top. Peter’s soft pink lips thinned, and he ran a hand through his honey-gold locks. Locks that were lengthening by the day; she would need to give him a haircut sooner rather than later.
“I always tell my father how everyone is doing, how I’m helping around the house.” He ventured, and Lilith considered it. She wrote it down since she had nothing else to put, talking about the scavenging she and Edmund did, the new recipes she and Susan had learned, playing pretend with Lucy in spare moments, the mock-fighting with Peter in the backyard to help train him for the army, her reluctant aspirations to become a Girl Guide once she reached sixteen so she could help more with the relief effort. Of course, for the moment, she was needed more at home.
Then, the letters stopped coming. No one came from the government to inform her of her mother's death, which meant her mother was ignoring her. She wasn’t sure what she did, and even though she had wanted to burn the letters, she felt a little like she wanted to cry. Peter gave her a tight hug after three weeks of the letters not coming, and if she leaned into the warm embrace, neither of them said anything about it.
It was still a tight squeeze, even with her mother gone, but Susan and Lucy were willing to share, and they made it work between the three of them. It was nice to see her best friend every day. Jaded he may be, but they still knew each other better than anyone. They had inside jokes that were born before Susan had spoken her first word, before Edmund was even born.
“What’s keeping you up?” Lilith rolled over to see Susan’s weary blue eyes staring at her. She hummed, letting her own green eyes glaze over. Susan winced in agreement.
She glanced over at the younger girl. “What about you?” Susan shrugged, or at least as well as she could lying on the bed.
“I still can’t believe you tricked me so you could make dinner.” Lilith giggled, rolling on her side to grin at her. The Pevensies all claimed she was getting too out of hand in doing the chores, but since they had taken her in, she saw it only fit to do as much as she could in thanks. Never mind that Peter had taken on the task of trying to get her not to do chores, and if he didn’t, she would collapse into bed every single night instead of most nights.
The whistling and the explosion broke their conversation, sending them launching out of their beds.
“I’ll get Mum!”
“I’ll get the boys!”
Lilith shoved shoes on her feet and sprinted to Peter and Edmund’s room, her feet slapping against the planks of the house. She burst into the room, startling Peter awake. He sat up, rubbing his eyes.
“Time to get up!” She hollered, effectively waking Edmund up. She tossed shoes at Edmund first, then Peter. They both stuffed their feet into them. “Get to the shelter!” Peter caught her arm before she could run out of the room.
“What about you?” She smiled at him reassuringly and squeezed the hand gripping onto her.
“Get to the shelter.”
She heard Susan’s cry for her sister to wake up and ran faster. She trusted Susan to get Lucy out and Peter to get Edmund, but she had to make sure Mrs Pevensie made it out.
Safe to say, the mother didn’t like being dragged to the shelter while her children were still in the house, but Lilith all but shoved her in. She was only fourteen; if the woman died, it was bad news in every way imaginable. Susan and Lucy made it to the bunker, the sweater that Lilith had left on her bed clutched in Susan’s hand, and Lilith breathed a little easier as they collapsed on the lower bunk and Susan tossed her the sweater.
“Edmund!”
That was Peter’s voice, and she dropped the sweater to shove her head outside alongside Mrs Pevensie.
“Peter!” She screamed, trying to be heard over the whistling of the bombs. She made to run after the pair, but Mrs Pevenise’s ironclad grip on her shirt stopped her. “Peter!” She screamed again, fighting against the woman’s hold. She didn’t breathe until the boys were in the shelter.
“Peter.” She cut his scolding of Edmund off firmly, and he faltered long enough for Lilith to slam the hatch closed. Peter nodded, giving Edmund a harsh frown but otherwise letting him off the hook.
The second she had determined he had worn himself out, she pulled him off in a corner to wrap her arms around him and tried not to cry. He squeezed her back, and she let him bury his face in the crook of her neck, right against her pulse. The few tears that fell from his eyes, she didn’t mention.
“What about me, huh?” She asked in a choked whisper. “Idiot.” He hugged her tighter, and she knew that he knew she didn’t begrudge him running after Edmund, just that he had frightened the living daylights out of her. He grabbed her palm and leaned back slightly.
“Can’t get rid of me, Tree, remember?” He showed her the matching scars on their palms from when they were silly children who decided to make a blood pact. She traced the scar on his hand and nodded, letting out a long sigh.
“You’re still an idiot, Buttercup.” She could talk to him later about him being too harsh on Edmund again, but she had the distinct feeling it would go in one ear and out the other. She breathed out and peeked over Peter’s shoulder. One, Susan. Two, Lucy. Three, Edmund. Four, Peter. She breathed out again; her Pevensies were safe.
Lucy slept with Mrs Pevensie that night, Susan with Edmund, and she with Peter.
"Remember the cat?" He poked her side, her ticklish spot even, forced mirth in his tone. She chuckled as she swatted his hand and recalled how they had tried to rescue a little tiny kitten, getting covered in scratches and bite marks for their efforts. Only for Mrs Pevensie to shriek and shove it outside with a broom. Apparently, it had been a very big rat.
Once their amusement tapered off, Lilith once again felt adrift, her body refusing to let her rest.
“Do you think we’ll survive?” Peter whispered to her, and she glanced at him. She could never sleep properly after the bombs fell; Peter had dealt with enough of her tossing and turning to know that. She considered the question as well as she could in her half-asleep state. It wasn’t the first time he had posed the question. So she answered the same as she always did.
“I hope we do.”
They lay in silence until daybreak, when the bombs finally ceased.