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Peter finds her alone.
His littlest sister is standing in the middle of the yard, with nothing but nightgown on person and slippers on feet. It’s chilly, the ground’s soggy from the half-melted snow, and were it not for the moon above their heads he never would have noticed she was there. But she is, and Lucy stands alone.
The young man has already tip-toed his way out of the Professor’s house, mindful to make absolutely sure the door is unlocked. He himself is in nothing but his pyjamas, a robe one size too large, and his thinning socks; for that, he feels the consequential cold stab at his bones. The best he can do is wrap his arms around himself and wander down the property.
She is standing perpendicular to him, facing the sky. Peter worries he may spook her; but his steps crunch the snow patches along the way, and it would be something worse to worry over if she hadn’t noticed him by then.
Peter decidedly shoves his hands into his robe pockets. “Lu,” he says, but a handful of steps behind, his breath wafting away in vague puffs. “What are you doing? It’s freezing! Come inside, will you?”
For a moment, Lucy spares a glance at him. She seems occupied. She seems… older. Then, graceful, she looks again to the moon.
“Don’t you miss it, Peter?” she answers so plainly.
The boy is taken aback for a moment. He’s without breath, without words, not because that is what this is all about, but because his sister could really ask such a thing of him.
“Of course.” He shakes his head and smiles, trying to shrug off the sudden web of emotion she’s snared him into, trying to keep his voice from wavering. He closes the gap between them both and places a hand on her head. “Very much.”
Lucy’s shoulders droop, and she shivers. Peter has the feeling that his presence has finally brought the cold to her mind. Yet she does not move more than this.
“I miss everything. I miss the warm and the cold of it. I miss our friends.” The girl squints and furrows her brows, like she’s straining to find an inconsistency in the world before her. “I wish… Peter, I wish. Just five steps into the moonlight and we’d be there.” His hand shifts as her head bows, and through the silver sheen of the night sees a sadness varied and complicated within her expression. He sees the mature enlightenment in her eyes, the silent understanding and the unspoken pain that had stricken them all at once on that day when they stumbled back into this world and, in an instant, had been neatly severed from years upon years of familiarity. “I know it’s fair. It’s only right. But it doesn’t feel right.”
Peter hesitates at what to say. What can be said? Hypocrisy heals none— to tell her to buck up, that it’s really all right, that it will get better in time would accomplish nothing but the sour stomach of an empty lie. What he feels, Lucy must feel a thousand times more. And he misses Narnia all too much.
Lucy leans into his side as he sorts through every responsible, brotherly answer he could give and finds none. He wraps his arm around her, pulling her in, sharing whatever heat he has left to share. Maybe the only consolation here is one without words.
But after a time, she whispers again, consoling him somehow.
“We’ll keep hoping, though, won’t we?”
He squeezes her tight. As if that were ever a question.