Lena stumbled across the rocky drive with nothing but her stockings to cover her feet. Little King led her to a dark colored sedan and helped her inside before heading around to the driver's seat. As they headed down the road, he passed her a towel.

"Here. This is for your face."

"What's wrong with my face?"

Little King didn't answer her; his eyes remained on the road ahead of him. A passing lorry illuminated the interior of the cab. That's when Lena first noticed the thin trickle of blood flowing from his ear. She recalled the loud bang that shook the staircase and the gun dropping from the Polkovnik's hand as he fell to the floor. She knew what must have happened.

She reached with the towel to wipe the blood from Little King's ear but stopped short when she saw the blood on her own hands. She jerked her hand back.

Little King saw the motion from the corner of his eye. "That's the trouble with blood. It tends to get everywhere in a fight."

Lena stared at her blood stained hands.

"Lena? Ileana?" Little King placed a hand on her knee and she jumped in her seat. Behind them, the night sky lit up with an explosion. Little King could see the fear on Lena's face, but he knew it wasn't caused by the explosion.

"God, Lena, I...I'm so..."

"Don't!" she snapped, before turning away from him. She began to wipe the blood from her hands. "Just drive."

They rode without speaking a word to each other. The radio clicked in and out of a usable station, sometimes playing only static but neither of them moved to change it. Lena could feel her muscles cramping up as the adrenaline faded from her body. Her legs throbbed where he had touched her. Her shoulder ached where he had slammed her into the wall. None of that seemed to matter. Somehow, she was alive.

Lena hissed as she slammed into the door.

"Sorry," Little King muttered, as corrected the wheel.

Lena watched the lines of the road as they swiveled from side to side.

"Pull over," she said. Little King acted as though he didn't hear her. She laid a shaking hand on his arm, and then promptly removed it once she had his attention.

"Pull over."

"Why?"

"I will drive."

"No, I... I'm fine." He swerved again.

"Edmund."

"I..." He grimaced and clutched at his midsection. "All right. We should change cars anyway."

They drove a few more kilometers before he finally pulled off at a service station. The lighting was poor, but the lot was empty.

"I don't see anything here. We'll have to try another spot," Little King said.

"Wait." Lena noticed a detached bath house sitting off to the side. "I need to pee."

Little King looked around them. He couldn't see anyone following them, but he didn't want to take the chance. He walked with Lena over to the house.

"I'll wait here," he said.

"What about the car?"

"We'll do it after."

"It will save time if you go now."

"I won't leave you."

Lena appreciated the sentiment but knew they shouldn't linger long. "Go. I'll be alright, and you'll get a car faster without me."

She knew Little King was hesitant to let her out of his sight, but she was persistent. "Lock the door then. Don't come out, and don't let anyone in until I return. I won't be long."

The room inside was small with only a single toilet, a pedestal sink, and a small square mirror. However, it was filled with a repulsive odor. Lena almost left immediately, but then she caught sight of her reflection. She froze. "This is for your face." Little King had neglected to mention just how bad her face was. Her lip stain was smeared making it look as though her mouth was bleeding. Her mascara had run, leaving black trails down her cheeks. There was a small gash on her cheek that actually had bled and it was now ringed with the makings of a bruise. And the blood, now a dark brown, was everywhere: on her face, her hands, her arms, and judging by the way her hair was matted, she was pretty sure blood was in there too.

Lena promptly bent over the toilet and spewed a casket of wine. She was about to wipe her mouth with her hand but she saw the blood again and spewed some more wine. It took a few dry heaves for her nausea to pass. When it did, Lena moved back to the sink.

She grabbed the bar of soap and began to scrub her hands, that's how she discovered the deep gash on her hand. She dropped the soap on the dirt-encrusted floor with a hopeless yelp. She wanted to sink to the floor and cry. She needed more than a bar of soap and a pedestal sink to wash the night away. She needed a large tub, or a river, or better yet, she needed an ocean deep enough to drown in.

None of those was an option though, so after a few breathless heaves, Lena grabbed the soap and did the best she could with what she had.

She scrubbed her hands and her face until the water ran red. She turned her head upside down and stuck it under the faucet, what she couldn't reach, she splashed water on. It was painstakingly slow work to undo the knot that had formed, but she felt an odd sort of accomplishment when it was achieved. She re-worked her hair into a simple braid and clipped it off with a pin.

When all was said and done, Lena looked back in the mirror. To her horror, she saw that nothing had changed. Her face was still covered in blood; her hair was still a matted mess. And the Polkovnik loomed over her shoulder. With a lunge, he slammed her head into the glass.

A knock on the door prevented her from crying out.

A voice spoke Russian and Lena's heart jumped into her throat. She grabbed the sink to keep the room from spinning. It was them. They found her. Why had she sent Little King away? He had insisted on staying together; why didn't she listen to him? The voice spoke again. Lena felt like her head would explode with pressure. She could barely see through the tears, let alone respond.

Another voice answered the first. "Sorry. Sorry, that's my *zhena in there." His voice was muffled through the thick door, but she would recognize it anywhere. Little King was back.

"She, ah, how do you say—doesn't speak Russian—*ne govorit po russki." Little King struggled more than he had to; he was much better at speaking Russian than Lena was.

"*Vasha zhena?"

"Da. My zhena." There was a tap on the door. "Love? Are you just about finished in there?" Little King asked. His voice was clearer as he leaned against the door. His gentle timbre was calm and soothing; it eased Lena's panic. "You're beautiful, Love, truly. Now, why don't we give this good man his bathhouse back again and resume our trip?"

There was a pause before Edmund tapped on the door again, softer this time. He said, "Ileana, it's all right. He's gone. You can come out now."

Lena glanced in the mirror again. The blood and the Polkovnik were gone. She took in a shaky breath to quell the nausea rising in her throat again then she slowly opened the door and poked her head out. The attendant was indeed gone. She stepped out and looked at Little King. He had acquired a fedora somewhere to hide his eye, but even still Lena could see the swollen purple mass. She ran a shaking hand down her side.

"Your zhena?" she asked, hiding the quiver in her voice.

Little King shrugged. "It worked, didn't it?"

"Then let's go...*muzh."

Lena took the driver's seat in their new car without any complaints from Little King. She knew better than to ask where the car came from this time. Little King always took care of things like that.

"What's that?" Lena asked as he pulled a bottle out from the pocket in the door.

"Nastoika, a sweet vodka. It was sitting on the desk at the lot, and I thought I needed it more than the empty room at the moment." He took a long swig straight from the bottle.

"Hand it here." Lena didn't much like the taste of vodka, but she preferred it to the taste of regurgitated wine. The nastoika at least had a faint cherry flavor to it. She handed the bottle back after taking a long swig.

"What happened to your hand?" he asked.

Lena only glanced at it a moment. After cleaning it, she had managed to tear off a piece of the towel and tie it around the gash. "It's nothing," she said and drove on.

She drove for several hours. When Little King grew silent and began to doze off, she roused him from his sleep. "Tell me a story."

"A story? What kind of story?"

"I don't care. Tell me about Narnia, if you wish, just don't fall asleep on me." Lena didn't want to be alone with her thoughts where the Polkovnik could slip back in.

"Narnia, huh? All right." He paused for a moment to get his thoughts in line. "There once was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it..."

Little King's tale of his voyage on a vessel called the Dawn Treader carried them through the rest of their journey, or at least until Lena could drive no more. In the very early morning hours, when any sensible person would typically be sleeping, Lena pulled up to the office of a small motel. Little King was in no shape to walk in and request a room, so Lena had to do it. She used his jacket to cover up the bloodied and torn dress and fortunately the counter was too high for the clerk to see her bare feet; she had peeled off her blood soaked stockings several hours beforehand.

Lena didn't think twice when the desk clerk, still groggy from sleep, said there was only one room available. After her panic at the service station, Lena didn't want to be left alone. She drove them around to the room and helped Little King inside.

"*Sedere," she instructed, pointing to a chair. Little King was too tired and in too much pain to refuse as he stumbled over.

While Lena had taken the time at their last stop to clean up a bit, Little King had done very little in regards to treating his wounds apart from drinking half a bottle of nastoika. Lena realized she would have to do it. She found a small basin in the room, emptied the contents onto the floor, and filled it with water. She grabbed towels from the bathroom and made her way back to where Little King sat, bottle of nastoika still in hand. She began to scrub the dried blood from his face.

He pulled away with a hiss. "Wha' you doing?"

"What does it look like? I'm trying to treat your wounds."

"I's fine." He slurred his words slightly.

"It is not fine," Lena said adamantly. "Now sit still, shut up, and let me work." Little King remained silent as Lena resumed her work, periodically drinking from the bottle again. She took care to be less aggressive than she had been with her own face.

"I don't like the look of this eye," she said after a while. She had cleaned it the best she could with the water and towel and the light scrubbing had caused it to bleed again. "I think it might need to be stitched."

"I didn't know you were a field medic as well."

"If I was a field medic I would have insisted on seeing to this earlier."

"I think putting enough distance between us and them took precedence."

"There could never be enough distance."

Little King was silent for a beat. "Do you even know how to stitch?"

"Of course. All Telmarine women know how to stitch. It was a requirement at the House of La Bugia, right alongside how to please a man in bed."

Little King laughed until he realized that Lena wasn't. He looked at her. Due to her careful ministrations, they were much closer than they normally would be. His breath hitched in his throat.

"Sorry." He swallowed. "Have you ever stitched a wound before?"

"On a man? No. But I stitched a cat once."

"A cat? When did you have a cat?"

"It wasn't mine. It came to me one night, early on after I'd taken up residence in the castle...after my first time with a man who wasn't Lord Jarmane. Mind you, I didn't much like cats; my father had one that was a nasty vermin, but this one... I don't know. There was something different about this one. I remember thinking it must have gotten into Lady Gianny's perfumes because it had a sweet fragrance about it, and its fur was soft. It stayed with me through the night, but it was gone by morning. It came back though."

"How often did the Cat return?"

"Almost every night, any time I laid with a man. One night he had gotten into a fight though; he was badly injured. So I took my needle and thread and I stitched him up. I used the glass of wine I had with my dinner to sterilize the wound."

"I am glad He was with you then."

Lena pulled back and looked at him. "It was only a cat, Edmund."

"Are you certain of that?"

"Well, it wasn't a dog."

Little King smiled and laughed softly. "If you think my eye needs stitches, then I will trust you to do it."

"We will need to sterilize it first, and we have no wine here." Lena looked at the bottle of nastoika.

"Oh..." Little King cursed rather profoundly. "Can I at least have a bit more before you do?"

Lena looked around. Two cups were sitting by the sink. She divided the contents of the bottle into each of them and left just enough for one last shot in the bottle. Then she pulled the clip from her hair and handed it to Little King.

"Can you get this pin out?" she asked. While he worked on that, she attended to the frayed hem of her dress and carefully picked a long thread from it. She dropped the needle into one glass and held the other out for Little King to drink.

"What are you doing?"

"Taking off my belt. I'll use it as a bite guard," he replied. Then he took the offered cup and gave cheers before downing its contents.

Lena carefully and slowly poured the alcohol over the cut. Little King only squirmed a little; the worst of it came when she began her stitch work. She tried to move swiftly but precisely as she had always been very proud of her needlework. The thread was just long enough for her to tie a small knot at the end. She used one of Little King's throwing knives to cut off the excess.

"There. It wasn't that bad, was it?"

Little King glared at her. When he removed the belt there were visible indentions.

"Oh, fine. Take this then, *bambino." She handed him the last of the nastoika and he drank it swiftly.

"Now, let's look at that hand of yours," he said.

"I told you, it's nothing."

"Then humor me." He gently took her hand as she turned her head away. She was ashamed to let him see.

"I'm not a very good student, I guess. All your training fled when..." Her voice faded as she saw the Polkovnik looming over her again.

"It looks fairly deep. I can stitch it up if you'd like. Do you have another thread?"

Lena turned her head back to Little King, a slight smile on her face. "Are you trying to tell me you once stitched a cat back up as well?"

Little King chuckled, and then grimaced as pain flared across his face. He held out the hand that wasn't currently holding hers. "Thread?"

Lena pulled another thread from her dress and handed it over. She watched as he attempted to thread the needle.

"Knowing how to sew was a necessity on the battlefield and long journeys. A tailor wasn't always readily available, or he might have been out fighting a giant and that darn pesky button was the one thing keeping you from joining in," Little King explained.

Needle finally threaded, Little King took Lena's hand in his again. "And it was a Faun actually," he said as he began his work. "Did you know their torsos are similar to ours in that they're made of flesh, but their skin is much thicker; it's why they don't require a lot of armor. Stitching a Faun isn't ideal, but we didn't have Lucy's cordial at the time. I did what had to be done."

"Cordial? Is that like a Narnian vodka?"

Little King grinned. "No, the closest thing we had to vodka would be the Centaurian Brew. It was strong, potent, and not for the faint of heart. Lucy's cordial was a magic healing cordial. A single drop would cure any injury; works great on the common cold and sea-sickness too."

"A magic healing cordial?" Lena asked skeptically.

"It was a gift from Babbo Natale."

"Now I know you're teasing. Babbo Natale isn't real. He's a children's fantasy."

"Don't let Lucy hear you say that. And, just because you've never seen him, doesn't mean he isn't real." Finished with his stitches, Little King snipped the thread and tied it off. Lena inspected his work.

"It's not terrible."

"Thanks. I'm ashamed to admit that you handled that a lot better than I did. I don't think I saw you flinch once."

Lena shrugged. "I have a high tolerance for pain. There were... consequences at the House of La Bugia and with the Lord Protector. I learned quickly not to displease and not to show pain; it only made the next consequence worse."

Little King's shoulders tensed as he clenched his jaw.

"You don't like me talking about my days in Narnia, do you?"

"I don't mind the talking," he said, taking a deep breath. "Talking is good. Talking helps with the healing. I don't like the fact that all your memories of Narnia are filled with pain and loathing. That is not how Aslan intended for it to be."

"Aslan," Lena huffed. "Your magical lion."

"He's more than just a lion and He's not magical."

Lena raised her eyebrows.

"Well... He is, sort of, but... It's complicated."

"I should inspect your ribs while we're at it."

Lena's abrupt change in topic was nothing new to Little King. Such changes often occurred when they spoke of Narnia. Little King was actually impressed with how much Narnian talk he'd managed to get in. He was, however, surprised by Lena's choice in a new subject.

"My ribs?"

Lena nodded. "Do you think I haven't noticed you cringe every time you laugh or move the wrong way?"

"I was rather hoping that might be the case."

Lena stood and looked down at him expectantly with her arms folded over her chest. She waited for him to comply. With a soft sigh, Edmund began to undo the buttons on his shirt. Then he stopped, a wicked grin on his face.

"No. You don't get off that easily. If you want me to take my clothes off, you're going to have to ask."

Lena was reeling. Clearly the effects of nastoika on Little King were short-lived. What's more, she felt a strange flush rising in her cheeks and she couldn't understand why. It was just a chest. She had seen more chests that she cared to count. One more shouldn't be any different.

But it was different, because he was different. Little King wasn't like the other men she'd kown. He didn't look at her like she was something to possess, but rather like she was something to cherish. He acted as though he were the lucky one simply because he'd made her smile. When he asked for her opinion on something, it was clear he genuinely wanted to know. Lena couldn't understand why that seemed to intrigue her so much.

Lena took in a deep breath and schooled her features though. This wasn't about curiosity; this was about Little King's health.

"*Togliti la camicia. Per favore."