Edmund knew the other agents must think him mad, pacing the floor like he was, but they couldn't understand. That was his wife, his Bondmate they were listening to, and she was being fondled by someone who wanted them both dead. He listened for a while himself, until he couldn't and he passed the earphones off to someone else, only to take them back several times before he was banned from listening altogether.

Banned. Him. A King of Narnia. Banned from listening to his Bondmate.

He may not have been able to listen, but he could read facial expressions and—to a degree—lips. So he knew when Lena finally managed to make Daniels squeal. He hovered over the transcriber's shoulders reading as he furiously wrote down everything that was said. Eventually the agent turned the headphones so that they both had an ear to listen to.

Edmund's knuckles turned white with fury before he'd finally heard enough. He made a mad dash for the door, forcing the other agents to scramble after him. He kicked in the door to Daniels' flat and was fully prepared to tackle him to the floor as he had with the Polkovnik, but Ileana was a step ahead of him. The instant the door opened she pushed Daniels back with enough force to make him stumble and trip over his own trousers.

Ileana's eyes then instantly found him and she became his only concern. He threw his jacket over her shoulders and escorted her quickly back across the hall to the safe room. He was in and out so fast, he doubted Daniels even registered that he was there, or alive for that matter.

"Please... tell me we got what we needed," Lena asked, head hanging over a bin and body shaking.

Edmund paused; how did he tell her? She looked up at him.

"We got what we needed," he said at last. "And so much more." He handed her a glass of water and sat down beside her as she cried. When he tried to wrap his arm around her and hold her close, she flinched and pulled away from his touch.

Edmund wished he could have taken Ileana back to the hotel, but their night was far from over. After Daniels was taken to a maximum security facility that even Edmund wouldn't be able to get into, he and Ileana made their way back to Broadway. There they faced hours of debriefing where Ileana was forced to recount her evening with Daniels and the Polkovnik again. Edmund was then kicked out of the room while Ileana underwent a confidential severance disclosure.

She was done with spy work. She had agreed to nab Daniels, as she believed she was the only one who could and she was probably right. Now that he was in lock up, she was being locked out. Edmund couldn't help but wonder where that left him. How would he see her again once she walked out the front door? How did he get her to marry him? Or had he failed her, failed them with the Polkovnik and Daniels ordeal? What would he do if he was forced to live the rest of his life without her and their daughters to fulfill it?

He was so caught up in this whirlwind of thoughts that he nearly missed her walking right by him and out the door. He hurried after her.

"Lena! Lena!" he called, jogging to catch up to her. "Lena!"

She stopped and turned around slowly, pulling at the sleeves of the oversized jumper that covered her dress. Edmund wanted to think it was just an accident, that she simply hadn't seen him sitting there or heard him calling her name. When she turned around and met his gaze, he saw the truth in her red-rimmed eyes.

He felt a sharp pain in his chest.

"So..." He swallowed the lump in his throat. "That's it then? You've signed the release contact and now you...you were just going to leave? Without saying goodbye?"

She nodded and avoided his gaze. She caught a tear on her fingertip before it could fall. "That was the plan. It seemed..."

"Easier?" he said bitterly. Her head sharply turned towards him.

"Sensible. I thought we could avoid any awkward goodbyes and spare you any unnecessary apology."

Edmund knew her accent was always thicker when she was upset; he could already hear the distinct Telmarine influence.

"And really, you have nothing to apologize for," she continued. "That night was... intense for us both. Emotions were running high and I know I had enough wine to put a small horse to sleep, and you... you had that bottle of nastoika. Neither of us should be held accountable for what followed."

That night. So they weren't dancing around it anymore then. "Agreed," he said with a bit of relief. "There was nothing at fault with what we did. It had been hours since your last glass of wine; any influence would have long worn off. And I was a King for fifteen years with Dwarven ale stronger than any nastoika. We didn't sleep together because we were drunk, Ileana."

"This is about sleeping, Edmund," she said tersely.

"Sex," he said more irritably than intended. A few passersby turned their heads to look at them. He took a deep breath and stepped closer to her. "'Sleeping together' is a polite way of saying 'having sex' in this world."

"This isn't about the sex either," she retorted. "Or have you forgotten, I've had sex many times with many men. They were all satisfied with my performance and they all said what they thought they needed to say. So I am used to the lies and the sweet words mean nothing to me, but I do not wish to hear you stumble out another apology over them."

Her accent was progressively getting thicker and her eyes narrowed, but there was something she said that struck a chord with him. When he realized what it was and why she was so upset, he nearly laughed.

"Wait... 'what they said?'" he repeated. "Is this about what I said that night?"

She looked off to the side in that near-eye roll of hers. Edmund smiled and stepped even closer. He took her hand. "You don't have to worry about that, Ileana, because I wasn't going to apologize for that. No amount of alcohol has ever made me say something I didn't mean. I do love you."

"I know," she said, her eyes clouding with tears. "I know you believe that."

"Then what... I'm confused. Why are you leaving?"

"Because you shouldn't. I told you, I am not meant to be loved. I know what the men of this world think of me. You were there! You saw how the Director and the other agents looked at me. You heard what they said. It is the same anywhere I go. I am meant for one thing, and you..."

Ileana paused to catch her breath as the words caught in her throat. "You are a good man, Edmund Pevensie. An honorable man. And you... you deserve someone better than me."

"There is no one better," he argued. He reached for her hand but she stepped away.

"Stop. Don't you see? I'm trying to do you a favor."

"Well stop trying. It's not a favor I want."

"Edmund..."

"I love you, Lena."

"And one day it will fade."

"It won't."

"You don't know that."

"I do."

"Stop! Edmund, please... just stop." Lena took another step away from him and rubbed her hand over her eyes. "I... I'm sorry, but this is goodbye."

Edmund felt the crushing weight of Ileana's words pressing in on his chest as her heels clicked down the sidewalk. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't think. "This is goodbye." Goodbye? This couldn't be goodbye.

He dug his palms into his eyes. He'd never hear Meri play the piano again. He'd never play Princesses and Pirates with Sara. He'd never again get to hold Lena in his arms or hear her laughter or see her smile.

The world was spinning faster and faster around him.

How could he have been such an idiota and mess things up? How could he have let Kursk get so out of hand? He'd failed to protect her, his heart, his reason for living. He'd let her down. He'd failed her. He'd failed Aslan... again!

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." He wept.

He thought back to the moment he first saw her. She was on the training grounds with Meri. She hadn't seen him yet, and Nalsa made sure they were out of range of Bea's nose. She was a beautiful stranger claiming to be his wife.

He was furious with the notion. How dare she claim an intimacy with him that he'd given to no other. How dare she claim to even know him. He thought his siblings must have been playing a prank on him; there could have been no other explanation. He could possibly see Peter trying to do something like that, but not Susan.

He remembered noticing her smile first, and the way she laughed with Meri. While dueling her, he was struck by her strength and her resolve. She didn't apologize for who she was. He remembered that duel had been the first time, in a long time, that he actually enjoyed dueling. She wasn't his equal in skill by any means, but she knew her way around the circle.

The slap of the polearm on her bare skin had terrified him more than he could admit at the time. He was worried he might have actually hurt her. He didn't know why it concerned him as much as it did. It was while he was examining her hand for any serious injury that he first noticed the scar on her palm. He'd wanted to ask about it then, but the time didn't seem right.

The scar on her hand!

"What's that?" Lena asked, pointing to the bottle in his hand.

"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 replied before taking a swig of it.

"Hand it here."

Edmund watched as she took a tentative sip from the bottle before taking a deeper one. Her hand, he noticed, was wrapped in a strip of a towel; the palm was bloody.

"What happened to your hand?"

"It's nothing," she replied with barely a glance at it.

Edmund let his fingers glide over the smooth skin of Ileana's hand. They entwined briefly with hers before pulling back and running along her palm. They circled around her wrist and back to the top of her hand only to repeat the same path as before. This time, however, he kissed the back of her hand as his finger ran along the scar on her palm.

"Are you ever going to tell me how you got this scar?" he asked.

She rolled onto her stomach and he lost the grip on her hand. With the same hand he'd been playing with, she ran a finger over his brow bone, smoothing out his eyebrow, before using her hand to pull her hair off her neck. He loved the way her neck curved into her shoulder.

"No," she said. "I don't think I will."

"Why not?"

"It... it was an awful night. There are parts of it I wish to forget but I know I never will. And there are parts that followed, that I wish to live again and again."

"Were the awful parts worth it in the end then?"

She paused for a long while and Edmund knew it wasn't a question she could answer lightly.

"I don't know that I can say they were worth it, but if changing them means changing what came after, then I wouldn't change them for anything."

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

"I told you, it's nothing," Ileana replied.

"Then humor me." Edmund gently took her hand as she turned her head away.

"I'm not a very good student, I guess. All your training fled when..." Her voice faded into nothing.

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

Her hand! It had been scarred the night of the Polkovnik, which meant... "I wouldn't change them for anything."

Edmund pulled his hands away from his eyes and spun around looking for Ileana. The sidewalk was crowded at that time of day, and Edmund could see nothing through his blurry eyes. He furiously wiped away his tears, ignoring the searing pain that lingered. Ileana was nowhere in sight.

"You daft idiota!" He scolded himself. How could he have let her get away? Where could she have gone?

Edmund set off in the direction of their hotel. He was fairly certain she'd want to get out of that obscene dress as soon as possible. He pushed his way unapologetically through the crowd. He had only one thing on his mind. Find Ileana. Stop her from leaving. Make her understand how much and how deeply he loved her. Okay, so maybe that was three things.

A head bobbed in and out of the crowd ahead of him, deep brown hair curled in an elegant twist, a gray jumper covering the shoulder. He'd recognize that hair anywhere.

"Lena!"

He called out to her, but she quickened her pace. Her heel snagged on the concrete and she lost her footing. Edmund rushed to catch her before she fell. She fought against him, but he held firm. Tears were streaming from her eyes.

"No, Ileana." He brushed the tears from her cheeks. "No. I won't accept that."

His hand cupped her face as he pushed aside decorum and kissed her for all the world to see. The shoulders of strangers bumped them from every side. A car horn beeped somewhere nearby. And someone called out a rude remark, but Edmund didn't care. He kissed her. Better yet, she kissed him back. Her hands balled up his shirt in her fists as she melted into his arms.

He pulled back, a smile on his lips and his arms still wrapped around her. "Lena, I don't care what other people think. I know you, the real you, Ileana. And I know I love you. Maybe you don't love me, but I think it more likely you just don't know how to say it yet. And that's all right; I'll wait. Because I know one day you will. I believe our love is transcendent and in time you'll see it too. I have waited a lifetime, traveling through different worlds just to find you. And now that I have, I'm not giving up on us. What Aslan brought together, no Man or Beast can separate."

Then he kissed her again.