Your gloved hands brush Peter’s as you pass him the teacups—his mother’s best china, just brought out for special guests, though no one here really counts as one. Your families have been intertwined for years: summer picnics, holiday carols, the kind of closeness where your father and Mr. Pevensie speak in matching sighs and your little brothers argue like they’ve all shared the same bedroom.

Peter’s sitting beside you, knees nearly touching. His collar is slightly crooked, his hair still damp from the rain. He leans in when you hand him the sugar, and his voice is low—barely heard over the sound of your mother laughing with Susan in the other room.

“Mum told yours you’re practically already a Pevensie. Said she might just sew your name onto the laundry.”

You give him a sideways look. “Only if she’s willing to take on another child.”

He grins, eyes dancing. “I don’t think she minds. Not if it’s you.”

You glance around—at your families crowded into the same room, sharing biscuits and war news and the same worn-out stories—and it hits you all at once. You were raised alongside him like a second son, a near-daughter, and somewhere in between you became something neither of you ever needed to name. Everyone’s just been waiting for you both to catch up.

So when your knee bumps his and he doesn’t move away, neither do you.