"Good morning," Caspian called over his shoulder at the sound of the door opening. It was a touch more distracted than the warm greetings he usually offered. He was preoccupied with a batch of berry hand pies, ready now to come out of the oven. The berries were the first of the season, Alexis' favorite; he'd promised her he would save one for when she woke, which he could not do if he burnt the lot. He was shuttling them from oven to tray, wondering which of his early morning regulars was waiting behind him, and then--
No one called him that anymore, was the thing. Not since Daphne, and before that--Starla and their parents always used his full name, formal and proper, but Alexandre--
Feeling as though his fingers and toes were going numb, Caspian turned, started to say, "Sorry, do I know--" and then abruptly cut off, the wind knocked out of him as if he'd taken a physical blow. He staggered a little, his bad knee threatening to give out beneath him despite the brace he wore, the tray of pies he held tipping dangerously; nearly half the pies slid off, crashing to the floor in splatters of red berries and crust, before he caught himself, dropped the tray on the counter so he could grip the sturdy surface with both hands.
It took him a moment to find words. He just stared, his mouth hanging open and his eyes damp. No one called him that anymore, and he hadn't imagined he knew that voice, and--and, well, it wasn't as if he'd never imagined seeing Alexandre in a crowd. He had, of course he had, too many times to count. How many pale-skinned, dark-haired young men had he frightened on the street? How many glimpses of curls, or too-loud laughs heard in the distance? A hundred, a thousand, but he'd never--it had never been real. It had never been real, and maybe he was losing his mind completely, now, but this time--that was his brother's face looking back at him.
"Alex?" he said, and he could barely hear the whisper of his voice over the sound of his own heart in his ears. He couldn't stop staring, eyes fixed on his brother's face, though the world was spinning around him. It was his brother's face. Caspian knew his brother's face, though the frailties of human memory had taken some of the details.
It did not occur to him, yet, just how unchanged Alex looked. His brother was only five years his junior, but Caspian was not thinking clearly enough to realize that age ought to have touched him--that he should not have looked so exactly as he did in Caspian's memory, should have worn some trace of the years they'd been apart, as Caspian did in gray hairs and fine lines written into his face.
His brother was here. His brother was alive. Caspian said it out loud, "You're alive," testing it out. It made him wobble again, and he let go of the counter with one hand to grab the stool Alexis used when she helped him roll dough and sit down on it heavily. He could barely see for the tears filling his eyes now, but it did not stop him from staring, as if Alex might vanish if he looked away. "Are you really here?"
