The lights of the hospital were dull, but blinding to anyone worse-off enough to walk through the hallways. It had been a crazy night for the staff, running around and hurrying through procedures. However, for the small family in room 214, the world moved painstakingly slow.
Susan took a shallow, shaky breath as she opened her eyes, staring up at those dreaded lights. There was silence, as there always was when she first woke, before a quiet voice filled the room.
"You were dreaming about him again."
Turning her head, thought it pained her to do so, she saw all three of her children watching her with sad and curious eyes. Audrey, the youngest at thirty-eight sat near her feet. She looked exactly as Susan had at her age. Louis, who turned forty only a month before, paced quietly behind his sisters and watched her carefully. It was her oldest, Casandra, that sat by her head and held her hand tightly. She looked exactly like her father.
"Who was I dreaming about, sweetheart?" She asked, her voice quiet while betraying her illness and age.
"Caspian."
The mere mention of his name had her heart racing, as much as it could, and it sent three pairs of eyes toward the machines that kept her alive.
"You love him." Casandra said. "Whoever he is…you love him, don't you?"
Despite her weakening health and the worry of her children, she smiled. "You know I always loved your father…but yes, I loved Caspian way before any of you were an idea."
"Tell us about him?" Audrey asked, wanting to hear as much of her mother's life and voice as she could before it all became just a memory.
"Caspian the tenth was a man I fell in love with many, many years ago. But it was a love that could never keep us together, for there was a bigger force that had a plan for us." She started.
"Like God." Louis added, his eyes hard with pain.
She nodded. "Yes, though at that time I knew him by a different name." She took another shaky breath and continued. "We had our time together but soon I had to leave him and come back to reality. It wasn't long after that I met and married your father and Cas was born."
"What is it like, losing the man you loved?" Audrey asked just as quietly as she had before.
Susan had to smile again. "Well losing him was pretty blue…but loving him, well sweetheart it was completely red."
"Red?" Casandra asked. "What do you mean?"
"It was the color that we saw most during our time together." She said, not wanting to mention the battle that they had been through to her children. "The way the sky would turn red as night came and we sat under a tree outside his home. It was the color of the dress I wore one night while we sat under the stars." She sighed as she gripped her daughter's hand. "I guess it's only fitting that I was wearing blue the day we said goodbye."
She saw the still confused looks on her kids' faces and knew they thought it was a symptom of her illness. "Caspian was…okay I'm going to try and explain this in a way you guys might understand."
She started coughing suddenly and felt Cas grip her hand while Louis helped to prop her up against the hard pillows. Once she calmed down, she tried to ignore the pain in her chest. She knew her siblings would in to see her soon, and she wanted to get this story out before they arrived and interrupted her.
"I loved Caspian. Whenever I argued with him, it was like attempting to work on a crossword puzzle but finding no answer—impossible. But I found that once we had been separated and I met your father that I hadn't stopped thinking about him and I felt guilty. So I tried to forget him, which I quickly found was like trying to know someone that you had never met before. For a while I even regretted my feelings, but that was like wishing you had never found out that love could still be there and be strong."
"And when you finally accepted that you loved him still?" Louis asked this time, finally understanding his mother's feelings.
She smiled at him warmly, happier than he had ever seen her. "Loving him was like being in the middle of a free fall and trying to change your mind. I couldn't help it and I found that I didn't want to."
"Is that what you dream about?" Casandra asked her. "You dream of Caspian and your love for him?"
Letting her mind wander, she sighed. "I dream of the field we laid in, with the red flowers blooming around us. As the sun set it would turn the sky a light red color. It was so beautiful." Then she looked at Casandra. "And I dream of his eyes. I do miss his gorgeous brown eyes."
She started to feel tired then, and it seemed her children understood as they sat back and let her drift off to sleep. She woke hours later, but she could barely open her eyes as they felt heavier than she ever remembered them feeling. Both of her hands were held in other people's and she sensed more people in the room than when she had fallen asleep.
When she finally managed to open her eyes they were glassy and unfocused. She did register that her siblings were in the room now, and while Casandra still held on to her right hand, she saw that Peter had her left.
Most of the people in the room were crying and Peter tightened his grip when he saw that she had woken. "It's okay, Su. Go to Aslan's land." He said quietly and the four siblings ignored the questioning and confused glances of her children. "He's waiting for you there."
She didn't need to ask who he meant as everyone understood. She couldn't find the energy to speak, but looked at him with eyes as if to ask 'do you really think so'. Nodding, Edmund sighed and smiled sadly at her from the end of her bed.
"Lucy and I got to know him really well on the Dawn Treader that last time we went back, Su. If we understood him at all, which I think we did, he'll be waiting for you."
Lucy nodded. "He's always been waiting for you. He'll be there waiting for you along with Aslan, Reepicheep, Tumnus, the beavers…you won't ever be alone. We'll all be together again one day. Peter's right. We'll see you in Aslan's land."
Nodding her head slowly she smiled at her children, as if to say 'I love you' and then looked back at her siblings doing the same.
Then she looked at the ceiling and furrowed her brow at the light that was coming closer to her. Wasn't it supposed to be a white light? Why did it look more…
"Oh." Susan gasped and looked around her. "It's just like I remember it."
Spinning around, she found that she was no longer weak and in pain. Instead, she was full of energy and looking just as she did when she was last in Narnia. Laughing she danced around freely in the field of red flowers as she had as a younger girl. The setting sun had turned the sky a light red color and it made her smile.
She only stopped when the sound of someone approaching could be heard. Turning, her eyes settled on his and it made her smile again, knowing she was looking into the same ones that had been watching her as she died, in the form of her oldest daughter. Walking slowly to her, Caspian looked just as she remembered, though his hair had grown a bit and he had grown some facial hair. It was exactly how Lucy and Edmund had said he looked on their last visit.
As he got closer he smiled and lifted her hand in his, closing his fingers around her own. Saying nothing, he kissed her forehead and then kissed her lips as the sun sunk below the trees, making the sky explode in a deep red color.
"Welcome home, my love."