A/N: This is my fourth and final in-depth Pevensie character piece. Title quote from The Last Battle.
Susan is twelve years old when the bombs begin to fall. The War had not seemed real until it took Dad away; it had not seemed eternal until the ground shook with thunder and the lethal throbbing of engines swarmed overhead. Susan huddles in the bomb shelter, and tries to remember happier times. Cricket in the yard with Dad. Her first day of school, new dress, Mum's smile.
Happier times don't stop the bombs, or the train that takes them away from London, far into the countryside.
When her brothers fight, when Lucy cries, when the picture of Mum and Dad seems faded and small in its frame, Susan must be strong. She will not even allow herself to dab at her eyes with a handkerchief; she will not let herself remember the happier times. She forces away the tears and thinks, it could be worse.
...
Susan keeps many secrets in her life. The one that haunts her most is this: she remembers every second from the night at the Stone Table. Later, she will deny the truth of Narnia, and she will go farther than that—she will mock the memories, explaining them away, because remembering happier times has never done much good for anyone. But she never speaks of that night, and she never forgets it.
...
She and Edmund ride to Calormen at the head of a suitably grand entourage. There are delicate politics to ravel and unravel, not least of which is the problem of Rabadash. And yet, the sun (her sun) is shining on Archenland as they pass through, and Susan thinks that Edmund looks happier than she has seen him in some time.
"How wonderful, to carry our brother's trust," she says. They have ruled for years now, but Susan the doubter and Edmund the traitor—such epithets remain stamped on the hearts of those who bore them, even when time and tide have rewritten history itself.
"Indeed," Edmund answers. The reins hang loosely around his hands—he has no need to guide his faithful Phillip over the road's stones and ditches. "Though whether we shall gain the trust of anyone else on this expedition remains to be seen."
Edmund's mind runs a chess game of the world, Susan knows. He is always thinking, always calculating the risks and advantages of moves ten thoughts ahead. Peter, bold and noble and rather impetuous, relies on Edmund's council.
Truth be told, Susan sometimes wishes he would pay more heed to hers. She is more than her raven tresses and smooth skin and velvet gowns. She has always been a logician; she and Edmund are much alike in this way. Peace, she warns herself. He trusts you enough to send you to Calormen. Will you never be content? Follow your own council now.
"We must be careful with Rabadash," Susan admits, aloud. "He is rash and hotheaded, but I think there may be some mileage yet."
"Mileage?" Edmund lifts an eyebrow.
"Never waste an ally," Susan returns. She can be calculating too. Peter's trust behind Edmund's perception and her wit—it is a suitably grand entourage.
(They barely make it out of Calormen alive.)
...
For Susan, Narnia is no memory of childhood. Susan is the older sister; Susan was the queen of beauty and grace and secrets, with suitors bowing over her hand and eyes following her wherever she went.
And so, when Lucy says, "Remember—" It isn't Narnia that Susan wants to return to. She wants to remember the days before the war, climbing trees with Peter, catching fireflies in the garden with Edmund, watching Lucy learn how to walk.
Those memories, not Narnia, are lost forever. No one else ever thinks to speak about them. Happier times. Susan doesn't speak of them either.
...
Susan learns how to dance—really dance—in America, with satin-heeled shoes and pleated skirts that spin and furl. She likes the lights that line the streets, the blare and whine of traffic, the towers that sparkle in sunlight and in darkness.
It feels different, important, new. This is her second time growing up. This time won't be snatched away by a white stag and a wardrobe; the earth under her feet is her own.
In the mirror in her little student flat, which she shares with three other English girls, she pins her dark hair back in soft coils, slides scarlet over her lips, and snakes up the zipper on a shimmering gown.
"God, you're beautiful," murmurs the boy in the dancehall, and Susan smiles. There are no delicate politics here. No duty, either, but if Narnia taught her anything it taught her that one cannot have it all.
She does not thank the boy in his tailored suit and tie. She stretches out her hands, and they dance.
...
There is one dreadful fight when she returns to England. Only one—and Lucy fights the fiercest, cheeks flushed and eyes sparking.
"It's rubbish!" Lucy's voice still rings in Susan's ears, after. "It's all rubbish. You can't dismiss it like—like it didn't happen, like it didn't matter, and go on living without a thought for what we're supposed to be doing."
Lucy's anger always burns; Susan's freezes. She dangles the words like fraying threads. "And what exactly," says Susan, "Are we supposed to be doing?"
"Waiting for him," Lucy says. "He said we have to come to know him here—by a different name." Her eyes are flooding with tears, just like they used to. Susan was the one she used to run to.
Susan's nails dig into the palms of her hands. She cannot cry, and to force the tears away she must be hard. So it was when the bombs fell, and something's falling now, though she does not quite know what. "It's not as if we can go back," she retorts. "Even you. Edmund told me—third time wasn't really the charm, was it, Lu?"
Behind Lucy, Edmund's face goes pale and still, but he is silent. Edmund, always patient, always ten moves ahead. He knew this was coming, Susan realizes. The pain does not surprise him; it rarely does.
It surprises Susan, but she cannot let herself show it.
"That's enough," Peter interrupts, one arm protectively circling Lucy's shoulders. "That's enough, Susan."
"Isn't it?" Susan says, very coldly indeed. "I say we've all had enough I'm tired—I've barely been home a week and you all insist on dragging me into these childish arguments."
Peter glowers at her, all distrust and no recognition. He must have liked her better in Narnia; maybe everyone did. Everyone except Susan.
Peter pulls Lucy from the room, to find handkerchiefs and take her for a walk or whatever kindness Peter can find in his great heart.
Susan stands as though turned to stone. "I don't want to remember," she says, to Edmund, who still stays silent. "I just want to live."
Edmund sighs.
...
Oxford is very wonderful and old, and Susan feels small again, wandering the long halls, pausing under the shadows of its domes and turrets.
"Do you feel like you belong here?" she asks Edmund, who looks rumpled and sleep-deprived in rolled-up shirtsleeves and a crooked tie. It is the closest she comes to talking about the past, and Edmund is the only one to whom she will say anything of the sort at all.
"Yes," Edmund says, musing. "If I can survive this, I think I'll have earned a place here."
She hugs him impulsively; almost like Lucy would. Almost. "Oh, Ed. You deserve everything good." And Susan keeps many secrets and tells a few lies, but she means this with all her heart.
She still loves them, all of them. She does not know if they know. Except for Edmund, she does not know how to tell them.
...
"Ma'am," the coroner says, as gently as a coroner can, "You don't have to look yet. You're still in shock. Your hands are shaking."
"No, they're not," Susan says. She forces her hands to be still, forces her voice to be hard, forces the tears down, deep down. "I'm their next of kin. I—I have to identify. There is no one else."
The coroner bobs his head. And there is no time, no time at all in this blank room of death, and would she have been with them if she had only believed—
The coroner draws back the first sheet.
No force in this world or in any other can hold back her tears.
Now, she wants to remember, but she no longer wants to live.
...
"Professor Kirke has died, I'm afraid," the doorman said.
"I know," Susan answers quietly. Any louder, and she would have to scream it out, make it ring through the streets. She knows who is dead.
The doorman shifts uncomfortably; he wants to be of help, clearly, but does not know how. "He has—a great-nephew, who is looking after his things. I can give you the address. Not much left; just some old boxes and a big wardrobe. They carried it all out."
The sun is shining on them, and doorman blinks in the afternoon light. There was once a sun that belonged to Susan; she did not want it. It has been a long time since Susan knew what she wanted.
"Please give me the address," Susan says distinctly. "There's something I have to do."
...
The great-nephew is handsome and bookish, two things that Susan might appreciate in a different moment. He has a black armband over his suit and thanks her for her sympathies. She says nothing of her own losses.
"Your uncle had a wardrobe," Susan says. "When I was a child—I was rather fond of it. Might I see it again?"
The young man eyes her for a long moment, a bittersweet half-smile on his lips. "Of course." He pauses. "It—it doesn't work."
Susan is no longer any good at forcing away tears. But these tears do not fall; they only make her eyes sparkle brightly, and perhaps if she smiles enough he will not see them. "I know," she says. It is the second time she has said it that morning; and oh, there are so many things that Susan knows. "But I should like to see it just the same."