Disclaimer: I don't the Chronicles of Narnia.
My first drabblings into the Narnia fandom, however, I don't suppose I'll return to it much after this unless I seriously decide to consider writing an epic that I've had in my head since I was about ten.
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With distracted hands, she laid on her back twisting her rings and twining her hands about in nonsensical gestures in the air as she laid completely still against her sheets. She tried to recall the distant memories of how she even ended up in bed and remembered some strong wine and sleek hands seeking her out as she fell backward onto the bed. While she had awoken alone--she didn't bother to check to see if any of her valuables were gone, there was in nothing she couldn't replace--and her bedmate from the night before missing, obviously to avoid an awkward awakening.
Time was checked by the ticking of her alarm clock as it went on with it's monotone existence as she played with her hands, making shadows on the walls. With a frown, she finally sat up and began to seek out some aspirin.
As she wavered about to the bathroom, fought to liberate the pills, and took them dry, she wondered how her life had gone from a sensible, practical one of middle class socialite to middle class social whore. She thought back to her childhood, to sunshine days and innocent siblings now long gone. A fierce ache groaned in her stomach and she nearly lost her composure before making it to the toilet.
"...Once a queen always a queen..."
It was paraphrase of something once said but the full quote eluded her as she emptied her stomach into the porcelain bowl. She couldn't place where she heard it or even the voice that spoke it--was it a movie or some drama? Perhaps a book she'd once read?--and it niggled against her brain as she heaved. Finally after she finished, she flipped the seat down and sat on the lid, clutching her head and trying to remember things she once had.
Three years ago she'd lost her family and now she seemed to be losing her memory as well as she sat back. "Surely, I know someone who still remembers...?"
She wasn't sure. The Professor and his friend were gone like her siblings, her parents, her cousin and his friend. She thought harder as she tried to think of someone but her still slightly inebriated mind was blank for all but pain that furiously beat the tar out of her.
"Someone...damn. I must know someone..."
Someone to what? She didn't even remember what she had been trying to remember in the first place. These weren't the thoughts one should have when hung over--she hadn't realized she'd be so philosophical when she was drunk off her arse--and it made her hurt so she gave up and tried to crawl back to bed.
In the early morning hours, Susan's life looked like hell while she thought about a make believe heaven that she would forget when she was recovered later.
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"-So I said, Sarah, Michael's a dear but he's obviously too wild with that motorcycle to make the tamable sort!" laughed one of her friends as Susan sipped her tea and tried to smile. She was still nursing a headache and she wished she had thought to bring some aspirin with her but instead she suffered in silence and mascara.
Realizing she was supposed to be speaking, Susan swallowed her hot tea quickly and spoke. "Of course, David's a much more sensible man with that job at the bank. Michael's a nice chap to know but he's not the sort to take home to mother." As her friends nodded at her words and went on chattering, Susan reflected quietly that she wouldn't know anyway if Michael was the type to take home to mother since her mother had been dead three years. Shaking her head to brush off her cumbersome thoughts she turned back to the talk of her friends.
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As Jacob went on and on about how his stocks had increased in value by .09 percent–she wasn't sure if that was actually something that great or if he was just speaking out of his arse, she hadn't been good with economics--she did her best to look like a pretty, attentive date while wondering when he would shut up so she could go get something stronger to drink and someone less talkative to share her bed with that night. She was thinking of a little bar, classy but one where she wouldn't be recognized, when she realized he'd stopped talking and she was supposed to be speaking.
"Oh, wow, Jacob, that's terrific!" she told him, trying to sound her most sincere. He grinned at her--was it just her or did he seem relieved to think she'd been listening?--and started talking again.
"You know, Su, we've been dating for some time-" Five months, two weeks, three days, but who was counting? (When boredom had set in, three days into the relationship, Susan had begun to keep track of the days though it served her no real purpose.) "-and I was thinking about...taking our relationship to the next--"
He never got the chance to finish; the waiter walked up to their table and gave them an apologetic look before speaking in a heavily accented English. "Forgive me, sir, but madam there is a man who seems most urgent to speak with you up front." he spoke with an italian accent. Her brows went up and she wondered what was going on, she shot Jacob an apologetic look as she got up and followed the waiter. She followed him to the front where he gestured to the figure starring out the window of the little bistro Jacob had brought her before turning to her.
"...Rabadash...?" she gasped as she stared at the man before her. He was a tall, with a fine dark complexion with jade colored eyes who gave her an odd look.
"No, Madam." he told her simply with an accent she couldn't quite place. "I'm Savas Sultan, a representative with the Tashlan Law Firm. I'm sorry if I have interrupted your meal but a most urgent matter came up that acquires your attention now."
"And that would be...?" she asked, waiting for him to pick up and continue all the while feeling a sense of dread pouring into her stomach.
"I'm sorry to be the one to inform as such, but your grandfather, Colin Pevensie is recently deceased." he told her with a sorrowful, sympathetic look. "I was Mr. Pevensie's lawyer and he wished for me to tell you in person." he stopped and judged her countenance before tacking on. "I'm sorry, Ms. Pevensie, he was a good man and a friend of mine...I know something of what you must be feeling."
Actually, Susan felt intensely hollow--how one could feel hollow and intense at the same time eluded her but it was the only way to describe her emotional state at the moment. After her family had died in the accident she'd gone to live with her grandfather. He'd be a kind old man who thought she was absolutely lovely to have around and she found it easy to recover from her pain around her grandfather until she bought her apartment and started living on her own. She'd known he had been getting on but she hadn't realized how bad he must have been. She felt no little regret for not having visiting him more since the year before.
"I...I thank you for...telling me thi-...this news." she finally gasped. She felt her knees go weak and thought to herself how nice a brandy would have been right then. Savas seemed to recognize her distress and took her arm and led her over to a chair despite her only half hearted assurances. "I'm fine, I'm fine..." she had tried to tell him as he pulled out a chair and helped her into it. "I...oh...thank you, Mr. Sultan."
"Ms. Pevensie, would you like something to drink to calm your nerves?" he asked and part of her mind laughed in bitter amusement.
"I'd need something stronger than what they serve here." she told him without stopping to think about what she had just said. Feeling a little shocked at she had said, she began to wish a little desperately for that brandy. "I think there's a pub around here, I think I'll go there."
"Are you certain that that is a good idea, Ms. Pevensie?" he asked with a frown. She seemed unsteady on her feet, still reeling with the news, and London was no place for a young woman to roam about in the middle of the night. "Perhaps I should escort you to this pub..."
She tried to wave him off, already trying to get up and grab her coat. "No, no, I'll be fine! I'm sure no one would be about this time--" Ha, that was a great joke from such a sensible girl! "--and anyway, I couldn't impose on you like that--"
"Ms. Pevensie, for your own good, I think you should at least have a friend escort you about right now." he tried to reason with her.
"...none of my friends would be able to right now." she thought aloud, trying to think of a single one of her friends who could escort, completely forgetting poor Jacob still waiting in the booth for her, undoubtedly worrying with a ring in his hand that should have been on her left hand's ring finger by now.
"Then, Ms. Pevensie, please allow me to escort you." he said, finally wearing her down.
"Well...I suppose...no harm in it really." she half answered him but let him led her out.
As they left the restaurant, she wondered what any of her friends would say as she ditched the perfectly nice Jacob to go off drinking with a man she didn't even know for more then ten minutes.
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She groaned as she woke up, feeling slightly hung over and highly confused as to why she was still in her clothes from the previous night, make up now smeared a bit on her pillow and face, and why her eyes felt crusty from mascara and tears.
Sitting up, she groped for her bottle of aspirin she had placed there after that nice Mr. Sultan had escorted her home after only a few drinks. She was torn between glad that she hadn't got completely smashed and would have had a colossal head ache and mad that she hadn't done just that. Taking the pills dry, she wished she had had enough sense to buy a new pack of cigarettes yesterday like she had planned.
With a groan she got up and showered before getting herself dressed and beginning the search for the little business card Mr. Sultan had left her when he had gotten her safely home. With a groan, she went to her phone but stopped for a moment as she passed a picture that had been flipped over on it's face. Her hand went to it, but she drew back and hurried to the phone.
She didn't need to see her siblings' smiling faces when she began to arrange the funeral plans for her grandfather with Savas.
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"Oh, Susan, I heard about your poor grandfather, I'm so sorry!" gushed Emily over the phone as Susan went about trying to figure out the funeral costs--numbers were more Edmund's forte than hers--and trying to remember if she had informed everyone of importance of the funeral's date. Nibbling at her pencil's eraser, she distractedly replied to her friend.
"It's okay, the old dear was..." Lord, he had been 73 hadn't he? She couldn't recall off hand. "Anyway, how'd you know about his passing?" She didn't remember mentioning it to her friends, she'd been busy for the last two days trying to arrange the funeral with Savas's help--they'd talked to each other so much recently that they'd just started calling each other by their first names without realizing it, Susan knew her friends would be shocked to know how fast she, Miss Manners herself, had become informal with him--and she hadn't the time to spend on parties or brunches.
"Oh, I found out from Jacob!" Susan flinched. She had given him the first excuse that came to mind, being her grandfather dying, that she had left him at the bistro waiting for her--never mind the truth that she'd actually gone with a complete stranger to get drunk. "Which by the way, it was awful of you just to leave the poor man sitting there, Susan, if I do say so myself!"
"Well, I just wasn't thinking at the moment." she replied distractedly as she went back to her numbers.
"I do hope you said sorry to the poor man-" She had, kinda sorta. "-you know, Susan, I have it on good authority that he was going to propose to you!"
Like I didn't figure that out myself. she thought with a roll of her eyes before blinking and realizing how callous she was being to her friend. What's come over me? she thought to herself while a spiteful little voice sounding a lot like a sullen Edmund answered. Why shouldn't you be callous? It was your grandfather that died. Besides, you don't want to marry him, do you?
Oh, lord, I'm talking to myself! she thought with a bit fright working into her mind as she tossed herself into the numbers and Emily's chatter.
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"...Susan, are you listening to me?"
Susan blinked and sat up just a little more when she recognized an unhappy look on Jacob's face. "Oh, sorry, Jacob, I was just thinking...about the ...funeral preparations." she said quickly, latching onto the excuse with all it's worth.
Jacob's face sobered--hardly good manners to reprimand a person who's relative who just died and all--but he still looked displeased. "Susan, are you still doing all of those arrangements? I thought your friends were going to help you..."
"Oh, I couldn't impose." she said quickly. "Beside Sa-Mr. Sultan has been most helpful. We're almost done with all the payments and everything, since the funeral is tomorrow." she reminded him subtly. "I'll have to go out to Finchley and help you know."
"I know." he answered with a sigh. Reaching across the table, he took her hand and patted it. "Susan, dear, are you sure you don't want me to go with you? It's a such a dreary setting to by yourself--"
"Oh, but really, my grandfather only wanted a small, close friends and family only funeral, besides I'll be with Mr. Sultan to greet guests, so I'm not alone." she reminded him, pulling her hands away. "Don't worry, Jacob, I'll back by Monday. Now this tea's getting cold, so let's drink up right?"
He looked displeased again and Susan quietly pondered over her cooling tea that he'd be even more upset to learn she'd been really thinking of Savas's voice and how much pleasant it was to Jacob's as Jacob jabbered away.
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As she waved goodbye to the last mourner, Susan turned back and reentered the funeral home. For a moment the light danced through a stain glass window, and she saw Peter giving their grandfather's corpse a sad farewell look. But then she blinked and the phantom was gone. As she stood there marveling at the strange things that had been happening to her in the last week--week? How could it be merely a week?--she heard footsteps to her right side and turned to see Savas walking up to her.
"Susan? Are you alright?" he asked, catching her pale, worried visage.
"I-oh-yes, just fine." She gave him a wobbly smile and tried to crack a joke. "Thought I saw a ghost."
He smiled at her and patted her shoulder. "How about getting something to eat? It's been a long day and you haven't eaten since lunch, I see." he admonished her with a gentle smile. She returned the smile and pressed a hand to her forehead melodramatically.
"Yes, it has been a bit hasn't it?" she replied. "I propose something Italian and fattening for a change of pace."
"Fattening? My, it seems you are a bit desperate for a change, hmm?" he joked as she let him escort her to his car. Turning to look over shoulder she swore for a minute she saw a large, solemn lion watching her with eyes the color of the sky.
"...yes...a change of pace...that would be nice." she agreed, turning back to Savas.
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"Susan, darling, I heard you just got back in! How was it? And what is this I hear about you dumping poor Jacob for some strange arab man?"
Susan rolled her eyes as Diane gushed on and on about how nice and practical Jacob was and how just could she ditch him from some strange man, no matter how devilishly handsome? "Diane, Diane, I didn't dump Jacob. And Savas is Turkish for your information." Actually, chimed a little voice in the back of her head sounding awfully like Lucy, he looks like a Calormene. Secretly Susan agreed with the voice but pushed it aside anyway.
"Then what's this business about turning down Jacob's proposal, Susan?" wheedled Diane. For a moment, Susan looked up from her book and tried to think seriously about why she had refused the young stock broker herself.
"I...just wasn't ready to settle down at the moment." she answered uncertainly before plowing on before Diane could continue to needle her. "Besides, my grandfather just died, I'm still tying up loose ends from the funeral, I don't have time to start planning a wedding."
"Oh, Susan, you're just going to end up an old spinster woman with that attitude! Now, you should give Jacob another chance, I'm sure he'll for-"
Before Diane could finish, Susan gently sat the phone back down. If Diane called back, she could say the connection was lost but at the moment Susan didn't feel much like talking.
When did Diane, Emily, and my other friends sound so fake and forceful? And when did I stop looking at them as my friend and as petty women trying to arrange everyone else's lives? she thought to herself and once again she was answered, by the small voice of Edmund in the back of her head.
About the same time you got your act together.
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Right now, she should be making love to one of her little boys from the pub and drunk off her arse, Susan thought to herself. Instead she was sitting on her couch with Savas on the other end debating whether or not Shakespeare was a literary genius or some crackpot who got lucky and stole someone else's plays.
"I'm telling you, Romeo and Juliet is one of the best plays he's ever written-"
"Macbeth was the best." interrupted Savas. "Or at least A Midsummer Night's Dream. Not that story where they all end up dead in the end."
"Didn't Macbeth die?" she shot back exasperated but amused by him. He rolled his eyes and began explaining all the complexities to it and a little voice in her head sounding like her mother said Now there's a good chap to settle down with.
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You know, she thought to herself between contractions, I'd always pictured myself to be at least married before I had children. For once no little remark came from the back of her mind and Susan felt for the first time a little lonely for it.
And then the contraction hit. She gasped and tried not to scream as her son tried to fight his way out of her.
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At thirty seven, Susan was rather content for once in life. Basking in the afterglow of childbirth as she cradled her second son, her "husband" let her first son in to look at his new younger brother. (In less than a year's time however, they would have their last child, their only daughter, the final addition to the family.) The boy who was always so hungry for his parents love scrunched his nose up at the small pink babe in Susan's arms and she felt a foreboding sense of dread as her oldest huffed and turned away. Savas merely shrugged and smiled to Susan; still unmarried, the two of them needed no rings to know each other's thoughts.
"Sleep, Su, rest now." he urged as he kissed her forehead and ran a loving head against his young son's head, he took his oldest son out of the room with his new child in his arms. With a sigh of contentment, she was nearly asleep when she peered through her half shut eyes and saw her father grinning proudly at her. She merely smiled back and went to sleep.
After all, after years of seeing phantoms, one tends to get used to it.
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At fifty five, as she held her granddaughter in her arms, Susan realized suddenly that no matter how long she might have been at Savas's side, married or not, it would have never been enough. So when the casket is slowly lowered in the ground and her eighteen year old son takes back his daughter from her arms she sits there and very quietly begins to forgive Peter, Lucy, Edmund, her parents, Aunt Polly, Jill, Eustace, Professor Digory, and Savas for leaving her behind.
More quietly and secretly, in her hearts of hearts she begins to forgive a place with a name she can not remember and a lion with eyes she can't recall.
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It rained the night she got the call from London that her son and daughter-in-law are dead and is offered guardianship of her granddaughter. It's sunny the moment the small girl, Mary, steps into her life.
"Nana Su, tell me a story, please?"
"...well, once a upon a time, in a land that has no name, there reigned four monarchs..."