Your Choice, and Mine

"Susan!" Peter panted, running up beside her with a huge grin on his handsome face. "You'll never guess! Edmund and Lucy have been in Narnia!" He stood back in anticipation, waiting impatiently to hear her response.

"Oh!" Susan exclaimed, turning to face him rather abruptly. The look on her face made Peter look at her rather inquisitively. "Those- poor children. Eustace must've driven them mad."

"Well, that's just it!" Peter continued, growing more and more excited. He stuck his hands deep down in his pockets like a boy, and he knew she hated it when he did that. "Eustace went with them too! Aslan's changed him, Su. He's still Eustace, for certain. But he so different you'd hardly recognize him! Wait till you see!" He took her arm and started jogging along beside her, moving her quickly through the station toward the outside.

"Peter!" she exclaimed, flopping after him in a very ungraceful fashion to keep up. "You can't mean that this is all you're so excited about, can you?"

"What do you mean?" Peter laughed.

"I mean, really! It's not as if Narnia matters any more to us. It's just a game we played as children!"

"What? I missed what you said!"

"Peter! You heard me! I said it was a game. Now tell me you've had something else in your life to get you more excited than playing with the children?"

Peter stopped and faced her, confused. "Playing with the children? Susan, what are you talking about? Edmund and Lucy had some incredible adventures in Narnia- Eustace is a changed boy! I daresay- more changed than we were when we first came back from our adventures."

Susan gave a short laugh. "I'll believe it when I see it! But really, Peter, you should get a life. You have so many talents that could be put to better use than in hunting for Aslans."

Peter blinked, not quite getting what she was saying. "Aslans? Su, are you all right? You're not making sense."

She smiled casually at his concern. "I think you're the one who's not making sense. But when did we ever understand each other anyway?" She took his arm this time and began to lead him away, feeling a certain affection for her brother's comical ways.

Peter hesitated for a moment, then let his arm slip out of hers. She turned back to see him standing there, staring at her.

After a moment, she grew a little concerned. "What is it?"

Peter dropped his head for a moment, licked his lips, and spoke. "Susan," he asked in a queer tone of voice, "Do you wish- you'd never been to Narnia?"

Something rubbed at a sore spot inside of her. "I-" she looked away, not knowing why. "I really don't care, Peter. It was all just a game."

"Is that really what you think?" Peter exclaimed, nearly in a whisper.

"Peter- this is stupid!" she started to say, feeling terribly uncomfortable. She didn't know what to think. Why was it such a big deal to him?

"Because that's odd!" Peter said, starting to sound frightened, and she told herself she had no idea why. "You spent almost half your life in Narnia! You were older in Narnia than you are now! And you're not the same as you were at your age."

"Why can't you leave me alone? It's all just in your imagination- a child's fantasy- don't try to impose it on me, Peter Pevensie!"

It came out harsher than she had expected. He opened his mouth to say something in protest, but somehow she couldn't stop herself from continuing.

"Life is hard!" she yelled at him. "What- do you expect me to grow up to be so innocent and childlike, when there's war and poverty and trouble and- people everywhere! Why do you expect me to be like- to be like- you?!"

"Like me?" Peter gasped. "Do you have any idea what I would give to be young again? To fight in battles where all I had to use was my head and my sword, not to struggle with books and bad tempers and professors, and wondering if Aslan's even there?"

"That's your trouble!" Susan shouted. "He isn't there, Peter! Why don't you just man up and live life the way you were supposed to, without all this Narnia, Narnia, Narnia!?"

"Never!" he shouted back, the expression on his face pure determination and shock.

By this time dozens of people in the station were staring at them, or else politely giving them an extremely wide berth.

Susan and Peter looked at them, then at each other, and began shuffling toward the exit again.

"I'm sorry, Su," Peter said finally, swallowing hard.

She swung her arms and legs even faster, pumping them hard as she rushed toward the exit. Somehow his apology only made it worse.

"Susan!" he grabbed her arm as she was about to go out the door. She swung around to face him, without a choice.

"I won't talk about Narnia if you don't want me to," he said quietly.

Someting in her broke. "Oh, Peter, why did I get so upset over that? And here I was ironically trying to tell you it was trivial."

"I do have an important question to ask you about Aslan," Peter continued soberly, "but I promise not to talk to you about Narnia unless you want me to."

"Peter, I don't mind a little Narnia. It's all in fun, right?" Smiling again, she put her arms around his neck and hugged him. He held her a little tighter than usual, and did not smile in return.

As they walked outside, friends once more, Susan noticed a pretty young woman with curly dark hair pulled back in a neat bun sitting in the blue station wagon she knew to be Peter's. Immediately she turned on him. "Who's this?"

Peter blushed to his neck, but he didn't look at her, just in the other woman's direction. "Ah- well- " he stuttered for the right words, "-She's really nice!"

Susan laughed and laughed. "She'd better be if she's with a man like you!" she teased, although she meant it perfectly seriously.