Disclaimer: I do not own anything that C S Lewis did.

AN: These last pleas to Susan always seem to take place in front of her mirror. It does seem like the perfect spot to conduct them though, so here we go…

Prompt: Betrayal

Enjoy!

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Finality

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"Susan – are you sure you don't want to come tonight?"

Susan sighed, adjusting her skirt as she sat down at her dresser and started to arrange her make up. "Peter, James has already booked us a table at the restaurant – I could hardly cancel on him at this late stage."

"Well, will you wait a little while at least?" Lucy said, standing between Peter and Edmund in the doorway of Susan's room. Eustace and Jill had already arrived, and were hovering a little awkwardly behind the three Pevensies, waiting on the outcome of the conversation. Lucy continued, stepping forward slightly and appealing to her sister. "The Professor and Aunt Polly will be arriving soon, and you know they're dying to see you. They haven't seen you in ages. Won't you at least wait until they get here?"

"I'm sorry Lucy, but James said he'd pick me up at five o'clock exactly – we can't afford to be late to the restaurant or they'll give our table away."

"So go to some other restaurant," Edmund muttered crossly, but Susan pretended not to hear.

"In any case," she continued, her eyes still trained on her reflection, "it wasn't all that long ago that I saw them anyway. Why – it must have only been two weeks ago that we had that delightful little afternoon tea together."

Edmund frowned angrily, his features darkening as he growled, "That was over two months ago, Susan, and as I recall, you made up some excuse and left the house not twenty minutes in!"

"What are you talking about, Edmund?" Susan chuckled, barely even glancing at his stormy face. "That doesn't sound at all like me. I would never be so rude."

Peter, Lucy, Edmund and Eustace disagreed strongly with this statement (Jill still didn't know Susan well enough to agree or disagree) but most of them were willing to let it slide. Susan only ever listened to what she wanted to hear these days anyway. But Edmund was cross now, and he had never really been the most diplomatic of them anyway.

"Actually Susan, it sounds exactly like you," he snapped, his temper flaring.

Susan paused what she was doing (applying the base layer of powder to her face) and finally turned to look at Edmund, her facial expression one of mild hurt and confusion, but her eyes a stormy blue that should have warned Edmund to back off.

Either he didn't see the warning in her eyes, or he pretended not to and barrelled on anyway.

It was probably the latter.

"These days, Susan, you're like another person. I don't even know you anymore! You look out for no one but yourself – all you ever care for is who's going to be at the next party, or who's showing interest in who. You never go anywhere without an entire cosmetic store plastered to your face – you're embarrassed to be seen with any of us in public unless we're dressed to the nines… you…you never talk to us anymore Susan!"

"What do you call this?" Susan asked frostily.

"This isn't talking! This is trying to make you see sense! Trying to make you realise that you're trying desperately to be someone you're not! Trying to fit in to a culture and a nation that won't have you the way you truly are, and that you don't fit into!"

"Don't fit into? If I don't fit into England, Edmund, where I was born and have grown up, where is it that I do?"

"Nar – "

"If you say Narnia, Edmund, so help me I will banish you from this room for eternity," Susan cut him off, her voice sharp and harsh and completely un-Queen-Susan-the-Gentle-like.

"Why?" Edmund challenged, ignoring Lucy's restraining hand on his arm and marching further into Susan's room just to prove he could. "Why won't you hear that name anymore Susan? Is it because you know that you've abandoned Her? Because, even though you tell yourself it was all just a game, you know in your heart that you have turned your back on your own Kingdom?"

"I have turned my back on nothing but a silly childhood game which we played to distract us from the war," Susan stated, her voice firm even as her eyes glanced away.

"How can you say that?" Everyone stopped in surprise as Jill stepped forward, her face tinged red with a combination of embarrassment at speaking so boldly to one of Narnia's greatest sovereigns, and anger that that same sovereign would deny her country like this.

"Surely, Queen Susan, you can see the difference Narnia has had on your siblings and cousins. I mean… I don't know how your family were before Narnia, but I've heard stories, and I knew Eustace before he went There… I don't understand how you can say that Narnia doesn't exist when it's had such a profound impact on all of your lives! Everyone can see it – not just us… I heard Mrs Scrubb talking the other day about the difference in Eustace, and Lucy says that your own mother is getting suspicious."

"Suspicious of what?" Susan snapped, glaring at Jill, made even angrier by the term 'Queen Susan.' "Suspicious that her children are growing up? Guess what? That happens! It happens even faster when those children live through a war. Everyone goes through stages – imaginary friends; being disobedient; thinking 'I-know-everything;' playing make-believe…and most everyone grows out of them again. Apparently not all, however," she finished, glaring at Edmund and Peter, clearly of the opinion that they should be long past believing in imaginary games.

'I don't understand, Susan," Lucy near whispered, her eyes bright with tears held back only by sheer willpower. "Even if we'd had the capacity as children to make up a tale as detailed and complicated as Narnia, how could we have made up someone as perfect as Aslan?"

Susan stilled at His name, and for a moment the others thought Lucy had finally gotten through to her. Then she straightened her back and lifted her chin, glaring at the five of them. She was fed up with this. Here she was, trying to get ready for an enjoyable night out with her beau, and these children (because that's how they were behaving) were trying to bully her and press her into playing their stupid little games.

It was ridiculous, time wasting, and it needed to stop.

"Look," she snapped, her eyes glinting furiously, "if Narnia was more than just a game (which it wasn't), and all the stories that you five hold on to actually happened, then Edmund knowingly betrayed his family to one of the most evil people in existence, and willingly condemned a nation."

It was a low blow, but if it would get them to leave her alone, then…

There was a stunned silence as Susan's siblings, her cousin, and Jill digested her harsh words. Edmund looked like he had been slapped.

Peter was the first to recover. "Yes … but then he came back to us and put himself in harm's way so that he could break her wand, which effectively won us the war. He – he nearly died to make up for his mistake!"

Susan tossed her hair, moving her gaze back to the mirror in front of her. "Oh that's what you call it, is it? A mistake. Tell me Peter, if I took a knife to each of you, but was sorry afterwards, would you classify that as a mistake?"

"Yes!" Peter cried, outraged at his sister's words.

Susan sniffed. "Well then you are a fool."

"This…" Lucy's voice was small, her eyes sparkling with unshed tears. "This is what you hold on to? Out of everything – out of all the wonderful, fantastic, magical things that happened to us… you forget everything else, but remember that?" She shook her head disbelievingly. "If that is the case Susan, then I pity you."

Susan didn't respond. She was determined to ignore the lot of them until they left her in peace. She glanced at her little desk clock. Good gracious, she only had an hour and a half until James arrived!

"…Ed?"

Peter's voice was concerned, and despite herself, Susan glanced up at Edmund's reflection in her mirror. He was staring at the back of her head in that same stunned manner as when she had first mentioned his betrayal, and for a moment she felt a stab of guilt. But it was gone a moment later.

It was all a game, and it was ridiculous for him to feel guilty over something merely imagined. Heck, his 'betrayal' had probably been something as trivial as dobbing them in to the Macready for breaking a window, she didn't know – it was all so long ago now.

He shouldn't feel guilty.

And therefore, neither should she.

So why did she?

"It's ok Peter," Edmund said quietly, brushing his older brother away and turning towards the door. "I'm fine."

He didn't sound fine though, and Susan suddenly had the feeling that she'd hurt him more than she originally assumed, and another wrenching stab of guilt shot through her gut.

He went to walk out the door, then paused, turning back around to face Susan. His face was pale and drawn, his eyes haunted. "Susan, I have every faith in Aslan that one day you will remember; one day you'll come back to us. My faith has been tested in the past, but never so much before as you are doing now. But I still have faith, Susan. Know that."

He turned and walked out without another backward glance, and she heard him descend the stairs and walk out of the house, the front door banging shut behind him with an air of finality.

Susan looked up again at the reflections of the others in her mirror, then wished she hadn't.

She couldn't remember the last time anyone had looked at her with such a fierce combination of disgust and disappointment, and to see all four of them – Peter, Lucy, Eustace and Jill – looking at her like that was rather disconcerting.

She hurriedly lowered her gaze again to her array of face paints, and started sorting through to pick out which ones would best suit her dress, even though her heart wasn't really in it any more.

She couldn't decide which was worse – having Peter, who she had always admired and looked up to; Lucy, who she couldn't remember ever having been mad at her; Jill, who she didn't even know; or Eustace, who up until a couple of years ago had been the epitome of beastliness himself look at her in such a disgusted manner.

She didn't look up for a while, and by the time she did, the others were all gone.

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She left an hour later, quietly answering the door when James knocked, and saying merely "Just a little family argument. Nothing to worry about," when he asked her what was wrong.

She didn't see any of the others as she left, and she assumed they were all out looking for Edmund.

She didn't see them that night either – she was home at a reasonable enough hour, but she didn't go into the dining room where she could hear the excited chatter between the seven friends. She doubted whether any of them even heard her arrive home.

She felt a little lonely as she ascended the stairs by herself.

The next morning, she could sense an excited sort of air around everyone with an underlay of urgency.

All the visitors had stayed the night – Lucy and Edmund had both given up their rooms so that the older ones could have one each, and they simply bunked on Peter's floor along with Eustace and Jill.

Susan hardly approved of this – males and females sharing a room – and she was certain that had her parents been home, they too would have protested, but they were of on a holiday and weren't due back until next week. But the Professor and Aunt Polly didn't say anything against it, and Susan was hardly in a position to be playing rule enforcer, so the mass bunk-out in Peter's room went ahead unchallenged.

She could hear the buzz of quiet excited conversation as she approached the kitchen as well as rapid movement, but everyone went abruptly silent as she entered, even as they continued to either eating their breakfast at a rate that suggested they were in a hurry. Except Edmund, who actually stood up and left the room, taking his breakfast with him and not even glancing at Susan.

As it was obvious they had been talking about her, she ignored the lot of them – even the Professor and Aunt Polly when they said a chipper good morning to her, and asked how last night had been.

She breezed through and spooned some porridge out of the large saucepan on the stove into a bowl, and took it with her back up to her room, studiously ignoring the awkward silence left in her wake and acting for all the world as though she was the only person in the kitchen.

She heard them all leave not long after that, and she didn't see them for the rest of the day.

She didn't see much of them for the rest next few days. This was partially due to the fact that she was avoiding them, and partly to do with the fact that all of them were out of the house almost constantly, which Susan took to mean that they were avoiding her too.

Which was a bit rich, really, since they were the ones who had deluded themselves into thinking that a mere game was real, and all she had done was point out the folly in their behaviour.

A couple of days after the incident, Lucy left with Aunt Polly, Professor Kirke, Eustace and Jill. They came up to say goodbye to her, but she responded simply with a cold, distant word of farewell, before continuing on with what she was doing.

She had no idea where they were going, and she didn't deign to ask, but they all still had that air of excitement about them, as though they were about to go on holidays. The two younger ones especially.

Peter and Edmund stayed behind, often staying up late into the night and talking in one of their rooms in hushed voices about who-knows-what.

One morning, she got up to find the house empty. Her parents were returning home that day, so she took the opportunity the empty house provided and started cleaning up. A couple of days of a house full of visitors could leave a house pretty messy.

She was just finishing up in the kitchen when she heard the front door open, and she heard Peter and Edmund enter the house, chatting with that same air of excitement that had permeated the air since a week ago.

They entered the kitchen together and pulled up short when they saw her, the grins sliding off their faces slowly.

Susan was so surprised by their appearance that she didn't realise she had spoken until after the words – the first words she had spoken to either of them for nearly a week – were out.

"What on earth are you wearing?"

They looked at each other, then grinned again, answering simultaneously, "Workman's outfits."

The stained, grubby blue overalls in question dripped mud onto the floor Susan had just mopped as they spoke.

"Where did you get workman's clothes?"

Edmund glanced at Peter. "We… borrowed them," he replied slowly.

Susan peered at the two of them, trying to work out what they weren't telling her.

"And… why did you 'borrow' them?"

"We were working," Peter said.

"On…?"

"We had to find something. And it was going to be dirty. So we needed clothes suitable for the task. So we borrowed these." As Edmund spoke, he shifted something in his hands, and Susan noticed for the first time the dirt-covered damp wooden box he held there.

"What's that?" Susan asked.

"…A box," Edmund replied cagily.

When Susan simply raised an eyebrow, he elaborated.

"It's just something that Eustace and Jill need. We're getting changed now and going down to the train station to meet them and hand it over. Then they're… well, it doesn't really matter I suppose."

"I see." She didn't really see why Eustace and Jill would need some grubby old wooden box, but thought it best not to bother arguing.

After a rather awkward pause, Peter, ever the peace-seeker, spoke up. "Susan – we think Mum and Dad will be on the same train Eustace, Jill and the others are on… why don't you come with us? We're meeting them down there – it would be great if you came along too."

She almost said yes.

But then she remembered the way Peter had looked at her the other day, and she remembered the way they had all been ignoring her, and she thought about how they'd been whispering about her all week, falling silent only when she came within earshot.

She conveniently forgot what she had said to Edmund to make Peter look at her like that, and the fact that it had been she who had been ignoring everyone else all week. And the notion that they hadn't in fact been talking about her at all didn't even occur to her.

"No," she said firmly. "I'll stay here and tidy up. Mum and Dad won't be pleased if they come back to the house after only two weeks away and it's in this state."

Peter opened his mouth to say something, then thought better of it, and simply nodded tiredly, turning and heading out the kitchen door to go and get changed.

Edmund looked sadly at Susan for a moment, his eyes boring into her in a way that made her want to squirm.

Finally, he sighed. "Goodbye Susan," he said, and it sounded so final.

She didn't realise exactly how final it really was until a few hours later, when she heard the news about a terrible train accident on the radio.

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An: What do you think? I apologise if I got any of the facts wrong – I didn't have the book on me to do any fact checking while I typed it. If you spot any serious errors, please point them out. I did adlib a little though, I admit.

Please review and let me know what you thought!

Love Bundi