A/N: My first fanfic I ever wrote was about age 6, I think, about Susan going to Aslan's country. So it's only fitting that I write something about Susan now-if not the same story, a bit of angst and introspection.

Susan is practical, even the day of the funeral. She doesn't have to phone a friend, ask someone else to lay out the only black dress she has. She doesn't need to cry into anyone's shoulder, and that's a mercy, because there's no one left to cry to.

No one that matters.

Susan stares at her hands all through the service. There aren't any prayers she wants to say, and the organ crashes in her ears. She had feared that grief would be silent, but she never expected it to be so loud.

The hardest thing of all is to be alone in five different ways—to be alone with Father, without Mother. To be alone without Peter, the fire to her steel, the heart to her head. To be alone without Edmund, the only one who never judged her, the one who didn't ask her to talk about Narnia but who knew she still liked walks in the countryside. To be alone without Lucy.

Lucy. The sister who loved her, despite everything. The sister who died far, far too young and still did not need to be saved.

Because Lucy never needed to be saved—Lucy, who believed in everyone.

Susan has only ever believed in herself.

And even then, she thinks, the day of the funeral—even then, not very much.