(A/N Ever since I read the Chronicles of Narnia, years ago, Susan has haunted me. Why did she turn her back on all she knew and loved? And with me, well, thoughts usually turn into stories. Disclaimer: I own nothing. In fact, you might go so far as to say that the characters own me. . .one in particular.)
Susan jerked awake, heart thudding painfully in her chest, eyes frantically searching empty darkness. With a groan, she relaxed back onto the covers. It was a dream, she told herself. Just a dream.
Still, she knew it would be useless to try to sleep more; in this dark, quiet room it was far too easy to bring up memories she had fought for years to keep at bay. Susan dressed in a bathrobe and fixed herself a cup of coffee, wincing slightly at the taste. She preferred tea, but she needed a caffeine boost. She glanced out the window as she sipped. London was asleep, like any sensible, normal person would be.
Not that she was that anymore. She used to be the practical one, the down-to-earth one. Now she stayed up till the crack of dawn, drinking drinks that made her mind go fuzzy and her head hurt in the morning and doing stupid things with people she only pretended to care about.
It was Sunday, she reflected. When her sister was alive, she would have tried to persuade her to come to church.
Lucy was dressed in her Sunday finest. She looked sweet, Susan thought condescendingly, but very young.
"Oh, hello, Susan! I say, you look nice." Lucy fingered the necklace she was wearing--it was a cross.
"I was on my way to church," Lucy continued breathlessly, "and I thought I'd stop by and see if you were interested in joining me."
Susan narrowed her eyes. Lucy had always been a terrible liar. Susan knew that their parent's house, where Lucy still lived at seventeen years, was several blocks away--much too far for a casual "drop by".
"Sorry, Lu," Susan said stiffly. "I'm--busy at the moment."
Lucy looked disappointed, though she could hardly have expected anything different, Susan thought scornfully. Her family members and friends all invited her to come with them to church on occasions, and she had refused every invitation. The rest were willing to let it go at that, but not Lucy. Lucy seemed to feel it was her personal duty to drag Susan with her, kicking and screaming, Susan thought. As if she'd ever go willingly!
"Are you sure?" Lucy asked.
"Quite." Susan made to slam the door, but Lucy wedged her foot in just in time.
"It's him, Susan," she whispered, leaning in. "He told me we'd find him in this world, and now we have. It all makes sense now."
Susan stiffened. She had fought for years to keep away her memories of Narnia, more specifically him, and did not appreciate the reminder. Usually she masked her unease as a busy schedule, but this time she was startled into speaking her thoughts.
"If you think I'm just going to go crawling back to him after what he did to me, you're WRONG. We were nothing but pawns to him--workers for his precious country whom he could summon or dismiss at will. He never helps our world like that! He got what he wanted and he. Threw. Us. Out."
Susan's words, and her voice, were like acid and she knew that Lucy felt their burn.
"You don't understand, Su," Lucy protested, her voice choked. There were tears shining in her eyes. It's not like that at all."
Susan closed her eyes, and her heart, to her sister's sorrow. "Get out, Lucy. Just go."
With a whimper, her sister fled down the hallway. Susan closed the door and leaned against it, fighting back tears of longing, hurt, and sorrow herself.
The clock on the mantle chimed the hour; Susan jumped as if she had been slapped. Which was, she thought grimly, not so far from the truth. Her memories were something she tried to avoid at all costs. Each one was connected to a loss that she felt so deeply that remembering sometimes felt like picking up shards of broken glass and squeezing hard. Now she had another one, just as painful, to shy from.
She dressed in her simplest clothes, much unlike the ensemble she usually wore, then stood in front of the mirror, uneasy. She had worn light makeup since she was sixteen, but in the past few years she had been afraid that the mess she was inside would show on her face. Now, though, she was strangely reluctant.
I have to get out of here, she thought. I won't go far--no one I know will see me.
Susan lay her head against the window of the bus, watching London speed away behind her. The Underground would have quicker,, but she was determined to avoid trains at all costs until the day she died, or longer, maybe. She still hadn't gotten over the fact that her family, as well as several friends, had died in one.
When the policeman had called with the news, Susan had thrown up, sick with horror and sorrow, then sobbed all night. She was reminded, sharply, of another night (how long ago it seemed!) when she had stayed awake all night crying. She fought it down. She had had her sister then.
Lucy's expression was serene, which made her look wise beyond her years. Looking at her face, Susan could see the queen behind the face of the girl who was, after all, much too young to die.
She swallowed hard and reached down to put her hand in Lucy's, which had gone cold. Save for how still and pale her little sister was, she might have been sleeping.
The rest weren't so lucky. Lucy's was the only open casket among the group of nine people Susan had lost. She had arranged for one group funeral rather than several individual ones. There were two reasons for this. One, because it was practical; and two, because it felt right. All of the Friends of Narnia, as they had called themselves, gone together.
Susan wandered slowly among the other coffins, touching each one gently, wondering who lay behind the closed lid. She could ask, or open the lid, but she was afraid. Lucy's body was the only one the undertaker had felt that people should see. Some were in better condition than others, he had told her. Her father's was barely recognizable; Lucy's showed almost no signs of damage; and the rest were somewhere in between.
That was the night the dreams had started, the ones that never failed to wake her with a start. She would see a lion as if from a great distance whose face was always clear. Susan could read the emotions on his face as if he were human, and he was always looking straight into Susan's eyes. However hard she tried, she could not look away.
Never angry or impatient, Susan nevertheless felt deeply uncomfortable meeting his gaze. Nothing in the whole world could look more sorrowful than those deep, melancholy eyes, and she sensed that the anguish he was radiating was solely on her account. Sometimes he simply looked at her. Other times he spoke, always the same thing. "Once a king or queen of Narnia . . ." he would say, and she would wake, panting and drenched with sweat.
He was right, in a way. Once, she had been a warrior, a queen, chosen and blessed by Aslan. Now, however, she was simply Susan, an independent accountant who was now, abruptly, alone in the world.
Now, sitting on a bus with no clear idea of where she was going, Susan was sorry. Sorry for what she had lost; what she had allowed herself to lose. Sorry for all the pain she had caused herself and her family. She'd take it all back now if she could. All she wanted was to see them again . . .
The next thing Susan knew, she was in the forest, the one she had always been in in the dreams. Only this time, she was moving through it, not standing still. And then, there he was, his face stern yet somehow welcoming.
She fell down on her knees, feeling tears well up in her eyes. "I'm sorry, Aslan," whispered, chancing a glance upwards. His eyes held her gaze.
"I am sorry too, daughter," he rumbled. "Sorry for all the pain and suffering you have put yourself through."
Susan swallowed, hard. "Aslan . . .if I hadn't shut myself away, would I have died with my family?"
He considered her for a moment, then replied gently, "We will never know what would have been, child."
Child, Susan seethed inwardly. I'm not a child.
"Daughter," said Aslan, his tone rebuking now, "did you not accept me as your Father? Does that not make you my child, whatever your age? Although you have been acting like one of late."
Susan flinched.
"Why did you doubt my love for you, child?" Aslan asked.
"Aslan, why did you send me back? Why did you let my family die and leave me alone?" she sobbed. And why aren't you watching me here as well?
"We all have roles to play," Aslan replied. "What I have made are not meant to leave their own world. You and your friends were the exception, because you and many other stood to gain from your passage. There is still work; others to be saved and helped through you. Your family's task in this place was done. I sent them on.
"Child, as your world grows less and less willing to listen to me," he said, answering her unspoken cry, "it grows harder and harder for me to speak to those in it. Your world will end before it becomes impossible. Know then, that I am always with you."
Susan's eyes were closed, but his voice was getting fainter and fainter. With a gasp, she opened her eyes . . .
. . . .to find herself back on the bus.
"Your stop is next," said the man next to her.
"Wh-what happened?" Susan gasped.
"I think you fell asleep," he replied. "Are you all right?"
"Yes, thank you," Susan said weakly. "I just had a rather strange dream."
Aslan? she called out in her mind.
There was no verbal response, but Susan felt something within her. Thank you, she breathed. She could never lose Aslan. He loved her, and would stay with her forever.
(A/N So what do you think? Review, please!)