A/N: For my dear itspileofgoodthings, on Tumblr.
Lucy wakes up the first morning after Narnia and doesn't remember where she is.
...
At first, the Wardrobe is the only place she wants to be. It seems better than nothing, at least, to press her face against the lush old furs. For that was what had drawn her first—who doesn't love a wardrobe—and then there were branches, and—
After a few weeks (or is it days? In the later years, she scarcely remembers), she cannot bear to see the Wardrobe anymore. Narnia must always be an ache, but that doesn't mean she has to stare it down, straight-on.
(Or does it?)
...
They go back, and Narnia is not the same. Lucy feels like her heart is going to burst out of her chest. She has never understood why the world must change.
Her heart hurts because it is growing. She is a little older before she understands that.
...
"Oh, Trees, wake, wake, wake. Don't you remember it? Don't you remember me? Dryads and Hamadryads, come out, come to me."
...
When Aslan bids them farewell for the last time, Lucy holds Edmund's hand all the tighter because Edmund knows best, now, how not to be selfish. If it were Lucy's choice, she would thread her hands through Aslan's mane, and beg him to let her stay.
Lucy is not always the sweet girl everyone thinks she is. Lucy wants love, not just to love but also to be loved, and sometimes wanting is not a sweet or pretty thing.
Even if it's only love that she wants.
...
"It isn't Narnia, you know. It's you. We shan't meet you there. And how can we live, never meeting you?"
"But you shall meet me, dear one."
(It's only love that she wants.)
...
In England, there is a family next door with two children, a boy and a girl. The boy quite worships Edmund, dogging his every step. Edmund is always kind, and he always notices. Edmund was not always kind, Lucy knows, but he has always, always noticed. That is what makes him Edmund. That is what let him be kind again, when he had nearly forgotten how.
She watches Edmund teach the boy how to throw a ball, and she almost doesn't see the small shadow beside her.
"He doesn't want to play with me anymore."
Lucy turns, stung by the sharpness of regret in the little voice. Impulsively, she sinks down to the child's level.
Susan would tell the little girl to be happy. But Lucy isn't Susan. Lucy has never been Susan. "I know what that sort of sadness feels like," she says, very gravely indeed. "But you mustn't believe—I don't think the story's over, or even to its middle. You have your books, and he has his ball, and someday, he'll want to talk to you again. And think of all the things you'll have to tell him." She smiles, and gets the beginnings of a smile in return. "You know, Edmund didn't used to like to play with me."
"Really?"
Past pain can be of use, Lucy sees. Because she can nod, sincerely, and say that things will change.
(Her heart, you see, is still growing.)
...
"We were such dear, foolish children," says Susan.
It is the tone that breaks her, almost more than the words, and Lucy says nothing.
...
"What have you done to your garden?" Edmund asks. He is mild, even in surprise, and Lucy is grateful for that. Her hands are stained with soil. All of her poor flowers sprawl, bedraggled, along the edge of the flowerbed.
"I'm tired of them," she answers. Her voice sounds brittle, even to her own ears. "They're just—just annuals, Ed. They don't last." Then she bursts into tears.
Edmund crouches beside her, disregarding the dirt on his neatly pressed trousers. His arm is around her and Lucy is sobbing, sobbing into his good jacket. All she can think is that she is being selfish again, because she knows that Edmund still has nightmares, knows that Narnia was different for each of them and that it may have saved Edmund's life but that doesn't mean that he doesn't bear the scars of both worlds, too.
"Shhh," Edmund whispers, against her hair. He pokes at one of the flowers, its leaves a bit crumpled. "Let's put these back where they belong, shall we?"
The next hour is a happy one. They save of all Lucy's flowers, and at the end, she asks ruefully, "Is there dirt on my face?"
"Lots," says Edmund, and he hands her a handkerchief. "Here. You need it more than I do."
She thinks she sees a tear glistening on his eyelashes, too, but she cannot be sure.
...
In Narnia, Lucy was a queen. In England, she never lives long enough to be much more than a girl, but there are things that are, even when no one else can see them.
...
"I think—I don't know—but I think I could be brave enough."
...
At Christmas, they are all together. And when the girls go to their room, Lucy lifts a smile to her lips and says, "I love you, Su."
Susan smiles in return. She understands that she is loved but she does not understand her sister. Lucy knows this. That is what makes it love at all.
...
"Do you still think about going back?" Peter asks, one day. Peter does not often speak of Narnia, but when he does, Lucy can see King Peter in his eyes again.
"Every day," she answers simply. The ache is still there, but she has found that it hurts a little less when she faces it straight on.
Lucy can do nothing by halves. She was the first to go through the Wardrobe, after all.
(Mercifully, she does not remember, but she is the last to die at the station.)
(Even so, it only hurts for a moment.)
...
Growing up is no easy task. It is not easy to love England after Narnia, England after the War. It is not easy to go back to school, to wear knee-socks instead of embroidered girdles, to lift paper shopping bags instead of her beloved practice sword.
It is not easy, the longing she feels to tell her parents everything—and the knowledge that they would not understand.
It is not easy, to let Peter and Susan and Edmund go, to wonder how and if they will come back. (Her brothers come back, true. But she only has one sister.)
It is not easy.
But courage is not easy, and Aslan asked her to have courage.
...
Lucy wakes in Aslan's country, and knows exactly where she is.