A/N: This story takes place, oh, a number of years down the road. Incidentally, the associated warning for this story is printed at the bottom, but I suspect it's rather easy to guess. As per usual, standard disclaimers apply.

Jack couldn't remember how many winters he'd been visiting Susan now.

It had been more than he'd thought he would when he'd first met her, and he'd come early in the fall and stayed late in the spring even if he had been too busy—and, often, too far away—to come in the height of England's summer.

Not that he'd ever purposefully tried, opting to instead spend his time in the southern hemisphere, in higher altitudes, or, alternatively, in high enough latitudes.

But winter had come again, and by anyone's standards, it wasn't one of note. He hadn't unleashed any fierce snowstorms of late, at any rate. It had been rather mild so far. It was nearly more enjoyed by the adults than by the children who wished for snow days, but it wasn't even midwinter yet. There was plenty of time for that to change.

It was getting late by the time he arrived. He wasn't sure of the precise time, of course, but he knew night had fallen hours ago by now. If Susan was already asleep, he'd leave her be. If he didn't have a chance to stop by again before he had to move on, she'd at least know he'd been here and thinking of her by the frost on her windows when she woke in the morning.

He didn't see a light as he worked his way (in a rather roundabout fashion) to the front door, but he hadn't been looking too hard, and with the bright moonlight, he knew he might miss a dim one.

Knowing Susan wouldn't mind, Jack did what he did at no other house (well, except for Jamie's, on occasion, and not counting the time he'd been collecting teeth for Tooth) and let himself in. His comfort with making his way through the house in the black of night spoke of how often he'd stopped in on Susan. She had, over the years, become quite a dear friend to him.

Jamie's friends had stopped believing, and Jack rather feared that Jamie himself would soon follow despite Sophie's insistences otherwise, but since he'd found her, Susan had become a constant in his life. In his time as a Guardian, he'd garnered new believers and lost others. The losses still felt especially hard, each one no easier than the last, and he'd drawn heavily on the comfort his fellow Guardians had given him.

And on Susan's assurances that the Lost were always dearly sought and would always be welcomed back. "I was once Lost as well," she'd remind him. "Trust that they'll be Found, Jack, and you yourself may find a way to make a difference in their lives even if they'll not know you were the cause of it."

When Jack arrived at the door of Susan's room, he could see a soft glow seeping into the hallway from beneath it. A quick laugh escaped him—she was still awake!—and he knocked, grinning even more broadly when she bid him to come in.

Jack's smile faltered slightly when he saw Sandy with her.

Sandy knew of Susan, yes. North had been the first one to call him on his suspicious visits, and Bunny's curiosity had gotten the better of him, so Jack had known it was only a matter of time before Tooth and Sandy found out the truth, too. Not to mention that he hadn't been able to resist asking Toothiana if she'd had a hand in helping Susan remember what she'd needed to remember, even considering she wouldn't have technically been a child at the time….

But Sandy had never come with Jack to visit Susan, and if it were to have happened, Jack would have known better than to ask the Guardian of Dreams to accompany him at night.

Yet it was night now, and Sandy was here.

Jack wasn't particularly fond of the feeling that blossomed in his gut at that realization.

In a quick succession of pictures, Sandy explained that he'd sent ahead various Dreamsand animals to continue his work while he remained here.

He didn't say why he'd stayed.

"I knew you'd come, Jack." Susan now, her voice quiet, and he realized how strained it had sounded when she'd said he could come in. With a start, he realized that she could do little more than whisper with any ease.

She almost sounded…broken.

Looking at her, tucked into her bed and propped up on pillows, face pale and drawn despite being bathed in the golden light of the lamp that stood resolutely on the bedside table….

He'd never seen her like this before.

A small part of him was guiltily wishing he still hadn't.

"I was just in the area," Jack said, his voice sounding hollow even to his own ears.

"No. You were called to the area," Susan corrected, sounding much more like her usual self.

Jack had merely gone where the wind had taken him, but he'd spent enough time with Susan to know that she'd use that very thing as proof of her point. "You have to have faith," she'd say. "You have to trust in that which has guided you to me."

Jack put a small smile on his face, hoping it didn't look as forced as it felt. "Perhaps I was," he agreed.

Susan's eyes were bright, still holding every shred of sharp intelligence and gracious wisdom with which he'd come to associate her. "Trust me, Jack," she said. "Your presence here and now is not mere coincidence, nor a stray whim." There was a pause, then the admission: "I needed you. Perhaps that's selfish of me, but I…I wanted someone to be with me. With my family gone ahead, I haven't anyone nearby. I've the neighbours checking on me every day, and I hate to be a burden to them, but I can't help but be thankful for it now." Susan fell silent for a moment. "I was surprised to no end when Sandy came," she said at length, acknowledging the silent Guardian with a smile as she turned towards him, "and delighted when I realized you'd been drawn here as well," she finished, looking back at Jack.

Been drawn here.

Sandy had, perhaps, recognized the pull when Jack had not, and he'd deemed it important enough to stop, to stay in one place rather than personally oversee the delivery of sweet dreams to all the world's children….

Jack swallowed. Searching fingers found the desk's chair, and he pulled it over to sit down by the bed. He somehow no longer trusted himself to stand, despite having his staff to lean on. It was better resting on the floor by his feet, and he was better off with a sturdy support.

The knowing look in Sandy's eyes as he watched him only seemed to confirm what Jack felt sure he now knew.

A small laugh escaped Susan, and Jack realized she'd been staring at him. "You needn't look so stricken," she told him gently.

He didn't have the heart to argue with her.

Sandy, however, seemed to side with Susan. Catching Jack's attention, he told him, very clearly—too clearly, almost, considering Jack had to watch his little Dreamsand self get chased around by Pitch's Fearlings—that he knew Jack was afraid. Sandy shook his head definitively, and the Fearlings faded away, and Jack's figure stood strong.

Strong and alone.

"I…." Jack wasn't sure what to say. "It's just…." How could he give voice to this? "It's…hard."

"Trust that everything will be all right," Susan advised, "for it will be, even if it doesn't seem that way at first."

"But it—"

"It isn't always easy, Jack, being in this world," Susan cut in, her words steady and strong despite being softly spoken, "but hard times are necessary if you're to learn to appreciate the value of the good times."

"Knowing it's necessary doesn't make it easier," retorted Jack, admittedly a bit more sharply than he intended. But he'd…. Three hundred years of being alone, of being ignored by the only one who seemed to have the answers, of pretending to take pride in being alone and pushing everyone away because being with any of the others was just a bitter reminder that no one believed in him….

Susan's eyebrows rose, and she fixed him with a by-now-familiar look. "I didn't say it was supposed to."

"But—"

"But that's why you have to trust that you can withstand the trials you face. After…after the accident," Susan said carefully, "I had no trust at all. Not in myself and my ability to weather the storm, nor in Aslan. I wanted to try, Jack, but I couldn't. It was…hard, as you said. A bleak existence."

"And then Aslan found a way to renew your faith," Jack supplied.

Susan smiled. "Yes. But I fear he wouldn't have been able to if I'd not been able to dredge myself from my grief and trust in him. I would have been blind to him, like I would have been blind to you, if I hadn't persevered. I was like a little bird, Jack, who needed to risk falling to find my wings and be able to fly. I needed to think on the lessons I'd learned from my siblings. Even at first, even in Narnia, I never wanted to take so many risks. I didn't want to risk being broken. And it was partly because of that that I was, in the end. But I've since learned that unless I trust that I'll be safe from harm as I tread unknown ground, I'll never be the person I must be. The person I'm meant to be."

"Queen Susan the Gentle?"

Susan's lips quirked into another small smile. "And just Susan. The Queen of Narnia and the little girl from Finchley are not as different as you might think."

"But I thought…." Jack trailed off, not entirely sure what he meant to say. "Your faith…." he tried again, but he found himself unable to finish that, too.

"My faith has, in later years, certainly defined me," Susan agreed. "But there were many small steps I had to take to regain my faith. Surely you've realized that?"

Jack shifted in his chair, somewhat uncomfortable now.

Susan took pity on him. "All the things I've told you about, Jack. They're all part of it. Belief. Hope. Love. Trust. They're all elements of the same whole, lesser when they stand alone and grander when they're put together."

Sandy finally caught Jack's attention again, and Jack dutifully watched the rapid display of images Sandy formed. Even before Sandy had finished, Jack understood what he was saying. Each Guardian could stand alone. Wonder, Hope, Dreams, Memories, Fun…. Individually, they were important. But together, they were much more. Together, they were the Guardians of Childhood, able to protect children from the likes of Pitch Black. When united, they were stronger than the sum of their parts.

It was not unlike how Susan was stronger for her faith.

"You'll remember, won't you?" Susan asked. "And you'll let others know, in your own way, once I'm unable to do so?"

She didn't want her lessons lost.

"Yes," Jack said earnestly. "Yes. I promise. I won't let you down."

A quiet chuckle. "Of course you won't. I never thought you would. I trust you, Jack, to find a way to carry on my words."

Sandy might have better luck slipping a message into dreams, but dreams were fleeting things that often faded with morning's light; perhaps Susan feared her stories would be lost as easily.

Or perhaps she remembered that he was the one who most often dealt with children directly.

It was quite possible that she intended for him to be a wordsmith on top of his other art—his frost designs, icicles, snowflakes, snowballs, sculpted drifts….

"I'm grateful to have known you," Susan said. "All of you," she added, looking pointedly at Sandy, a look which carried that much more meaning after Sandy's last words. "I dread to think how things would have been if I'd been blind to you all."

There was a burst of pictographs from Sandy. Jack, seeing the trace of confusion which crossed Susan's face, took it upon himself to translate. After all, he knew how Susan felt; there were still times he couldn't quite follow whatever Sandy was saying. "You aren't the sort of person to remain blind forever. You haven't the personality of one who locks herself away. Don't argue," Jack added as Susan opened her mouth. "You told me that much yourself, didn't you?"

"I suppose I did," Susan conceded, the amusement in her voice clear.

Jack, who had been watching Sandy, continued, "You tried to forget, but you didn't. You still dreamed. You were more…." Jack hesitated, trying to figure out how best to put Sandy's pictures to words and hoping he was keeping the meaning the same. "You were more misguided," he said, deciding that that must be Sandy's meaning, "than lost, because you never truly forgot. You may have tried to separate yourself, but you merely buried everything you'd thought you'd lost. It was always there, still inside of you, even if you didn't want to let it out."

"Once a king or queen in Narnia…." Susan murmured.

"Always a king or queen," Jack finished fiercely. He wasn't sure it was entirely his imagination that Susan's eyes looked a little bit dimmer than they had moments before. And then her eyes closed, and his heart jumped into his throat before they opened again and she smiled at him.

"Thank you, Jack."

Susan had thanked him many times before, even though he wasn't always sure why. Why was it that this time, when those very words had before caused a small burst of pride and joy and satisfaction to blossom in his chest, they caused a deeper part of him to ache so? Why did it have to almost hurt this time?

A small moan escaped Susan, and Jack immediately leaned in closer. "What's wrong?" he asked, inwardly regretting the words the moment they'd escaped his mouth. Of all the things to say….

But Susan didn't berate him, and even Sandy didn't give him a look that clearly questioned his hold of the situation. Instead, the other Guardian's look merely told Jack that he knew and understood. For her part, Susan took a few steadying breaths before saying, "It's all right. It's tugging at me, nothing more. It's not really painful. It's just that I can feel it now, far stronger than before. Pinching and pulling. I haven't long here."

He didn't want to say goodbye. He'd thought he could, but now that the time was here….

He hadn't thought it would be this hard.

Susan's hand found his, and she gave it a gentle, reassuring squeeze. "It's all right," she repeated. "It's my time, that's all."

Jack swallowed. "I'll stay here," he said. "With you, I mean." He wouldn't leave her alone.

A small smile, the one which had become so characteristic of her during their visits. "Thank you."

How those words still hurt…. No, not the words; it was knowing that he might never hear them from her again. Knowing that he would never hear them from her again.

A hand touched his shoulder, and Jack looked over to Sandy. This time, the elder Guardian needed no pictures to convey his meaning. He knew Susan was ready; he was wondering if Jack was ready to let her go.

Jack, who suddenly found he could not look either Sandy or Susan in the face, fixed his gaze on the hand that held Susan's and nodded.

When he did look up again, Susan's breathing had evened out. The golden sand which danced over her head displayed fantastical things. Centaurs. Fauns. Griffins. Other ones he didn't recognize. Dryads, perhaps? Naiads?

A lion—the Lion.

The gold of the other creatures seemed to pale in comparison to that of Aslan. But almost as soon as his image was formed, the other images parted before the King of the Woods. The sand swirled into new shapes, and the other creatures were replaced with children.

Children who, as Jack watched, grew into young adults.

Their likeness to Susan's pictures spoke volumes about Sandy's talent—of creating dreams, of allowing his sand to delve into a person's own memories and imagination to fashion something truly fitting.

The Dreamsand images were silent, but Jack could imagine the joy in the laughter Susan could hear as her dreamself was reunited once again with her siblings, as they all danced around and with the Lion.

He'd always liked watching the dreams, but somehow, this one tugged at his heart despite the cheerful story it told.

Jack wasn't sure how much time passed as he watched the dream unfold, but he was given a new appreciation for Sandy's self-imposed silence. It wasn't just not to wake the children. It was, in a way, because he heard that much more, saw that much more, understood so much more than the rest of them because of it, and that allowed him to be a better Guardian of Dreams than he would otherwise be.

And the silence seemed especially…fitting right now.

A burst of colour caught Jack's eye, and he realized he was seeing something he'd never seen in all his nights of watching Sandy sending out his streams of Dreamsand.

Aslan's image remained a glistening, regal, wild gold. But it was richer than before, with subtle, blended shades of reds and browns giving it more depth than Sandy's sand usually bestowed.

The others—of Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy—became more vibrant and real than before, golden sand either darkening or brightening before swirling together into colour. Rich blues and reds and greens…. Pitch's Night Mares, his Fearlings, had been as dark as Sandy's Dreamsand was bright, but Jack had never seen the like of this before, not with Dreamsand.

It looked…alive.

They looked alive, all five figures.

The Lion opened His mouth in a silent roar and, as Jack watched, seemed to grow brighter.

And then there was nothing.

No bright images, no trace of golden sand, no feel of magic in the air.

No breath in Susan's body.

Jack looked at Sandy, receiving a small nod, a tiny, brave smile, and the golden picture of a closed door which, as he watched, opened.

"Doorway will open for you, I think," North had told Susan so long ago, "when time is right."

Now, it seemed, that time had come.

And though Jack couldn't swallow the lump in his throat, couldn't seem to see clearly any longer, something made him smile.

Susan made him smile.

She'd trusted that it would end like this. Quietly. Softly. Painlessly. Gently.

No, that wasn't quite right.

Susan had trusted that this leg of her journey would end like it had. But she'd had faith that, once she crossed the threshold from this world, the next part would begin. New adventures, to be shared with her siblings and friends once again.

New stories, though he'd not hear them from her with such a separation between them.

But his faith wouldn't be quite the same, couldn't quite be called faith, if he could learn the new stories that Susan would have to tell. He would have to be satisfied with the stories he had heard and trust that the rest would be just as brilliant as the ones he knew.

He'd learned much from her in these past years.

He wouldn't trade a moment of it, not for anything in the world.

He might have been tempted once, during those long years before he'd become a Guardian, but since then, he'd learned the value of friendship. Of belief and faith and hope and love and trust. Thanks to his fellow Guardians, and Jamie, and…and Susan in particular, for Susan had taught him…. She'd shown him how to see the world with new eyes, not with tired ones which had watched it from the sidelines for so many years.

Susan's hand was limp in his now, but Jack gave it one last fierce squeeze. "Safe travels," he whispered. Hardly thinking about it, he leaned over and kissed her forehead. "You'll be missed, but you'll never be forgotten." Not as long as he was here, at least.

And he planned on being here for a long time.

Sandy touched his arm, and Jack knew it was time to go.

With the wind bearing him up high above the land below, ready to carry him away from Susan's mansion for the last time while it was her home, he looked back down and saw how the frost he'd left behind sparkled in the moonlight. It was…fitting, somehow. A gleaming tribute to a woman who had shone brightly in her time, something subtle but all the more beautiful for it.

Jack hung there a moment longer, long past the time when the last remaining trails of Sandy's Dreamsand had faded away. "Goodbye, Susan."

And if a few ice crystals fell to the earth in Jack's wake when he finally allowed the wind to carry him away, even he might admit, if confronted, that they'd taste a bit saltier on a child's tongue than his snow should.

A/N: Warning: Character death. (Do tell me if you disagree vehemently with this choice or if you're willing to concede that it did play out quite well this way, all things considered.)