Author's Note: Eustace's age is based off of the approximation from the character age research sheet at NarniaWeb. I've tried to craft his argument in this story so that it agrees with the beliefs that Lewis held. I haven't included all of the quotes that support this, but they're out there, and they pretty much cover everything Eustace and Susan talk about.
Can't Take It In
by lurkisblurkis
"It is hard to have patience with people who say, 'There is no death' or 'Death doesn't matter.' There is death. And whatever is matters. And whatever happens has consequences, and it and they are irrevocable and irreversible."
"There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, 'All right, then, have it your way.'"
"Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person's ultimate good as far as it can be obtained."
"Now is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It won't last forever. We must take it or leave it."
— C. S. Lewis
"So, Peter says you don't believe in Narnia."
Susan put down her fork and closed her eyes with a sigh. "Our day was shaping up to be lovely and you have to say something like that? Stop acting like a child."
"Stop forgetting that I am one." He took a bite of his salad and chewed it vigorously.
Across the small outdoor café table from him, his cousin opened her eyes, adopting a cool, tired expression. "You're sixteen, Eustace. You're becoming a young man. If you don't figure this out soon, you won't be ready for the real world."
Eustace screwed up his features. "Don't like the real world much," he confessed. "It has this thing about trying to destroy your youth and then shove you on past it. Quite bothersome."
"Oh, shut up." Susan threw her linen napkin onto the table and rose as if to leave.
"An adult would stay and calmly discuss the topic she felt inclined to avoid," remarked Eustace conversationally as he leaned back in his chair.
The older woman stopped still and then turned around with an exaggerated pretense of benevolence. "All right, Eustace," she replied kindly, sitting back down, "let's talk. What do you want to know about my belief or disbelief in an imaginary country that may or may not exist?"
"You just called it imaginary," Eustace pointed out. "That implies that you already think it doesn't exist."
"I default on it not existing before I have any proof that it might be otherwise," responded Susan exasperatedly.
Eustace raised his eyebrows high. "Proof? You've bloody been there!"
"Eustace!" reprimanded his cousin sharply. "Don't use such words. Your meaning can be expressed without resorting to immaturities."
"Sorry," grumbled Eustace. He stuck his hands in his pockets and slumped further back in his chair.
"I refuse to discuss this subject if you're going to continue like that—"
"What do you have against Narnia, Su?" Eustace cut her off. "You know you used to believe in it. I know I've been there. You can't argue that something doesn't exist when you've actually been there."
"When someone gets lost in imagination and starts to actually feel emotions and play-act as though it were all really happening, it's very easy to believe you've had a real experience."
Eustace stared at her. "So you think we've all just been imagining it. All of us. Even me."
With a soft groan Susan covered her eyes with her hand. "Now, you've taken that just the way I didn't want you to."
"How else am I supposed to take it?" asked Eustace, sitting up. "Talking of play-acting experiences is all very good and intellectual until someone actually has his life changed! Tell me how I used to be before I spent that summer with Lucy and Ed!"
"You were a self-absorbed, arrogant little know-it-all," answered Susan easily, examining her fingernails.
"Well I—" Eustace stopped for an instant and blinked. "Well, yes, I was. Exactly my point. But I'm not like that anymore—you're perfectly aware of this!"
"I always knew my brother and sister had a good effect on people."
"It wasn't them! It was—"
Susan shot him a piercing glare. "If you say that name, this conversation's over. There is only so much childishness that I can tolerate."
Eustace slumped back again. "You know what your problem is? You aren't just self-absorbed, you're self-sustaining. You think that everyone's universe depends completely on them, don't you? That people can just change themselves, whenever they feel like it. I'll bet you even think we're all masters of our own fates."
"If we weren't, we couldn't love," replied Susan simply. "Love is a choice. Without free will, no one could truly choose to love another human being."
"That's different from being the master of your own fate."
"I don't see the difference."
"We can choose what actions we make, but we can't choose their consequences. We can't fix what's wrong with our personalities, and we can't control where our flaws are going to take us—what's going to happen to us after we die."
"Do you think about death all the time?" Susan arched an eyebrow. "Death is years away for you, Eustace. It's years away for me."
"You don't know that. I could die tomorrow. So could you. And, be honest: you don't know what will become of you when it happens."
Susan looked down at her food and took up her fork again, picking at it. "It doesn't matter right now. If I waste all my thoughts on ideas like that I won't be able to enjoy life."
"But…" Her cousin threw up his hands. "Oh, I'm done. I can't say anymore. You've decided not to really consider a word I've said."
"I've already figured out my life, thank you."
"How long did that take you."
"It's none of your business," snapped Susan.
Eustace speared a lettuce leaf in silence and shoved it into his mouth. Susan sipped her drink. They ate without talking for a few minutes before Eustace pounded the table with his fist.
"Don't do that," exclaimed Susan in a startled voice.
"I know," said Eustace as though he'd not heard her. "Edmund. Weren't you afraid when the White Witch came for him? Didn't you really think he could be killed?"
"Oh, Eustace, please, not now. Please, let's talk about something else. We were having such a lovely afternoon and if we keep this up we'll be at each other's throats in no time."
"Were you so confused that you could have imagined being terrified for your own brother's life?" asked Eustace quietly.
Silence. Susan looked at her hands.
"Eustace, you know how…unpleasant my life was back then. It was during the War. Things were dangerous everywhere. I brought that into the countryside with me—I was always afraid for my family." She met his eyes. "When the worst is happening, people…take what they can get. Whatever will make them feel safer or happier."
Eustace narrowed his eyes. "Are you saying you weren't really afraid?"
"It was a long time ago, I don't remember," said Susan dismissively. "I was twelve then. I can't be expected to recall the details. Everything is so hazy from that time that I'm not even sure I remember how it all happened."
"But something happened that made you feel safer, happier. Something made your life better."
Susan waved her hand. "Oh, you know, something always does. Sometimes it's as simple as a bar of chocolate or a night out with friends."
"Are you honestly expecting me to believe that the danger in Narnia, the things you went through, the victory at the Fords of Beruna, you becoming queen at Cair Paravel—all that, you only played along with it because that was the best you could have?"
"I am expecting you to stop questioning my decisions!" snapped Susan. "Eustace Clarence Scrubb, what has gotten into you? Can't you accept that I was young, it felt like a good idea at the time, I got too absorbed in it and maybe forgot for a little while that it was pretend?"
"No." Eustace folded his arms and looked at her. "Because I know that's not what happened, and I know you were once Queen Susan the Gentle, and you made a whole country of people a better place by being there, and you knew As—"
"Stop it," interrupted his cousin harshly. "Stop it, Eustace. I don't know why I'm talking to you, but stop it. If you're only going to try to convince me by repeating the silly childhood memories that I made up in my games, you're going to fall a sad ways short of changing my mind. No rational thinker could seriously believe any of that was real."
"Funny thing, because it would seem to me that a rational thinker might temporarily assume that the supernatural and magical could be real, and that, therefore, it would be perfectly understandable that a twelve-year-old girl might be called into another world and experience adventures there and then return to ours without, might I remark, any time passing in this world at all."
"The 'supernatural', if that's what you call it, is irrelevant. That's only wishful thinking."
"But if it's true—"
"It doesn't prove anything."
Just then a waitress stopped by their table and took away the untouched food that the two of them had apparently forgotten. Eustace asked for another drink.
"I can't believe that's all Narnia was to you," said Eustace quietly after his drink had come. He took a swallow and then fixed his gaze on his older cousin. "A fun little game? A stress-relieving activity to get your mind off of your troubles? That's all?"
Susan shrugged. "I grew up."
"I can see that." Eustace sipped his drink again and looked down at his hands on the table. He didn't speak for a few moments. "Susan, can I ask you something?"
"You've been asking me many somethings for the past half hour," his cousin replied with a small, but not unkind, smile.
"I mean, will you answer me completely honestly. Without stopping to think if what you're saying will—will compromise anything."
"I have been answering you honestly this whole time."
"But—" Eustace sighed in frustration and drummed his fingers on the table. "Could—could you answer it as if—you were a child again?"
Susan's smile went ice-cold. "I beg your pardon?"
"Just, for a moment, pretend you've become a child all over again. Answer my question like you're Susan Pevensie, twelve years old."
"You had better not be asking me whether I believe in Narnia or not…"
"…because Susan Pevensie, age twelve, would say yes?"
Susan fixed him with a hard stare. "Because she would think she meant it."
"Well, that's not what I want to know." Eustace took a deep breath. "Susan—why do you worry so much about being grown-up?"
The words fell from his mouth and met no response. Susan didn't say anything. She pursed her lips and looked at the ground beside her, but she didn't speak.
"Susan…"
"I don't worry about it," whispered Susan. "I don't."
Eustace dragged his chair closer to her side of the table. "Yes, but it's obviously extremely important to you," he murmured.
"It should be important to everyone," she said very softly.
"But it's more important to you than to almost everyone. I don't understand."
"Look, the supernatural may be real, but it's not for me." Susan pushed her chair back and stood up, walking with clicking heels to the railing of the fence surrounding the outside area of the café. Eustace stared in surprise at her for a moment before getting up and following her.
"But you—"
"It's dangerous and it's unpredictable and it's not something that adults have to think about. It's too big or high or powerful to have anything to do with us. We're people, Eustace." She whirled on him. "And if you think I'm going to throw my lot in with some mystical, magical system of beliefs, you're wrong. I don't need it. The rest of the real world obviously doesn't. Reason and imagination don't go hand in hand."
Eustace stood looking at her with absolutely no response coming to his mouth.
"When you do decide to grow up, Eustace," said Susan gently, "Maybe you can take a look at the others who've gone before you. Learn from what they have to say. Because…because they will be in control of your world. And it's a good thing." Eustace thought she looked sad for a moment. "Really. It is."
Without meaning to, Eustace leaned forward and hugged her, hard. He felt Susan stiffen in his arms, but he held on.
"Eustace…"
"We're cousins, Su. I care about you."
Slowly she seemed to relax. "Well, obviously there has been something come over you," she said with a weak chuckle. "You're certain you're the same Eustace Scrubb who lives with my aunt and uncle?"
Eustace pulled back and held her at arm's length. "You can't stand to be a child because you couldn't control your own life, and because of that you had something precious taken away from you. Now you're pretending it never even existed, so that you can claim you never wanted it in the first place."
Susan was blinking back tears.
"Su, without imagination, nothing has any meaning. I know you're not supposed to go back to Narnia—but you're not just supposed to forget about it! You were there to learn things, to learn about yourself, to meet people! Won't you take that back?" He searched her eyes with his. "You never had to lose all of Narnia. We're still here, and what Narnia did to us is still alive. It was real. We were there. We met him. The supernatural did have something to do with us—it came to us to help us."
"I never said Aslan wasn't real," whispered Susan.
Eustace bit his lip.
"Even if the rest of it never happened, He did." Susan dropped her head. She was crying now. "And I…miss him."
Now Eustace was finding it hard to keep his composure. "He came to you when you were a child, Su." He tightened his hold on her shoulders. "Maybe you've pushed him away along with everything else, just like your childhood."
"Maybe." His cousin sniffed, and she pulled out a handkerchief from her pocket and wiped her face free of tears. "You haven't won this argument, Eustace, you know that. You can debate at me all you want and I still won't change my opinion in the face of your—"
"I don't care if I win the argument. I care about my cousin, Susan Pevensie who used to be a twelve-year-old." Eustace put an arm around her shoulders. "And I don't want to find out next week or next year that something happened and you're gone, and I'll never have another chance to say the most important things to you."
Susan returned his gesture, squeezing his shoulder affectionately, and began to walk him back to their table. "What are those?"
Eustace looked into her eyes. "That there's hope. That even adults need what Narnia has."
"And…what does Narnia have?" she asked in a voice that was suddenly thick with bitterness.
"You know," said Eustace, stopping. "I don't have to tell you."
Susan met his gaze, and then she let go of him and went back to her seat. "I suppose our meal is finished. I'd better go home with you until Miss Plummer comes to pick you up."
"I wish you'd come to the Professor's with us, Su," said Eustace under his breath.
"Nonsense," Susan hushed him. "Nothing interesting ever happens out there in the country. You'll go and have a lovely time talking about your adventures and then I'll see you all next week. Now run along, I've got to pay the bill."
Eustace grabbed her by the arm before she could go too far. "Think about what I've said, Su," he insisted urgently.
She gave him a half-smile that could have meant anything and shook her arm out of his grasp. Then she walked away from him, her heels clicking quietly on the pavement.
-fin-