A/N: Here's Chapter One! I hope you all like it! Sorry it's so short! I'm working on getting longer chapters!

Chapter One: Hardly Adjusting

"Edmund? How's your essay coming?" Mrs. Pevensie called from the kitchen as she cooked dinner.

"Fine mum!" Edmund called from their living room. He was in fact, not writing any essay at all, but drawing a crude picture that could mildly be recognized as the Stone Table.

"And Peter! Are you helping your sister with her spelling?" Mrs. Pevensie called to her eldest son.

"Yes mum! We're working on it!" Peter called. Also not doing the work their mother had asked them to do, Peter was showing Lucy how to block in a swordfight, using short branches he had picked up in the backyard.

"Susan? Could you come help me in the kitchen?" Mrs. Pevensie beckoned, and Susan, who had been watching Peter and Lucy, sighed, got up, and went to help her mother.

"My dear, you look ever so unhappy," Mrs. Pevensie declared, a concerned look crossing her features.

"I'm fine mum, just a little tired," Susan lied.

"Well, if you're feeling ill, just tell me, and you can go lie down," her mother said.

"No really, I'm fine," Susan replied, a little forcefully. She was a bit irritable, obviously. But her three siblings behaved as though they had never left Narnia, and it was starting to get on Susan's nerves.

"This is hardly what I would call adjusting to our normal lives," she told them later that evening in the confines of their room. "We all just need to learn to put the past behind us and grow up!"

It had been a long time since Susan had raised her voice, and it scared Lucy.

"But Susan...I thought you loved Narnia!" Lucy whispered, her voice trembling.

Susan sighed. "I do Lucy, but I'm never going back, and neither is Peter. We have to stop pretending like we are!"

"But Ed and I are going back! Aslan promised!" Lucy declared.

"I know Lu, but I would appreciate it if we could keep the Narnia references to a bare minimum," Susan said.

"But Su, it's our home!" Lucy argued.

"No! This is our home! I don't understand why you don't see that!" Susan exclaimed angrily.

"Why are you so against even the thought of Narnia, Susan?" Peter asked, but Susan gave him a look that said 'I'll tell you later.'

"Anyway, we have to keep believing in Narnia, or we'll never go back!" Lucy stated, and the conversation was ended.

Susan and Peter sat up late that evening on the living room couch after their mother and younger siblings went to bed.

"You know I feel the same way that all of you do, Peter. It's just...hard," Susan confessed.

"It's hard on all of us Su," Peter said. "But that doesn't mean we can't remember it. We had an entire life there...we lived for years and years as Kings and Queens. We ran a whole country for heaven's sake! That's not something you can just get over in a few weeks!"

"But that's just it," Susan replied. "It's easier if I don't have to think about it at all. Because if I think about it, if I think about...about Caspian, then it all hurts so much more."

"You still shouldn't have snapped at Lucy like that. She only wants to help," Peter reminded her.

"I know. I think the reason I said what I said is because she's exactly right. Narnia is home. We've lived there longer than we have here. But now we can never go back..."

"I don't think Aslan would have forbidden us to come back unless he knew we could move on. He's not cruel Su," Peter said softly.

"Sometimes I think he's punishing us for something...but we didn't do anything, did we?" Susan asked desperately.

Only then did Peter realize the true level of Susan's feelings.

"Aslan's not like that," came a small voice from behind them. Peter looked up to see the two younger Pevensies standing in the doorway. Lucy was clutching her blanket, and Edmund was yawning, rubbing his eyes.

"We heard you two talking," Edmund supplied.

"We couldn't sleep," Lucy added, but her comment was horribly ruined when Edmund yawned again.

"I can see that," Susan teased.

"Can you tell us a bedtime story?" Lucy asked as she and Edmund sat down beside their older siblings.

"Of course we can," Peter said. "What would you like to hear?"

"Tell the one about the night of our coronation. And Susan, you can sing that song the fauns were playing on their pipes," Lucy yawned, laying her head on Susan's shoulder.

Peter glanced at Susan and she gave him a weak smile, then nodded.

"Well," Peter began, excitement obvious in his voice. "The Great Hall at Cair Paravel was decorated more splendidly than anyone had seen before, and everyone was gathered in their finest clothes, even the King of Calormen was there, and the fauns danced and played on their flutes..."

Soon they were all chiming in with small details that the others had left out, and they talked and laughed into the night, until only Peter was still awake to see Susan finally dissolve into tears.

so? What do you think? I like it...but the good part's still yet to come!

REVIEW! Please? :)