AN: This is my first time writing a postwar and post-Narnia Susan, so hope you like it! I own nothing that you recognise.
Christmas Eve 1945
"Do I have to come? It's only Evensong. I'll come tomorrow morning," Susan groaned, as her mother put her head round the door to ask her to join the family for Christmas Eve service in their local chapel.
"Susan! Lucy's singing "Abide with me!" She's singing a solo, just like you did, years back. You wouldn't spoil it for her by not coming, would you?"
Susan hesitated, and Helen pressed on, "And it's your father's first Christmas home in six years. You wouldn't make him miss Lucy's solo, now, would you? Or spoil it by not coming? Do come with us."
"He wasn't there for mine," Susan muttered, and Helen sighed.
"There was a war on, Susan. He was doing his bit for King and Country. That's why he wasn't there. You know he would have been there if he'd been able to get leave. Now don't spoil his evening by sulking. Come on."
"Fine. For Dad's sake, I suppose."
Susan rolled her eyes, but swung herself up from her bed and walked over to her wardrobe. If she was going to go to this service, she was going to make sure she was the prettiest girl there.
An hour later, Susan found herself seated between her parents in the family pew, listening to the closing remarks of the vicar's sermon. It was quite a novel experience for her, for she hadn't attended many services since she stopped singing in the Chapel choir and, the few she had attended, her father hadn't been home. He hadn't been seated beside her, his hand resting in her lap, even as he leaned over to whisper something into Peter's ear. Susan relished in the feel of his hand in her lap; in the sense of security it gave her, and laid her own hands over his, the way she had once seen her mother do.
Sensing her touch, her father glanced over at her and smiled, but just then, the choir rose from their places to sing the final hymn and his eyes snapped to the front, burning with pride as he watched Lucy, little golden Lucy, rise with the rest.
She couldn't help it. A surge of jealousy rose in her breast. How dare Lucy take her father's attention like that? She, Susan, had always been their father's favourite, not Lucy. He should have been there, all those years ago, listening to her voice soaring out with the rest, not Lucy's. He should have been watching her sing, not Lucy. After all, everyone knew Susan had the sweeter voice.
But Lucy had the innocence that was needed to carry off the penultimate verse and so it was the younger Pevensie girl that captivated the congregation as she stepped forward, clasped her hands before her breast and raised her voice to sing,
"I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless;
Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness;
Where is death's sting? Where, grave, thy victory?
I triumph still, if Thou abide with me"
As her sister finished, Susan heard a deep, joyful rumble, as though a lion had heard her sister and was roaring in approval. Glancing at her siblings, she knew they had heard it too.
Peter shifted in his seat, drawing himself up proudly, bearing himself like a noble, "Like a King" flashed through Susan's mind, before she caught herself sharply. Peter had never been a King! He was barely out of school, for Goodness' Sake!
Edmund, meanwhile, lost that slightly haunted look that had been troubling him ever since the start of the Christmas holidays and let his features relax into a relieved half-smile. For her part, Lucy was beaming, visibly overflowing with joy. It was obvious that her younger siblings were basking in the glory of a glow that, try as she might, eluded Susan.
Masking the hurt that stabbed at her heart behind a cheery smile, she turned quickly to her father as he started to stand up, hiding a grimace at the pain his bad shoulder was giving him, "Dad. Come with me. Martha and Jennifer's families are over there. We must go and say hello."
For a moment, she feared that he might see through her ruse, see that all she really wanted to do was win him for herself, secure his attention before he could lavish praise upon her little sister. The old Dad would have done.
But not this one, "Whatever you want, sweetheart," he assured her, letting her rest her hand on his arm and steer him over towards her old friends.
As they went down the aisle of the church, nodding at their acquaintances as they did so, Susan heard people whispering to their neighbours, "Look at young Susan. Doesn't she look gorgeous, sailing along on Michael's arm like that? She's really blossoming, that girl. She might have been born a lady."
The sweet compliments were balm to Susan's wounds. She smiled openly, tilting her chin just a fraction higher. The congregation fell back from her as though she were a Princess – a Queen - and she was filled with triumphant happiness as, for once in her life, she bested her brothers and sister at something.
It wasn't the same joy that her siblings had found in the service. It could never be the same. After all, it wasn't consolation and peace; it was more like success, a hard-fought, yet still incomplete, success. But it was something. It was something and it would do.
In lieu of anything better, it would do.