"Caspian?" Susan asked in a dazed voice.
Caspian couldn't stop staring at her. She seemed so different...but the same. She was still the queen he remembered so vividly. But she was dressed so oddly. She seemed to be wearing some sort of baggy purple breeches and a short white tunic thing.
Why is he starting at me? Susan wondered. Then she remembered she was in her pajamas. Oh for the Lion's sake! She couldn't possibly be wearing pajamas on the day that was never supposed to come. The day she had secretly longed for.
"Yes, it's...me." Caspian said, A smile starting to take form on his face.
"I missed you." Susan blurted out.
Caspian's smile widened. And Susan started to smile too.
Just then, Eustace came over to the door. He'd managed to sneak away from Helen who was too busy giving Edmund a talking to about trying to sneak thermo-nuclear devices through the house. He'd come to tell Susan to close the door because there was a draft but he soon forgot about that when he saw Caspian.
"Caspian!" Eustace exclaimed happily.
"Eustace!" Caspian shook his friend's hand. "So good to see you again!"
Oh, so he's happy to see him but not me. Susan thought feeling rather annoyed. Well whatever. She simply had to race upstairs and change her clothes. Then she could deal with whatever was about to happen but she was not going to deal with it wearing slippers.
Edmund finally got away from Helen and went to look for Eustace. Then he saw Caspian. "Hey, what on earth are you doing here?"
"I don't know." Caspian confessed. He looked around. She was gone. He'd finally gotten to see her again and she was gone already. "Where's Queen Susan?"
"Probably upstairs." Edmund shrugged. He put his arm around Caspian and whispered, "Tell me, have you ever worked a steam roller before?"
"No?" Caspian didn't even know what a steam roller was.
"That's okay we can learn together." Edmund said. "Now you're older than eighteen right?" He pulled out a list out of his pocket. "Here's what you need to go to the store to buy."
"Edmund?" Helen's voice called from the kitchen. "You'd better not be trying to talk someone into buying power tools for you!"
"Of course not, Mum." Edmund called back. Then he stuffed the list into Caspian pocket. "Just in case you happen to come across any of the stuff on that list."
Up in her room, Susan didn't know what to put on. Caspian wasn't excepting "Susan the cool student who was lucky enough to have just returned from a trip to America." He was excepting "Queen Susan the Gentle (Who could also take out about five solders with one arrow if she felt like it)" Why didn't any of her clothes show that person?
"Because I'm an idiot, that's why." Susan muttered to herself bitterly. "If I had half a brain I would've brought that dress Lucy tried to talk me into buying two weeks ago and I'd have something that looked semi-Narnian to wear. But no, I had to be in fashion. I had to look like my cool friends...my friends are morons anyway, why did ever want to look like them?"
She went to her closet, tearing it apart bit by bit searching for something that didn't make her look like a shameless hussy. What was she thinking when she brought that black skirt in the corner? it barely covered her underwear label! She couldn't let Caspian see her in that! He'd probably think she was desperate. "Ugh." Susan dung deeper beginning to worry that by the time she found something, it would be something she'd last worn when she was twelve.
Meanwhile downstairs, Caspian was listening to Edmund explain how to blow up rocks. "And it makes this big booming sound...like bam!" Edmund told him excitedly. "Well it's more like, bang. Because bam is a little different."
"No you had it right the first time Edmund." Eustace insisted. "It's much more like bam than bang, the sound I mean."
"That's a really long answer to, "Can you tell me where I am?", King Edmund." Caspian willing himself not to scream.
He wanted to though. He wanted to stand on the coffee table and shout, "For the love of all that is holy, Edmund, shut up!" But he couldn't do that. After all, Edmund was king long before him and that meant he had to respect him at all times. But maybe it was okay to scream at Eustace...
Just them the door flew open and Peter walked it with Lucy and a lady in a blue dress.
"Are you really going to stay with us?" Lucy asked the lady excitedly.
"Until Caspian comes to find me, I don't suppose I have a choice." The lady sighed. "But I dare say you and I will have fun together."
Caspian looked over and saw his dear star girl save and sound with Lucy and Peter. He thought he might cry for sheer joy. He stood up and raced towards her.
"Caspian!" The star girl cried happily.
He threw his arms around her and hugged her tightly. "Thanks heavens you're safe! I don't know what I'd do if I lost you."
At that moment Susan came down the stairs. She had managed to find an outfit that Helen had brought her a while back. It was so plain and uncool that Susan had shoved it into the back of the closet.
"Caspian, I..." She started, but stopped mid-sentence. Caspian was hugging a remarkably beautiful girl in a long blue dress.
I can't compete with her, Susan thought, she's far prettier than I. Oh what a lovely queen she will make him.
Forming tears felt hot behind her eyes but Susan wouldn't let them out. She held them in until she was blinded by them. She couldn't see Caspian or his beautiful maiden in blue. Only a blur of colors.
No one had heard her arrive on the stairs so Susan was able to tip-toe past everyone and into the kitchen where the phone was. Helen wasn't in there anymore, she'd gone out the pantry door to the garden to fit the mess Edmund had made with The Super Shovel 5000.
Tears started to escape from Susan's eyes as she dialed the numbers on the phone. "Jane?" She sobbed into the phone as soon as her friend picked up. "Can I stay at your house for a few days?"
Susan took a deep breath. "No, I'm fine, really, I just really need to get away. Someone I really can't deal with right now has come to visit and I could really use another place to be."
Susan listened as her friend asked her why she was crying. "It's nothing really. I just, can't be home right now."
Jane must have agreed to let her come because, she stopped crying and thanked her. Then she hung up the phone.
Now all she had to do was go back upstairs, pack, leave a note for mum, and she was as good as gone. Caspian didn't see her go back up the stairs and Susan had assumed no one had. But Peter noticed her crawling slowly up the steps and wiping stray tears away.
"Susan, you can't just run away from your problems." Peter said as she headed to leave her bedroom, suitcase in hand.
"Watch me." Susan told him bitterly.
"Su this is childish. You had a crush on the guy, you've moved on, he's moved on...it's over." Peter said.
"It wasn't a crush." Susan said trying to get around her brother. "Must you stand in the way?"
"Yes." Peter said obnoxiously.
"I really hate you right now." Susan told him.
Peter made a fake sad face. "That was me caring for one teeny second what you thought of me, but it's okay, I'm all better now."
"Jerk." Susan muttered under her breath. "You have no idea what I've been through."
"Oh please." Peter rolled his eyes. "Spare me. I've had more than enough of your whining ever since we left Nariño that last time. You don't care about your family anymore, you don't care about your grades in school, all you care about is dressing like...like..."
"Like what?" Susan demanded tearfully. She dropped the suitcase and threw herself on her bed sobbing. She hated to admit it but all he was saying about her was true. She was so far gone. She had no hope. Not with Caspian, not with her family, and not with Aslan.
Peter stopped. He hadn't meant. "I'm sorry Su." He said. "I shouldn't have said those things...I just want the old you back that's all."
"What was so great about the old me?" Susan grumped. "All she did was boss you around. Why do you like her so much?"
"Because she cared." Peter said simply. "Su, all I want is for you start caring about us again. We miss you. You've built this fort all around you that we can get through." Peter sat down on the bed beside her. He gently tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. "I miss you."
"I miss you too, Peter." Susan felt like a little girl as she put her head on her brother's shoulder and cried.
Peter sat there comforting her for as long as she seemed to need it. "Do you really think hiding from him is going to help?"
"I can't think of anything else to do." Susan said. "I can't be around him when he's around, that girl...who was she anyway?"
"The girl he's engaged to marry. He came here looking for her." Peter explained. "I'm sorry. I know it must hurt to hear that."
"I have to do this." Susan reached down and grabbed her suitcase. "I'm sorry. For everything. But I can't do anything about it. This is the way it has to be."
"Even after Caspian leaves?" Peter asked.
"What do you mean?" Susan didn't understand what he was getting at.
"I mean are you still going to be so...distant...with us?" Peter wondered aloud.
"I might have to be," She said simply.
"Why?" Peter asked. "Why can't we all just be friends again like we used to be?"
Susan's eyes darkened with anger. "Because you still care about Narnia and you know what? That place can vanish into thin air for all I care."
Peter shook his head. "So you're no longer a friend of Narnia?"
"No, I am not." She said as she walked out of the room. She wanted to feel the release of a great burden but she didn't. She felt alone, lost, and broken.
Downstairs, Edmund was busy showing the star girl his power tools.
"And what does this one do?" She asked looking at a strange hunk of metal.
"That one carves rock." Edmund said proudly.
"And this one?" She pointed to another one.
"It squirts water really really fast." Edmund said.
"Really?" She seemed very impressed by the tools.
Caspian felt bored. He didn't care about tools one bit. What was so jolly great about blowing stuff up anyway? Why did his star girl care? Maybe he didn't have as much in common with her as he'd thought.
Suddenly he happened to glance towards the door. Susan was slowly turning the knob, ready to leave.
I'm almost out, She thought, soon I'll be away from here. Then she felt someone grab her wrist. It was Caspian.
"Don't go." He said softly.