Disclaimer: Not mine.

A/N: Finally, the first Pevensie makes her appearance. It's uphill from here, kids!

II

A Cry for Help

Susan smiled at the dark sky as she strolled down the road, happily replaying moments from the night in her head. Again she shot a grin upwards as she remembered one young man's comment, "Sue, your hair looks so lovely in the moonlight!"

She knew that her brothers and sister thought she was completely shallow to so enjoy being adored, but she didn't see anything wrong with wanting looking her best and then being pleased when it was noticed.

Anyway, in her opinion, there was nothing quite like walking back from a party and knowing, just knowing that you had made all the girls insanely jealous and all the boys wildly—

She stopped in her tracks momentarily—just momentarily—at what she saw ahead of her when she stepped onto the bridge.

A moment later, she was running at full speed in the other direction.

Susan was no stranger to the social problems of the world—in fact, she thrived in the drama it held. Gossip was her language and secrets her trade.

So, when she saw a girl standing on the side of a bridge, looking down at the waters below, Susan knew precisely what that girl was intending to do.

Susan also knew precisely what she was going to do.

Her fists slammed frantically on the door of the last house she had passed—the nearest to the bridge.

"Help! Please! Anyone! Come out, please! There's a—!"

She cut off momentarily as a man answered the door, only to immediately begin explaining the situation as rapidly as she could.

He was a tough-seeming man with a rather out of control beard, who now looked extraordinarily surprised to see a beautiful but disheveled looking young woman standing on his doorstep. Then he heard her words.

"—a girl, and she's on the bridge, and she's going to jump! Please! Help!"

He had always been something of a do-gooder with a highly developed sense of duty to his fellow mankind, so he immediately ran out the door (not bothering to do anything more than slam it closed behind him), and the pair sped back to where Susan had been a moment before.

Neither of them even so much as paused when they saw the girl on the bridge, which was good, because, as it turned out, the slightest hesitation and all could have been lost.

Because, as they neared her, the girl let go.

And fell.

Then, as though just realizing what had happened, she screamed.

(So did Susan)

Her scream was cut short when she realized that she had not, in fact, fallen very far at all, and she seemed to be dangling in midair, and her arm felt like it was about to come out of its socket.

At least, those are the things she would have noticed, if she hadn't been quite so hysterical.

"No! No, I didn't mean it! I didn't! I didn't! I don't want to die, I don't want to die, I don't want to die…"

The phrase became her mantra; her eyes were shut tightly closed, tears leaking out from beneath them.

Above her, the man holding her wrist grunted with the effort, and he managed to grind out between clenched teeth, "You're not going to die. Now help me out, here."

At that, the crying girl looked up, surprised, before her mouth set in a grim line, and she pulled herself just the slightest bit together. It might have helped that she made a point of not looking down.

She was panicked, he was pained, and the pretty young woman standing at the railing was nearly as terrified as the girl hanging below it, but, somehow, with much slips and false alarms and cries of terror, the girl was back on the bridge.

Shakily, as she collapsed against the man's arm, the girl (who, Susan now noticed, was not all that much younger than herself, if she was any younger at all) said, "Thank you, sir. I…I don't know what came over me, I…" She trailed off.

The man smiled a bit, claiming, "It's not me you should thank. If this young lady over here hadn't come running, I doubt that this would have worked out quite so well."

The girl shakily smiled, and shakily stood, and shakily held out her hand, and shakily (she was shaking oh-so-hard) said "Th...Thank you. I'm Celia. I…I owe you my life."

The other young woman gripped her hand, and returned the smile, "I'm Susan Pevensie, and you're very welcome."

A/N: Remember, Reviews are beloved. Very, very, beloved. Practically worshiped.

~FB~