It may seem like this isn't really going anywhere, but I assure you it is. I do have a plot, but I wanted to make sure the relationships between Susan and her siblings were properly described.
For those of you who requested more Edmund, here he is.
Susan didn't say anything as they drove away from the cemetary. There wasn't anything to say. She'd thought that seeing the graves of her siblings would help her put a rest to the nagging resentment at the back of her mind, but it had only made it worse.
Gentle Susan had never been an angry person. So why, suddenly, did she want to kick and scream?
'We're staying with the Poles,' Alberta said suddenly. 'Their daughter was also...' her voice broke, but Susan recognized the name. Pole. Jill Pole. Another of Aslan's toys.
Susan leaned her head against the window and watched the rain start to fall. England could always be relied on for a good rain. All too soon, Alberta pulled the car up to the curb and stopped the engine.
After a brief greeting, Susan was settled into what must have been Jill's old room. Susan could see the Narnian influence in the decor. 'Dinner will be ready shortly,' Mrs. Pole said. 'I expect you're hungry after your trip.'
Like Alberta, Mrs. Pole looked like she'd spent most of her time crying, but at least her voice didn't waver with every word.
'Thank you,' Susan said. She wasn't really hungry at all; hadn't been since the news reached her. 'If it's alright, I'd like to go for a walk first.'
Mrs. Pole smiled. There was no need to explain to her why a walk in the rain was more appealing than sitting around a house full of near strangers. 'If you get lost...' she grabbed a pen and paper from off of Jill's old desk and quickly wrote on it, 'here is our address. Take your time: I'll make sure to keep a plate warm for you if you're late getting back.'
Susan smiled gratefully and tucked the paper into her coat pocket.
The Pole's lived in a residential area; the streets were lined with quiet townhomes. Susan walked past them, feeling like a ghost. She might have been alive, but there was nothing left to keep her tied down. Nothing left to connect her to the world.
At least, not this world.
'Get over yourself,' she muttered, hating how self-pitying she'd become, even more than she hated the anger that churned about in her stomach. What she needed was a good slap in the face. Something that would knock her out of the ditch she was plowing into. Someone who could point out how selfish and terrible she was being.
Her bags were all packed, but there was sure to be something missing. Susan glanced around the room and almost jumped when she saw Edmund leaning against her doorframe.
'Don't scare me like that!' She chided.
Edmund smiled and pushed himself upright. 'So, America, huh? You're really going.'
She looked at him. 'If you're planning to talk me out of it, you're a little late.'
'I wouldn't dream of it. I think you'll learn a lot, and have fun doing it: though that, I''ll never understand.'
Susan laughed. Of all of them, Ed had been the most changed by Narnia, Susan was sure. But then, he'd also had the farthest to come in the begining.
Edmund took a seat on her bed, and his expression changed. There was clearly something he wanted to say, and Susan wasn't at all sure she wanted to hear it: Edmund was too good at hitting the head of things.
'You should talk to Peter before you leave.'
'I will,' she said instantly. 'Though he probably won't hear a word of it.'
'He's afraid you really have turned your back on Narnia.'
Susan made a show of looking over her luggage. 'What does it matter to him what I do and don't believe?'
'Susan.'
Reluctantly, she looked at him. He was far too wise for his years. 'It's just a silly game, Ed, isn't that what you called it?' Back when it was only you and Lucy who'd been there, she added silently.
His expression never changed. 'You and I both know that you don't really believe that: being sent back was hard for all of us, Susan, but Aslan is still with us-'
'It's not about missing Aslan, Ed.' She flopped down on her bed. There was no point lying to Edmund. She should have known that from the beginging. He would never be able to explain it to anyone else, anyway. 'It's everything else. It's that we never asked to go there in the first place, and as soon as "Mighty Aslan" gets bored of having us around, he whisks us back without so much as a goodbye, and we have to re-ajust, and just when we're settled, starting to remember what it's like to be normal kids again, Aslan shakes his mane and we're back again, and it's so much brighter and happier and better there, and we belong there, but we're forced to live here, in this world, where everything is... hopeless.'
She was pacing, and Edmund was watching her, a pained look in his eye. Susan recognized that look. It was the one she saw in the mirror every morning she woke up and remembered she was still in England.
'I know,' he said. 'But if we stick together, the eight of us, then surely that's better than trying to forget all about it?'
She didn't answer him, and after a while, he stood and walked away. At the door, he turned around and smiled. 'Take care, Susan.'
It was getting dark. The rain was falling faster now, like pins. Each drop hit the ground and shattered, and where they touched skin, they stung. It never rained like this in Narnia. There, the drops were big and fat, and Susan had used to go dancing in them.
Edmund was right afterall. She'd suspected he was. If she'd stuck with them, then maybe she would be wherever they were now.
But while she accepted that fact, and the choices she had made, it also made her still angrier. Because Aslan had done it again, she was sure. He had meddled in their lives, and this time the disruption was so much more devastating than it had ever been before.