Susan

Suddenly I find I cannot look at Caspian, cannot meet his eyes. My pulse gradually begins to race.

"Susan," he says, his voice tender.

My name on his lips makes my heart jump, but I don't give away anything.

"Susan, won't you look at me?"

I meet his eyes, but only for a moment. The emotional connection between us is too overwhelming. We were married once, so in love, but then we lost each other. I gave my life to my children. He gave his to a new family. Now I may have returned, and his wife is gone, but still the years and magic and complete unexpected-ness of it all is standing between us.

"Susan, I do not wish to make you uncomfortable. I seek only to talk, nothing more."

I nod and take a deep breath. "Yes. Yes, we can talk."

He takes a step toward me, arm outstretched, but then hesitates and drops his hand. I cross my arms together, practically hugging myself.

I swallow hard, willing myself to keep my composure as I lift my head and meet his dark, piercing eyes. "What are we?"

He's quiet for a long moment before sighing, his shoulders falling as he does. "I don't know."

"Legally, are we still... is the marriage still recognized? Legitimate?"

He runs a hand over his hair, freeing it from the ponytail. It falls in messy waves around his face. "I do not know." He lets out a dry laugh. "I suppose I should find that out. I don't know if there is even a law to determine that. Wives don't vanish into another world on a regular basis here."

Wives. Am I still his wife? Does it matter? Would it make a difference in this tension between us?

Will I stay long enough to find out?

He walks to the bed and sits at the foot of it. I slowly walk closer, keeping a comfortable distance between us. He lays his head in his hands. He looks so small, so lost, so vulnerable. The sudden urge to sit by him, lay my hand on him in comfort, tugs at my chest. I resist.

"This is quite a mess, isn't it?" he says between his hands.

I lower my arms to my sides and sit next to him on the bed, keeping several centimeters still between us. "Yes," I say with a chuckle. "This is kind of a disaster."

He looks up at me. I smirk. We both break into laughter.

He takes a deep breath and lets it out. "I do not know how to conduct myself around you. I know not if you are my wife and true queen, or if you are a visiting guest, or if you are the old high queen returned. So many titles and roles you have played. Which are you filling here, now?"

I shrug. "Honestly, I haven't a clue." I look down at my hands, clasped in my lap. "It gets harder to figure this out every time I come. How can I find my role in another world when it changes so much between every visit? When I don't know how long I'll even be here?"

We both fall silent. The last words I spoke hang heavy between us. So much emotion, so much history... I don't know whether I am capable of opening myself up to him. If he still feels as he once did, if he truly wants to be together still. But worst of all, neither of us knows whether we'll have the time together to make a relationship worth it.

"I wish Aslan could give us answers," he says.

"You have no idea how often I've said that."

Another silence falls. I can feel his gaze on me. I wish I could know what he's thinking.

"Susan." The gravity in his voice brings my eyes up again. I feel like his stare is cutting through my soul, but I can't look away. He reaches a hand out and takes mine, turning his body to face me.

"Susan, my queen... my love. I know so much time has passed. I know many things have changed for us both. I do not know now what your role is here, or whether we are still married, or how this war or having these children in my life is going to change me. Perhaps today is not the best time for this conversation. But life is always full of uncertainties, and in times of war the only time one has for matters of the heart is the present moment."

I swallow hard. He continues.

"It was the greatest shock in my life to see you standing in the woods. Though I dreamed it more times than I could count, never had I dared to truly hope you would return. That I could hear your voice or look into your eyes again. If nothing else comes of this visit, I will spend all my days glad for that gift."

He places his free hand over our joined ones. My breath is stuck in my chest, my every thought centered on his words.

"After so little time together and so much apart, I cannot know your thoughts or feelings now. How I wish I could read you, but as always the high queen of Narnia keeps her secrets close to her gentle heart." He glances down, takes a deep breath and shifts his weight on the bed. His eyes return to mine. "I cannot know your heart. But I can no longer keep silent on my own. Susan, my dear, my wife forever in vows if not in the law... I love you. I have always loved you.

"I loved you the moment I laid eyes on you, and ever more the night you first promised to be mine. I loved you so greatly when you left that I felt my body would shatter and heart cease to beat. I would say that none could ever know the pain I felt that night, not until the loss of my second wife, except that deep down I wondered if perhaps you yourself knew the feeling.

"And I did indeed love my beautiful Lilliandil, the blessed star of my life, but she understood that a part of my heart would forever belong to you. She captured my love and attention for the time we had together, but she has been departed many years now. I am certain as I sit here that she smiles down upon me from her starry seat in the heavens with hopes that I may find happiness again."

He pauses. I cannot speak. I cannot move. I cannot breathe, for fear of shattering this strange and unearthly moment in time.

"The point, my dearest, my grave and gentle Susan, is this. I love you. I have always loved you. I will always love you, to my last breath, and I think even beyond that.

"I must have you know, while you are here in my world again, that I will do anything for you. That no matter your feelings, I long to put all stiffness and awkwardness behind us forever so that I may do whatever I can to bring your rare smiles to your beautiful face. Whatever pain you have felt, whatever difficulties you have faced, however you may feel about me now, please only allow that I may lift your burdens and serve you all the days you are in my life. Allow me to love you as I can, even if you no longer love me."

My chest aches from lack of oxygen. I suck in a breath. With it, my words are finally un-stuck. "Oh, Caspian," I whisper, and there is so much more to be said but I fear with another word all the water in me will pour out of my eyes. Instead I hold the words and water inside and press my lips to his.

He stiffens for the briefest moment before releasing my hands to bring one to my neck and the other to my back. He holds me so gently, so tenderly, as though I am a china doll on the verge of shattering. And maybe I am. I feel as though all the years and all the world has crumbled around me and here sit only I and my Caspian, my husband, lover, father of my children and ghost in my dreams, real and solid and kissing me. I know I cannot be dreaming this time because no dream could ever get the softness of his lips or tickle of his beard or taste of his skin so vividly right.

Our kiss lasts forever and a day before we break apart for a breath. His mouth returns to mine again and again, and I push back into his kisses, closing the distance between us so that our sides press warmly together, desperate never to be parted from him.

When our need for air prevents us from kissing any longer, he smiles at me. Tears sparkle in his eyes. A few have trailed down one cheek.

"You're crying," I whisper, reaching up to trace the line down his cheek.

He holds my hand against his face and presses a gentle kiss to my palm. "Tears of great joy."

I smile.

"You're here. Really and truly here, in my arms again. I can't believe this is real."

"I know. I can hardly believe it myself."

"Perhaps I'm going mad. I have dreamed of a day like this for so long that my tired heart has caused it to seem real."

"If you are going mad, dear sir, then I am quite mad with you, for this is far too real to be a dream of my own."

"It seems unlikely that two people could go mad together, imagining exactly the same delusion."

"Then it stands to reason that neither is mad, and we are both here together."

"Oh, my dear Susan," he says, wrapping his arms around me and nestling his face into my neck. "I have missed you so terribly. I love you more than you can know."

I hug him back, pressing my lips to his neck and breathing in his scent. I take a deep breath, scraping together the courage to speak the truth that has echoed in my heart from the moment I last stepped out of Narnia. "I never stopped loving you, Caspian. Not for a second. I will always love you, forever, no matter what happens to us."