I wrote this as part of my Carmine anthology for the Adventures in Narnia 2021 Encore, but I've since decided I would prefer it be posted separately. Set in 1945. I consider it a bookverse AU. Further AN may be found at: tmblr . co/ZrXgjTauHRsRim00
Peter comes home the day after his eighteenth birthday, and tells them he has enlisted. He leaves tomorrow.
His parents take it as well as can be expected. Evelyn has known what it is to send a man to war and get him back, and what it is to send a man to war and not get him back. She says she loves him and has long foreseen this day. Justin has known what it is to go to war and return a changed man. He says he prays Peter will follow in his own footsteps and, at worst, return on a crutch instead of a bier.
Both of them embrace him and weep. They know their son, and that he is too greathearted to have done anything less, but love only makes the fear sharper.
Lucy and Edmund take it as well as can be expected. They have known war from all sides, both to fight in it and to be the ones awaiting the warriors' return, what it is to receive an army back with both joy and sorrow. Lucy says that if he fails to return, she will be extremely put out with him. Edmund says nothing, but they exchange nods.
Both of them embrace him. There are fewer tears, but they too weep. It is not the first time they have seen him off to war, and they know he is too magnificent to not do this, but fear is sharp when it reminds them that there is no cordial in this world, and what if this is the time he does not return?
Susan does not take it well. She flees, knocking her chair over with a clatter.
He finds her in her room, seated at the desk, yanking a brush through already-shining black hair with angry strokes.
"Why, Peter?" she flings at his reflection in her mirror. "Why do you have to go? Why is it not enough to serve the war effort here at home like the rest of us?"
Peter closes the bedroom door. "You know why."
"I'm sure I haven't the foggiest notion, so please do enlighten me!"
"Susan..."
"Let other men fight! Let other men die! You stay home and study where it's safe!"
"Susan." He looks sadly at her reflection.
"It's not fair! Why does my brother have to leave? Why can't you stay?"
"Susan." He spreads his hands. "What else would you have me do?"
"Anything but this!" she screams, whirling in her chair and chucking the brush at him. He catches it easily in one hand, and suddenly she is sobbing uncontrollably, messily, breath coming in gasps, because her lungs feel like they're collapsing and everything is tight and cramped and red-hot painful, and her mind spirals off into a thousand scenarios of Peter being safe at home and a thousand more of him dying on a German battlefield, bleeding out into the dirt, and intermixed with them all are images of Peter wounded at every age, images that she knows but refuses to admit are memories, and all the pictures blur together in a haze and agony of despair.
Strong arms wrap around her, helping her carefully from the chair to the bed. Her tears leak into a crisp red cotton shirt, the shirt Mother cut down from an old one of Father's when Peter went off to university. The last time this happened, Susan thinks disjointedly, I was twenty-six, and the red was damasked brocade. It made a poor handkerchief. And enfolded safely in her older brother's arms, she lets the pain run free.
They sit.
The clock ticks softly, chiming the quarter hour, then half past. Sobs slowly turn to hiccups.
At last Susan raises her head. "I thought...I thought, what with Father's leg...maybe our family would be safe," she says bleakly, looking up at Peter. "That we might be so fortunate as to escape losing anyone to this awful war. Edmund is too young, and I hoped so desperately that maybe, just maybe, the war would be over soon enough that you wouldn't have the chance." She snorts wetly. "I prayed that if this day came, and the war was still on, you would choose elsewise."
Peter wrinkles his brow. "But surely you realized this would always be my choice? I have a duty, Su."
Anger flashes again. "You do not," she spits.
"Susan," he says again, and this time in such a serious voice that she cannot help but look at him. "I am a king."
A hundred memories slam into her mind, full of magic and sunlight and emerald gowns and golden fur and cracked stone. She shoves them away.
"'To be first in attack and last in retreat, to defend those in need, and to unceasingly seek true peace amongst all.' This I swore." Peter looks away. "I'll not lie," he says quietly. "I am much loath to leave you all, and battle is no less frightening to me now than it was in Narnia—more, even, for no one in that world ever discovered gunpowder. But I believe this is my duty, and I will not reject it."
For a moment she can almost see a golden crown gleaming in his dark hair, and it irritates her. "How magnificent of you," she snaps.
He frowns. Then his eyes widen. "I am not the true source of your anger," he says slowly. "Am I?"
Susan flinches. Then she sighs. "Perceptive, as always."
"Me, perceptive?" Peter chuckles. "I think you're getting me confused with King 'I can tell you're hiding something' Edmund."
She crosses her arms and turns away. "Sometimes you do it as well. And you're right." It's been growing for a few years now. And it took her a long time to admit it even to herself, but... "Peter, I don't want to hear about Narnia anymore. Ever."
That throws him. "Why?"
"It's over. We're never going back, and we need to put it behind us. That's the only way to live in this world, and you're choosing the past over reality."
"It's not the past. Once a king or queen in Narnia, always—"
"No, Peter. We're not royalty here, we're just a passel of common Londoners. I'm never going to be Queen Susan again. I won't let that ghost haunt me forever, and neither should you. If you insist on going to war, it should be because Peter Pevensie thinks he ought to, not because High King Peter thinks he's honor-bound to an oath sworn to a lion in a different world."
Susan gets up and crosses to the window. Cold rain drizzles against the glass. She presses a hand against the chilled pane. "This isn't Narnia, Peter, it's grey, dreary old England. This is where we live, and you need to accept it."
"I'm sorry to hear you say that, Su," Peter says heavily. "Because I'm afraid you're wrong. And I don't think you believe what you're saying as much as you think you do."
She snorts. "I'll have to try harder to convince you, then. If you come back."
The bed creaks, and a few seconds later, she feels his hand on her shoulder. She refuses to look at him. "Do you think Aslan abandoned us when we left Narnia?" he asks.
"Yes," says Susan flatly.
"But he told us he was here too. And you were there when we found Him again."
"I was there when you jumped to a conclusion you liked. That doesn't mean I agreed."
(This is a bald-faced lie. She knows perfectly well that he is right—in fact, after they had all realized Aslan's other name, she'd been stunned in hindsight that it had taken any of them as long as it did. But she doesn't want him to be right about this, so she won't let him be.)
"I don't believe you," says Peter, with such quiet and complete assurance that for one brief moment, Susan almost hates him. Why should he be so certain?
"Believe what you like, Peter. It isn't as though you'll be here to find out." Tears well up again, and it's so unfair, because how can all three of her siblings have peace with this decision, but not her? She is trying her best to live in this world, and they are the ones with their heads in the clouds.
"Su... not every soldier dies. Father didn't." He wraps an arm around her shoulders. "I'm not leaving forever."
"But what if you are? Peter, what if this is the time you don't come back?"
The arm tightens for a moment. "Then it is His will, and I accept it," he says simply.
She twists away from him. "I don't care about his will. If you actually cared about us, you wouldn't go at all."
They stand, a few feet apart, looking at each other.
"That's selfish, Su," Peter says quietly, and her face burns. "I want to protect you. I've always wanted to protect you, and Ed, and Lu. It comes of being the oldest. Now I can help protect Mother and Father too, and everyone else in England. I made this decision years ago, and I'm very sorry that it's affecting you this way. But it is something I must do, because I love you, and because I am a king, and that is what Aslan asks of His kings."
Susan impatiently dashes the tears from her eyes. They are quickly replaced. "He shouldn't factor into it at all! He's not here!"
"But He—" Peter blinks, and a light begins to dawn in his face. "Perhaps," he says very gently, "you have never truly let yourself grieve the loss of Narnia. Perhaps you have carried it all this time like a bitter thorn in your heart. Let yourself mourn, Susan."
Susan crosses her arms. She knows she sounds like a petulant child, but for the first time, she doesn't care. "Maybe I don't want to."
"But you must, one day, or it will bury you." Peter shakes his head. "The night of sorrow is dark and painful, but there is joy in the morning. If it helps, grieve that loss and mine together."
She can't think about him dead. "No! Stay with us instead!"
Peter smiles sadly. "If we can't convince each other, then at least let's make it pax." He extends a hand.
Susan throws her arms around him, and for a while, they are simply a brother and sister who are soon to be parted.
The next day, they all see Peter off with hugs and kisses and more than a few tears. As he rides away, Susan sees him glance back at her one final time. Then the lorry turns a corner, and he is gone.
He has left us because he says he is Aslan's king, Susan thinks. If that is the price of being Aslan's queen here in England, then I certainly don't want it.
She goes inside and begins to wash the dishes.