Disclaimer: yes, I'm writing; no, I don't own what I'm writing.
Beta'd by trustingHim17, and therefore a much better story than it could have been.

"Beginning is easy. Continuing is hard."
~ Japanese Proverb

The Doorkeeper obviously did not like waiting, for as soon as he had finished speaking, white light blinded Susan. When it faded, she stood back in the graveyard.

Back among the dead.

Back, and nothing had changed. Nothing but another loss.

I loved that child, I loved her with all I could of this broken heart; and for an instant, near her, I, also—I could hope.

Till I came back. This—the graves—this is where I belong.

No. No, what was it Hester said?

This is where I begin.

Not where I belong—or, yes, it is, but only for now.

Somehow—somehow, after Anne, it feels easier to believe that there will be a good future. That hope is worth holding on to, rather than a threat to destroy my heart.

Susan looked at the Doorkeeper, to find him already looking at her from behind his glasses, studying her intently.

Somehow, even that look made her impatient.

"What is next?" she asked him. Partly, she admitted, to get out from under that scrutiny, and partly because—she did want to know.

She wanted to begin. Begin to move to where Anne already was.

"Next? Now, my dear girl, you go home and wait."

"What?"

She should not be surprised. So far the Doorkeeper had continually done the opposite of what she was expecting—and, often enough, the opposite of what she wanted.

He made a most irritating companion, albeit one who showed her Canada a hundred years ago and red-headed little girls who still hoped after a life starved of love.

He was still looking at her, though his eyebrows had raised and his glasses lowered so that he looked over them rather than through them. "I did mention that Walkers want to go on these trips more often than they are sent. It is as well you learn that at the beginning. Tell me, Aslan's Queen, why does it irritate you so much when I tell you no?"

Of all the idiotic questions—"I think it rather common in humanity to be irritated when ones wishes are thwarted," Susan responded coldly.

"Indeed. And not only to humanity. But tell me—"

The Doorkeeper must have asked something else, but Susan suddenly wasn't listening. She heard her own words, her own tone—not the coldness, but the—the regalness.

Peter returned—had returned—to old-fashioned language when he felt moved. Susan, too, had once done that. She had trained herself out of it, working tirelessly to think and speak in a different way, but just now—

Just now it had come back. Just a bit, just a little—Susan had spoken her siblings' language.

"...they down the entire medicine bottle at once, because a spoonful of it made them feel better, never thinking overdoses might make them worse. Thoroughly broken people often want what is worst for them, when they begin healing. They want healing to occur on their timetable, and it never does. Ah, I see you're listening again. Well, you must be off."

"Off?"

"To your home, of course. Since it's now yours. You'll need it."

"But what am I to do there? And—hold on a moment—" Susan looked at him, at the well-tailored suit, at the expensive-looking glasses, at this being who could walk through time.

Since it's now yours? Hadn't—"A very long time ago, a king of England offered me as much land as I wanted"—hadn't that been what the note said? A former king of England and a being who can walk through time. That cannot be a coincidence. "Were you the one who gave me the house?"

"It was an investment, you might say. Such an odd word, that. Investments should always be in people, for people are the essence of the future. Old and young people—time does not matter as much as people think it does. No, it is living that gives hearts the ability to shape the future. You will be far older than most people you meet, you will find, when time finally allows you to walk the worlds. But before then, it is time to go home. Be off. I must be off myself," he finished, pulling a pocketwatch from his vest pocket—one that Susan only glimpsed between his fingers but that drew her gaze like a magnet calls to iron. Coloured a light blue, receding back into still more blue, it held a strange depth—as if it were made of a single gem, studded with something small and white that twinkled in the afternoon sunlight.

Wait, the afternoon sun?

"It—is this still the same day we left?" Susan asked abruptly. The Doorkeeper snapped the watch shut and stuffed it impatiently into his pocket.

"Of course it is. I told you, it wasn't a real door; to go through it and back took no time at all. Farewell." A swirl of his hand, a sudden white light that turned deep brown, and he was gone.

Susan stood alone.

She—she did not want to go home. That visit—Anne, red-haired and beautiful hope-filled dreams—if Susan went home, would Anne be farther away? More…like the memories of Narnia. True and real, Susan knew that now, but—but distant enough they brought more hurt than comfort.

Go home.

Susan could hear him saying that; she could also hear him saying, Adults should know both when to follow instructions and when to question them.

I'll follow them. I suppose I must. But—

She looked towards the five new stones, a short walk away. I will, eventually. I'm not ready to go back yet.

So she went back to the stones, sitting down in front of them once more. She chose to sit in front of Edmund's—he was in the middle. She wanted to talk to all of them—all three—

No. All five. Aslan, did You have to take all five?

"Once, I would have had to whisper this to the three of you. But Mum and Dad, you—can you hear me where you are now? This doesn't have to be a secret from you anymore, right? Whatever is happening—you know about other worlds too, don't you?"

Don't you? Because please, please, I can't believe the five of you just ended. You must be somewhere. Somewhere where other worlds seem—where they're true.

"I've met a few people. I—I think you would like them all. There's Tom—Edmund, he said he had a brother like you. A brother who was wise. Tom—he didn't know what he was doing, not much. But he tried, and he was gentle in the trying. That used to mean so much to the soldiers after the wars—do you remem—"

That word, that word died on her lips. Because she could hear Lucy, she could hear her sister saying, Susan, you do remember!

Always, they had always remembered. They had, and Susan hadn't.

Susan dropped her head into her hands and tried to breathe. Tried to stop the tears—and then didn't, because Hester had said crying helped.

"Of course you remember," she whispered through her fingers. She looked up again, at the names, the stone, the only way she felt she could talk to them now. "I—isn't it ironic, Edmund, that I need that gentleness? And something more than gentleness—I met Hester next, and then someone called the Doorkeeper, and then Anne. Only I suppose I didn't meet her. Peter, Edmund, Lucy, I went to a different—no, not a different world, but I went through time. Only I wasn't quite there, but I have—I've gone somewhere else. I went somewhere else, and there was hope there, and now I—how do I go back home? How do I go back, when home doesn't have any hope?"

She heard her own words, heard the despair in them—and remembered Anne saying how much she loved mornings. "I'm not Anne," Susan told her siblings, tears still slipping down her face. "I don't know how to hope."

What would her siblings say to her, if they could reply? She didn't know.

No, she did. She knew, at least, what Peter would say. He would start with obedience, with the command Susan had been given. That would have been first, for him. Susan had been told to go home, and Peter, with a grave face and a kind arm—Susan missed that, missed having that shelter; she felt as if the roof of the house had been removed since she could not feel that, feel him—Peter would have walked her home, and waited patiently with her till they were told what to do next. He did that because he trusted the One giving the commands. He trusted the commands to be good.

Susan wiped her eyes, rubbed her hands dry on her skirt, and touched each stone. "I love you," she told them softly. "Peter, I'll go home now. And I'll come back—I should have more adventures to tell you about, since things are happening." I'll have something to say to you. Something you'd be interested in hearing about. And that—that makes being in front of your graves a bit easier.

Susan looked at the letters, the shapes where she was already beginning to memorise each curve and cursive loop.

It's not much easier, though.

She rose and went home.

She made herself supper and ate it across the table from the painting, sitting where she could not see the Lion's face.

It made her remember her eventually and her childish rebellion; it made her thoroughly uncomfortable. She had had enough of being uncomfortable.

But she finished supper, washed the plate and fork and set them to dry, dusted off her skirt, and wiped down the table—and there was still light outside.

She was, she realised, dreading the coming of night. The first night she would spend alone since she had learned to cry, and she did not know what sorrow the darkness would hold, now that she had cried during the day. She had already been crying at night. How much worse would it be, since she had given in during the day?

She wanted something to keep herself busy. She went into the garden, first, but the sight of the weeds—weeds Lucy had waged war on, and victoriously kept out—those hurt to see. Susan felt she should take Lucy's place, Lucy's task, but Susan did not have the energy for a full war.

She tried the living room next and saw nothing to keep her attention—except the telephone. She phoned up Nancy, and on the third ring Nancy answered.

"Nancy, it's Susan." Susan had meant to say more—had had something to say, surely, she had when she picked up the phone, but—

What could she say?

It would hardly be suitable to say, I went to Canada a hundred years ago and remembered the world has hope, but I don't have enough to be alone right now.

"Susan? Susan, are you there?" Nancy's voice crackled a bit through the phone. Susan, pulled back to the present, cleared her throat.

"I'm here."

"It's getting on evening, and I'm heading out, but I can cancel—do you need someone to stay with you tonight? You never have before, but it must not be easy—"

"No." Nancy was nothing like Hester; Susan could not take the contrast between the two, were Nancy to come. "But—talk to me; please, Nancy."

Nancy was silent for a moment. "About what?" she asked, hesitation in the pause between the words.

Of course. I told her I didn't want to hear. I don't, but I want to think even less. "Tell me about what is happening tonight."

Another pause; a longer one. Then, with a small tremble in her voice, Nancy said, "I'm breaking up with Robert tonight. Susan, it's ghastly. I'll be going tonight, and everyone will be smiling, and no one will want to dance with me. And Robert—he'll dance with me, but there's always—someone else is always waiting for him. And he's mine, I was so proud that I made him mine, that out of all the girls who wanted him he made himself mine, that he would dance with me, kiss me, love me—but—"

Susan remembered that sharp pain, cutting like a knife through an arm, leaving a person one-armed and helpless. She felt some of her sympathy stir. "But he's not yours."

"No, he's not," Nancy whispered. "I feel a beast, Su, talking to you about this when you've lost so much more, but I thought—I thought you might understand."

Susan did not know what to say. Of course, that would be the kind response; You are being a bit selfish, would also be the truth. What she really wanted to say was I understand you, but you can't understand me. Nancy, this is a distraction—but somehow it's still pulling up my pain.

So Susan said nothing.

A distant car horn sounded, and Nancy sighed. "That will be Robert, here to pick me up. He'll probably still want to go to the party," she said, vehement disdain colouring every word. "He'll call it keeping a stiff upper lip and all that. Su, after the party's over—do you want someone to come over?"

So you can cry on my shoulder? Bearing your tears is not worth being distracted from my own. I cannot handle your grief right now. "No."

"All right, then. I won't. But Su—call tomorrow, would you? Not—not just for me. I—I wonder about how you're doing, alone in that house. Call again, please? It's truly not good to be all by yourself too much." The car horn sounded again, one long ooooooooooooooohga, and Nancy hurriedly said goodbye and hung up.

All by myself?

Hester, Tom, the Doorkeeper—Marilla, Matthew, and Anne. Six people in the space of a day. I can't tell anyone about them. I can't, because they'll say my grief has turned me mad.

Oh. Oh.

What did I use to call Narnia? War Orphan games?

I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'll say that to your graves—no, I won't, that's a memory you don't need to dwell on, but I am sorry.

I am truly sorry.

You are the only ones I can talk with about these things.

And all that's left of you are stones.

The tears were coming again.

So much for distraction.

If she could not distract herself—

Perhaps she could say to the ghosts of the house what she could not say to the graves. The ghosts were less real—"the echoes of memories," things she could not hurt. They only hurt her. But perhaps saying the words to them would be enough to balance that hurt with healing..

She stood, hesitating slightly. How was she to find them?

"I'm standing in my living room, asking how to find imaginary ghosts, after visiting a real world as something like a ghost." She shook her head. "Truly the world is mad. The worlds." Because—she wasn't actually mad, was she? A knot formed in her stomach.

Surely, surely, grief had not turned her brain?

No. She had to stop that thought before it started, before she allowed it to take root. Peter, Edmund, and Lucy had been changed by their memories; the woman at the station had interacted with Tom. Those things were real.

Granted, she was now seeking ghosts that weren't, but—

I've had enough thinking. Ed—Edmund, I don't know how you did this all the time. Then again—you were wise enough to let grief roll off you, in many ways; though it ever deepened your sight. The sorrow in your eyes cleared them to see other people. She herself could see him in that moment, the way his mouth had a small smile, the way his eyes stayed still, focused.

She saw him for a moment, a ghost of the house—and then he vanished.

Edmund, why do you have to be gone?

She left the living room. Walking made it easier to breathe, eyes flitting from the small table to the wall to the doors—until she glimpsed the Lion.

And froze.

His face flooded her memory; the eyes that relentlessly revealed her to herself, the golden mane, the glorious slope of His nose that was real. She'd touched His nose, stroked His mane; He'd had fur, a nose, a tongue. He'd been a Lion, the Lion, yes, but a Lion nonetheless. He'd had a body. He'd been real, in that world.

He was probably the one giving the commands Susan reluctantly obeyed. The One Peter trusted, the One Peter obeyed.

Susan did not, did not, want to go into that kitchen and face Him; she did not think she had the strength to face herself, and she could not do one without doing the other. To be in His presence meant being revealed for what she was, in all her anger, all her grief.

All your beauty, too, Su. Don't forget that. She could hear Lucy say it, and she knew Lucy spoke the truth. But she couldn't believe any beauty remained in her, not after the crumbling.

Grief was only beautiful when hope remained.

So she turned away from the kitchen, towards Lucy's room. Peter was too much like Aslan sometimes, and Edmund wouldn't let her hide. But Lucy's love had always been the bravest of the three.

Until the—the end. Remember how Edmund kept reaching out, those last months? And Peter suddenly held me to the Narnian standards again—before—

Before that last conversation.

I—I don't want to think about how much that hurt him. I need a distraction.

She stopped at the door to the boys' room, combined into one when Peter left for college. She did not open the door; if she did, she would go in, and if she went in, she would not come out for hours. Not after seeing Edmund so vividly.

And for some reason she could not explain, her heart longed for Lucy most right now.

So she left the door closed, and whispered a soft, "I'm sorry," to the wood—sorry for not remembering. Sorry for saying it was a lie, for using disparaging epithets to hide the truth I didn't want to see.

I'm sorry.

Then she went to Lucy's room.

This particular room scrunched into the top of the house, a room that had once been an attic. Lucy, smiling, had told their mother that decorating it would be a challenge, and it would be nice to have her own space. So Lucy had the room where the ceiling sloped to the floor on either side, where the rafters ran immovably through the air at regular intervals, and where there wasn't much room.

But Susan began crying again, reminded of how much this space was Lucy's.

Wide red ribbons hung delicate, fanciful things from the rafters. Pressed flowers, seashells, glittering stones, all glued in place and throwing glints of light onto the ceiling. Some of them held tiny paintings; portraits of Lucy's family, friends, and her friends from other worlds—a Mouse in a red feathered cap. Reepicheep, Susan remembered, hearing the high and brave voice. Then she saw Mr. Tumnus, a teacup in his hand, beside a sketch of Lucy's room at Cair Paravel. An arm's length hung a painting of a ship cabin.

Below the small round window sat a small round comfortable chair. The painting that had once been Aunt Alberta's (given to the Pevensies by Eustace) hung above the window, capturing the image of a ship with purple sails cresting a wave.

Lucy and Edmund came back and told us about walking on that ship. Susan walked forward, ducking under rafters, till she could reach out and touch it lightly, brushing her fingertips over the ship's side. They met Caspian, Reepicheep, Trumpkin. She closed her eyes, trying to bring to mind those figures, to hold them. The small bearded man, drawing back his bow to try to shoot at the cherry-like apple—Susan remembered that. She remembered the sunlight glinting off the metal wrist guard, the scent of apples, and the rustling of the leaves. She remembered, "It's not a sight for little girls—," broken off when he remembered what he had just been taught.

She remembered living there, moving there, even teaching Trumpkin part of his lesson. She closed her eyes and heard the soft twang of her own bow's release, followed by the muffled thump of the apple hitting the ground.

She set her memory of Anne next to those memories, trying to engrave the freckled face, red plaits of hair, and bright, bright smile into permanence. She would remember them. She would remember them the way she remembered Narnia.

"Lucy, I remember," she whispered. "I remember now."

She remembered, and it hurt. She turned and sank into the chair, covering her face with her hands. She pretended Lucy was right there, on the bed, listening. Listening, because Lucy so often listened, listened with her heart wholly committed to the conversation.

"I remember we were both there when the Mice earned the ability to speak. I remember the blessing they were to Narnia, even to Caspian's time. Lucy—I remember, I do—"

She couldn't speak, not anymore.

And no arms came around her shoulders or waist to hold her. Lucy couldn't move anymore.

Lucy probably wasn't listening.

Susan wiped her tears away with cold fingers, sniffed to stop her nose from running, and looked at the rest of the room. The bed stood to one side, closest to the door, and covered with a heavy quilt. Next to the bed stood a nightstand. A notebook rested on top of it, and Susan stood to pick it up.

She paused before going back to the chair. The nightstand had a short drawer, something she had missed the first time she'd gone through Lucy's room, packing. She opened it and couldn't breathe.

Small squares of parchment lay in a slightly messy pile on one side; Lucy's paint and three worn brushes lay on the other.

She could see Lucy painting in the drawing room, the curtains drawn back and light pouring in. Gift after gift, for family, for wounded soldiers, birthday gifts for children down the street, had poured from Lucy's clever fingers. She couldn't remember Lucy's face as she drew; she just remembered the sunlight on her fair hair.

I know why I can't remember. I didn't want to see it, these past few years. I only saw her from the doorway.

I didn't want to see what she drew, or how her face looked—so much older, so much more like the Queen she was—

Lucy, your talent drew you back to Narnia.

"Do you draw now?" she asked.

Ghosts never answered. But she could hope Lucy still drew, hope that Lucy still did the things she loved. Susan shut the drawer, feeling the notebook brush her hand, and went to sit down. She hoped it held more of Lucy's drawings; more of Lucy's heart.

It didn't. It held her handwriting.

Page on page on page of Lucy's handwriting, with dribbled exclamation marks, a few crossed out words—the diary of a girl. And if the thoughts were those of a girl who became a queen, the handwriting was once again that of a child.

Susan opened it to the beginning, and hesitated.

Lucy never hid her heart from us. She would not mind me reading this.

Her eyes fell on the first sentence, "Today was a difficult day."

Lucy. I know about difficult days; I live them now. What happened in yours?

"Peter left. I thought I'd learned to be okay with endings. Narnia ended, and once I knew Aslan could be found in our world, I came back to look for Him here. But I'm not sure what to look for, to keep me busy now that Peter's gone."

Peter had left a long time ago; several lifetimes ago, for Susan still lived as a Narnian, then. Then I stopped, and lived as a British belle; now I scarcely live at all. Three lifetimes ago, Peter went to college and Professor Kirke's. Lucy, we talked about it then.

Susan did not want to dwell on sad times, and Peter's leaving was a difficult thing. She skipped several pages ahead, but still saw the pages filled with Peter's name. She fingered the edge, and opened the book to halfway.

"...thought it would change things. And it has. Hope isn't wistful anymore. I know Susan will come back. But I can't help wondering when. Because sometimes it's hard to remember who she was."

Susan slammed the book shut, breathing heavily. She stared out at the room, letting red ribbon and brown wood blur together, trying to see nothing.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so, so—

This was why she needed the ghosts. She needed to say it out loud.

"Lucy, I'm sorry. I didn't mean—I thought I made the right choice. I thought—I thought I was reaching for what was real."

She thought of how old-fashioned and quaint Peter's manner and words were, of how Edmund struggled with being so much older than his peers, so distant. "Time does not matter as much as people think it does," the Doorkeeper had said.

And Anne. Remembering Anne, Anne's words and dreams seemed so foolish to the Susan-that-had-been. Dreams that had no place in reality. But Anne's dreams had changed Anne's heart; and Anne's heart, the grieving Susan knew, could change reality.

Lucy's dreams changed reality as well. The wounded soldiers, the celebrating children, the real people in real England, all had been changed by Lucy's heart. And Lucy's heart had been fed by memories as fanciful as dreams.

"Or by the Lion," Susan whispered, some of Lucy's paintings come back into focus. Gold coloured many of them. Much about Lucy shone golden in Susan's memory.

She took a deep breath and opened the journal again, nearer to the end, hoping for a glimpse of that gold.

"Peter is coming home today. I should be glad. But all I want is a good walk in the woods, and maybe—maybe a glimpse of Aslan, or who He is in this world, a cross or a dove."

"Because I found the flowers. I can hear Susan saying I should have known better than to give them to her, but I thought she still loved pretty things. I went into the garden to make it better, and went out with Susan, but we quarrelled, and she sent me home. I'm not a child! She keeps calling me one, but I'm not. I was the one who came home and found Mum sad, because Susan had been cold to her before she left. How can Susan treat me like a child, when I'm cleaning up after her?"

"That's not entirely fair. I need to go to Edmund and ask him about what is fair, because I'm angry. I'm angry because she treats me like a child, and that makes me want to act like a child."

"But I'm a Queen of Narnia. Always. Aslan promised, that I would always be a Queen of Narnia. And Susan will be too. One day we'll be Queens together again."

The notebook fell from Susan's fingers. She could hear her own breaths coming and going in gasps.

I told her she was a child so often. I didn't think—I didn't think that cut so deep.

I—I remember that morning, leaning forward to kiss Mum, and then I got angry. I—I hadn't thought—

I…Lucy, I knew I hurt you. I'm so sorry I did. Please, please, forgive me?

That I need to ask at your graves; I need it, Lucy, I need your forgiveness. I need—I should have done things differently, I know. I knew it even then, but I thought—

You knew what I thought. Now I know I was wrong.

Edmund might say that was an important step to take. I hate it. The things I didn't do, the things I did, they burn in this moment. I have burning memories in my brain.

Lucy, I would give anything I had to take it back.

But she couldn't. And as much as her words stung, she knew they had happened; she had lived with that regret already. She had not known how much she had to regret of what she had not done.

That halted kiss. The flowers she hadn't taken with her. Being absent for Peter's homecoming, and not staying at the Professor's that one last time—

I am so tired of last times.

Grief turned the world grey, and Susan had lived there for weeks. Regret burned the world with acid and left nothing but ashes. If this was healing, if learning who she had been in the past meant moving forward—it hurt worse than sitting with ghosts. Susan was done.