Disclaimer: C.S. Lewis created Susan, Aslan, and the rest of the Chronicles of Narnia.

Chapter 2.

Susan's eyes flew open and she sat up, gasping for breath, staring wildly around her room—was he really there?

Of course not. She had seen him much more clearly than Rabadash or Reepicheep or even Father Christmas, but her bedroom was its usual nighttime self, dark and empty except for her and her furniture.

Of course he's not here, Susan, he's not real, she told herself firmly. She shook herself mentally and reminded herself that she needed to get to sleep and stop thinking about all these childhood games. He was just a very compelling character. A God-figure or something, Marshall would probably say. It's only natural that he might seem real, but it's regressive. Reflects a superstitious mindset that you should keep trying to overcome.

Nonetheless she did not lie back down or close her eyes. Instead she kept looking around her room, verifying that it was indeed still empty and quiet, that the pictures and doorknobs and such weren't turning into lion's faces while she wasn't watching…He had done that once, the Lion had, or maybe several times, speaking to people out of pictures and things…

"…That gold lion's head on the wall came to life and spoke to me…"

No he didn't, because it was just stories, she snapped at herself. Just stories, and the Lion wasn't real, just like he wasn't really there when Lucy thought she saw him in the woods when they were trying to find Prince Caspian…

But he was real that time, she remembered, the thought like cold water in her face. Lucy had seen him, and they had followed him, and finally Susan and even the unbelieving dwarf had seen that he was real…

Yes, real in the story, you twit, but for heaven's sake get a handle on yourself! Susan tried to breathe evenly, brushed away tears impatiently, and reminded herself what Marshall would think of her for all these thoughts.

But it was such fun—I want it to be real, some part of her mind pleaded. She shook her head fiercely and tried to impose order on her thoughts. Think of Marshall instead of all these imaginary characters, she directed herself. What would he tell you about all this?

And indeed she could almost see Marshall in front of her, almost hear his calm, rational voice explaining things away.

"Of course you want it to be real," he would say. "It's only natural that childhood fantasies seem more pleasant than the real, grown-up world. But that's part of growing up and being modern, putting away childhood games and dealing with harsh reality. Accepting that the universe is nonsensical and meeting it on its own terms without old-fashioned superstitions or childhood props." Yes, that was the sort of thing. The real world obviously wasn't very pleasant, but resorting to childhood games was silly and wouldn't help.

"Suppose this black pit…is the only world…strikes me as a pretty poor one…"

Fragments of a conversation she was sure she had not taken part in floated unbidden through her mind. They struck a jarring note against Marshall's dry, stern reality.

Well, so what if it's a poor world, she thought, tossing her head impatiently. That's the glory of being modern, knowing that the universe is horrid and that the old superstitions don't change that at all. Nor do children playing games. She took a deep breath and gave a satisfied nod. She was learning to keep her feet on the ground, to stay practical, she told herself. Perhaps now she could get some sleep. We were just babies playing games…it was only natural.

"Just babies making up a game…babies playing a game can make a play-world which licks your real world hollow…"

"Oh, bother! This is so frustrating!" she said aloud. "I wasn't even in that story!" Indeed, she had long since discovered the real world, which at that time had consisted mainly of parties and friends and make-up and nylons, by the time Eustace and Jill had gone off to rescue—by the time Eustace and Jill had come into the game.

Susan decided that she knew what she needed to do. She turned on her little reading lamp and picked up a book she had bought on a recent outing with Marshall. It was quite a modern book, bright and skeptical and free of superstition and fantasy, very open and frank about all aspects of life, especially sex…just what she needed to bring her mind back to firm, solid earth. She could read it and come back to hard, dry reality, dry out the tears which kept stinging her eyes, and banish all thoughts of—the Lion—

But she had hardly read three sentences when she flung the book away in annoyance. Really, it was so horribly boring. It had seemed quite interesting earlier, when she had been thinking about all the intellectual things she could say to Marshall about it. Somehow she wasn't in the mood for it right now. Let's Pretend had spoiled it in some way. The stories they'd made up as children seemed much more interesting at the moment than the grown-up, modern book about reality.

"…A play-world which licks your real world hollow…"

She sighed and pressed her face into her hands. Why couldn't she stop thinking about Let's Pretend? Why couldn't she simply lie down and go to sleep? But now she was afraid that if she lay down and closed her eyes the Lion would come again. She was afraid of even saying his name, lest she call him.

"You would not have called to me unless I had been calling to you."

But he couldn't have been calling, of course, because he wasn't real. Just a compelling character in a story. A very compelling character, her favourite one. Yes, now that she thought about it, he had indeed been her favourite character. There was certainly no doubt that she wanted him to be real, wanted it rather badly—and then her tears began flowing in earnest, for she could no longer deny that the one thing she wanted above all else, more even than having Lu and the boys and her parents back again, was for Aslan to be real, to visit her again…

And then she no longer cared what Marshall or anyone else thought, or even if Aslan was real or not, if only he would come to her, and she sobbed, sobbed as she had after the funeral, sobbed as she and Lucy had the night Aslan was killed… Oh Aslan, Aslan, why can't you be real, why won't you come back to me, don't leave me here alone, please come to me, Aslan, please…

There was no noise, but she looked up anyway, and he was there, standing between her bed and the window as though he had been there all along.

She didn't wonder how he could fit there, and she couldn't speak, but she knelt on her bed and buried her face and arms in his mane and sobbed until her bitter tears became cleansing ones and she could allow the strength that always flowed from him to envelop her. Of course he would come when she called, Aslan who had not let even death stop him from coming back to her.

"Oh, you're real, you're real! Oh, Aslan!"

All the while, the voice in the back of her head that could never be silent was rattling on about how this was all a delusion or only a dream and that she would wake up in the morning to find that it had never happened, but the rest of her no longer cared much about that voice. It wasn't until later that she realized that he never actually spoke, so it must have been his eyes that told her how he really had been there all along, not just tonight but always, and that showed her the thousand times and ways he had helped her, had been calling to her, that told her how he had been waiting for years for her to call back to him. It must have been his eyes that told her how he and only he felt her grief as much and even more than she did. And she sat and stared into his eyes and breathed in the perfume that hung about him, and he breathed on her…

She awoke to what sounded like the milkman on the street outside. Clean, early-morning sunlight was streaming in through her window. Her room looked fresh and new; even the furniture seemed to beam at her.

Of course it would, Aslan was here. She breathed deeply—the very air seemed refreshed—and smiled. She had not awoken this early in—oh, ages. She marveled at how light her heart felt. Not that her grief was gone—indeed, some parts of it seemed keener than before. But she knew she could bear it now, now that she had found Aslan again. She shook her head as the chattering voice in the back of her head began its arguing. It said that of course it was only a dream, naturally there wasn't really a Lion in her room in the middle of the night—and Susan laughed aloud. That voice, which had kept her from believing in Aslan when Lucy said she'd seen him, had kept her from believing in Narnia for years, seemed ridiculously frail and silly in the face of the Truth she had met in the night.

"What's that? How will you know? Oh, you'll know all right."

Yes, she knew now. Susan laughed again, but paused in swift wonder, for it seemed for a moment that she heard not just herself laughing but also, resonating through her room, the almost-roar of a Lion's laughter.