Hmmm? A rejoinder of sorts? I suppose. I kinda was just thinking, what Peter's view of this would be.

Peter

Always, always, always. Another boy, another party, another excuse to get away. He'd asked her many a time why she'd let it get that way – let herself be that way. Why she did such a thing to him – them. Simply…

Why?

The question was simple enough, but the answer never was. Not if that hurt look she gave him with her eyes, contrasted by a forced smile, was of any indication. Not if, furthermore, that pang than rang through his chest every time she turned away from him – them – had any sort of meaning. Not if her encrypted physiognomy served as a silent rejoinder to her spoken one-word answer…

Because.

He thought he'd known love could hurt. He thought he knew it when Edmund had slipped away and joined the White Witch. He thought he knew it when his father had died. But this was a different type of hurt, an unaccustomed type, and perhaps a type only she could inflict on him…

Susan.

The pain wasn't just when she left house at night, a boy's arm wrapped around her shoulder. It was when they'd have a happy moment together – or at least a close one – a holiday, an accomplishment, even a loss – when he'd think she'd come back to him – them – only to see her turn away once more. (Turn away to a world he couldn't understand and wasn't sure she did.) This pain was when he'd blink sleepy eyes open to find her long gone to another's company, though she'd stay up all night chatting contentedly with him and Edmund and Lucy in the living room, till they all fell asleep in the barest of dawn's morning rays – Edmund and Lucy in soft armchairs, her in his arms on the couch. This pain was when he'd find her crying in the middle of the night as he fumbled sleepily to the kitchen for a drink of water. When he'd approach her softly only to be pushed away as she hurried back to her own room. When she'd never say a word about it in the morning. This was the pain she inflicted…

You're hurting me – us. A cocked eyebrow, an apathetic face, and maybe even a glare within that piercing glaze. The cool way a dismissal began to fall from her lips.You're hurting me, dammit.

You're hurting me.

He'd only said it once. And she'd only replied once. Because after that, they'd never spoken of it again. After that, he'd been taken to Narnia for the final time, this time without her at his side. And so the wonder of her words stayed with him through it all.

And you've already hurt me, Peter.

And he thought he remembered something of the feel of a back, warm attention to his silent I love yous, and wine-flavored kisses. But Susan was already gone.

The End

I kinda like how this turned out. Yet again, reviews, please!