Disclamer: I don't own anything but Catherine and her family.

A/N: Okay, this is my first Narnia fic, so bear with me if I make mistakes and please tell me if you see them – I'm trying to make this as accurate as possible. Having read the books and seen the movies, it's kind of based on both. Oh, and point out any grammatical errors and spelling mistakes if you see any, for I'd also like it to be error-free (I can only dream). So yes, please review ... any suggestions/constructive criticism welcome!

I Was Once Looking From This Window

Prologue

The restaurant was quiet that day, which suited me fine. I never liked it when the hordes of twittering women came for their lunches, or when the men – tired out from their work – came to dine before getting down to drinking. I supposed that it was on account of the war that there weren't many customers. Before it, I was often sent to put the closed sign up because there were simply too many hungry people waiting.

My father had been a hard-working and kind man, and put his family before all else. His name was Ronald Cartwright, respectively, and he was in charge of running the business's finance. He was good at his job and managed to maintain that perfect balance between work and family.

My mother – Olivia - was the sort of woman who liked to think herself independent – she'd work long hours in the restaurant without the help of anybody else. But at the end of the day she needed our father and her children to keep her sane; if left to her own business, work could have completely consumed her. She had a very addictive nature.

By no means were we a perfect family – my elder sister, Clara, was often whining about depression in some form or another, forever secluding herself in her bedroom, unwilling to talk to anybody. My younger brother, Martin, did like to cause a fuss wherever he went, and somehow acted rather spoilt despite far from being so.

Then there was me – Catherine Olivia Cartwright. I tried to be good for my parent's sake, but I'd picked up a bitter tongue at a young age from an uncle and it would constantly cause my family distress. Clara despised it most of all, she thought me attention seeking, even when I explained to her that it was something natural within me that made me act that way.

My mother's business had flourished in that first year, in the last year of peace. We became a well-known, perfectly respectable family in the neighbourhood, with my mother's cakes adored by everybody. Of course, then the war was announced and everything had to change.

Firstly, my father was called upon to serve his country. He had left in a flurry of uniform, tears and goodbye kisses. There were no comforting words whispered in my ear about keeping strong and looking after the family. There was only a rushed kiss, pat on the head and that was all.

Next, the business began to slow and all manner of queer things happened to my mother's state of mind. I often found her muttering incoherently in the kitchens, forgetting orders and snapping unnecessarily at customers. There was nothing much I could do to help, after all she would shout any advice of mine down.

Clara moved out to live with her fiancee, a charming man ten years older than her twenty two year old self, and Martin was sent to live with an aunt. It was the aunt who didn't like me, finding me too much like her ex-husband (the rather influential volcano of sarcasm). So there was much deliberation over what to do with me - after all, it was dangerous to keep me in the city during the war.

But yes, having strayed far from the day I meant to write about, I should return to the subject at hand. I had returned from my evacuation, changed and so much older than I had been when leaving. My mind was like some kind of garden – I had begun with bulbs and pathetically tended-to twigs, and had returned with blossoms and lawns and flowers of every kind.

I had grown up, losing many of my rather more unfavourable traits, and gaining a few more along the way. In short, I was no longer that sharp, insecure and ultimately indifferent sixteen year old. Everybody had noticed the change.

I sat at the corner table, alone, silently sipping on brandy, wondering where my parents had gotten to. At nineteen years of age, my parents were allowing me to drink as much as I pleased, which was perhaps not the wisest of decisions. The cafe was, as aforementioned, scarcely filled, with only seven other occupants beside myself. I liked to sit like this, inconspicuous, listening to the laughter-filled conversations of those around me.

I had just made to stand up and find my mother myself, for I'd been waiting almost ten minutes for a mere sandwich, when Martin entered. He was holding the day's mail in his hand – because my mother left early for work, he would bring the post around sometime in the day.

Surprisingly, he came straight to me, holding out a letter with a smile. I raised my eyebrows and took it cautiously. I had never received any letters, apart from my mother when I was evacuated, and even then they were short and hurried. By the look of this envelope, the letter was several pages long.

As I gazed at the handwriting, the dull conversations around me seemed to fade into silence, and I didn't think of anything in the room. I knew that writing, though had not seen it for three years. I knew exactly who owned it, I knew how they would have wrote it – in their left hand, chin rested on their right, tapping their foot to a beat the rest of us could not hear.

I opened the letter with shaking hands, almost dropping it, and eagerly began to read. I found myself terrified about what the writing said, yet my body felt as though drunk or drugged – slow, unreactive and numb, with a wild excitement deep inside that I couldn't understand.

Dear Cathy, the letter read, written in a fancy, feminine hand, though by no means was this written by a woman, I know it's been such a long time, but I've only just acquired your address through a friend at university. You silly thing – you might have written! You knew exactly where we lived. Oh, sorry, it's so rude of me to start this way, but there are so many things I want to say and I'm not quite sure how to.

First off, we've come across quite an unexpected problem – Susan simply doesn't believe anymore. I need to ask you, and I hope dearly you'll say yes – do you remember?

In some previously undiscovered corner of my mind I knew that I remembered. I knew that I had been missing something these past three years, and the memory was all I had left. I knew it all – and I remembered.