Follow-on from previous.

"No!"

Susan stumbled backwards in blank, unfeeling horror. This couldn't be true. She had to be imagining it.

But the apologetic policeman repeated it. "There was a train crash and we have to identify the bodies."

"W-who?" Not Lucy. Please not Lucy.

"Please come, Miss Pevensie."

They weren't answering. It was worse than she'd thought.

When she got to the train station the bodies were lying there. And Queen Susan the Gentle was forced to identify, one after the other, High King Peter the Magnificent, King Edmund the Just, and - perhaps worst of all - Queen Lucy the Valiant. She called them by their Narnian names, never noticing the policeman's surprised glance.

Lucy.

Lucy.

The one who'd opened her eyes.

You have been listening to fear, child.

Lucy. How could this be happening?

"By the Mane, can you deny that you have broken faith with Aslan?"

"I must make my peace with him."

How was that yesterday? And today - the day she was going to tell everyone the truth - they were gone.

"Miss Pevensie..."

She got up, slowly, having scarcely realised she'd fallen to her knees beside the still bodies. "What is it?"

"There are more."

Susan felt she could bear anything, numb to the shock of the first grief. But when she saw Jill and Eustace, lying together and holding hands even now, a cry could not be held back. Her cousin and his friend - it was kinder that they die together than for either to mourn the loss of the other, but for her...

Jill had always treated her with a polite sort of distaste. She'd never known Queen Susan, only Miss Pevensie. It was one of the things Susan was anticipating - a friendship with the girl who had contributed so much in Narnia's darkest hour. And now, now it would never happen.

And Eustace, her cousin who'd been so insufferable, for a time. Then he'd turned sensible, but by that time Susan was already pulling away from Narnia.

What foolishness.

Then coldness seized her heart. Were all the Friends of Narnia gone save her, the most foolish of them all? She staggered forward, then almost fell as her movement showed her another two bodies.

The Professor and Aunt Polly. They too held hands, and their gazes were turned towards one another with such love and care that it took her breath away.

Their breath did not stir them. A sudden desperation took hold of Susan and she tried, tried to find a pulse, anything. Professor Kirke, first adventurer into Narnia and the man who had provided a gateway into that place for four wondering children.

There wasn't a heartbeat.

Seeing her parents lying there was another blow, and the one that finally broke her.

Her sobs turned to screams, begging someone - anyone - to come, to help her.

"Aslan! Aslan! Take me to your country, I don't want to live without them!"

Life without anyone who knew of Narnia was empty. No one else had seen what she knew and remembered. No one else would understand. As far as she knew, they'd told no one. And she was, once again, alone.

Lucy had been right, Narnia existed, but... when everyone else was gone, was it worth it?

Jill and Eustace holding hands isn't mentioned in canon, I know. But I just thought, given that Eustace noticed the start of the accident, he might've grabbed Jill's hand in that instant before Narnia.

SC isn't Narnia's darkest hour, LB is. But Su has no knowledge of that.

I hope you enjoyed. We aren't done here yet, though.