Hi there. It's been a very long time—chapter 4 was posted on 2-12-12, and today is 2-1-21, goodness that sure is a lot of 1s and 2s—and I do apologize, but I think the time has come to officially admit I'm never going to finish this fic. But I did have some bits and plans, so here they are for anyone interested. Back then I was mostly writing the letters by the seat of my pants, so unless there's something specific mentioned, I had no concrete plans for each one.
Chapter 5: To my loving father, Justin
Chapter 6: To my metamorphic cousin, Eustace
Susan smiled. Her cousin would have liked that word and its double application to him—both having to do with types of rock formation, and meaning "changed." He'd been quite the avid scientist, and no one could deny he had in fact changed drastically while she was in America.
Chapters 7-8: letters to Uncle Harold and Aunt Alberta, including how Eustace's death was a turning point and their shared grief with Susan improved both their character and their relationship with their niece.
Chapter 9: letter to Professor Kirke
Chapter 10: letter to Jill Pole, including how her relatives would mention Jill but Susan didn't know her particularly well, because Jill's trip with Eustace did not happen until after Susan had already started rejecting Narnia while in America with her parents.
Chapter 11: letter To Miss Polly Plummer, similarly to Jill's mentioning how the relatives would talk about "Aunt Polly" but Susan didn't know her very well, since even though Digory introduced the Pevensies to her after LWW, they didn't really visit much after returning to London, and of course later Susan had walked away.
Chapter 12: letter To my beloved David, going into a bit more depth on how she and David met, how he helped her find her way through the grief of losing her family, and how she reacted to his death, among other things.
Chapter 13: letter To my little Leo, including that Susan was well on her way back to Aslan by the time he was born, and so she named him after the Lion.
Chapter 14: one final letter
The last letter Susan wrote was very short and simple, and no recipient was specified.
The first time, I missed you. The second time, I tried my best to forget you. When they died, I raged at you. Then I realized I had found you long before, and I was ashamed. Please forgive me.
Chapter 15: the final chapter, where it turns back into the marginally-a-songfic that was originally envisioned before it got sidetracked by all the introspective letters. Bits of the song are interspersed throughout where relevant.
Susan reflects on the letters she's written. Announcement that they are closer to the destination. Susan notices the train seems to be going very quickly. The train derails and crashes. Terrified for herself and her child, she calls out to Aslan before she is knocked unconscious.
Susan awakes on the ground outside the ruined train. Miraculously, she has no serious injuries. Even more miraculously, Leo is entirely uninjured, and is sleeping peacefully in his basket beside her. She breaks down sobbing, thankful that they have both survived, ashamed of her actions in the past, and finally able to completely admit to her guilt and grief.
The ticketmaster shows up. He says something normal, and then something less normal, and then something extremely not normal, at which point Susan realizes that gasp he is actually Aslan. They have a bit of A Talk, which includes a mention of his name on Earth.
At the end of it he disappears and Susan determines to henceforth live her life as a queen of Narnia should. She finally makes it to Cincinnati, and the story ends with her reuniting with her in-laws, who are indeed softened by Leo.
Looking back, it was kind of cheesy, heh. Especially the "twist" ending. My chosen method of foreshadowing that was the clunky and obvious "There was something strangely familiar about him" and "a strange look she could not interpret" in the first chapter. (I was young. I thought I was so very clever.) The story itself was originally spawned by the idea of "spinning on a thin black sheet of glass" actually being a metaphor for Susan's life going out of control before she found her way back, but then morphed into a more literal rendering.
And well, here we are. Younger Calyn definitely did not have the chops for a proper Susanfic, but I hope you've enjoyed the bits she did write. Thanks for reading.
