The disclaimer was far too long in the first chapter, and must suffice for both. It's still true, anyway.

OOOOO

Dancing bears,

Painted wings

Things I almost remember,

And a song someone sings,

Once upon a December.

Susan turned towards the song, her feet already tracing the path she'd walked hundreds of times before - in dreams, she told herself, and games. This was not real.

And yet she drew in a breath, and the air bit cold, like the sting of water to wake a sleeper. She reached out a hand; the needles did not move beneath the weight of her fingers, but she could feel the smooth lengths and pointed ends.

She knew this. She knew this path, these trees, this air. The name she had forbidden from her memory once again crossed her lips; "Narnia," she whispered. She walked faster, breaking into a run, the path illuminated by the glowing figure behind her. Down, down the hill, the grace she had exchanged for a different type of movement these past few years once again coming to the fore as she ran, barefoot, down the hill, her eyes shining.

There, there, there! There, in the opening, in the glen! There the Fauns played, or danced, or bent and scooped up snow; there the Dwarves joined them. There the Dryads came, laughing, bending, shaking the snow from their hair and arms, and there the Bears joined the dance! Snuffling, snorting, lumbering with clumsy movements through their fleet-footed friends, but laughing all the same! They woke every year for this, the snow-dance on Christmas Eve, and then the ball on Christmas Day at Cair Paravel. Susan turned - there, she could see its towers! Cair Paravel, dearer than home! Its halls would be...red, wouldn't they? Red - no, green, with branches, and red ribbons. The birds who stayed would alight on them, their feathers shining in the candlelight like the finest paintings. And there was singing; Susan could hear the singing, the songs during which each person in the Cair joined in, till the halls rang with melody and the stones themselves echoed back the music. It was real, it was true, it was more than they had ever dreamed up -

Not real, Susan told herself fiercely. It wasn't real. It never had been.

"Come," said a voice behind her, and Susan felt the gentle, snowy touch of the merghost's hand again. Susan blinked, and they were suddenly at the doors of Cair Paravel.

Someone holds me safe and warm,

Horses prance through a silver storm,

Figures dancing gracefully across my memory

Susan glanced around. It was still Christmas; the doors were hung with two large wreaths, a tradition the Narnians had celebrated every year, made by as many hands as could fit around the circle. Trees had been dragged into the courtyard, decorated, and now they sparkled with silver and gold figurines made by the Dwarves. One tree told, in a spinning circle from top to bottom, the story of the four coming to Narnia and Aslan's great triumph over the Witch. Another told the story of one of the Dwarves' greatest heroes; another was decorated solely with lion figurines. Lucy loved that one the most, though she searched in vain to find one that really resembled Aslan.

Susan remembered this. She knew it, knew this Christmas, the memory springing unbidden to mind after years, brought by Narnia's air and the beauty around her. This was the night it had snowed, and the next morning they had all spilled into the courtyard to dust off the trees and their ornaments, laughing as they sprinkled snow over each other. But that meant now-

"Hurry up!" cried a voice as the door swept open, and Susan caught her breath. Edmund. Edmund, older than he had ever looked in England, and yet younger too, eyes dancing with the achingly-familiar mix of impatience and glee. "I'll leave without you all if you can't hurry!"

"Edmund!" remonstrated Peter's voice from inside. "Be patient with your sisters!"

Susan reached out, eyes blurring, for the younger brother who was mock-scowling in the direction of Peter's - Peter's! - voice.

But her hand could no more move her brother than it had the tree needles. She felt his clothing, the warm shirt, but he didn't turn to her.

"These are but shadows of the things that have been," came that sweet, soft, high-pitched voice beside her, and Susan choked at the weeping beauty of it. "They have no consciousness of us."

"I want to touch him." Susan turned to the mermaid floating beside her, pleading. "Just for a moment. Please, please, I never got-" her voice broke. "There were no goodbyes."

"I am sorry," and the mermaid wafted closer, a chilled slender arm gently holding Susan's shoulders, the floating hair a touch like a breeze on her face. "I cannot put you fully in the past, I am not able." Susan bit her lip, trying to think of something, anything, but lost all thought when Lucy appeared in the door.

Laughing. Her eyes were full of the joy that reached to and filled her entire soul, and she was smiling at Edmund. "There!" she cried. "I'm done, and Susan almost is, and we'll be off to try out King Lune's present in moments, Ed! And Peter said you could drive first, because I asked him."

"Then come on!" and Edmund reached for his sister - gently, Susan saw, because Edmund was always gentlest with Lucy, the one he had once been so cruel to - and pulled her down the stairs and towards the edge of the courtyard, stopping at the side of a slender, magnificent silver sleigh, with gold leaves patterned all over the side. "Up!" Susan heard Edmund say, and saw him lift his sister into the sleigh.

"They're already inside," Susan heard behind her, and she started, for the cadence was familiar, but the voice so strange! She turned, and jumped again as she saw herself.

It was not the self she saw in a mirror; not even the self she'd seen before-

Before. Not even the reflection from then. This, Susan saw, her eyes blurring again - she blinked them, she needed, she needed to see clearly - this was her at her best, as if someone had taken her personality, her gifts, her soul, and perfected it.

Surely - surely this was more than a game.

"Are you surprised?" asked a voice, and Peter appeared. Peter, smiling at the two younger ones who were now waiving their siblings impatiently forward. "Ed's been hounding us since it arrived this afternoon. I thought he'd take it for a ride all by himself when we said we'd wait till after dinner."

"He was so impatient he forgot his cloak," this other Susan sighed.

"He won't thank you for reminding him; he wants to leave. I think he's leaving now, actually," Peter added dryly, as Edmund gathered up the reins and moved the four horses (not Talking Horses, of course!) forward, sweeping the sleigh up towards the front steps and accidently hitting them with one runner, nearly tilting the sled. Lucy shrieked from the inside, and Peter moved, faster than Susan remembered he could, grabbing the side and dragging it down, the other Susan a few seconds behind him. They'd moved like that - they always had - for their younger siblings.

It hadn't been a dream.

"Careful, Ed!" Peter scolded.

"You almost upset yourself, and Lucy!" Susan added.

"All right, Lu?" Edmund panted, turning around swiftly.

"It's the more exciting way to sleigh," Lucy remarked, smiling cheerfully at him, and at her words the older two began laughing.

"All right, everyone in!" Peter cried. He turned, offering his help to his sister, and soon she was inside, and Peter swung himself over. He sat himself between the two girls, drawing them to him, spreading the blanket over their laps and his, and holding them close. "No we're ready for any mishap! Hullo! Snow!" And he looked up - Susan could see his eyes from where she stood at the top of the steps, contented and happy - and watched the snowflakes. "Drive on, Ed! But don't get us lost!"

"Or Oreius himself will come find us, and we'll spoil his Christmas!" Lucy chimed in, and Edmund lifted the reins once more - more carefully this time, Susan couldn't help but notice. He learned - that is, he always had learned - so quickly from his mistakes. She watched them sleigh out of sight, their laughter carrying back through the courtyard. Her laughter, that queenly laughter mixing so perfectly with the other three - all of that laughter was silenced now.

"Take me away," she whispered, knowing the face so near her own would hear her. "I can bear no more of this. Please take me away."

Far away,

Long ago,

Glowing dim as an ember,

Things my heart used to know,

Things it yearns to remember

The courtyard faded. "I have one more thing to show you," the mermaid sang. Susan looked around; she thought, knowing all the merghost had showed her, that this too was Christmas, but if it was, it was not one she remembered. They were in one of Cair Paravel's towers, the dark of the night filling it with darkness. There was muted sound below them, and singing, clear-voiced and faint, from above them, but the tower itself was dark.

Then, footsteps. Graceful, swift, and yet, as Susan listened, they stumbled. A sob echoed from the staircase, and Susan turned towards it impulsively, before remembering that this person would neither see nor hear her.

But no one should be unhappy at Christmas. During a Narnian Christmas, Susan added uneasily, aware of her own undecorated house and wish to sleep through this English holiday. But Narnia was different.

A glow, gold, not the white glow of her companion, lit the stairs. The footsteps drew nearer, nearer, and then Susan herself came stumbling through the door. The Susan of England drew back, and the Susan of Narnia ran by, heedless, crying. She reached the window, setting her candle down with shaking fingers, bringing her hands up to her face and covering it.

"When is this?" Susan of England asked the ghost, who was staring at the Susan of Narnia with compassion in her glowing face.

"Two years after Rabadash," the mermaid said, and Susan stiffened. "Many of the Tarkhaans who lost their sons or fathers gathered together as their ruler grew ill and weak, and sent ships to harry the shores of Narnia, hiring pirates as well. Your brothers are there, fighting, and your sister is in Archenland, healing Prince Corin from deadly hurts he earned during one of his misadventures."

"I was alone," Susan remembered, her voice strained. She remembered - dimly - it had been so long ago, and in a place too far - weeping, because her brothers at Christmas fought for their lives, and the cordial was far away. She had been alone, and lonely, and regretting much the folly of her fall for Rabadash.

Had she forgotten so much? Her brothers had tried to bring it to mind, to show her the folly of what she'd sought in England, but she hadn't listened. Narnia had been a game, nothing more! They had needed to grow up!

They had died instead, a voice reminded her. And all her grown-up ways were not enough to help her when they did.

In Narnia - this night - Susan had turned to a different help.

"Aslan," the Susan of Narnia prayed, voice breaking. "I pray Thee, be with my brothers this night. Give them the joy that follows Thy presence, the safety that dwells in Thy paws. Aslan, Aslan, help them, far from home. Aslan-"

"Susan," purred a voice. Instantly the Susan of England stiffened, heart pounding, but the Susan of Narnia looked up, hope in her face, and fear fleeing.

"Aslan!" she called, and Susan of England turned towards the mermaid even as a golden light filled the room. "Leave!" she shouted, panic in her voice. "Let me leave now! No more! No, not this! Not this!"

But the mermaid didn't listen, staying just out of reach, eyes filled with that same compassion. Susan fell to her knees, huddled on the floor, as the Susan of Narnia cried the Lion's name one more time in relief. Susan knew that golden light, knew the voice, she knew Him.

"Susan," whispered the voice again, and Susan of England knew it was for her, that somehow, somehow, the Lion had found her, Susan of England caught in the past.

"Susan," came her name again, whispered as a song that melded to her heart-beart.

"Susan." It was a song that never ceased, that called through her past, into her present, offering her a future.

"Susan." It was the song sung by a Singer who had sent the ghost of the past to open her ears once again. A song that sounded one more time as the merghost, the light, the past faded, and Susan found herself on her knees, crying, in her own bed once again.

And a song someone sings

Once upon a December

And so, for the first time, Susan wept. She cried for all the Decembers that were past, and never would be again, and how much her heart missed them. She cried for the laughter that would never ring in this world, the dances that would never be given, that minds that would not here remember the birth of the God they'd grown to love and sing their response to His song. She wept for all the future Decembers she could never have, and all the past ones she'd pushed aside.

And, in the midst of her sorrow, she thanked this God that He gave her back her memory of all she had had.

She had been given the past, and though it brought her to tears in the present, it was something from which to begin her future.