After her talk with Peter, she had crept into her own room. She laid in her bed, listening to the clock tick, unable to stop her thoughts from swirling in her mindd. Even with Peter sick, she could not have a conversation with any of them that did not turn cold. She felt hollow after leaving him. There was no triumph in hurting him, and she felt so lost.
It was not long after she left him that she heard Edmund re-enter his room. Her brothers' hushed voices were heard through the walls, yet she could not make out a word. She knew Peter was upset, but she did not understand what he wanted from her anymore. She had told him the truth, and she did not know if it was her best option.
Was carving deep wounds into her brothers worth the attempts at distancing herself from Narnia?
That was the question that plagued her thoughts as she tried to sleep. Eventually, she had entered a restless slumber. By the time she woke up early the next morning and went downstairs, she could feel the tension in the air. When Edmund passed her in the kitchen, he looked disappointed at every glance at her and did not utter a word to her.
Peter must have told him what I said, Susan realized when he practically stormed past her. Lucy had only spoken soft words to her, giving her an update on Peter's condition, but even she raced away too.
Being trapped in their house with the three of them was becoming unbearable by morning's end. Susan did not know how to make it better, or if it was worth trying. All she was doing was hurting them and herself.
Why should I keep doing that? she asked herself.
"Susan," Lucy's voice startled her out of her thoughts. It had only been an hour since she had last spoken with her. She had not expected her to return so soon. She blinked up at her in a daze. Lucy looked away from her before she continued, "Peter is asking for you."
Susan knew she could not do another round with him. She did not think she had the strength to. He had the whole night to build a response, she knew it could be lethal.
Instead, she elected to say, "I will be up to see him later. He should be resting now anyway."
"Are you sure?" Lucy asked. "He really wanted to see you." Susan nodded. Lucy looked disappointed but silently went back up the stairs all the same.
Only once Lucy went upstairs did Susan return to her seat on the couch, choosing a book to pretend to read as she allowed her mind a chance to think.
It could not have been more than ten minutes later that Edmund came down. Still as stormy as he was earlier, he asked, "Could you come upstairs? Peter wants to talk to you."
Susan knew what this would be. He must have told their other siblings how much she had hurt his feelings, and they would all be against her. She could not deal with all three of them.
She refused.
"Susan, it is important," he insisted, some of that fire in him reached his tone.
But whatever was important for Peter to say to her was probably only going to make her feel worse.
"He and I will talk later," she replied sternly.
Surprise was evident on his face, but any other emotion was unreadable. He reluctantly returned to the stairs before lingering at the bottom one for a few moments and then climbed the steps. As she watched him leave, she could not help but wonder if she was becoming more of a burden to them than an actual sister.
Maybe, we would be better without each other. They constantly made her feel inferior to them just by their presence, and she knew she tore them down. She was not one of them anymore.
It was not long after Edmund returned upstairs that she heard a stumble and then the hushed voices of her brothers. To her concern and surprise, Edmund was aiding Peter down the steps. She immediately went over to help.
They are going to get themselves hurt doing this, she thought as they nearly tumbled down the steps.
"Be careful," Lucy urged after one dangerous stumble. She watched anxiously behind them, still too small to really help Peter anyway.
"He should be upstairs resting," Susan scolded Edmund.
"I know that," he said in a sharp voice as the two of them reached the bottom stair. "But you were down here."
She found herself frozen in fear of what could possibly be so important for him to come all the way down to her. The two of them skirted past her, and Edmund plopped Peter down on their couch.
"I am too old for this," Edmund muttered with some amusement. A small smile reached Susan's lips, yet dispersed when she saw Peter. His face was still flushed, probably from effort and his fever.
"You should be resting, Peter," she insisted.
"You would not come talk to me," Peter pointed out. Lucy came over to him, offering him some water and placed a blanket over his legs. His voice was quiet yet grave when he spoke again. "But you had said it hurt when we talked, so I understand why you did not want to."
She noticed both Lucy and Edmund's attention were on her, awaiting a reaction. They seemed a bit taken back too. Maybe Peter had not told them everything. Yet again, he always had been a great person to tell problems in confidence in the past.
There was a silence in the air. She did not know what to say to him. It was the truth. Talking to him could hurt her so deeply, even if no harsh words were exchanged, but she also hated that it was that way. She was constantly back and forth about how much she wanted them a part of her life and how much she despised their efforts to be in her world.
He took a deep breath, to steady himself.
"If it hurts you less, I understand why you would rather we did not try to have a relationship in this world," Peter said. At first, she thought he was just confirming what she had implied, until he continued, "I have thought a lot about this, and I realized that there is not anything I would not do for you, or for them."
He gestured lightly to Edmund and Lucy.
"And I will do what you need me to. Because I love you, Susan, more than you believe, and even if you want me to stop talking to you, to stop being a reminder of your pain, I can do that. I will do what you need, but just know, that love will never change, no matter what you ask of me."
She stared at him in disbelief. To stop being a reminder of your pain, hearing him say those words felt like a slap in the face. He was trying to help her, trying to discover what she needed from him. He looked awfully sad about it though, like the mere suggestion was ripping his heart from his chest.
"You would stop talking to me if I asked you to?" Susan asked, unable to comprehend his true offer.
"I want you to be happy," he said sadly. "Even if it means I have to not be a part of it."
She could not believe what he was saying. His willingness to remove himself from her life at the chance it made her happier. She felt her heart constrict in her chest.
How could he still love her like this when she was not who she once was? She thought he had hated her, but his love remained.
How could he even be offering this? Was it actually what she wanted from him? She had thought she wanted to be left alone by all of them, but the actual offer seemed too terrible to consider. She wanted him to stop being magnificent here, but that was not something he could control. She wanted to stop feeling the pain from not being the Gentle Queen she once was, yet she did not know how to do that either.
"I do not want you gone, Peter," she admitted after a long while of consideration. She looked at her other two siblings. "I do not want any of you to leave. I just want to stop being angry with you all the time."
"Why are you angry?" Lucy asked gently.
"You all still embrace Narnia, and I do not want to anymore," she confessed, looking down in shame. "How could I not hate the mere idea of that place? We were cast out, yet the three of you still act the same."
"Not without effort," Lucy pointed out. "We each strive every day not to lose ourselves here."
"But I do not want to keep trying to be who I was. I just want to be me as I am now." Susan sat on the couch across from Peter. She looked at her hands as she fiddled with them. "I cannot keep living in the past," she told them. The words thick in her throat as she tried to keep her emotions at bay. "I loved Narnia with all of my heart. I really did."
"We know," Lucy said softly, taking a seat next to her and taking a hold of her hand. It was probably the first time in almost a year that she had.
She continued on, hoping that she could explain this. "I do not want to lose the three of you." She paused. "Anymore than I already have." She could not help but glance at Edmund, knowing she had pushed him away often with her words, especially yesterday. "I just cannot keep living, in hopes of returning to Narnia. We were told to live our lives here, and that is all I want to do. Have a life here without Narnia's shadow blocking me."
They were quiet for a long while.
"Why did you not tell us before?" Edmund asked carefully, taking a seat next to Peter.
"I thought I did," Susan admitted.
"I never heard you tell us that," he replied. She looked at Lucy and Peter, and they both nodded heads in agreement. In a grave voice, he continued, "My concern is I do not want to keep being torn down because we still remember, even if you do not want to. We grew up there, and you cannot change those years."
"I know, and I am sorry-I am sorry about yesterday," she blurted out. She looked at both of her brothers. "To both of you. I know I was crueler than I had to be." She paused. "You did not seem to understand when I did not want to talk about it. I thought- I wanted to make you feel as awful as I felt."
"You need to talk to us, Susan. Like Peter said, we just want you to be happy," Edmund suggested. He looked thoughtfully at her before asking, "Lashing out only made you feel worse, didn't it?"
"How did you know-?" she started.
"I used to do it all the time," he answered calmly. A delicate expression was on his face. "You remember. Before Narnia, all I did was try to make others feel worse to feel better. It never worked." Years ago, at the mere mention of his past actions, he would panic and feel shame. She was glad that he was still able to talk about his past here as he had been able to in Narnia.
"I supposed I do that a lot lately," she realized. She looked at them carefully. They each looked at her with different expressions: Lucy was thoughtful, Edmund was understanding, and Peter was kind.
"How can we help you, Susan?" Peter asked. His voice was soft and gentle. He still wanted her to be happy; she felt tears brimming in her eyes.
"I need your forgiveness, Peter," she said. He looked a bit surprised. She continued on, unable to contain her thoughts. "I do not hate you, and I should not have been so mean yesterday- or even the other day. You have every right to feel out of place with our parents, and I should not have said any of what I did." She paused. "Will you forgive me?"
With a gentle smile, he said, "I always will." He paused before pointing out, "But I do not want to keep being a reminder of your pain. I do not want to do that to you."
"That was cruel of me to say," Susan said. "I just hate how angry I feel towards Narnia, and being near any of you reminds me how much I miss being a queen."
"We miss it too," Peter said, and for the first time in a long while, a look of understanding passed between them.
She smiled gratefully before she looked around to all three of them. She loved all of them so much, even when they had grown so apart. She missed them, missed being their sister.
"I just want us to be siblings again. Please, I know we cannot be as close as we once were, and I know that I have been rather awful of late, but could we try?" Susan asked.
She hoped they wanted to do as she did. She could not contain the eagerness and hopefulness that swelled inside her.
"I do not think I want to ever really talk about Narnia or even think about it more than I have to, and I know that must be difficult for you to accept, but you need to know, what we have endured, the pain you still feel, I will never forget it. I will always be here. I will always help you through your fears and everything in between. Just please, give me a chance to be your sister again, just not as a former queen but just as Susan."
They each carefully considered her offer. It was Peter who was the first to speak.
"As long as we have each other," Peter started quietly, "then if you need me to not talk about Narnia to you, I will do my best not to."
"And I promise, I will try to talk to you three instead of just lashing out," she promised, hoping they understood how much she rathered this alternative. She could not lose them any more than she had.
Edmund was the next to speak, saying, "I will respect your wish to stop talking with you about Narnia, but you cannot keep being angry at us for remembering. We do not want to forget, and you will need to let go of that anger."
"I will try," she swore
Lastly, they all looked to Lucy who had remained quiet for a long while.
"Aslan had told us we needed to find him in this world," Lucy said. Susan looked away, readying herself for Lucy's faith to outweigh everything else. "But I suppose that he would also say that we all must take our own journeys, and I will accept that yours is not like mine."
"Thank you," she found herself saying. Tears dripped down her cheeks. Lucy hugged her for the first time in such a long time. She could not contain the love she felt.
"We love you, Susan," Lucy said. "And I have missed you."
"I have missed all of you for too long," Susan admitted, holding Lucy closer.
While their problems were not all solved, this was a start to a long journey of healing the wounds the last four years left. After that day, they came away with an understanding, a recognition that their relationship as siblings stretched beyond the wake of Narnia, and for the next few years of their lives, despite their struggles and the longing for Narnia, the four of them remained close, as close as they could be.
The four of them became siblings again. After many struggles, Susan had been able to release her anger, and she embraced how wonderful her siblings were in both Narnia and England. They allowed Susan to feign ignorance about Narnia to anyone who asked her of it because they understood how painful it all was for her, and they knew that in their darkest hours, she was still there for them.
Because the most important thing they received after being trapped in their house together was that they had each other again.
Author's Note: Thank you for all the support and for taking the time to read this story! I really appreciate any and all reviews for this, and your support is very motivating and wonderful! I hope you enjoyed this story! I am currently working on a couple of ideas, and I hope to post them soon. Thank you for your support!