england / december 19, 1948

word count: 1,144

supeter requested by abby w

xXx

"Oh, Peter, look, this is lovely!"

Peter glanced away from an array of frustratingly identical gift boxes to find Susan holding up a frilly dress that wouldn't have fit any child over three days old.

"Yes, Su, very nice, but I think it's a bit small for Lu."

Susan rolled her eyes. "I didn't mean for Christmas, I only meant, you know, someday."

"You're supposed to be helping with my Christmas shopping, not planning your future nieces' wardrobes before any of us have even graduated."

Susan stuffed the tiny dress back onto the department store rack and shot Peter a look.

"Hey, I thought you liked helping me shop!"

"Yes, helping, I wasn't aware I was meant to do all of it myself while you stared at the same three sheets of wrapping paper like a lost guppy for fifteen minutes straight."

Peter smirked. "My apologies, I assumed I would only be in the way."

"Gracious, Peter, they're your Christmas gifts! I suppose I'll have to pick my own out, too, then?"

"Why?" asked Peter eagerly. "Do you know what you want?"

Susan pursed her lips. "You're hopeless." She turned to peruse a shelf of Christmas-themed knick knacks, and Peter stepped across the aisle, put an arm around her shoulder, and grinned.

"I know."

She glanced up and suppressed a small smile in return, turning a decorative wooden train over in pale pink fingers, glittering snow painted on so thick it almost looked more like a train-shaped cookie.

"Shame Edmund doesn't care for decorating," she muttered, "though Lucy would probably like some of these."

Peter scanned the display, and thought privately that he was with Edmund on this one.

"Maybe a ballerina?" she suggested, but Peter's eyes fell past the gaudy bauble to a pair of intricately carved wooden caroling mice, complete with tiny painted hats and hymnals.

He reached over Susan's hand to pick them up, and she shot them a skeptical eye.

"Oh dear, I suppose she does love rodents, though I cannot fathom why."

"Well, don't you remember—"

Susan glanced up and Peter snapped his mouth shut, stopping only just in time to dodge another one of those conversations.

He'd been about to say "Don't you remember our first Christmas in Narnia, with the chimney, and the seeds? You know mice have always been her particular favorites since then."

But instead he only stammered "Well, you know, she does love anything small and soft."

Susan shuddered, likely at the thought of touching a mouse. "That's very nice for her, I suppose. At least you've got one gift checked off, then, that's progress. I thought of looking for a hat for Mum, if we both chip in we could get a nice one, and she's been looking through the magazines a lot lately."

Peter nodded absently and followed her up the aisle, still clutching the delicate mice in one hand, but he couldn't help but think of Susan's own queenly face beaming down at the excitable creatures and kissing their furry heads.

It had been Susan, not Lucy, who'd doted so devotedly on the smallest of their citizens. And when her eyes took on such a determined gleam, perfect black curls silhouetted against the snow outside the shop windows, he almost forgot they weren't in Narnia anymore.

He almost forgot how much she'd changed.

Christmas only ever seemed to make it harder for the others, that time of year when mentions of Father Christmas and snow dances and wild royal feasts were so hard to avoid. That time of year when it should have been so easy to enjoy each other's company, but Edmund only grew frustrated and Lucy retreated to her room after every close call.

"Oh, do keep up, Peter," laughed Susan, "you'll never be able to shop on your own at this rate!"

He smiled sheepishly as she pulled a flowing green dress from a tall rack, checked the size, checked the price, sighed, and put it back.

"How long have I been helping you, anyway? It's been at least since we came home from the Professor's."

Peter chuckled. "I don't remember, I suppose I've been useless forever. I do appreciate it, though, really."

Susan smirked. "I know."

Peter's smile faltered when she looked away.

Because he did remember. He remembered exactly when he'd first gone to Susan, desperate for help finding the perfect gift for Lucy's tenth birthday.

The first time she'd turned ten.

Merchants from Galma had been in the royal city that day, and Susan had marched him straight down to the market streets, shrewdly selecting a rich red gown for her little sister, and a green one for herself.

"Am I paying for this, too?" Peter had quipped.

"Certainly not," Susan had asserted, only thirteen then with round cheeks and dark hair flowing free around her slender shoulders as she pulled out her own coin purse, "I ask only that when I wear it to the dance tomorrow, you will pretend you've never seen it before and tell me I'm the most enchanting girl in all the land."

"That's easy," Peter had said, "I've already forgotten it."

"Peter?"

His eyes snapped up to Susan now, Susan whose pearl earrings and red lips made her look even older than twenty.

"Oh, for goodness sakes, what on earth has you so distracted today?"

"Nothing—" He shook his head. "Nothing, I've only just remembered what I wanted to get Ed. We'll have to go to the bookstore, though."

"Well, that's easy enough, there's one just across the way."

He nodded as she turned. "Great, I'll meet you there."

Susan glanced over her shoulder and eyed him suspiciously, but he only smiled, and at last she sighed and reluctantly walked out of the shop without him.

The bell over the door jingled as she stepped out onto the sidewalk into a snow flurry, glanced both ways, crossed the lazy street, and walked up to the cozy bookstore on the opposite side.

But she paused before going inside, glancing up into the sky and reaching out to catch fluttering snowflakes in her palms just as she might have done in the streets of Cair Paravel.

Peter smiled to himself.

Yes, it was that time of year again. But perhaps even for all the reminders of another, wilder world, it only proved those parts of Susan were still in there, too. Like a silent promise.

Perhaps it was the snow and the stories and the shopping and the cocoa that brought it all closer to the surface, where it might someday be found again.

Peter snatched the flowing green gown off the rack and took it up to the clerk without even checking the price, placing it on the counter beside his tiny wooden mice.

Perhaps, one day, she would understand it as the thank you he meant it to be.