AN: It's taken me a long, slow time even to approach understanding Susan and her reasons for turning away. I don't know why, but I find it difficult to get inside her head - most likely because I still cling to my fairy-tale besotted younger self's gape-jawed "Why would anyone want to forget Narnia?" at that part in the Last Battle. I know reading other authors' interpretations have helped me see her in a different light, and I know I have been influenced by those interpretations, so if my take seems familiar, that is probably why.
And Mikela, in re your review of chapter 2 (Ashes to Ashes), you are not loony - in fact, you are absolutely correct! Very sharp eyes - you're the only one who caught that - or at least the only one who said so. (grin)

My whole world is the pain inside me
The best I can do is just get through the day
When life before is only a memory
I wonder why God let me walk through this place
+ Beauty from Pain, vs. 3, by Superchick

4. Once a King or Queen in Narnia…

The drive home seemed to take an interminably long time, with Susan sitting silently in the back, refusing to speak and refusing to make eye contact, not that Edmund tried beyond once. Peter was too busy driving and biting his lip to keep from breaking down again to notice anything other than the moisture in his eyes and the pain in his heart.

When they pulled up to the curb in front of their house, Susan was out of the car like a shot as soon as Peter killed the engine, pulling her keys from her handbag with a harsh jingle, and viciously jamming the correct one into the front door lock. She went inside and left the door standing wide open. The brothers could hear her stomping up the stairs, and then the faint sound of another door banging shut came to their ears. Peter watched her go, and a choked sigh escaped him.

Upon entering the house, Peter deposited his keys on the hall table and set about removing his jacket and then his shoes, all without saying a word. The hallway was shadowed, the late afternoon sun streaming in through the sitting room windows instead, and Edmund was struck by the silence. Off to his left, he could hear the grandfather clock, ticking-tocking steadily.

Everything seemed the same, familiar, and yet everything had changed, he thought as he quietly closed the front door and took off his own jacket. He looked down at the brown walking shoes on his feet and considered that now he probably didn't have to obey his mother's directive to remove them upon coming inside. He swallowed hard and bent down to untie the laces.

There was a creak, and Edmund looked up to see Peter climbing the stairs. "I wouldn't," he said warningly, but the older boy gave him that stubborn look he knew so very well.

"I have to talk to her," he said, and the teenager shook his head.

"Bad timing," he replied, working the shoes off his feet and placing them beside Peter's. "Let her alone, Pete."

His brother set his jaw and narrowed his eyes. "I'm going to lance this boil now," he said, and though his words were soft, they were hard, intense. Edmund almost stepped back a pace. "Then perhaps it will bleed out and heal. I've left it too long already." And he turned and continued on up, his shoulders stiff.

He reached the bedroom Susan and Lucy shared and knocked gently at the closed door. "Susan?" he called, "Su, let me in."

There was no response, and so Peter knocked again. "Come on, Susan," he said, "Please. Talk to me. Please. I – I know why you're angry, and we need to discuss it. We need each other… Please, please, talk to me, Su…"

He was in tears again now. For all his determination to hash out the root of their problem, to air words that would be said eventually – he could feel them bubbling beneath the surface, and already he had shouldered their weight – all he really wanted was to wrap his remaining sister in a hug and sob into her shoulder.

The door was suddenly wrenched open, and Peter found himself facing Susan the Gentle in all her fury. Her face was red and streaked with make-up, and her dark eyes were swollen and still weeping. She had a stranglehold on one of Lucy's handkerchiefs, and her body was rigid. "This," she hissed, holding it out and shaking it in her older brother's face, "is all your fault."

And there it was. Edmund, watching from the top step, half expected Peter to go paler still and accept those words without a qualm, slumping uncomplaining beneath their load of guilt as he usually did. He was rather surprised though, when the older boy simply compressed his lips, remained calm and stood tall, only asking, "Why?" through a film of tears. Susan inhaled, gathering herself for the onslaught.

"You're the eldest, Peter; you're supposed to set an example to us all, especially the younger ones! Lucy idolized you; you were her hero, her bloody knight in shining armor! And you went on encouraging her – not to mention the rest – to keep on playing those stupid games! You, Peter! You, who ought to have known better! Who ought to be grown up!" Susan was nearly screaming now, her voice having risen shrilly with each sentence, all the bottled up emotion coming out in a garbled, tumbled rush.

Edmund clenched his fists, feeling his old black anger building like a thundercloud, watching Peter take their sister's accusing words without flinching and wanting to jump in, to deflect her rage onto himself. They had spent many years following one another's lead, however, and he understood that if Peter needed him, he would let him know. For now, he remained silent and attentive, waiting rather impatiently on the High King's command.

"What do you mean, 'stupid games'?" Peter asked, and Susan colored even deeper, bright, hot anger burning in her eyes.

"Don't be a complete idiot," she said vehemently, "You know exactly what I mean. Narnia! Those silly, ridiculous, absolutely childish games about Narnia!"

The oldest Pevensie blinked and dashed away trickling moisture. "Narnia," he said, and there was a new note to his voice. "So it's about Narnia."

"You know it is," she responded heatedly. "It always has been."

Peter smiled, but there was no humor in it. "Come now, Susan, you yourself insist it's just a story. Just a game. Why, then, does it bother you so much that the rest of us believe it?"

Susan's mouth worked for a moment, and then she found her thought. "This is why!" she cried, lifting the handkerchief again, a raging, grieving triumph on her face, "Because your believing it has destroyed our family, Peter! Now, because of your encouragement, our mother and father and sister are dead! You have been and are a fool, and now we are paying for it!"

Edmund could stand it no longer. "That's enough, Su," he said, infuriated, taking a few long steps forward and glaring down at his sister. "You will not speak to Peter that way."

"Why not?" she asked snidely, "Because he's our brother? Family? Head of the house, now that our father is dead? Or is it," and her mouth curled into a nasty little smile, "because he's High King?" She waved her hand in an elaborate mockery of a bow and then snorted contemptuously. "Really, Edmund, you're pathetic. One would think you might have ended up with some sense."

"I've been called worse and by worse than you," her brother replied through gritted teeth, trying to let the words roll off his back.

Susan's eyes flashed. "What, a traitor?"

He heard Peter growl behind him, low and threatening, but Edmund said nothing, revelation having descended upon him with the bright bursting light of an explosion. "You do remember," he half-whispered, his expression amazed, his brown eyes widening as he hit upon the truth. "You haven't forgotten. You still believe. Why, Su? Why?"

His sister's face went through a series of contortions that told him she was trying very hard not to fly into further hysterics, and then she slumped, crumpling in on herself, her anger morphing into immense sadness and a remnant of defiance. "How can I forget, Edmund?" She sighed, a shaky, treacly sound. "You all wouldn't – won't let me."

"But why do you want to forget, Su?" Peter asked at last, "Narnia – these memories – they're who we are."

"They're who we were, brother," Susan replied swiftly, with a hint of venom, "but after being cruelly torn from that world once and then allowed back to find everything – and everyone – I'd known gone, dead, dust for thousands of years…" a quick, indrawn breath, passing over a still open wound, "holding onto them just wasn't – and isn't – worth the effort."

Brittle silence fell at that remark. "And Aslan?" Edmund asked quietly. Looking into his sister's eyes, he saw the wretchedness of hardened grief and denial give him answer, and he felt a single pang of utter sorrow, deeper yet than any he had known that day.

Susan took another trembling breath, desperate, scrabbling for purchase. "We're too old for such things. We just are!" On steadier ground now with this oft-repeated refrain, her tone grew more certain. "Maybe it was real – maybe we were there – maybe you really were Magnificent and Edmund was Just and…Lucy was…Valiant and I…I was Gentle. But what meaning do those titles have here?"

"They mean everything, Su," Edmund said, "They were indications of who we have been and who we can be again. We may no longer have the responsibility of ruling a country, but we do have the responsibility to live according to the lessons we learned there." He paused. "And to find – and know – Who it was we met there."

Susan held up her hand, the one still clenching Lucy's damp handkerchief. "No," she said, "I mean it, Ed. No. Don't start. Does my belief really change anything? Not now. Not with this." She gave the handkerchief a sad little flourish, and fresh tears rolled down her cheeks. "Especially not after this. No more."

"Susan," Peter said beseechingly, stepping forward and reaching out, his hands extended and his arms open. "Please…"

Their sister balanced on the threshold, hesitating, and Edmund felt his breath catch in his throat, seeing her bite her lip with uncertainty and look at her eldest brother as if she was really seeing someone else, a shadow of the Gentle falling over the ruin of her beautiful face. "Please, Aslan," he found himself praying, "Please, please, please…"

And then Susan sighed heavily, and Peter slowly lowered his arms, and the moment passed.

"Just leave me alone," Susan said softly as she stepped back into the bedroom and made to close the door. "Please."