If anyone had asked Alberta Scrubb, she would not have called herself a dawdler. Dawdling was for the idle, the indecisive, it was a sign of weakness. She was a woman of strength of character; a thoroughly modern woman who revelled in the franchise that had been hard-won by her mother and the Pankhursts and their fellow women; with determination and talent she had worked her way up the journalism ranks from those dreary days of reporting births and deaths to writing opinion columns and editorials; she was a woman with drive, with focus.

And yet, as she stirred her tea, her resolve of late last night lay limper than milk pooled somewhere about her feet.

It just didn't make sense. Narnia and Aslan, words that somehow bound her son- her intelligent, logic-oriented, self-assured son- with Susan Pevensie- what on earth did they signify? (For what they 'meant' must be a silly question, they were children's words, nonsense words- but even nonsense signified something.)

And then there was Susan; Susan, whom she could not easily categorise. She had once thought Susan too like Helen, too flighty and filled with giggles- yet the Susan of late reminded her (eerily and uncomfortably and oh how the thought stuck like pins in her gut) of- herself. Herself without the substance, of course, for Susan had as much admitted that she cared little for cultural landmarks or poetry or artwork- but even so, there had been something she had recognised in Susan, something more than a high, peaked forehead and dark handsome eyes. Something - somehow- similar.

Which of course meant that Alberta simply didn't know how to deal with her.

The sickeningly sugary smell of Turkish delight wafted through her brain and she wrinkled her nose.

Did Susan even know what she was doing?

"I'll meet with Mark now," said Harold's voice from somewhere behind her. She heard, rather than felt, the swift kiss he pressed to her hair.

She murmured a farewell somewhat absently, and she heard his footfall echo down the hall.

Footfalls from the dining room swelled, halted by the door of her writing room.

"Bye, Alberta, I'm off now- Peter's just outside. Alberta?"

And she saw herself, hunched at her table and peering at the paper- oh, what had she even been peering at? Some wretched column by Deveny?

She had murmured some sort of goodbye, she was sure- but had she even turned around? What sort of a mother was she?

"Wait!" she cried, pushing the chair back. It scraped loudly across the floor, but she bit back her wince. "Wait!"

Harold paused at the door, hat in hand, staring at her in confusion.

"Alberta-" he began, but her feet were already hurrying down the hall, and now she had reached him, right hand blindly grasping out to his. He took her hand with some confusion (and a part of her wondered at herself, for how odd she must look, face red, no doubt, and was that a tea stain seeping through her shirt?).

"Take care, Harold," she whispered, and his face softened as he opened his arms and held her briefly, tenderly.

"I'll be back for dinner," he murmured into her hair, and she nodded, clutching at him a moment longer before stepping back, looking aside.

In the mirror, she saw Harold put on his hat, slowly close the door (even as Eustace Clarence had closed the door, a thousand lifetimes ago).

I'm sorry, Eustace Clarence, she thought, breathing in and out. I'm sorry.

But when she opened her eyes, she saw only her own face, framed by the thin walnut panes and the pale cream wall behind. With a sigh, she looked down at her shirt, swallowed. It was time to clean up, and go call on Susan.

Hamptons, she thought dully as she walked down the street. The cherry blossom beside her was beginning to bloom; the bare twigs looked to be weeping buds of white, tears cascading down frozen knobs of brown. She quickened her pace.

It didn't make any sense. Why should she want to leave? When nothing was gone, why leave everything?

And then the scene with the boat- Narnia. Aslan.

And Eustace Clarence's words rung out, yet again-

"I haven't told you about Aslan!"

Aslan. Whatever it was, it had something to do with the Pevensies- of that she was certain. How could it not have something to do with them? But what? She grasped at the frayed threads and attempted to follow, but there were knots along the way, and she tripped and fell.

Eustace Clarence had known. She knew that now, knew it with a startling clarity (though the realisation itself was not new, perhaps she had known, had always known). Whatever it was, Eustace Clarence had known, and she had not listened to him.

All she could do now, as her feet carried her towards the brick pavement leading up to 24 Endsleigh Place, was hope that- somehow- her niece, Susan Pevensie, knew too.

She reached out and pressed the doorbell.

The tea set which Susan carried out to the sitting room looked vaguely familiar, though Alberta could not quite remember where she had seen it. Likely it had been one of the rare times she had accepted Helen's invitation to tea (how Victor had had to pressure her to accept even one of those invitations! - dear Victor, and now his absence was the strongest, cruellest pressure of all).

"Surely you would not have come so soon without a purpose?" asked Susan, and Alberta was intrigued and stunned in equal parts as to how Susan was capable of asking a question without placing a single inflection in her voice.

"Yes," she replied, and bit her lower lip momentarily.

Biting your lip again, Bertha? Better make sure it doesn't fall off!

"Harold-" she choked, paused, began again. "Harold has a friend in Hamptons. It is possible we may be able to open this house for tenants; financially this will enable you to afford a smaller apartment, and it is a safer- investment- than selling the place outright."

Never before had such formal discourse felt so ghastly impersonal. Victor's house, her childhood home, reduced to an investment! But she must plough on, for Susan was her niece, and her niece had asked for help, hadn't she? And she helped her nieces and nephews (heaven knew what she had put up with to help her nieces and nephews in the war).

And Susan was all that was left of Victor.

Susan's face remained impassive, but something flickered in her dark eyes.

"I am relieved," she said, eventually, "thank you, Aunt Alberta. Please thank Uncle Harold for me- and let me know what I can do to help."

Relieved. The word dusted her throat with bile.

"I will let Harold know," she said, picking up her tea and turning aside.

It was far easier to stare at the lamp than to stare at her niece. It was an interesting lead-light design; if nothing else, Helen had had a lovely, if painfully old fashioned, taste in furniture. And beside it was a box- a silver box, with a green ribbon half untied.

The box of Turkish delight.

"It - it was Edmund's."

Edmund Pevensie. Her son had been close with him, that serious, dark-haired boy with Victor's forehead, Victor's nose.

Her son.

"But Alberta, wait! I haven't told you about the great lion, I haven't told you about Aslan!"

She put her teacup down.

"Susan," she said carefully, decisively. Susan put aside the cushion cover she had been folding.

But what should she say? How should she continue? For what was it? A thing? A person, an animal, a place?

The words spilled out of their own accord, rush of tumbling waterfall from unsure lips. "What do you know of Narnia?"

Susan froze, and even though they were not holding eye contact, Alberta could have sworn that her eyes widened, that a current of some sort flashed and changed her eyes so that she appeared to be gazing not at the carpet so much as through it. But what was her expression? Horror? (Longing?) Or mere surprise? - for the curtains had already shuttered in, and Susan was already standing to pour another cup of tea.

"Where did you hear that word, Aunt?" she asked airily, lightly, and if Alberta were not so sure that she had heard her son speak of it, had not remembered Susan's mention of the place, she would have begun to doubt herself.

Surely she had remembered it correctly? Her stomach twisted, scales of ice pressing with soft hiss- you tried to forget, you tried to forget. But she hadn't forgotten, she knew, she knew that she had heard it!

But then Susan's hand trembled as she picked up her tea cup, and Alberta knew she was right, knew that Susan knew something.

"I was hoping you could tell me," she said evenly.

The teapot slipped from Susan's grasp and clashed against the cup. Tipping to the side, the cup rolled, its handle splintering and skittering to the edge of the table.

"Oh," said Susan, and the distress in her voice put its hand around Alberta's throat and tugged. "This was - Mother's favourite set."

Moving automatically to help pick up the broken handle, Alberta paused- and stopped. She knew where she recognised that cup, pale pink rose buds and fine gold edging down the sides; knew all too well, remembered that afternoon spent shopping for a present for Victor and his soon-to-be wife. She had bought it half in jest- though half in jest meant half in sincerity, and she had wished Victor and even Helen happiness in her heart, when the man had boxed the set up- and was not sure if Helen would like the gift. They had never gotten along.

But it had been her favourite set?

The tea Alberta had drunk swirled, uncomfortably warm, in her stomach. It was thick, and it burned and it smelt oddly like shame.

"I am sure it can be fixed," she said, as gently as she could manage.

Susan laughed hollowly.

"The crack will always show, you know it as well as I do," she said, lips tautly pulled in a mocking smile. "No, this can't go back to the cabinet."

A distant look crossed her eyes, and Alberta read a weariness that stretched beyond Susan's twenty-one years etched in her brow.

"No," she murmured again, half to herself, "it can't go back."

Alberta had a very strong suspicion that Susan was no longer merely talking about the teacup.

Gingerly, Susan picked up the handle of the cup and placed it inside the cup. Then she sat back down on the sofa, smoothed her uncrinkled skirt, placed her hands together on her knees, and looked at Aunt Alberta half expectantly.

It was altogether so bizarre as to render her momentarily speechless, and she gaped a moment at her niece (and who ever knew that Susan Pevensie could confuse her so?).

"Susan," she said eventually, but her words might as well have been addressed to a lamppost, for Susan stared past her as though she were merely an inanimate figure in an old mahogany frame.

"You asked me about Narnia," Susan said, her voice slightly strangled.

Instinctively, Alberta leaned closer.

Susan was staring straight ahead, her back stiff. For a moment it looked as though she might laugh, or perhaps cry, but it passed almost instantly, a breeze in summer twisting into stifling stillness.

"You asked me about Narnia," she repeated, still not looking at Alberta. Her voice was low and calm, or calmer than before, almost recitative-like, and Alberta fought to catch each word. "It was a game, a game we all played- Peter, Ed, Lucy and myself, that is- and it all began back in the War. We were children, see, and it was so hard being away from Mother, and Father, too- and then Lucy, I think it was Lucy- she pretended there was a country in a wardrobe. We called it Narnia. And inside Narnia-" for the first time, her composure shook a little, her voice quavered, and she took a pained breath. "Inside Narnia was Aslan, the Great Lion."

Alberta shifted to the edge of her seat.

"Tell me about Aslan," she said.

Susan leaned back in the chair, almost shrinking into the cushions as she bit her lip.

"I don't remember all of it, Aunt Alberta," she said, and her voice was as thin as a damp sheet of newspaper on a humid Sunday morning. She looked so young, Alberta realised, her shoulders slumped and her face filled with (desolation) anxiety. Eustace Clarence had not looked that young in years, even though he was- had been, she reminded herself, and her heart lurched violently into her stomach- years younger than Susan.

"Sit up straight," she said, and the gentleness in her voice almost surprised her. "And keep your shoulders back."

Susan gave a choking laugh and sat up.

"There was a great lion," she said, and frowned. "He- he woke the land from an eternal winter. And his name was Aslan."

And as Susan stumbled her way through fragmented memories and tales, Alberta thought of the ship sitting in her living room.

I'm listening, Eustace Clarence, she thought, I'm listening.

A/N: I should be fined for being the most irresponsible writer ever. To people still following this story, I am so, so sorry. I do know where this story is going, the engine just keeps stalling :/