All Alone
A/N: Inspired by the song, "All Alone" by Kutless
The crisp, Autumn wind bit into Susan, but the young woman could not be bothered to retrieve her coat. The sun was starting to sink into its bed for the evening and the air grew colder by the second. Susan knew she should go back inside- she was getting over Pneumonia, she couldn't afford to get sick again. It might cost her life this time.
She had been twirling one of the wildflowers by the stem- a habit she had picked up in childhood whenever she was nervous, and had never stopped. She dropped the flower, a lily, once lovely and elegant in its element, now wilting and thrown aside on the ground.
That's how Susan felt. That's how she always had been in this world. In Narnia, she had been at home with her beauty, a Queen, beautiful, but smart as well. It was because of her mind that she was able to appreciate her beauty at all, and since she was at ease with herself, everyone around her was put at ease with her demeanor as well.
But not here. Here, in England, Susan felt she was only prized for her beauty. Her mind meant nothing. So she couldn't truly appreciate her natural beauty at all, and was no longer comfortable with whom she was. So she started pursuing that comfort and happiness she had once had with herself, but it couldn't be found.
It was easier to say she had never been that person and had never lived that life than to admit she had been Queen Susan the Gentle and was no longer. So Susan started to lie, saying that she never remembered Narnia being real and that it was all just a childhood game.
But she knew it wasn't. She fooled her siblings into thinking she just remembered Narnia as some far-off, distant, childhood memory, but it wasn't true. Narnia grew more alive and more vivid every day, and her pain and anguish grew too. She only wished it had all been a game.
The loss of Narnia had been hard, and she thought she covered it well. But her siblings . . . she couldn't hide the loss of them. She hadn't had close contact with her siblings in the past few years, but they were there. She believed that if any of the three had really needed something, they would have called her and talked to her. She believed that if she had any difficulties, she could always turn to them.
She admired all of them greatly, and she never appreciated them enough to tell them. If she had just one more hour with them all, she would make sure to tell how much she admired Peter's bravery and courage, how she appreciated Edmund always being there with his smarts and wit, and how much she was jealous of the way Lucy could hold on to her faith no matter what.
So many things she didn't say. So many things she didn't know she needed to.
With a sigh Susan wrapped her arms around herself and stood from her perch on the step of her porch. She looked out to the horizon and remembered what the sky looked like in Narnia.
"Oh Aslan," she murmured, "What have I done with my life?"
She wished it was she that had been on the train that day, instead of the rest of her family. Or, at the very least, she wished she had been with them. She and her siblings had been a closely woven family once, and she felt that in the year before the accident, it became unwoven and disheveled.
The longing Susan felt to return to Narnia was of a deeper and stronger nature that any wish she had ever felt before. More than anything, she wished to be a teenager again, gentle and innocent, burying her face in Aslan's mane as he wiped all her fears away.
The gentle, purple-pink horizon of the sun setting reminded Susan too much of every sunset she watched in Narnia. Turning quickly, she went inside. She walked into the kitchen, noticing the letter from her latest boyfriend on the table. She picked it up, then sat it back down. No matter how nice or honorable the boys she dated were, they could never compare to her standards. She knew it was wrong of her to string them all along as she did, but she once had a tiny flame of hope that one day she would find someone she could truly confide in, about everything. That flame had since diminished.
Susan glanced longingly at the knife that sat on top of her kitchen counter. It looked so warm and inviting. There were several nights she woke from her nightmare of reality and thought of how easily she could be reconnected with her family and possibly even Narnia.
But every time she tried, every time she picked up that welcoming, sharp metal, something inside made her stop. She may not be in Narnia, and she may reject the title, but ultimately, she was still royal and elegant, and Queen Susan the Gentle would never take that easy way out. So the Susan Pevensie of England didn't take that route either.
"Oh Aslan," Susan muttered, suddenly feeling very young again, "Is it my fault our family has been split between life and death? Would everything be different if I hadn't lied?" These were the questions that haunted Susan on a daily basis.
From a far, distant memory, Susan heard a familiar voice. "No one is ever told what would have happened, child." As the sentence was spoken in her mind, the words grew louder and louder, until the person saying them could have been standing right beside her. As Susan turned around, she glimpsed the back of a retreating lion. And it was enough for her to see and known that she was no longer all alone.