AN: As promised, a non-depressing chapter. In fact, with the exception of the first chapter, this is my favorite so far! And since this is a short chapter (compared to the others) and since I did something similar in "Choosing Grace," I thought I'd give you sort of a status update/justification of Susan's character. And if you'd rather not read it, I'm fine with that.

Susan took a deep breath. Aunt Alberta and Uncle Harold were seated on their nondescript sofa, the dull grey color blending in perfectly with their dull living room. Susan had always hated visiting them as a child, their house perfectly dull and adventureless. Her aunt and uncle considered themselves to be modern people of the world, although her parents referred to them as their rather odder relatives.

"Well, dear? What was it you wanted to speak to us about?" Uncle Harold asked gently.

"Have you finally decided to sell your house?" Aunt Alberta asked, a little too excited.

"Um, no," Susan said pointedly. "I have some rather, unfortunate, I suppose, news. It seems that I," she began, her heart starting to race. A wave of nausea overtook her, her skin growing clammy. "Oh dear!" she cried as she rushed to the downstairs lavatory, where she was sick for several minutes. When she returned she saw that both her aunt and uncle had turned stark white and were both staring hard at her.

"Good God, you're pregnant!" Aunt Alberta cried. Susan nodded as she pressed her hand to her stomach.

"Oh, what would your mother think?" Uncle Harold asked, shaking his head.

"I suspect she wouldn't be too proud of me," Susan whispered. "I just hope you two won't dislike me too badly now."

"Susan. Dear girl. If there's one thing we've learned from losing our son it's that you can't judge your children too harshly. Now, you're not our child, but over the past year you've certainly become like a daughter to Alberta and me," Uncle Harold said, wiping his eyes. Susan had forgotten how weepy and sentimental the two could get.

She smiled and said, "Thank you, Uncle Harold. I can't tell you how much hearing that means to me."

When she returned to her seat across from her aunt and uncle, Aunt Alberta asked, "Dear, I was wondering if you do us one favor?"

"Um, what's that?" Susan asked hesitantly.

"You were always Eustace's favorite cousin. He talked about you all the time," she began.

I thought the little brat hated me. He was always whining that I'd never talk about being a queen and my time in Narnia with him, Susan thought, inwardly rolling her eyes.

"I was just wondering, if you thought it would be a good idea, of course," Aunt Alberta continued, wringing her hands together nervously.

"Just ask, Aunt Alberta," Susan said, smiling at her aunt.

"I was wondering, if your baby was a boy, you could possibly name him after my Eustace. It would make me so happy and I know Eustace would have liked it," she spat out quickly.


The next month brought with it more changes than Susan found she could handle. Her pregnancy was soon discovered and the gossip mongers began spreading tales of Susan Pevensie's wild summer in France. She was all but kicked out of every organization she belonged to and was no longer invited to the parties she had always recieved an invitation for. Her friends quickly abandoned her; even Charity had stopped speaking to her after Mrs. Clayworth warned her that Susan was no longer the type of woman she would want to be seen with, let alone stand as maid of honor in her wedding. Her treatment finally opened her eyes to the hypocrisy of her life and those she had surrounded herself with. Suddenly, she found everything she loved grossly distasteful and felt perfectly happy no longer being included in it.

Susan continued to be sick from her pregnancy each day and felt like she was dying most of them. Her body began to change as the baby grew; her clothing no longer fit and she found herself continuously having to visit a seamstress to help her take out her clothes. Her mother's clothes, which Susan had no heart to throw out, luckily were a little large on her, so she often wore some of them as she continued to grow. By the end of November, her stomach was a small round curve, which was growing every day, and she no longer could hide the fact that she was pregnant.

Bills were also beginning to add up. Susan was having to visit the doctor continuously it seemed, for this check-up or that check-up. Her clothing costs were building up as well. And that didn't include the extra food she had to buy, (per the doctor's orders), the cost of transportation (she found she could no longer walk as much as she was once able to without getting tired), and other various household bills. Uncle Harold had offered to help with her finances, but Susan had declined, stating that she would manage. Her monthly stipend from her dwindling trust fund seemed to get smaller and smaller each month.

It was a cold and rainy day when Susan found herself at her kitchen table, her newest bills spread out on it along with her bills that had been piling up for over a month. Staring at them, she felt hopeless and couldn't find a place to start. "There's no way I can afford all of this anymore," she whispered. The one solution that she could think of nagged her in the back of her mind. She had been thinking of it for days but was still unable to say it aloud. Without thinking, she stood and walked to the phone. Her fingers automatically dialed a number and she heard the familiar ringing from the receiver.

"Hello?" a woman answered on the other end of the line.

"May I speak to Robert?" Susan asked timidly.

"I'm sorry, he is not in right now. He should be back in a bit though. May I leave him a message from you?" the woman asked kindly.

"Yes, please. Could you tell him that Susan called?" she asked.

"Of course. Is there a message?" the woman asked.

"Tell him… tell him that I was in need of a friend." Susan said softly.

"I will. Thank you for calling," the woman said before hanging up. Susan gently placed the receiver back on its cradle and sighed. Staring out the window, she saw that it had stopped raining. Again without thinking, she rushed to the entryway and grasped her coat and scarf from the coat rack and pulled it on. As an afterthought, she grabbed an umbrella leaning against the door as she walked outside.

Susan stood before her family's gravestones a bit out of breath. She had walked to the cemetery from her house, which ordinarily wouldn't have winded her a bit, but now that she was pregnant it had taken her twice as long and included a couple stops along the way to rest. She smiled down at where her family lay, wishing she had some flowers to place on their graves. After staring at her parents' gravestones for several long moments, she moved closer to her three siblings.

The Pevensies had a family plot in the large cemetery, which was where her family was now buried, and when Susan was working to make funeral arrangements she had purposely left a spot empty between Peter and Lucy. Their graves were arranged as the siblings had sat in their thrones at Cair Paravel. Susan was only waiting to take her place next to them. For now, however, she sat on her knees on the empty spot between where her oldest brother and sister were buried, wrapping her coat tightly around her and placing the umbrella on the ground near her knee.

"Hi," she said softly. "Things have gotten bad, I must say. I'm in way over my head now and don't know what to do. Well, that's not really true. I know what I must do, I just can't bring myself to do it. But there is a bit of happy news to tell you. You're going to be an aunt and uncles soon!" Susan pushed back her coat slightly and placed her hands on her round stomach, as though she was showing her siblings that she was pregnant.

"I know it's not the best of circumstances, but I love this baby more than anything. And I'll tell it all about you three, every day," she promised. Several silent moments passed as Susan drew her courage to say what she had been thinking for days. Taking a deep breath she said quickly, "I think I'm going to sell the house. I don't want to, but I can't afford to keep it up and with the baby coming it will just be too expensive. Uncle Harold and Aunt Alberta have said plenty of times that I can move in with them so I'll have a place to go until…" Susan drifted off.

Until when? she thought. Staring at her siblings graves, she felt as though their sympathetic eyes were watching her. Pulling her coat tightly around her against a sudden cold breeze, Susan closed her eyes and let her family's presence wash over her.

The crunch of the cold frozen grass next to her brought her out of daze. Glaring up, she saw a pair of sparkling blue-green eyes staring down at her, a warm smile smiling widely at her.

"Robert," she said.

He crouched down beside her and said, "I thought I might find you here. I called your house and when there was no answer I stopped by, but it seemed you were out. I almost went home, but thought I would see if you were here."

"Yeah," Susan breathed. Yeah? Really Susan? You haven't seen him in months and that's the best you can say? she mentally scolded herself. "I mean, I just needed to get out of the house and go somewhere peaceful," she said quickly.

"You come to a graveyard when you need some peace?" Robert asked skeptically, raising an eyebrow. Susan blushed and quickly stammered a response.

"What I meant was- I just came here to- Oh, stop it!" she cried, seeing Robert's teasing face. "I just needed someone to talk to. And my siblings have gotten to be really good listeners over the past year and a half," she said. Robert's eyes widened in horror at hearing Susan's words before she burst out laughing. "Oh, the look on your face made that horrible joke worth it!" she laughed.

"That really was terrible," Robert playfully scolded.

"So what were you four discussing?" he asked as he sat next to her.

"I was just telling them about things that have been going on, changes in my life. Things like that," Susan said nonchalantly.

"And they took it well, I presume?" Robert teased.

"They were a little grave at first," Susan replied, ruining her seriousness by giggling over her joke.

"The French seemed to have ruined you humor," Robert chuckled. Susan gave him a sad smile and looked back at her siblings' graves.

"I've decided to sell my house," she stated.

"Why?" Robert asked.

"I just can't keep it anymore. The expenses are piling up. And you were right all along: it is an awfully big house for just one person," she said, remembering the first time Robert had seen her home.

"I'm really sorry, Susan. I know how hard it must be for you. I'll help you however I can with it, though," he said, placing his hand over hers that rested on the ground.

"I could use some help packing," Susan said hopefully.

"Of course," Robert said, giving her a warm smile. The two sat for nearly an hour talking and catching up, neither wanting to address what had happened earlier in the summer. When there was finally a lull in their conversation, Robert asked, "So what ever happened with Philip?" Susan shook her head.

"You were right. He wasn't the best sort of guy," she said, unable to meet Robert's gaze.

"Did he hurt you?" Robert asked. Susan glanced at him, the angry tone of his voice making her eyes grow wide.

"No, it was nothing like that," she said softly. The temperature had begun to drop as the afternoon wore on. Susan pulled her coat tighter around her and shivered. The slight movement didn't go unnoticed by Robert and he asked, "Do you want to go?"

"I suppose I should be going. It is getting late," Susan nodded as she started to heave herself up. She momentarily forgot her pregnacy and let her unbuttoned coat go, exposing her rounded stomach. She heard Robert's sharp intake of breath and looked up, his eyes flashing furiously.

"I'll kill him," Robert said, his voice deadly. Susan gasped and quickly pulled her coat around her waist, her face flushing instantly.

"Robert, it's not what you think…" Susan trailed off as Robert stood, his face dark with anger. He reached over and pulled Susan's coat open.

"Oh, it's not? You've what? Just gotten fat?" Robert asked sarcastically. Susan gasped again, this time out of indignation.

"I'm not fat!" she cried as she grabbed her coat away from Robert, wrapping it back around herself.

"Does he know?" Robert asked flatly.

Susan shook her head and said, "No. He's out of my life for good. I found out I was pregnant after I left France." The two were silent for several long moments.

"Is this why you're selling your house?" Robert asked quietly.

"Yes," Susan whispered, her eyes filling with tears. Sighing, Robert took Susan's hand and squeezed it gently. She stared up at him, surprised at his gesture.

"I'm your guy, Susan," he said softly.

"What do you mean?" she asked, confused by his words.

"I know the baby's not mine, and I know I have no right to say this, but if you need anything, I want to help. If you need money, support, someone to watch the kid while you, oh I don't know, take a bubble bath, I'm your guy," Robert explained. Trembling, Susan stepped towards Robert and wrapped her arms around his middle, hugging him tightly.

"Thank you," she whispered as his arms wrapped around her. The two stood that way for several minutes before Robert chuckled, "I, for one, am very glad you didn't get fat. I don't think I'd like to feel that belly of yours every time I hugged you for the rest of my life." Susan pulled back, her eyes shining as she feigned a look of shock.

"That's terrible," she said, lightly hitting Robert in the chest as she turned to leave.

"Ow," Robert said mockingly, rubbing the spot where she had hit him.

"Baby," Susan called over her shoulder as Robert jogged to catch up to her.


AN #2: I'm pretty certain I mentioned this at some point (probably not in this story), but I really have never felt drawn to Susan. I have this vague memory of being a child and watching those terrible BBC movies of the Narnia books. Susan was so Plain-Jane, so vanilla in them. I watched them again a while back and thought "Man, they really missed the mark with Susan." Of course, I thought that about all the characters except Peter (he was kinda spot-on, I thought). Especially Lucy... don't get me started on the poor girl who played Lucy. They really messed up there... poor girl. Anyway.. not getting onto that tangent. Back to why I was never drawn to Susan. She's kinda dull. But then I remembered that in 4th grade my teacher (who I will ALWAYS thank for doing this) read us the Narnia books in class. He used all sorts of different voices for the characters, too. I'll never forget how we all jumped when the White Witch first spoke. It still makes me giggle. I instantly fell in love with the Narnia books that year and have really loved them ever since. But again... I digress. Back to Susan. I remember really loving her then. She was pretty and kind and gentle and sweet... all the things I really liked in a good book character when I was, what? 9? Clearly, I wasn't very deep then.

Of course, as I grew older I started liking characters who had a little bit more to them. I won't name them because I really don't remember. So I think that's why I was never drawn to Susan because I thought she was a little bland with not much personality. And sorta... I dunno... "Oh I'm so good and I'm helpless and silly and blah blah blah." Not sure what the adjective for that is. Anway... After watching the newer movies that have come out in recent years, I liked that characterization of Susan, but still knew she wasn't my favorite because I knew from the books she wasn't that exciting. So during the process of writing "Choosing Grace" and starting "Receiving Grace," I began to reread the Narnia books, looking for some clues that I could use when developing characters. While doing so I came across a gem of a line that made me realize that Susan isn't so bland... she's actually a pretty sassy character. The line is found in Prince Caspian when the siblings are arguing over whether they should follow Lucy to see Aslan, even though none of them besides Lucy has seen him, and Susan is mad because everyone decides to follow Lucy: "Susan was the worst. "Supposing I started behaving like Lucy," she said"I might threaten to stay here whether the rest of you went on or not. I jolly well think I shall."" When I read that I laughed and thought "Now that's the Susan I want to write about." Whiny, obstinate, pitches-a-fit but redeems herself later Susan. Which I hope I have...

And as for Robert... the Robert in my mind (which I'm sure hasn't really gotten into any of the chapters yet) is dreamy... I'll work on him some in the upcoming chapters. Also... for those of you who are reading this as I'm writing... I've gone back and changed Robert's hair color. Blonde just wasn't working for me. It's now brown. If you don't like it though, you can just pretend he's blonde.