A/N: I am not getting notifications for all of the reviews that are posted. If I do not respond to a review of yours, please know it's not because I don't love them, it's because I don't always know they exist. But I'll be checking them every Wednesday when I post now. Also, this chapter has a SPOILER ALERT FOR THOSE WHO HAVE NOT READ THE LAST BATTLE.
Disclaimer: I own Narnia (and England) as much as I own the telephone patent.
Beta'd by trustingHim17, with my thanks.
"Sooner or later, everyone sits down to a banquet of consequences."
~ Robert Louis Stevenson
It started with a phone call. One phone call. Days later, her world changed with that one phone call.
Mum hadn't wanted a phone. Too newfangled; she loved being barefoot and bareheaded as much as Lucy—
"Hello, is this the Pevensie residence?"
Susan hadn't finished her make-up. She kept her answer short. "It is."
She'd been trying a lipstick colour of flaming red, just to make Edmund frown when he got back. She wanted to make sure she could wear it perfectly, like armour. Have some consequences yourself, Edmund. This is what I will do if you try to tell me what I should do—
"Are you a Pevensie? Do you live at this residence?"
Consequences. There will be consequences, sooner or later, Edmund had said at the train station. He'd looked at her, a warning in his eyes, just because she'd tried to tell him the memories made her uneasy, and she needed him to stop bringing them up. There always are, when you exchange the truth for a lie. Sooner or later, Su, all the lies you've told yourself will break, and what is truly important will be revealed. Who is truly important. Going to this party, one of a hundred a year, instead of staying with us—Su, tonight is really important. You should stay. Care about these things, just for once. I know you can. He'd smiled. Just one more memory with us in the real world. Something to carry with you, when the consequences come.
Susan hadn't stayed.
"Who is calling?" Because Susan felt wary, now. She'd heard some of the faster sets had begun using phones to make prank calls, and that was not something she wanted to deal with when she had a party to get ready for.
But this wasn't a prank call. She knew it. The grave tone, the unrelenting caution, she knew this message, knew it from the past—
A vivid flash of silk twisting in her fingers—a handkerchief, white, embroidered with a gold lion. Her heart beat so fast as she waited for news. Her blood pulsed through her veins now.
"This is the police, ma'am. Are you related to the Pevensies?"
Someone tall, so tall, bending over her. His great arms resting on her shoulders. He'd had four legs, four like a horse, with a chest and head like a man. Something told her he was a general.
"I am. I'm the daughter of the residents." Her own voice sounded calm. Calm like the Professor's. She had to be calm. Because something was wrong, something worse than spoiled make-up before a pitying crowd. Susan suddenly wished, fiercely, that Peter and Edmund were here. Someone to shelter her, to hold her. Someone to deal with whatever the police would say.
She was not sure she was ready for this news.
"I need you to come to London station, ma'am. The railway station. There's been an accident."
Come with me, my Queen.
"An accident?"
They were found while they were hunting. We've sent for Queen Lucy. But they are calling for you. They need to know you are safe.
"A train crash, ma'am."
Her lipstick tube fell from her fingers. Her eyes tracked its fall, telling her arm to reach out and grab it, to catch it. But she couldn't move. She couldn't make her arm reach. Her mouth wasn't working either.
"Ma'am?"
"A—" She cleared her throat. "A train crash?"
This couldn't be real.
"Yes, ma'am. We're trying to reach all the family members."
Take care, my sister. Peter's words to her, before she'd taken the train to come back.
Sister.
Family.
"Who is hurt?"
Peter, Edmund, Lucy—even Mom and Dad, coming home today. They were all there.
Peter's eyes had been closed, in that world that never was, an arrow through his shoulder, near his heart.
"It's too chaotic to tell, ma'am. I'm just calling the places listed on the possessions we've collected."
Edmund's fingers clenched around Peter's wrist, even though his own face was whiter than bone, his legs bending the wrong way.
Who was hurt here? Now?
Be safe. My family, my family, be safe.
Some little voice in her head—her heart—knew that at least one of them wasn't.
Who?
"Can you come?"
Come, my queen.
Come back, Susan.
"I'm on my way."
She didn't remember going out the door. She didn't remember the walk, or how her pristine white coat got a mud smear on one sleeve. Or later, blood.
But she would always remember standing at the back of the crowd, staring in horror at the black pillar rising to the sky, telling of fire and death and heated metal.
She'd taken the train just days before.
There hadn't been any accidents.