Disclaimer: I have no wish to own such sorrow. My own is enough to deal with.
Beta'd by trustingHim17, with my thanks.

"It is eerily terrifying that there is no sound when a heart breaks.
Car accidents end with a bang,
falling ends with a thud,
even writing makes the scratching sound of pencil against paper.
But the sound of a heart breaking is completely silent.
Almost as though no one, not even the universe itself
could create a sound
for such devastation.
Almost as though silence is the only way
the universe could pay its respects
to the sound of a heart falling apart."
~ Nikita Gill

"Move along now, move along. You, there, pick up your papers and move along! There isn't clear news yet, get going, you hear? Now let the workers through! You, there, out of the way!"

There was a hand on her arm, but Susan couldn't tear her eyes away from the pillar of smoke.

"Miss!" An exasperated voice. But the smoke—it was so much bigger, going up and up. So black. Still growing, reaching out like a reaper's warning.

"Miss, do you know someone on the train or at the station?" Gentler, now.

Red at the bottom of the black pillar. Not the red of the dreamworld, not cherry red, but fire licking into the smoke, light and shadow in the same space. Susan shuddered.

There were two hands on her face, turning it, and she looked into the eyes of a young man, brown hair under the black policeman's helmet, sweat on the white forehead, and old eyes.

"You know someone on the train, miss?" he asked gently.

Susan shuddered again, her cheeks trembling under the hands that stayed steady. She'd once needed to be that gentle, needed to be that kind, and now she hated it, hated it, hated it.

The hands let go, the face disappeared, and suddenly her arm was drawn through the policeman's. He was pulling her forward—towards the smoke.

"Make way! Let us through!" People disappeared in front of her. Where did they go? A brown skirt, edging out of the way. So many coats. Not made of fur. Practical clothing, real clothing, parting before a black-clad arm.

"Up the stairs, now. Mind the debris, some of it is still hot." The arm under hers pulled up. Her feet followed. There was a hand, too, on her other elbow, pulling her—gently, again that gentleness—away from the broken glass, or to the side of a discarded carpet bag.

"Look at your feet, it's easier." The voice was so kind now. The hand left her elbow and gently pressed the top of her head, tilting it down. Susan could see the rim of her white coat. Further down, her own black shoes walked over the smoke-stained wood. A brown hat passed by her feet, the rim on one side dark and wet. Susan swallowed.

Who? I'm here, I came, but who needs me? Lucy, Eustace, Jill, you were all on that train, weren't you? Peter and Edmund, you were going to meet them. Which one of you is hurt? Or our parents?

Which one of you needs that smoke as a warning?

The arm through hers stopped moving, and Susan stopped with it.

"She's looking for her family, I think. Is there a list, either of the injured, or of the survivors?"

Or the dead, thought Susan, and shuddered again. The hand gripped her elbow more tightly.

"Injured are all off to the hospital, so we haven't a list. They're making lists of survivors and the deceased over there." It's a stationmaster's commanding voice. "Not that we can identify them all, not in this mess. But they're starting, and you might as well start there too."

Susan looked at the pointing arm. The black uniform stretched over it, and his white hand—smeared black with soot, was everything here stained black?—gestured to the left. Susan's eyes followed the finger.

Her feet followed her eyes, moving for just a moment before those hands grabbed her elbow and arm again. But she kept going, she had to keep going, she had to find out which one—

And the hands came with her. She couldn't look at her feet now, only at the long table set up on one side, surrounded by bustling bodies; those living, moving people. She got glimpses of paper scattered all over, and a few people seated behind the moving ones.

Everyone there was alive.

Which one, which one, which one?

"We'll get in line now. Right here, miss." His voice, again, and his fingers holding her still when she wanted to walk forward. Couldn't he understand that she needed to know now? She couldn't wait, she had to find out who needed her—

The coat in front of her—brown, smeared with black (of course, everything was now), just under some brown hair, with a rip running from the left shoulder to the middle (that will be hard to repair, it won't be a coat that could be worn while going out)—the coat moved forward.

A push on her elbow, and she followed.

"That's it. The line's moving quickly, Miss."

"It's hard." She didn't mean to say that. Her voice, so thin, so quiet, could he hear it? She hadn't meant to say it—

"Waiting always is. But another step, now."

The coat had gotten further away. She followed it again. She tripped, something under her feet, and the hands were quick to hold her up. She looked down.

A stack of white linen. It looked white, so blazingly white in the sun, unsmeared. They'd been brought later.

Sheets to cover the bodies. Susan swallowed, bile burning her throat, but it came up again, and she turned to the side. Her stomach heaved, throat and mouth opening. She kept it away from the sheets. She had to, she couldn't do that to—

To people who needed white sheets. White sheets and nothing else; they'd never need anything else.

The hand on her elbow stayed. The other arm withdrew from hers. Moments later, a handkerchief patted her mouth.

White. White like the linen sheets, but softer. She closed her eyes.

She could still feel it moving, wiping the sick from her lips. She reached up a hand and tugged it away, wiping her own mouth. She brought herself upright again—the coat had moved two steps.

She followed. She had to follow. She had to know, nothing mattered as much as knowing.

The handkerchief was still in her hand. She folded it, covering the smell, the vomit, holding it inside, and offered it silently to her companion.

The hand pushed it back. "You need it more than I do."

She choked, laughing bubbling up but coming out as a sound of pain. A Faun said that as a joke. I think. In the stories you all told me. Lucy, Lucy, will I get to tell this one to you?

The coat turned to the side, and she turned after it, fixated on it. The hand held her back.

"Miss, it's our turn."

The table, long and covered in white paper, stood right in front of her.

She couldn't look up. Her brain froze, her lips froze, her stomach froze, the heaving suddenly as still as a river abruptly encased in ice. She could not speak.

"Anything listed for Pevensie, Miss?"

When did I tell him my name?

But do you know? Are they alright?

Can you tell me?

"Pevensie, Pevensie—Mary, hand me that list there, O-P—it starts with a P, right? Peterkins, Pastel, Pritchard—no, there's nothing here." A paper set down on the table in front of her, the large word at the top reading SURVIVORS.

They weren't on that list.

"Mary, hand me the other—thank you. Let's see, Patterson, Porter, Palmer, Pole—Pevensie." A pause.

Susan could not look up.

"I'm so sorry, my dear." So gentle, so very, very gentle. "There's three of them here—Lucy, Helen, and John. And—"

Lucy. Mum. Dad.

No.

And Pole. She said Pole. It wouldn't be—not—

"There's two farther down, too. Edmund and Peter. They were on the platform, I'm afraid. Are any of those your family?"

NO.

"You're wrong." Cold, regal—Susan's voice sounded anything but thin anymore. "The list is wrong. They're not-" A hand left her elbow and closed over her arm, and she stopped.

"I'm so sorry, my dear. We actually need you to verify if we're right—we're trying to identify the, um, the remains. Not all of the belongings—"

"Be quiet." It was her own voice again. A command, Susan could hear an echo of Peter's authority in her own tone, and the woman shut up at once. Susan looked up, looked away from the list, into the startled face of the middle-aged woman who was still saying nothing, mouth slightly open. "They're—" Her voice choked. She cleared her throat and tried again. "They're not on that list. It must be a mistake."

"Where should we go?" asked the policeman, and the eyes of the woman turned to him. Susan could feel his gentleness, knew he'd have an encouraging smile and respectful nod of his head, knew it because she saw the woman sit up straighter and she knew what it took to bring that out of someone, whether Dwarf or Centaur or Daughter of Eve, she'd—

"It's over there, that large warehouse across the street. There's some people there to help—nurses from the last war, they're very helpful in a time like this…"

Aunt Polly had been a nurse, hadn't she? Not in the last war, the one before.

Was she there now—not, not as a—was she there, unable to help?

Unable to help anyone?

"We'll make our way there, then. Thank you for your help."

The hand around her arm pulled—gently, firmly, but unarguably. Susan went.