Disclaimer: I have lived the days after a death, before a funeral, and I never wish to be there again.
Beta'd by trustingHim17, with my thanks.

"Trama Steals Your Voice"
People get so tired of asking you what's wrong and you've run out of nothings to tell them.
You've tried and they've tried, but the words just turn to ashes every time they try to leave your mouth.
They start as fire in the pit of your stomach, but come out in a puff of smoke.
You are not you anymore.
And you don't know how to fix this.
The worst part is … you don't even know how to try.
~ Nikita Gill

The undertaker called the next day.

Susan hated the phone more than her mother ever had. The undertaker called first. She barely hung up the phone before her friends began calling, having read about the accident in the newspapers.

"Susan, Mum just asked me if I knew your family. I'm so sorry."

"Susan, I just heard. Roger and I are coming over."

"Susan, how are you still able to answer this? I wouldn't even be able to pick up the phone. I always worry that something will happen to Clara, but this…"

Susan. Susan. Susan. Her name, over and over—and no one called it like she needed to hear.

The words came from lips instead of the phone after that, friends crowding into the house. Susan hadn't turned on lights, hadn't lit any candles, but the sunlight poured through the windows, flooding the house with light.

Mother kept plants inside because of all the light. Lucy thrived in it as much as the plants did.

I keep waiting for the two of them to walk back through the door. They're not gone, they're just out helping someone. They'll be back.

She remembered oil in golden hair, her mother forever bareheaded, and flinched.

She shoved the thought away.

That was how she answered the phone, answered the door, answered to her name—she shoved their deaths away.

The undertaker made it easy. "The deceased." He never said their names. "The arrangements." "The ceremony." "At this hard time." He never said why it was hard. Fragile, sensitive words, in a professional, so-British voice; he made it easy.

So her family wasn't gone, wasn't dead. They were avoiding all of Susan's friends, because they didn't like them, and the house was full of her friends these days.

These days. The house stood empty at night.

A few of the older ones had offered, but if they stayed, Susan couldn't pretend—

Pretend the rest of the family was on a trip, and Susan had stayed behind to go to a party.

Susan didn't remember the funeral. It was shoved in between three others, the minister running hurriedly through words, one pat on her back, and then gone. Susan had cried too hard to see, stumbling over the smooth grass of the cemetery, blind and mute and desperate to get away, get away. It was the daytime and this couldn't be real.

She fled that blurred memory during the days.

But the nights…

The nights were something Susan buried when the sun shone, buried all traces of the gasps, the tears, the coldness of water on her face and snot from her nose. She refused to remember the soaked pillow or the blanket that could never be wrapped tightly enough. Refused to remember how she could feel the grass under her stumbling feet and five wooden boxes that would never see the light, that existed only in the dark; but they shared the night with her. At night, nothing was tight enough, strong enough; nights were the time that nothing could hold her together.

During the day she didn't need to be held.

Carol came during the day the most. She brought stories of the latest parties, of how Nancy caught Robert kissing Donna on the cheek, the dress the belle had worn—

Horrid, horrid stories about a world that didn't matter. One night, when it was too dark and too smothering, the tears coming too fast, Susan turned on the radio, put on that red dress, and tried to dance.

Her feet knew the turns, her body the sways. The darkness filled with music—

And it was worse, it hurt, it hurt that good things still existed, that music played and they couldn't hear. That red meant fire and blood spatter, not skirts and roses, like the latter shouldn't be the same colour. It hurt that beauty still existed in the world when all she could feel was the pain.

Susan didn't need the stories, the gossip, the distraction. She didn't need Carol. She needed her family, and if she couldn't have her family, she needed Aunt Polly's arms around her shoulders and her voice with calmly comforting words in Susan's ears, telling her how silly living for the next party was, but how life still filled itself with good, hard things. The Professor bringing wisdom from another world to mix with this one.

Carol's stories were a part of a world Susan no longer wanted.

"Stop," she whispered, and Nancy nudged Carol.

"You don't want to hear, dear?" Nancy's kind voice, but that last word made Susan flinch. It wasn't said right. Susan shook her head, unable to speak. "We're just...trying to give you distractions. I could tell you about Robert's antics from last night; he was so kind to me."

"And we want to keep you in the know," Carol added. "You're still the belle, you always will be. When you come back, you'll be like a returning queen. That day will come. You'll laugh with us again. We promise."

"I'm not; I never was. I am a Queen in exile," Susan whispered.

"No, no, not in exile. It's all still there. You'll grieve, and wear black, and in a year it will all be better. Not healed, but better. We'll wait for you, we'll all still be there. You'll still have us."

Suddenly Susan heard a different voice, bright, delicate, as brittle as a twig in a little boy's fingers. Alcienne the Dryad, bending over her chair, and trying to comfort her after Tashbaan and…Rabadash.

Susan had known this emptiness then. The way pretty words weren't enough to dry a single tear, the way a pretty, happy face roused nothing but anger in a heart torn by deepest grief.

She blinked, and it was Carol again, bending over to look at her face.

She hadn't had a memory of Narnia since that day.

No wonder denying their… denying this is so easy. I've been denying memories for years.

Denying magic. Yet here it is. Someone was sent to help me, like we were sent once. Only even that help did not last. I haven't seen the policeman since the station. I haven't heard—

"Susan?"

"Go away," she snapped, her temper sudden and fierce. Their well-meant cruel words, that was the real world. That's what she'd said. But if it was real, and the voice that shook the earth but held a compassion that did not hurt was false, a child's game—

If all memories were games and the future was the real world, with pretty friends telling her to wait till the grief eased, then Susan could not face it; she could not face a future haunted by this beauty-killing loss.

She had faced a loss like that before.

She had run from it to the real world; if the real world was lost now, what did she have left?

"Are you sure you want us to leave? You've been acting… a bit oddly, and it's such a dreadful loss, and—"

"Are you sure you want to be alone right now?" Nancy cut in.

"No, I don't, but I don't want to hear any more about dresses, dances, or Robert either!"

Nancy's mouth parted, hurt forcing her breath out, but she closed it again. She paused before answering. "Who should we ask to come?"

Susan fell silent.

I don't want to be alone. But I don't know who I want, either.

That's a lie. You know it is. You know who you want.

I know they're in the ground, too deep to dig, and they're never, ever coming…

Coming back. Coming home.

Coming near.

And Susan fought back her tears again, Nancy's hand patting her back. If she spoke she'd weep, so she didn't say any more. Her friends stayed till nightfall.

Then they left, and Susan was alone.

Alone with mixed memories, some of tree-people and Lions, some of friends from the real world staying till they were late for a dance, just for her.

Memories of a kind hand on her arm, an official in the real world telling her that he was sent, knowing so much more than he should have known.

Susan herself had been sent; sent to another world.

Twice, even.

Twice, and yet it wasn't enough. Not enough to stay there, not enough to live in a world that was home; so I made this one my home, I made this world home, and now even this world is taken away!

This isn't what I wanted, this is too much—how could I lose this much? How could there be nothing left? Not music, not dancing, not beauty, not—

Not family. Even family.

I am all alone. Why? How could this happen? I hate it! I hate this! I hate everything in this world and everything in the imaginary ones! I hate quests and sorrow and struggles, I hate this! They were games, they were fights that didn't matter—though they had back then—and this is real.

This is real.

The darkness. The tears.

It's real, and they're gone.

Why?

No matter how often she asked the question, there was never an answer. Not on any of those dark nights.

And she could not even remember the name of the person who might be able to answer her.

A/N: this is a repeat for anyone reading Recalling the Cry, but my computer is in for repairs, and I can only get online when my grandparents are not using their computers; since I'm usually doing their projects with them, if they're not on the computer, I'm usually busy, so thank you, in advance, for anyone who takes the time to review, and I WILL answer, but it might be a few days, till I get my computer back. The promised date is Friday, and I'm more than ready!