Disclaimer: The Doorkeeper is my own, I admit (and if you would like to know a bit more about him, I have a one-shot I wrote that you are welcome to read), but nothing else in the story is mine.
Beta'd by trustingHim17, with my repeated but heartfelt thanks. Though I altered a few things afterwards, so if there're mistakes, please tell me?

"Just because
You're dead inside
Doesn't mean
It's too late
To come alive."
~ Ashlee Edens

Hester eventually led Susan to bed, handing Susan a handkerchief and tucking her in, though the blankets seemed to give Hester some trouble. Susan slept for hours.

When she woke, she lay still a moment, remembering the night before. She heard the sound of her own weeping, and her eyes filled again. Even remembering how she cried made it easy to weep again.

Yet her body felt calmer, stronger. Perhaps it had been a good thing. Sometime—not now—Susan would weep again. But not now. Susan looked around the room. Hester was there, in a chair by the window, looking out at the world. At Susan's world. Susan wondered what she saw—how odd it would look to this American Puritan from so long ago. The former queen sat up and slipped out from under the blankets, going to the window to look out as well.

The sun hovered just above the horizon.

"I am to give a message to thee," Hester said. Susan looked down and saw more of that thick paper, covered in that neat handwriting. "Thou hath a choice, child. A choice about what thou calleth magic."

"A choice?"

Hester nodded. "Thou mayest spend the day with me. We will talk. Then this night a door will open for me and I will leave. I do not know if another one such as I will be sent to thee, or if no more will come. Thou hast learned to weep, and it may be enough if thou art given time. Thy future may be brighter than thou yet expects."

Susan paused to think. The stillness of the house echoed in the way silence sometimes does. Susan stood there, aware that she lived in a lonely house with nothing but her grief and the ghosts.

"And my other choice?" she asked softly. Her hands were trembling, and she had the urge to wrap them around each other, to hide the fear—a habit she kept from a long time ago, from another world.

A world she'd called a game.

"I will leave this hour, and thou mayest see the door by which I leave. Thee wilt have sight of what thee calls magic once more. Then the morning thou wilt pass as thou wishes, but this afternoon, thee wilt go to the graveyard. There thou will meet one less patient-though less sad than I; but it wilt open up thy future to other worlds, other times, and other people. To meet the one there is to see such things."

The empty house, or another meeting in a graveyard.

The second would bring the games back; the games that were more than games. The games that were truth.

Susan opened her mouth, but Hester held up her hand. "Pause, child. Think. This be not a simple choice. Weigh it first."

Weigh it?

Susan went and sat back on her bed, the fabric smooth under her fingers, and she looked at Hester's stern, passionate face. She flashed back to the night before, to the way Hester had argued like Ed—like Edmund once had. Edmund was gone, but Hester was here. She could ask her what she could no longer ask her brother-if she stopped herself from crying first. "What do you think of this choice?" she asked softly, once she had blinked back the tears. She would likely spend the morning weeping, if Hester left.

"I? I am not thee. I made the choice for myself, that is truth; but I cannot make it for thee."

Susan felt a flash of annoyance and paused to temper it, to push it down. Something she had little practice in doing these past few days, but Hester deserved it. "Can you tell me what I should weigh, then?"

Hester sighed. "It is a question of what thou lovest. If I stay for the morn and then depart, thy life will likely pass much as the lives of many of thy friends' lives pass. Thou wilt dance and sing and laugh again, after time. A grief like this does not leave, not as long as we live, but nor does it consume, after years have gone.* That I may promise. Thou canst have the life thou loved, though thou wilt be wiser than thou once was. But if thou wishes to go to the graveyard—mark where that life begins. Thou wilt need to bury thyself, thy hopes, thy desires, and wait for them to be raised to life again. The waiting is hard. The waiting is as hard as the grief thou beareth now, and goes on much longer than the human spirit feels it can endure. Yet there is this promise, that thy life will be raised, along with thy hopes. There is beauty in what waits for thee. But it will be hard."

Beauty? Susan looked down at the wooden floor, covered with its intricately braided rug.

She had always loved beauty. If this life promised it—

But she did not want to do much of anything; she did not want a hard life; she did not want a life that began in a graveyard.

But her siblings were there, she argued with herself. And that—

That place held her heart more than anything else. She thought of Carol's promise, that her life from before was all there, waiting for her—waiting for her to come back.

The music, glints reflecting off rings, swirling skirts, that beauty, that easiness that numbed all other pain and gave her glimpses of happiness, that let her dance enough she did not have to think—

That life would not be enough. Not anymore, not when pain had become so real. Not now that she knew how feeble its happiness was when pain came calling.

Susan could, perhaps, make that life into something worth living, something that would be enough. Her mother had. Her mother had birthed kings and queens, saved lives, and brought beauty wherever she went. Lucy did much the same.

Susan could too, she knew that. She could even do it with Nancy, possibly with Carol. She was as fitted for it as Lucy, because of the beauty of her face and the gentleness she had once been able to give. Gentleness, strength, and beauty could conquer all but the hardest of hearts. Susan knew that. Susan knew she could attempt that again, here in England.

But Susan did not want that life. It was too hard, too tiring, with too few rewards; too far off, and too…too unreal.

If she were not so buried under pain, she would have laughed. When had magic become more real to her than her life in England?

When it gave me companions for my sorrow. Ones who knew the truth.

When it sent me people who reminded me of my siblings. They have always been the heart of my reality, however far I tried to go.

Did she want the other life now offered?

It wouldn't be like Narnia.

Her siblings would not be there. She didn't know if the Lion would be either. And the thought of facing things like the White Witch, like Rabadash or the Telmarine army, without her siblings—

She did not want that either.

So…there wasn't a life she wanted.

No, wait, there was—she wanted her siblings alive; she wanted to be with them. She wanted the life of her past. But if she could not have that—she wanted her own grave. A place where she would not have to live through tomorrow.

Well. If she did not want either life—at least one of those lives did begin in a graveyard. It did not begin with laughter, but with sorrow. That, at least, sounded better than the other. More bearable.

She looked back up to where Hester sat, patiently watching, patiently waiting, and said, "I will go to the graveyard."

Hester frowned. It was a deep frown, one Susan recognised, and Susan grew angry. It was the same look her siblings had worn so many times. They disapproved of her; now Hester did too.

"You do not think I am suited for that?" she bit out, and Hester spread her hands outwards.

"Thou art grieving," she answered quietly. "The wisest choice-oh, often it is to wait before making such a decision! Or so I should have said, were I thee. Thou should have told me to bide by, that thou did not know thy choice yet. But this may be another lesson thou must learn as thou goest. Be sure thou rememberest this, that sometimes the wisest choice is to wait." Hester rose. "Since thy choice is made, I must call to my door and go back; my own home awaits me. I wish thee well, child. There are few of us who walk this way, and we seldom meet. May we meet on the other side of death, sometime, that we both may see the other well." She walked to the door to Susan's room, stopping before it. She did not touch the doorknob to open it, but lifted both her hands, spreading them from her sides at waist level, and said, "I seek the door that opens, the path that leads to the dwelling beyond worlds."

Susan had risen as well, though she stayed by the bed. She watched with astonishment as the shadows on her door began to spin, and light began glinting in the middle of the darkness, brilliant and white. The swirling spiral grew, spilling out and then up till it filled the doorframe. Hester, silhouetted black against the light, let her hands fall to her side—and the light became a black opening. Hester looked over her shoulder briefly, nodded, and walked into the opening. The next instant she and the opening were gone. Susan's door was wood again. Susan walked over and touched it. Her fingers felt the smooth, sanded surface, the hardness—it was normal wood.

Suddenly Susan felt horribly afraid.

She's gone, the policeman—Tom—is gone, and—what if everyone is gone? What if I chose something where I end up alone again?

In an empty house, with nothing but the tears that come too easily—they were coming now—and the dark nights?

Susan pressed her hand against the door, harder and harder, till her fingertips were white. It was real. Hester's door was gone.

The vividness of the white against the wood—she'd seen it before; the memory flashed into her head. It'd been the back of a wardrobe she'd been pressing on, and Lucy had hovered beside her. Susan could see the curve of Lucy's head, the golden hair, shorter than Susan had been. The memory made her cry again, sinking down against the wooden door, leaning against it. She missed Lucy.

That game—that had not been a game. That had been real. Susan knew it. I would not be crying so hard if I were not truly grieving.

Hester had been real as well. And Tom. Remember Hester. Remember what she said. Susan let herself cry, and cry, and cry, till her throat ached, her eyes were sore, and her head pounded. Then she pushed herself up, slowly and wearily. She didn't want to get off the floor; but she did want to wipe her nose, and that was enough to get her on her feet. She glanced out the window of her bedroom, past the large tree branch just outside, and to the sky. The sun, mostly hidden behind clouds, stood high above the horizon. It must be nearing noon.

Susan had a graveyard to get to; she remembered that, though the thought carried more reluctant exhaustion than curiosity now. I should make myself a cup of tea first.

So numbed was Susan that she poured water in the kettle, set it to heat, got out her mug, and waited for the water to boil without looking at the table. She stood looking out the window instead.

Lucy had popped into view bareheaded and flushed, the day Peter was coming home. Maybe—maybe I could go back to that day, I could wait till Lucy will pop up, Mother at the sink—

The thought was so strong that Susan glanced at the sink.

There was a wall, a sink, a counter—and no one there. Susan binked back the tears.

I wish it wasn't pretend—

No. No, what had Hester said? That the truth set her free. The truth—

They are gone.

They are gone. Lucy won't pop into sight in that window; Mother won't do my dishes.

Susan's hands were shaking. She had to clutch the kettle handle tightly, to stop the boiling water from spilling as she poured her tea. Then she turned towards her chair at the table.

And stopped short.

She had forgotten the Lion. He looked at her, deep eyes gentle, knowing, and yet his face was stern. She had forgotten—but she had known once—that He could be both. He could love and be stern all at once. So to Him, just to Him, she said what she could not admit to others. She whispered, to Him and to the emptiness around them. "I miss them." It was so obvious a truth that surely all knew it, but the words were a truth too large to say, to any but Him. "I miss them," she whispered again, urgent this time. "I miss them!"

His eyes, His eyes didn't change; still loving, still knowing, and she remembered this about Him too. He didn't change. He grew larger as they grew older, but He, Himself, she remembered this: who He was did not change.

Susan's entire world had changed, twice; but the Lion never really had.

Susan's own eyes were full of tears again. She let them fall, salt water dropping onto her shirt, into her tea, and splattering the table in small droplets. Through it all, the Lion watched. Susan felt that, if magic existed, perhaps the Lion was there with her; perhaps, though she could not feel Him, He held her. As Hester had.

So Susan let herself cry.

She cried for a long while again, but this time it was easier; easier to breathe through the tears, perhaps because the fears were less. And she cleaned herself up again, and let herself rest in the living room, nearly sleeping, till the sun had passed the highest point. Then Susan took her keys, her other things, and started for the graveyard.

By the time she reached it, sweat beaded on her nose. She dropped into a bench, still in sight of the gates—the one where she had sat with Tom, she realised. Perhaps that was fitting.

Perhaps this is where this other person will look for me. A breeze touched her head, cool and gentle, and she closed her eyes.

When she opened them, an older man was standing several metres away from her. He looked—a little odd for a graveyard. Though all kinds of people came to a graveyard; she knew that. But this man dressed more for giving a lecture at a college than for visiting someone here. Still…something looks off. It was a remnant of what she'd done with Hester, peering into people, that led her to that conclusion.

And then she realised, as she looked at him as she had once looked at all people, to know them rather than to see them, that this man did not look sad. That was why he was out of place in a graveyard. She looked more closely still. He stood at an average height, with nothing imposing about his white face under the short, curly, brown-and-grey hair. He had thick, square glasses that gleamed golden as he tilted his head in response to Susan's stare, and was dressed in a perfectly tailored, pleasantly brown suit with rumpled knees. If Susan had met him at a college she would have guessed he gave half-interesting lectures and fussed about any creased homework papers.

She wondered if she should rise and greet him. If he was more than someone to be smiled at, amused by, and seldom remembered.

But she was tired; if he was the one she was meant to meet, let him come to her.

She continued to watch him, as he finally stopped looking at her, looked back to the entrance, and then scowled. Reaching into an inside pocket of his brown suit jacket, he brought out a very small, thick leather book. He looked at it, reached to pull it apart, hesitated, and then heaved a sigh. He walked over to Susan's bench and sat on the opposite side of it. Susan watched with growing interest as he began unfolding the book—for it was not truly a book, but rather a series of pages upon pages with flaps, expansions, and sometimes tiny coloured pictures attached to each page. A few of the pictures were attached to each other. The pages and flaps were sometimes barely touched, sometimes full to cramping with neat, flowing handwriting that stirred a memory somewhere in Susan that she could not place.

"It would not do to cross my own timeline, you know. Not at all. But I am quite sure—England, England, where is England?"

"Are you speaking to me?" Susan asked. If she were not so tired, she might have been amused; but now she asked only out of courteous habit.

"Well, I do not know yet, that is the problem. Ah! Here is England. Let's see, what's the year? 1935, 1936—goodness, I'm in that year a great deal—1946, 19—there I am. 1949. This is a year a great deal of good went out of this world," he said to Susan, looking over at her over the top of his glasses.

Susan's throat closed. The way he said it—it grated, in a way Hester and even Tom hadn't. He knew. He knew what the world had lost. Even though the world didn't. And he refused to soften that truth at all.

"Well, I can see from your reaction that you know what I'm speaking of, child. So you must be the one I am sent to meet. Susan Pevensie," he finished thoughtfully. "That won't be your name to me, of course, but it's a start. Well, shall we get going?" He rose and fussily straightened the creases in his jacket. A distant part of Susan's mind noted that the wrinkles pulled straight and stayed straight. She tried to focus on that, once again reaching for a small mystery so she could ignore the inverted world that narrowed to a point and crushed her. But his presence discouraged that. She got the feeling he would have no patience with any of her dancing around the truth.

Could the truth truly set her free?

What would that freedom even look like?

Could she ask him that question? She looked up at him, the words halfway to her mouth—but they sank back into nothingness. His face looked wise, behind the glasses, and the lines around his eyes were perhaps even kind, but not compassionate. He had kindness without patience, she realised. It showed in his movements, the twitches, the way it was hard for him to be still.

So she asked him another question instead. "Where are we going?"

"To the graves, of course. Come, child, I haven't got all day," he added as she froze. "I may have doors through time, but I still have my own limited amount of it. Take me to the graves."

"Why?" Susan had visited them herself, but not with anyone—not with anyone. Everything in her revolted at company; she could not face the ghosts of her siblings, her family, while anyone stood watching. She could not do that with anyone; not with anyone still alive.

"Why?"

"Why are we going to their graves?"

"Ah." The keen, immovable gaze stared at her again. "Tell me, child—no, you are too old for that. Tell me, lady, how did your brother walk back to you and your siblings after he had broken fealty with all things good and betrayed his family, his future, and the great Lion?"

Susan didn't know—she hadn't thought of it in so long—there had been a time—

She remembered. She remembered as she had the week before they-that time when the memories came suddenly, vividly. She remembered a little boy on a hill, talking to the Lion, remembered longing to make sure Edm—make sure he knew it was all right again, that they were all friends. She remembered hearing, years later, of him being bound to a tree and the White Witch—Jadis, that was her horrid name—sharpening a knife.

She remembered a Stone Table. She remembered that same knife. She remembered it being held above the Lion, and it beginning to plunge down.

"Aslan died for him," she whispered. A tear fell down her cheek, cold and small. How had she forgotten a love like that?

"Those who are forsworn may always come back, my dear; always, if they choose." His voice was gentler now. "But often the stories of their return begin with death."

Susan looked up at him, at the curly hair, thick glasses, professor-like head. She didn't want to go with him.

"That does not mean, of course, that is where such stories stay. Tell me, did your brother's story end in death? Oh, do not protest. I know his grave is here. But tell me, lady: did your brother live?"

The anger died, leaving Susan empty. Had Edmund lived? Stern and compassionate, tall and quiet, wise and funny—his memory was more vivid than the memories of the other world had been. All of her siblings had lived.

Could the same be said of Susan?

Another memory, of the laughter and pleasant feeling not lasting past a sibling's argument, answered that question. No, it could not.

She did not answer her companion, but he began lecturing again, regardless. "You have been given the choice to live as well. I know you are alive enough to feel pain, but dead in many other respects. All Walkers are, when they begin. But come with me, lady, and I will show you how you may once again come alive."

It sounded like a foolish promise. An impossible one.

It sounded like the kind of promise the Lion would have made.

Susan stood. "Their graves are that way," she said quietly.

*"But the mercy of the world is time. Time does not stop for love, but it does not stop for death and grief, either. After death and grief that (it seems) ought to have stopped the world, the world goes on. More things happen. And some of the things that happen are good." Jayber Crow, written by Wendell Berry, p. 556-559