Disclaimer: I own nothing but the task every human is given—that of going on, when giving up is all the spirit craves.
Beta'd by trustingHim17, who continually encourages me to write and not let this drop.

"Death is lighter than a feather. Duty, heavier than a mountain."
~ Robert Jordan

The walk to her siblings' graves took far too long, yet it felt too short—each step under the grey clouds was one she did not want to take. But neither did she want to arrive. The…man? Susan paused, realising she did not know if he was even human, only that he looked like one. He looked at her, one eyebrow up, and she began walking again. He walked beside her without saying a word, far too occupied in once again folding up that little book. He had all of the flaps refolded except one, filled with pictures of a faded-looking girl and her family. That one seemed to give him a great deal of trouble, and he finally wrapped the flap around the outside and thrust the entire thing back into the inside pocket, muttering about the trouble paper gave meticulous keepers of time.

"Are you truly a keeper of time?" Susan asked. Anything to get her mind off the five curved stones she could see outlined up ahead.

"I find it difficult to say if I keep time or if time keeps me." He straightened his jacket again, pulling it flat over the book. "Ah, we've arrived."

They had. Susan looked at the five stones. Even with all their careful lettering, the smooth curves it must have taken hours to make—these stones were not enough. Not enough to stand in for Edmund, with all that he was—all that he had been. Not enough for Peter, who could have conquered whatever world he chose to enter, even the academic one Susan once scorned. Not for Lucy, who loved fearlessly. Not for her parents, who lived through a war and came out of it gentle and strong. No stone could replace the human who shared the name.

"What are we doing here?" she asked.

"We are giving you your first lesson, and by far my least favourite. 1946—is that before this time? Yes, it's 1949, I remember—three years ago a story came out. A black and white film that will become quite popular for many years yet, It's a Wonderful Life, based on true events, of course.* I thought—no."

Susan tore her gaze away from the stones to look at him, startled. He was surveying her, frowning deeply. She had no idea why. "No?"

"No. I had thought to play with time a little, perhaps show you the influence your life has already had on others—I cannot blank your existence from time, of course, that's an absolutely ridiculous idea, but I meant take you back to the times you made a difference. Only I opened a window to your past, to take a peek at it, and do you know what I saw?"

Susan looked at his frown, at the deeply wrinkled forehead, and noticed the man was standing completely still. He'd lost all his impatience. "I do not know what time of my life you looked at," she said, the words coming out with difficulty. She had said she'd try to believe, she'd meant it, but this—

Even in Narnia, she did not think there was anyone who walked through time.

He fully extended his right arm and waved it in a circle. The space within that circle began to ripple and change, shining first a bright gentle yellow and then a rich scarlet.

Then the colour cleared, and Susan saw herself seated on a throne, robed and crowned with more beauty than she'd ever worn in England. On either side of her sat her siblings, and her eyes went to them first—to those faces, faces only hinted at in England—Peter before he bowed, Edmund when he looked into souls, Lucy when she stood confronted with a shattered heart. And, Susan realised with a chill, it looked like all of their faces had looked like in the warehouse; that place she couldn't forget and hated to remember.

But her companion stretched his fingers outward, and the circle moved forward, till the only thing in it was Susan's face. "You were once a queen," he said quietly. "Lady is not the right name for you. Indeed, I know this world. I know the name of the One there who was and took the form of a Lion. You ruled by His will; your face shows that. You were Aslan's Queen." He lifted his left arm, waving it in the same circle. A second circle appeared next to the first. The light within shone a gentle yellow, but this time it did not change to red before clearing to another image. In the circle sat Susan on the graveyard bench, an image from that very day.

An image from before. An image of the past that just happened—not a photograph, not something scientific—something conjured up in the air, showing what had just happened.

It was real.

The other must be too, and Susan knew it.

"Look," commanded the man, his upper half invisible behind the images. "Look at who you once were, and who you are."

Susan closed her eyes. This is not fair, there's no comparison; I had not lost my siblings then!

But she could hear the voice in her head that she'd learned from Edmund, pointing out, You had just lost your world, your parents, your sense of safety and your home.

Susan knew it; she knew it, but it still didn't seem fair, to hold up who she'd once been as the standard for who she ought to be.

But if it wasn't fair, why did it bother her to look?

The truth set us free, Hester had said. Susan opened her eyes.

She saw the queen, the beautiful, gentle face—so much more beautiful than Susan ever would be in England, and Susan knew it wasn't the crown, the robes, or the throne. No, it was the face itself. Peace and love were written in the hints of the queen's smile and her untroubled brow, mercy bestowed in her gentle gaze—something Susan of England did not know. Did not have. It was so beautiful that this Susan began crying, longing. She longed to know that beauty, that peace. To have that surety to hold on to, a surety so strong it stilled even her anxious heart. She had nothing else now.

Because now…Susan looked at the second face. The white cheeks, the red eyes, and the dark circles probably made it ugly, but few would notice. The first thing any human noticed was the grief chiselled into every centimeter of flesh and face.

Both pictures faded to regular air, and behind them the professor-ish person stood with his hands closed, before letting both arms fall to his sides. "I knew we had lost much, but I did not know how much," he said quietly. He turned to the graves and bowed, first to Susan's siblings, then to her parents.

That hurt, hurt in a stab that took Susan's breath and made her angry.

"Why show me that?"

"Because you need a goal, of course. If you were once a queen of Aslan's, you must have enough intelligence to figure that out." If Susan's anger bothered him, he did not show it as he dusted his hands and stuck them into his pockets. He remained staring at the graves with a thoughtful look.

"You want me to become that again?"

"Oh no, of course not. You cannot be the first person again."

The words Susan meant to say—that it was asking too much, that a broken person could hardly have that much peace, that the goal was unfair—all of those stopped on her lips. "What?"

"Do think about it, Aslan's Queen; think with more than your grief. Or not, I suppose; that is the lesson I am here to teach. A friend of mine likes to quote an author—several authors, actually—and one of the things it says has a lot of wisdom that you need to hear. 'I can't go back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.' Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland. You are not in Narnia. You cannot rule as Narnia's Queen anymore. You are not with your siblings. You cannot be one of four, except right here, in front of their graves. You cannot be who you were yesterday." He glanced away from the graves, raising that one eyebrow at her once again. "And you cannot be a Walker yet, either."

Once again, here was someone disapproving of her choices. "You do not think so?"

"Of course not. Think. If I—or rather, if my Commander—had sent someone like you to guide a girl at the train station, to meet you in your house and hold you—do you think you would have had the strength to do those well?"

My anger in this moment is already an answer to that, my brother would say. I have no patience, not with those trying to help; I would not have any for others' grief. I cannot bear any more grief now, not when I have this much of my own. I do not know how Hester and Tom bore mine.

"You are not ready." He turned back towards the entrance now, looking into that distance as he continued talking. "You know grief but not wisdom; that is not something you've had the time to learn. All of this comes down to one question, really. Who are you? Who have you been? Who are you going to be?"

"That's three questions," Susan couldn't help saying back, an echo of a sibling who could no longer say such things; but the professor-ish person sighed heavily and refused to answer her.

Who am I?

Who have I been? The image of that beautiful queen burned inside her—the person he said she could not be again. She didn't think he had the right to dictate that, to tell her who she could be—but, if she made herself pause and answer the question, she knew the truth. She was no longer that person. She had not been for years. It had been the main source of tension between her and her siblings, that she had changed, and they had not wanted her to. They had wanted her to remain that queen.
Or did they?

She'd always thought they had. She was certain of it. But their faces, on their thrones—their faces at the gathering at Professor Kirke's—

They, too, changed.

Didn't they? We all became children again. No, they did not insist I stay that queen. They only insisted I remember who Aslan called me to be in the past, and to let that past shape my future. To let Aslan shape my future.

I wanted the future separate from the past. And I wanted it to be my own. I wanted a future full of beauty and laughter and dancing; but I wanted all of those to revolve around me. I did not want Aslan to enter it.

Now I cannot bear that future. I cannot bear any future. I only want the past.

So—who will I be?

Do I really get to choose? I wanted it to be my choice—I hated it when they told me who I should be—but I do not find in myself enough to make a good choice.

I want it to be easier.

I want to breathe.

I want more than a life empty of anything but hurt.

I do not know who to be, to make that happen.

Why is death so much easier than living? How do I make this choice?

Hester—Hester had disapproved of Susan making choices without asking for time. Hester had more patience than this odd—

"What is your name?" Susan asked abruptly.

"I am the Doorkeeper."

She waited, but he said nothing more. "That is a title, not a name."

"It is what you may call me, and so it will pass for a name. I'll refer to you by a title as well, so we're square all round."

Susan's anger dissipated; she was too weary to keep it up. "I only know the answer to two of those questions," she admitted, quiet and tired. "I was a child, then a queen, then a traitor; now I am nothing but broken." She looked at the graves, and her eyes filled again. "And lonely."

A hand came over her shoulder, a maroon handkerchief held out. She wiped her eyes with it and handed it back. To her surprise, he put the wet handkerchief back into a jacket pocket without even folding it. His pockets must be grossly dirty. "Are we here just so I can see what my beginning cost?"

"No, Aslan's Queen. We are here for more than that." The Doorkeeper stepped forward till he stood beside her. "Tell them you love them."

"What?"

He did not repeat himself, but merely looked at her through his thick glasses.

"Why should I do that?"

"Is it so hard for you?"

It is with you standing there. She did not have the energy to wonder why he made her anger flare so quickly and so often. Perhaps it was that his instructions sounded so much like dictations.

He sighed. "You are regressing to a child again."

"Grief does that to people," Susan said, suddenly remembering moments when her mother had huddled like a child in her bedroom after Susan's father had gone to war. Susan wasn't meant to see that, but she had.

"And it is well you know it. But you chose to come here, Aslan's Queen, and by that choice you must make yourself more than a child. Follow instructions."

"Following instructions is acting like an adult?" Susan asked resentfully, and the thick eyebrows glowered at her.

"Adults should know both when to follow instructions and when to question them. So tell me, do you know what we are doing?"

No. But she didn't want to say it, so she shook her head.

"Then why do you think yourself qualified to know why when you do not know what? Now," and he faced the graves again, "tell them you love them."

She looked at them—at the names, the curling letters etched in stone, Peter Pevensie, Edmund Pevensie, and Lucy Pevensie, and she looked at the grass and dirt in front of the stones, the place where the last part of them remained on earth.

"I love you," she forced out. "I do. I—I love you. I mis—"

She still could not say it.

He offered her the handkerchief again, and a small part of her felt surprised when her fingers took it and found the material to be neither damp nor wrinkled; and it was perfectly folded.

"This is not your first lesson, but it is your most important one. To be a Walker, you must take the love you have for them—all the love they cannot receive, that aches because it has nowhere to go, and you must give it to others."

She wiped her eyes and cheeks again, so she could look at him.

"And it will not be easy," he warned. "The people you must love you will see once, most likely, and then never see again."

Susan looked at the graves, thinking of how hard it was to say I love you because she couldn't be sure her siblings heard, because the words were not enough once someone was dead, and she said, "At least these people will receive it."

"They will need it." The warning in his tone pulled her gaze back to his. The light eyes were grave, suddenly more vivid than the glasses. "That does not mean it will be any easier for them to take it."

How could it not be easy to take? Don't all of us want to be loved?

And yet—she thought of all the well-meaning people who were cruel in their kindness, in their reassurance that Susan would get over this, that the grief would one day be gone, as gone as her siblings—

No, sometimes love and good wishes are not easy to take. But I do not think that is all he meant. Susan strained her memory to recall others who had needed love—had there been? She thought so, in those memories she shut out. She thought—soldiers after the war who were haunted by sounds and fears. Or further back, what little she remembered before she became a traitor, in the place she'd tried to forget—weren't there fauns and nymphs and little sobbing birds? Some so fearful that even a helping hand seemed a threat?

She thought so. But she could not think of their names. Had it been easy to give her love to them? Did she love them still?

Could a broken heart hold enough love to be a Walker? Could her heart?

"I do not know if I can do that," she admitted.

"But?"

"But?"

"Are you willing to try?"

Susan swallowed. I would rather try than go back to my house and do nothing but wait. Indeed, I would do almost anything to change what I am bearing now. She nodded. "Who am I to help?"

"Oh, what nonsense, child. I don't expect you to start helping someone right away."

Every time I think I know what is going to happen…"Then why did you ask?"

"Because we must begin. Time runs me, remember. And now it wants me to run to other things, so I must finish this. Are you ready?"

"But you just said—"

"Oh, you begin by going on a trip. I said you were not ready to start helping someone. That is not the same as going somewhere. But you are to remember that you are not there to help, to change someone, or to do any thing except to learn. And be prepared for this, too—after a time, after you have been to a few places, these trips will not come as often as you want. So it always is, with Walkers; they fall in love with their escapes and want them more. But if you lot learn your lessons all at once, then it's harder to remember them. You must remember them. You will have need of them later."

That—sounds more doable than comforting someone.

Somehow, though, I do not think it will be. What was it Edmund—I can think his name now—what was it he once said? That the reward for doing one good thing is usually to be asked to do a harder, a longer, and a better one?** He was right too often about those things. Susan folded the deep red handkerchief that was still in her hand, taking care with the folds—doing this one thing right. Then she handed it back—the Doorkeeper slipped it into the opposite pocket—and Susan straightened her spine. "I am ready to begin."

*To the best of my knowledge, It's a Wonderful Life is not based on true events, but I could hardly have Susan step into fictional worlds and introduce other fictional worlds as pure fiction, right?
**Paraphrased from The Horse and His Boy