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Disclaimer: "this is just another way / of saying the same thing," namely, that I don't own Narnia, labour, grief, or truth.

"the thing with broken clocks is
you can always tell
exactly
when they stopped ticking

with people it isn't so easy
and sometimes
you can't even tell

they're broken"

~ n.h

It's another long day at work, and when she arrived home Susan hated life. She felt like slamming the door, but shut it gently.

"See Peter? This is how an adult acts."

She froze.

The voice came from memory, from when she was 17 and argued with Peter over how she should act around his friends. She's not that person anymore. But her own tone sounded in her ears, and it sounded—it sounded exactly like what's in her heart right now. Falling against the door, she slid to the ground, burying her face in her knees. She breathed. Her breath was warm, heating her knees through the skirt, she's pressed so firmly against it.

Sometimes—more often than she wanted to think about—her behaviour to her siblings happened because she was lonely. Because the gap between herself and them was one of the loneliest things she'd ever known.

She did not want to be that person again.

Calling Nancy sounds wearying, as they'd skirt around an issue they disagreed on—exactly like her siblings all over again. She thought about calling Donna, and does, but no one answers. She called Carol after.

Carol was excited and happy and up for anything, even a walk. They agreed to meet right after teatime, near Central Park. When Carol comes she's wearing a bright blue dress and white coat, her hair curled to frame her face, and her make-up perfect. Words spilled from her lips almost without pause, stories of their set and the new music and the dance moves from America that Harriet had seen—but not once, Susan noticed, did she mention Donna's torn dress or the slap.

Susan listened, mostly in silence. She found listening for what Carol did not say more challenging, but—it took all the loneliness away. Reaching someone else, behind a barrier, was anything but lonely. Susan wanted to try.

She let Carol talk and talk, walking beneath the trees, but Carol never seemed to run out of something to say. Not for two whole laps. When they finished the second, however, Carol said brightly, "Well, that was excellent exercise. I feel quite refreshed. But I really should be going now. There's a party tonight and I don't want to be too tired. See you later, my dear!"

Susan waited, waited till Carol had turned away, walked two steps, in case Carol needed to hide her face—and called, "Carol?"

"Yes?" The smile Carol turned towards her was extra bright.

"I think defending Donna made all the difference in the world to her."

The instant the smile fell away, Susan could see Carol's shoulders heave up and down. "Susan, that—that was—" She stuttered.

"It was very good of you."

"Harriet shouldn't have done it!" Carol cried. "Scars are not something to be shown, when they still hurt. For Harriet to use that is a horrible, horrible thing, and I—I didn't think it right."

"It wasn't."

"Do you really think so?" The eyes under the curls searched back and forth, trying to pierce through Susan. "I—I know someone with scars. And I worried that I'd reacted too strongly. But Donna's face was so flustered and so ready to cry and it just seemed so wrong—and you seem a bit different now, like you'd think before doing something, and I was hoping someone would come and tell me—tell me it was all right. That I'd done all right."

"You did well." A smile stole over Susan's face, a small one, and not truly happy, but reassuring. "You didn't cause any real harm to Harriet, other than condemning her actions, and you protected Donna, who needed it. I wouldn't say it's a method we should use commonly, of course, but in that time and place—you did well, Carol."

"Thank you." Clasping her hands together, Carol looked down at the ground. "I'm not always the brightest, but it means a lot, to hear you say that. I hope you come back soon, Susan. I miss you; a lot of the magic is gone when you're not there. And you haven't been there a lot."

Susan looked away, at the tree trunks standing immovably around the path. "I'm not sure I can come back."

"Can you try?"

Susan wants to say yes; surely even Aslan would approve a life that led to love, rather than the hate she'd been feeling. But she honestly isn't sure, and she knew her yes shouldn't be given lightly. "I am not sure what my purpose in England is, and until I know, Carol, I shouldn't—shouldn't offer to do or be something."

"Your purpose?" Carol's tone—more than curious, caught by the idea—had Susan looking back at her. Her eyes were wistful, almost, seeing something Susan couldn't see. "I don't suppose many of us have a purpose."

"Other than just living."

"I'm going to find…"

Waiting—surely waiting would be better? But Carol wasn't saying anything, and without the smile to animate her face, she looked—sad. "You're going to find a purpose for yourself?"

Carol blinked, and her smile was a little sour—the first time Susan had seen her smile like that. "The purpose I want…someone already said no. I'll just have to find a new one. I hope you find yours." She turned and was gone before Susan could answer.

Going home, Susan removed her coat and got some tea instead of supper. She couldn't decide if she'd been a successful Walker, or friend.

And if she had (or hadn't)—she was lonely again. She hated it. And she hated hating it, hated the change in her heart when it was full of hating life. This wasn't anything like her siblings.

But how was she supposed to change?

Life came a second at a time, and somehow Susan made it through another day's worth of them. Remembering her promise to Huan helped, a little; but when would she see him again? And how long would it be to him? Would he be lonely too?

Compassion made it a little easier to let go of the hatred. Compassion first for Huan, then for a customer who came in trying hard to find a wedding ring he could afford for his soon-to-be wife, then for a coworker who dropped a glass case and shattered it.

Bound up in their troubles, large or small, Susan found herself forgetting her own misery, just for a brief moment. But the customer came in right before lunch, and lunch was better for remembering how she'd found him something pretty and delicate, small without being invisible. And then getting home was better after comforting the customer. It was when she sat down to dinner that she realised that generosity, in a way, was the antidote to hating her life, because generosity shifted her attention off of herself.

She had the next day off, and decided to go talk to Edmund and the others about it. She dressed up warmly, but it wasn't raining, and so she left Peter's coat in the closet. It did not take her long to arrive; she knew the way there by heart now.

So she sat down against Edmund's stone and looked into the distance, thinking. "I'm a little scared to talk to you," she admitted first. "I want to hear you answer. Last time I couldn't. I don't want that to happen a second time, to have that be the way it's always going to happen now."

She closed her eyes, waiting.

And in her mind, she could hear Peter saying, Go on.

She let her head thunk against the stone and smiled wearily at the sky. It wasn't a loud voice, but she would take it. "Grief—remember how all of us knew that grief takes energy? It's why we can't—I couldn't—grieve a loss all at once. Why there was no energy to live, or be mad, or any of that. Oh, Peter, I wish you were here. You were always so strong."

She waited again, but nothing. Still, she kept going. "It's easier to have energy for other things now. And I find myself being that cruel person I was to you all, though not to anyone else. I think it's because I'm lonely around everyone now, not just around you. And I don't want to be that person. And yesterday I found having compassion took the cruelty away, which would seem to be the answer, but am I supposed to be generous all the time? That would be so hard—"

And she stopped.

Because Lucy had selfish moments, jealous moments, but most of the life she lived was abundantly giving. Because a High King had to put every single person in his kingdom before himself, all his life. He lived for them. Because a Just Judge would be daily preoccupied with the cares and cases of others.

Because a Gentle Queen lived for others and for Aslan.

"Oh," Susan whispered, closing her eyes again. "I'm not—sure I have that much love left." Because only love could enable a life like that. Susan had been loved so much in Narnia, she'd never really been lonely. Now that she was alone, more alone than she'd ever been in her life, how was she supposed to find enough love to live generously.

Aslan, she could hear Lucy saying, in that awed, joy-filled voice of hers. The Lion who loved His own enough to die for them before they were kings.

"And Huan," Susan whispered. "Beth. The others who are coming—" She suddenly glimpsed her life as Edmund would have seen it long before, a long line of people who loved her and she loved, held briefly, but filling her life with love. With generosity. Guarding her from hate.

Susan saw that perhaps being a Walker was a gift because it took her out of herself as much as it took her out of her world.

And, she could hear Edmund say, if you're feeling bouts of both generosity and hate, you must be getting stronger than you were. Be careful with that strength, Susan.

Because it could be a life filled with love, pain, and generosity—or a life filled with words like this is how an adult acts, Peter.

"Or both," Susan sighed. "The Professor would say humans are made up of both, and the sensible ones try to turn those acts into habits."

"What acts?" The voice came from above her and Susan jerked forward, eyes flying open. The Doorkeeper bent over the top of the stone above her.

"Why do you do that?" Susan snapped, standing up and dusting off her skirt.

"Ask questions?" The Doorkeeper blinked.

"Startle people by speaking without warning them you are there."

He tilted his head to the side. "I thought you would feel the door open."

"I didn't. I was thinking." Susan heard her own tone again and winced. Deciding on generosity rather than hatred was a lot easier said than lived. "I'm sorry for my harshness," she added.

"I'll try to remember to announce myself. If the next me you meet is one that comes after this one, of course."

Not quite ready to think about a sentence like that, Susan changed the subject. "Is there a task for me?"

"I brought one, yes, but—" he peered at her through his glasses. "It's a hard one. I don't think you're quite ready for it."

Count to three. One. Two. Three. She cleared her throat, just to make sure the tone would not be any nastier than the words. "I think I could keep my temper. Despite the previous display. And with Huan close, I think I could also be patient."

"Oh, yes, I see how the words could be taken that way. Funny thing about words—the Bookkeeper shoots quotes at me all the time, telling me to take better care of them; but I take care of enough other things! No, the next task takes place in a queen's dungeon, with a man who has just been tortured, and I do not think you are ready for that."

"Tortured?" Susan felt bile rise in her throat; it had not been anything that happened in Narnia during their reign, and Peter and Edmund had kept her well away from any practices in Tashbaan that were cruel—but she had seen and heard the jeers of monsters around a stone table, and knew what cruelty was capable of.

"Yes. Now would not be the time. No, I think it is time for a lesson instead, one that I've been meaning to get to for a while. And of course, it will not make a difference to the poor Thief; the door on his side will always open at the same time. No, let's do a lesson today." He turned towards the far-off church.

"Can Huan come?" Susan heard the pleading in her tone, and the Doorkeeper must have too. He stopped. But he didn't turn, so Susan added, "Please?" She said it not as a girl whining, but as the Queen she had been, the request of one who has power and knows what it is to ask power to grant something.

He sighed. "That's more work, but I suppose it is a good idea. You stay here—I'll go fetch him. Go stand by that tree—the oak, right over there. We'll be back in a few moments." He stepped sideways and was gone.

Susan went to the oak tree he'd gestured to—a mammoth that spread its branches to a space larger and taller than a house, easily a hundred years old. She leaned against it and waited.

And was suddenly lonely again. Brightened by the prospect of Huan, of another world, another trip—and, she realised suddenly, by being with the Doorkeeper again. Being around him took more patience and forbearance than being around Nancy, or maybe Carol. But she had no need to hide, nor fear of damaging him.

Other than his patience.

She felt the door open this time, the mix of change and cold and open, like the largest prairie in the world touched her with a breeze, and then Huan and the Doorkeeper were back. The dog shivered, a bristle of fur running from his head to his tail, and then he was looking at her and smiling in that way all dogs can do. Susan ran forward and hugged him. He was so warm in her arms, and steady, and dignified without being intimidating. She held him for several long moments.

When she pulled away she noticed the Doorkeeper smiling. "A very good choice for you."

"Yes," Susan agreed, keeping one hand on Huan. "I am very thankful for him."

"And he for you. Now, this will be a very brief lesson, and like the red-haired dreamer's world, we will be going through a window, not a door, and they will not see or hear us. Which might be harder than you think it will be, this time. But it's a lesson you've taken enough trips you need to learn." He took her right hand in his left and turned towards the oak. "Keep a hold of Huan," he warned, and Susan grasped his fur firmly. He pressed into her side, watching the Doorkeeper's hands intently.

Once again, like that day that felt so very long ago, the Doorkeeper's right hand reached forward, stopping a hand's length from the trunk of the tree, and he began a spiralling motion. The middle of the spiral filled with light first, bright and yellow, first in lines, then filling the space in between the lines, till a circle the size of a large pan lid shone in the trunk of the tree. "Jump!"

Susan did not need him to tug her this time; one hand in the Doorkeeper's, one on Huan, she bent her knees and jumped. A moment's blindness from the bright light, and then she was staggering on…an English road?

Something grabbed the back of her dress in a firm hold. She steadied herself, feeling warmth on her neck, and Huan opened his mouth and let go. "Thank you," she whispered to him. She looked around. It looked like the road to a nice, well-kept mansion, though a bit older in style. She could hear Huan sniffing the air. "Where are we? And when?" she added at the Doorkeeper's look.

"A part of England, about a hundred or more years ago. We should be just in time—ah, here they come."

A horse-drawn something—not a cart, far nicer than that, but not a carriage either, with no top—was coming up the lane. A woman, plain-featured but happy and quiet, sat beside a kind-looking man as he drove. "We could have ridden," Susan heard the woman say.

"The exercise might have done you good, Fanny, but if you'd fallen, in your state,—ho, that's Tom. Tom!" The driver raised his voice and waved one hand in the air. Susan turned towards the woods and saw the policeman—the policeman who wasn't a policeman, the almost-Walker—emerge on horseback from the woods.

"Edmund!" he called, and Susan spun back around, back to the brother Tom had once described as like her Edmund. She walked up to the almost-carriage, put her hands on the edge, and searched his face. She felt Huan behind her, following her every step.

Edmund's smile when he saw his brother—that didn't look anything like her Edmund. She almost turned away. But as Tom asked how they were doing, and Edmund explained they were out for a bit of air, and asked how Tom was—There. She knew that look. There was a grave regard for his brother, a delighted love for Fanny and the child she carried, a knowing that happened only with the wise. Tom was, apparently, a lord of some kind, judging from the coat of arms on his saddle, and Edmund, she found as Tom asked about his parish, was a parson.

The news made her heart ache. Edmund was so much older than her Edmund, married, about to have a child. Her brother—what would her brother have been like, at this age? As a father, as a husband?

She would never know. What would have happened, child? No one is ever told that.

Huan's face came beside her own, and she turned to hold him. Listening, the world shut out from her eyes, this man sounded even more like her brother. He spoke of mercy to the weak, the demands of justice on his brother, reminding his brother to be a good lord—he was a man who had seen the business of heaven and was determined to do it on earth.

But not, she realised as she listened, a man who could accept that other worlds existed. He was very much a grown-up, who had not had a real childhood, perhaps; for whom magic had no reality. That was why she could not meet him. He was too perceptive to accept her as she appeared to most, but not able to accept where she really came from.

She gave him one more glance, to see again a look like her brother's, and then looked at Tom. He appeared—comfortable. Not just on horseback, but talking to his brother. Even teasing Fanny, who had almost nothing to say to him.

"He found his way to be at home here, didn't he?" she asked the Doorkeeper.

"Yes."

"Good. Good, I'm—I'm glad for him."

"Your advice probably helped. If not your grief." Susan looked away from Tom to the Doorkeeper. He too was watching the almost-Walker.

"My grief?"

"Sometimes when those who love see what another has lost, it reminds them to value what still remains."

Absently, Susan began to stroke Huan, looking back at Tom. "That is good."

"Good, yes. But have you learned your lesson yet? Because if you have, we can go home."

That did not sound enticing. Thankfully, Susan had no idea what the lesson was meant to be. "Perhaps you should give me a hint?"

The Doorkeeper waived impatiently at where Tom was leaning back in his saddle, the reins on his knee. "He's home!"

"Yes?"

"And he looks quite comfortable there. Don't you think?" The question was pointed, and so was the Doorkeeper's look.

"And I am not?"

"Exactly! That is the beginning. Now, why is he so comfortable? Don't look at me, look at him!"

Huan growled very softly, but the Doorkeeper ignored him. Susan looked back at Tom. "He's with people he cares about," she said bitterly.

"More than that, Aslan's Queen."

She looked, noticing the way he, too, must enjoy riding. "He's doing what he loves."

"Yes, very much so. And last, he is in his own world and his own time." Susan swung her head sharply. The Doorkeeper regarded her soberly, not a hint of a smile on his face. "I am afraid this will be a hard lesson to learn. But no place will fit you so well as your own time and your own place."

"Narnia did." She said it definitely. She knew she had no right to claim the place she'd disowned, but it had. It had been home.

"That was also the home Aslan called you to. He described His own as 'strangers and exiles' once. But there are very few—almost no—beings that can exist without a root of some kind. They are not doors. As a Walker, you will have to learn to live, not just in your trips, but in the world where your home is. And that will not be easy. But it is necessary, else you will be like a door with no hinges or frame."

That made Susan shudder; that, and the idea of being based in the world she hated living in. She trusted the Doorkeeper to be right; but like her hatred, she was not sure how to change her loathing for her own world.

"Tell me why we need it?" she asked, voice breaking on the last word a little. Huan whined.

"Because humans have an astounding ability to hide from themselves. To run from world to world is often the same as running from yourself. You need a place where you will be forced to face who you are; and home does that for most."

"I do not like my home."

"Nor the person you are," the Doorkeeper added quietly. "But that does not change your need for it."

"Like a child with medicine." Susan let go of Huan with one arm and turned wearily to face her other friend. "And I would not want to leave my family's graves," she added after a moment.

"That is a blessing." The Doorkeeper looked back at Tom. "He had a hard time, coming back. But hard things are not impossible things."

"I do not want to think about that."

Huan nudged Susan with his head, and she almost didn't look at him. She knew what Peter would look like, after she said a sentence like that, and Huan was like him enough he probably had the same look.

"You'll have to begin it nonetheless. I will give you a week, Aslan's Queen, to stop cutting your roots and hating your world. If you keep going, you will not be strong enough to help those the Walker is called to serve."

The Doorkeeper meant it, his tone entirely serious, and that would mean—

No more Huan.

Susan nodded. "I will try."

"And often that is all that is required. Watch, Aslan's Queen, and see what He does with your trying." The Doorkeeper turned and walked back towards another oak, eerily similar to the one in the graveyard. "It is time to go home."

A/N: Guesses on the next world?