A/N: gosh, it's been a while! Beta'ed by my wonderful friend BrokenKestral, who wrote the original fic this one echoes (check it out - please!). I can honestly say I wouldn't have written this save for the fact she was so excited about it and I love bringing my friends joy :) See you guys when I inevitably get peer-pressured into writing chapter 3 haha
Chapter 2 - Knowing
"We have a few hours before Mum and Dad get back. How far away does he live?" Peter asked, and Susan smiled. It was a fond sort of smile, the sort someone would give you no explanation for if you asked why. It made Edmund happy, to see her smile after all that crying. Then her smile faded.
"He's…wherever I want him to be. He had the kind of door one can call to oneself, as long as there's another door of any sort to anchor it." How peculiar! How often he'd wished to be able to come and go to Narnia whenever he wanted, and here was Susan, saying she had a friend who could do such a thing. Perhaps she had gone to Narnia? It often seemed to bring out the best in people. But no. Aslan had said that none of them would come back after his and Lucy's adventures on the Dawn Treader, and the doors He opened, no one could shut, and the doors He shut, no one could open.
"…Maybe we should call it forth in the backyard? It can…permanently alter walls if called inside, I think he said." Edmund tried to imagine how he would explain that to his parents. More lying, most likely. The thought produced an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach. Banishing the thought, he got to his feet, saying, "Then by all means,
let's call it outside." He offered Susan his arm, a motion which was so natural he hadn't even thought before making it. She took it with a smile, coming to her feet as gracefully as if the Gentle Queen had never left. Feeling the oddest sense of déjà vu, he placed his other hand atop her arm, and she stilled. People claimed that some things shouldn't need to be said. But they were wrong. "It is good beyond expectation to have you back," he told her, looking her straight in the eyes to show her he meant it. Because he did. It was like returning to your house after an extended vacation - strange and right, all at once.
"To know you come back," Lucy added from behind Susan, face shining like the dawn. "I hoped, but to know it for certain-" The words hung in the air like stars, and he recognised the shadow of regret flit across Susan's eyes. It was the right sort of regret, the kind that made them both clutch each other closer rather than push each other away.
"Is a gift Aslan-sent," Peter finished. "Shall we go, my Queens and King?"
Everything said, the Four made their way downstairs. Edmund opened the door for them, bowing them through and following behind.
Susan stood in the centre of the yard, palms raised, ready to begin whatever ritual would call her friend. "I seek the door that opens, the path that leads to a dwelling beyond worlds."
That's interesting, Edmund thought, our Susan is so enamoured with just this world, she refuses to believe that other exist. Then again, I always suspected it was grief which drove her to denial. Strange that she finds what she was looking for only after…what? Something terrible happened, surely. Though, isn't that the way of things? I sought to be prince, and only when I rejected that, was I made king. 'Irony is Aslan's sense of humour', didn't the Professor used to say?
He lost his trail of thought when the air in front of Susan seemed to ripple, and source-less white light flowed from a doorway-shaped rectangle which only just brushed the top of Peter's head. The light went dark. A head popped out!
"This is most irregular," the head began to complain, its sharp grey eyes behind gold-framed glasses glaring at them all. His hair (Edmund assumed it was a he), was brown, curly, and close-cut with patches of grey, though Edmund, having met many creatures who often lived longer than they looked, suspected this man was very old. Something about the eyes, perhaps? Gruff and irritable and busy, but still answered when Susan called. Reliable.
"I was just in the middle of letting the Merlion meet with Ransom in 1945, and then I get this call. Haven't I enough today without being a personal chauff-"
Edmund was intently curious now. Merlion? Ransom? 1945? Edmund remembered reading about Merlions in an encyclopaedia somewhere. They had a lion head with a fish tail and were connected with Singapore, yes? So, this man had been in Singapore a few moments ago? Incredible! Focus, Edmund!
Susan's friend broke off, seeming to really see Susan for the first time, and who she was with. His eyes narrowed in thought as he asked Susan, "Forgive me, but aren't you out of time?" Well, that was rather blunt. Edmund felt his hackles rise, protective of his obviously emotionally fragile older sister.
"Out of my own time, yes." Was that a hint of disappointment? Was she pained to be here? But no, she had seemed to treasure their meeting. Perhaps -
The old man frowned, "That was most irresponsible of you. 'Tis never wise, and humans especially make a frightful muddle. The only ones worse than them are mermaids. If you're trying to set your sorrow aside-" Edmund perked up, turning his attention from the peculiar man back to Susan. Correcting one's mistakes by going back in time. Was that what was going on? Older Susan trying to prevent her younger self from going astray? She had said she wasn't - "- but you wouldn't, would you? Yes, I can see it now. You're a Walker."
A what? Susan refused to look at them. For the first time it really hit Edmund that maybe his sister didn't want them to know what had happened to her. It wasn't that it was too painful to talk about right away, though that was also clearly true, but Susan was being intentionally cryptic to keep them in the dark. It hurt. Edmund's curiosity was like an itch he couldn't scratch. He needed to know - No, he only wanted to know, he corrected himself. He really really wanted to know. Context is everything, and how was he supposed to interact with this new Susan without knowing why she was the way she was? In fact, maybe knowing could help him interact with the Susan from this time! He'd always found it infuriating how he couldn't understand why she refused to believe in Narnia. It made it hard to have patience, and Aslan knew he needed to have patience.
"How did you get here?" The floating head demanded abruptly.
"I was being sent to – the Merlion's charge. But the door became a crack, and suddenly I was sitting in the house behind me, in another's time," Susan patiently explained, gesturing behind her to the house.
The head squinted at the house, then looked back to Susan and sighed. Two hands suddenly appeared, grasping the edges of the dark space and hauling the whole man out. The man in question was soberly attired in a charcoal grey tweed suit, fitting his slim figure comfortably. There was a silvery chain running from the edge of his waistcoat, presumably to a watchpocket hidden behind the jacket, which was unbuttoned. The tie was ochre red, a point of colour on what otherwise seemed an entirely serious man. His overall appearance reminded Edmund a little of Professor Kirke, though in nature, he seemed altogether too brusque and grumpy to be compared to his absent-minded and thoughtful friend.
Susan's friend, having fully arrived in the Pevansies backyard, dusted his hands off, the black opening closed within seconds.
"Well, if that's the case, accident or not, you were meant to be here. You'll figure out why soon enough, if you're a Walker. In the meantime, we must work on getting you back." There was that title again. Walker. What did it mean? Based on her friend's abilities and her non-surprise at time travelling into her own past, Edmund presumed that part of 'Walking' must mean travelling between worlds. 'You were meant to be here,' those words echoed in his ears. So, she travelled for a reason. Are we the reason? Didn't Peter just say her arrival was "a gift Aslan-sent"?
Edmund glanced at Peter and Lucy, seeing similar questions in their eyes. When he went to look at the strange world-hopping man (whose name he still didn't know because Susan had neither remembered to introduce them nor said his name aloud). Hold on, was he a Walker too? But Susan couldn't open gates to other worlds, and she was a Walker. Based on their interactions he was more senior than her, both in years and position?
The older Walker reached into his waistcoat and pulled forth a pocket watch on a chain. Except it wasn't an ordinary pocket watch. It wasn't made from iron or even silver, but a single sapphire, studded with diamonds like stars in a deep cerulean sky. Like the sky over the Eastern Ocean at twilight. Edmund heard Lucy's soft gasp beside him and knew her eyes must be the size of saucers. The old man snapped it open to scowl at it, giving the group a better look at the facing. Unlike other gems he'd seen in glass cases or behind velvet ropes, the sapphire wasn't transparent, it seemed to have layers which went deeper and deeper and deeper. And it kept changing. One moment it was twilight, and the next it was the Dancing Glade in summer, a sky full of clouds. Next there were pearls in icy blue depths. Then the royal blue velvet of an opulent couch. Then – the watch snapped shut and was put away. Edmund shook himself out of the daze he'd fallen into. How strange.
"But I cannot attend to this immediately. 1945 doesn't wait on 1948's problems. I shall be back." And with that, the old Walker reached into the open air, as if he were pulling a doorknob. The air blurred again, colours rippling until the space before him seemed to be hazy, like the air above a hot stove. He stepped forward and disappeared. A second after that, the portal dissipated, returning the space to normal.
Well, that was abrupt, Edmund thought, shooting a glance at Susan who seemed to be struggling with fond bemusement. Well, despite Susan's fond tolerance, Edmund wasn't sure he liked her friend and his brusque, uncaring demeanour. He wasn't kind. Unlike Susan, who suddenly seemed to have endless reserves of patience. It reminded him that this Susan was different when, for a few moments, he had forgotten that this wasn't the Susan from this time. He discreetly studied her face again, looking again over the lines of change. How she looked much older than twenty-nine. Oh, how he wished he knew what storm she had weathered to make it so!
After a pause, Lucy asked, "Was that the impatient companion?"
"That was one of the two I walk with," Susan replied, smiling.
"Ones you walk with," he repeated aloud without thinking, mind still mulling over the pieces of the puzzle which was his older sister. Immediately, he saw her smile grow dim, and realised he'd said it out loud. Oops. Am I really not supposed to know your story? Words jumped to mind, old words heard second-hand but still containing all the power and wisdom of their original speaker: "Child, I am telling you your story, not hers". The chastisement stung. Who had he heard those words from? Surely they'd come from someone else. And why would they jump to mind now? Why would Aslan be telling him not to find out what happened to Susan? She was his sister, their story woven side by side on the same tapestry, their lives shared. Well, not so much of late, but - Edmund was drawn from his thoughts by Peter.
"Inside," he told them, the High King taking Susan's arm.
Edmund's gaze snapped up to her face. She was looking at Peter's arm with such gratefulness it made his heart ache. Oh. Perhaps - but before he could finish the thought, his gaze shifted past Susan to see a slight shimmer in the air, not unlike the one which had preceded the freestanding door which had opened just a few minutes ago.
Susan herself spun to face it, and Edmund hurried to flank her without thinking. It was another of those involuntary movements, and for a split second, he expected to feel the heat of her scorn. "They say chivalry is dead, you know. Shame no one told you two." But he felt no such scorn from her now. It felt freeing.
The shimmer resolved into a window, and within the very image of the man who had just left them through the door. He stood above a slumped figure whose dark brown hair spread out over the floor and who wore - wait, is that? Edmund's exclamation was echoed by Lucy and Peter.
All three of them had started forward, but stopped when the Walker looked up and said, "She is merely sleeping. She'll be fine, stop worrying already." It was a mite too dismissive for Edmund's liking, but he halted his advance all the same. "But she is utterly useless as a Walker and we shall get nothing done till you are back. Where did you land?"
Hmm, so what does this Susan have that her past self didn't that makes her a Walker? A dozen answers immediately came to mind. Too many to count, he reluctantly concluded, abandoning that line of inquiry.
"England, my house, in 1948." Susan seemed to hesitate, as if warring with herself on whether to say more. When she straightened her shoulders, as if to take on a burden, Edmund knew she'd chosen rightly. "I called to the you in this time," she admitted, quieter, as if this was a bad thing. Oh, so the man she just spoke to hadn't met her yet? Edmund thought, the beginnings of a headache forming behind his temples. That explained the discrepancy in Su's care in comparison to her supposed friend. He didn't know they are friends - would be friends - oh dear.
"You - do you realise how that complicates matters? Two of me cannot exist in the same sphere, ever. And now I shall have new memories to deal with, once I get home. You have seen the notebook I use to note every place I have ever visited -"
Edmund could hardly imagine a thing like that, but he wasn't prepared to let Susan deal alone with a scolding she clearly didn't deserve. He was about to interject, but the old man continued, full steam ahead, before he had the chance.
"- and if you've called him - but you could not have known I'd find you so quickly, so perhaps that made sense, but do you realise how hard this will be? I can't even speak with him on what went wrong without breaking England off every other door frame!"
Oh, enough is enough, Edmund thought decidedly, already opening his mouth, politeness be damned, but Peter got there first. Typical.
"Perhaps you could give us the information you need to pass on and we could be your messengers?" Edmund heard Susan sigh in relief, and he backed up to stand closer beside her. Despite clearly recognising her this time, the man didn't seem to act any different towards someone who considered him a friend, and that was something Edmund didn't like. Not one bit.
"You could not speak the language the explanation is in," the Walker told them, irritation merely redirected. Then he seemed to pause, sighing. "But it was a good thought, young man. Hmmm…I see where she gained her strength, our Walker." Now this man, this man, Edmund could see being Susan's friend. "I shall attend to solutions and open another window when I find something. Do stay out of trouble till then. And Susan," a note of warning entered the man's tone, but it was well-meaning, "what has been set in motion may not be stopped."
Which, of course, set Edmund off thinking and wondering about what exactly had been set in motion. And why the mention of it had this Susan covering her face with her hands, as if to hide from it.
"I know," she whispered, and Lucy wrapped her arms around Susan's waist. The hug was returned with a desperate intensity which prodded Edmund's own desperately intense search for answers. For years, Edmund had helped by knowing. His intelligence and understanding of a situation was what was needed to fix it. It was his strength, and he longed to steal Susan's burden of knowledge and shoulder it with her.
But, he thought suddenly, would I really be shouldering it with her? This Susan is strong. She doesn't need my strength to hold this knowledge. Could his hunger for knowledge be a weakness here? Distracting him from - from Susan. Susan did not want him to know, and Aslan had not given it to Edmund to know, and yet still he hungered for knowledge which wasn't his.
Edmund closed his eyes briefly, praying, I'm sorry, I understand now. Please forgive me.
Darkness turned to light as he returned to the brightness of the yard, to the brightness of the gift in front of him.
Edmund took a few quick steps and wrapped his arms around his sisters, holding on tight to them as if to convey the strength of his love.