Author's Note: Wildly AU. I do not ever see this happening in canon. Also not a fluffy tale. But I wanted to write it, so…author's choice?
The white walls looked bleak, the hallways long as Peter and Susan were shuffled through them. No paintings, no curtains, no splash of colour besides the forbidding dark doors, broke the empty-feeling space. Peter wished he were close enough to take Susan's hand, but the attendants always made him walk first—"P comes before S in the alphabet"—and so Peter couldn't even see her, dwarfed between her own two attendants in their navy uniforms.
At least they still attended most "sessions" together. Sure enough, when Peter's attendant—the one with the shaved head, who smiled and said, "Call me Bob," knocked on the double door at the end of the hallway and they were bid to enter, Susan came too.
"Peter, Susan, welcome, welcome! Be seated, please." The man behind the large walnut desk—with the same glasses as Professor Kirke, the same white moustache and beard, even the same tone—stood, gesturing to the two comfortable chairs across the room. "You can take the couch, if you prefer," he added, when Peter didn't immediately move.
At once Peter moved to the couch. It let him sit directly next to Susan, and he waited for her to sit—in the middle, as was her preference—before seating himself beside her.
Somehow, making sure they kept these small preferences helped keep them sane, here in a place where they had almost no choice.
Outside—far outside the three-story building as long as Buckingham Palace, past the gravel road running the length of the house, outside the green lawns surrounded on three sides by trees and a black fence* stood two other children, their faces grave, their hands wrapped around the bars.
"It's—it's been four weeks," the younger girl said, her face leaning into the bars to get a little closer. "Do you think they're all right?" The older boy didn't answer for a moment, and she added, "Edmund?"
"Sorry, Lu," he said quickly, turning to her. "I was thinking."
The nine-year-old glanced towards the building. "About how you might be there, in two years?" she asked quietly.
A ghost of a smile passed over his face. "You don't think I'll disown Aslan and Narnia before then?"
"Of course not!" shot her indignant response.
"Thanks, Lu," he murmured, turning back towards the forbidding mansion. He didn't say that it was sometimes good to be reminded that they trusted him, here in a world where he'd gone so wrong once. "I was thinking about something quite different," he said instead.
"What? About how Peter and Susan might be doing?"
Another moment passed as Edmund weighed the pros and cons of telling her his thoughts. He knew she'd help—that was the problem. She'd think it was right, and not an elephant could dissuade her from helping. (Nor a policeman, which was far more likely.)
But he wasn't sure of success, it was just an idea, and if they got caught—it was likely their ages wouldn't matter anymore.
Should he tell her?
"You can hold her hand, if you like," the doctor told Peter, smiling. Peter almost didn't; it seemed like obeying orders. But there it was simple truth that feeling like he could support Susan a little gave him strength, and truth was a precious thing.
He was relearning just how precious.
So he reached over and took his thirteen-year-old sister's hand.
"Now, then," the doctor said, still smiling, clipboard in hand. "How are you feeling today?"**
"A bit stifled," Peter answered honestly. Telling the truth at all times made it easier to tell the truth under pressure; faithful in little, faithful in much.
"Oh? Not enough outside time?"
"Not enough freedom."
The doctor's head came up, blue eyes dark behind the glasses. "What choices would you like to make for yourselves?" He included Susan as well, for Susan had finally made it clear to him that Peter spoke for her, unless Susan spoke out in disagreement.
"What to eat," Susan put in suddenly. That hadn't been what Peter meant, but he held his peace. Susan fought in her own way.
"Ah, yes, I can quite understand that. But sometimes that leads to unhealthy patients, for they only choose things that are bad for them. Still, we try to take preferences into account. Is there something you would like added? At teatime, perhaps?"
"No, it's—" she paused. "I miss my mother's cooking. And my sister's."
"Oh, dear, I can understand that. I met your parents, you know. Poor souls, they wanted to keep you, but the stories the neighbours reported—and this is your first year, isn't it? You're thirteen?"
"Yes." Susan swallowed, and Peter gently squeezed her hand. He'd never wish her in here, but he had to admit, having someone to fight for made standing fast so much easier. Remembering why it mattered. He never wanted to see the light of belief leave his sister's eyes.***
"Well, you'll see them over the holiday, perhaps. And your sister too. But why don't we get on to these reports that were made about you. Fighting, arguing, disrupting a peaceful neighbourhood, and all of these dreadful lies you were telling, trying to pass as truth—that's why you're here. Why don't you tell me more about them?"
"We stopped some bullies from forcing dogs to fight," Peter answered quietly. "And the stories we told were—are—true."
"Yes, yes, you've said that. And while we must make allowances for the ways in which war altered the way some people think, and how these stories might appear to you like memories, it is always important to bring them back to the truth. And the truth is that many of these couldn't have happened; they're probably based on other things that happened to you, and we need to find those. So what part of the stories you tell do you think are true?"
"All of them," Susan put in, though her voice quavered. "Narnia, our friends, the witch, Cair Paravel…all of it."
"Aslan," Peter added, and Susan leaned into his shoulder for a moment. "The wars we fought and the peace we won."
"You think you actually reached another world? Not on another planet or star, which is possible, but through a wardrobe? An ordinary wardrobe?"
"If it is an entire world in the back of it, it's hardly an ordinary wardrobe," Peter snapped, before reigning himself in. "Sorry."
"You think magic can't be found in ordinary things?" Susan added, and Peter breathed out. She'd done this in Narnia too, easing the conversation back if he made a mistake.
That stood unshakeable, a fact. The truth.
"I don't think magic can be found at all."
"Then what would you call bravery? The bravery of the men who fought in the war, or the bravery of the widows and fatherless who are living now?" Peter challenged.
"Strengths of the mind, you know, a mind that rules over itself. It can make people courageous. But we're not meant to be talking about me. In this magical world you remember, you were kings and queens?"
"Edmund." Lucy's hand tugged at his elbow. "Tell me."
He sighed. If this had any chance of working, he'd need another person, and he knew it. Keeping his voice very low, he answered, "I'm thinking the hinges of the gate are accessible from the outside."
Lucy glanced that way, but he caught her head and turned it back towards the mansion. "Look later," he admonished her.
"If we can get through the gate…"
"Mum and Da told me where Peter and Susan's rooms are. We make it through the gate, bring something for the dogs that makes them sleep—"
"Mum has a leg of mutton at home, she's saving it for the next holiday—"
"That'd work. If a guard comes we can climb the trees, we're light enough. There's bars over the windows, though."
"But they're fastened on the outside."
"How do you know that?" Edmund asked sharply.
"Because they go down past the windowsill. And remember? Diggertaut showed us how to separate wood from metal quickly."
Edmund looked as hard as he could at the distant windows. He couldn't tell from this distance if Lucy was right, but it would make sense, if you were trying to keep people in, to have the bars on the outside of the windows.
"Peter and Susan are on the first floor," he said slowly. "If we could get them out—they're probably light enough for the trees too, if needed—we couldn't take them home."
"The professor!" Lucy said excitedly, and Edmund hurriedly shushed her. "They could stay with Professor Kirke. I don't think we've told anyone he believed in Narnia, or that he'd been there."
"And he's moved from the big house, so finding him would be a job anyway," Edmund murmured, thinking. "We'd need to buy train tickets in advance—"
"And let the Professor know they're coming—"
"And have some clothing for them to change into." Edmund let out a sharp breath. Just the idea of it, the idea of getting Peter and Susan out, hurt like a sharp blade. Hope could be such a painful thing.
After a few moments of silence, Lucy tugged on his elbow again. "Do you think we actually can?"
Edmund glanced at the building again, the perfectly spaced trees with their slender trunks, the open lawn with no cover, the men in navy uniforms walking around the building at regular intervals. "I don't know."
Lucy let that linger for a few seconds. "I think we should." And Edmund couldn't help but smile, because, after all, she was right.
Peter and Susan didn't belong in there. It was time someone got them out.
"He was High King Peter," Susan answered, her voice soft and strained. "I was Queen Susan under him."
"We are a king and queen," Peter corrected, though gently, his eyes on his sister's white face. "Once a king or queen of Narnia—"
"Always a king or queen of Narnia," Susan finished, and some of the strain left. Her eyes met Peter's, and they were clear.
"So you think you're royalty, here and now?" the doctor interrupted.
"Not anymore than a foreign king or queen would be." Peter turned his attention back to their psychotherapist. "We have no more authority in England than any other man or woman."
"Boy or girl," the doctor corrected. "Keep to the facts."
"Boy or girl," Peter conceded, because this, too, was the truth.
"But if you were to go back through the wardrobe, you'd be royalty again? Why don't you try?"
"No," Susan answered, all the strain back, "I mean, yes, but we can't go back. Not anymore. Not the two of us."
"Interesting," the doctor said, pen beginning to scratch on the clipboard. "Why not?"
"Because Aslan said so. And we abide by His commands; He knows better than we do." The conviction in Peter's voice reached Susan, at least a little. He let go of her hand and put an arm around her shoulders. "We follow Him in England as well."
"Indeed. You're saying a lion—I believe you said Aslan was a lion—has better reasoning powers than a human being?"
Lucy's feet scuffed along the sidewalk. "Where are we going to get the money for the train tickets?"
By her side, Edmund had been thinking the same thing. "I don't want to take it from Mum and Da—they'd give it, I know, but if they have anything to do with this they'll be locked up. I've got enough for half a ticket that I've saved up, but that's not nearly enough."
"I've got my birthday money, and that's enough for another half. We're halfway there!"
A short, bitter laugh escaped before Edmund could stop it, because he knew what would happen if they only had one ticket. "Peter would make Susan take it, and stay here and be caught again." He hated himself for saying it as Lucy's face fell, as she bit her lip, but it was the truth.
"Is there someone else we could ask?"
"Not in Londo—Lucy!"
"Yes?"
"Aunt Polly! She's arriving tomorrow!"
"But if we ask her for help, won't that be the same trouble as our parents?"
"We break them out tonight. We can hide in London for the rest of the night, and it gives Aunt Polly the perfect alibi. But she'll give the money for the other train ticket."
Lucy looked up at him, hope beginning to shine in her eyes again. "Then all we need are clothes."
"Then let's go home and get them."
"I'm saying that humans are not the most powerful nor most intelligent beings in the world," Peter cut back, voice beginning to sharpen once more. "There is the One who made us, and so He must be greater than what He made." He felt Susan shift under his arm, and held her more tightly. "I trust Him. If He leads me back to England, it's for a purpose."
Susan did not contradict him, and that made him breathe a bit easier. Their doctor frowned at the pair of them.
"I'm beginning to think talking to you together only strengthens your delusion," he said gently. "I know you won't like, you won't like it at all, but I think tomorrow, we'll try separate sessions." Susan's hand gripped Peter's wrist, nearly grinding the bones together in her terrified hold. "It's twice the work for us, of course, but if it leads to a good end result, it will be worth it. For now, I think that's all today. Wait a moment while I call your caretakers."
As he walked to the door, Peter turned swiftly to Susan. "Courage, Su," he said, voice low. If the doctor knew they were talking to each other, he'd call them to the door with them.
"Peter, I can't. Aslan might have led us back to England, but to lead us here—why?"
And Peter didn't have an answer. Looking at his sister, white-faced, about to go back to a bare room with no beauty and no freedom, when she'd lived in a castle filled with light and colour and sound and ruled it—
Why?
"Remember what has not been taken away from us," he said instead. "Remember that we're still who Aslan made us to be. Queen Susan the Gentle."
"I'll try," she whispered back, as the doctor turned and called them to the door.
Peter did not sleep that night. When all the lights were turned off, when all that was left to him was darkness, he knelt by the edge of his bed. Quietly, so he would not be punished for being out of bed.
But he needed to pray. He needed to ask why, even if there was not an answer, because he knew Aslan always allowed questions.
And he needed to pray for his sister's safety. For her mind, for her sanity, and for his own. Without Susan there to remind him why truth mattered, without her gentleness to ease him when he went too far, this would be so much harder.
And he didn't know why Aslan allowed that.
He reminded himself that Aslan would be with him in it, and cried out for the help he would need, starting tomorrow.
For hope in the darkness of that night, right then.
Susan did not sleep that night. She did not have words to pray, to plead, but she kept the memory of Aslan's golden face, of Lucy's sweet voice, of Edmund's quiet judgement, and more recently, Peter's steady protection, in her heart and mind. They shoved the darkness back, a little.
And without Aslan, all of them would be so much less brilliant. She knew that, here in the darkness. She knew the Lion's words and character were what brought out all the things that stayed, when the darkness closed in.
Huddled under the covers, she prayed the darkness wouldn't last too long. Was there any way out?
Outside the enormous gates across the drive, Edmund pulled out his pocket knife and handed it to Lucy, shifting the sack on his back at the same time. Using all the strength he had, he grabbed the bar across the gate and pulled it up, holding it while Lucy worked at prying out the hinge, her own bag hanging on her back. Twice he had to drop the metal, gasping, but each time he did the hinge stood a little farther out. On the third try, Lucy pulled it out completely. Pushing, they made the metal slant inward, just a little—just enough for them to slip past. Lucy reached under the fence and laid the hinge beside the first tree, then Edmund grabbed her hand and they were running.
Running, step on step on step on the grass, holding each other when they slipped. There wasn't a sound besides their footsteps—no barking of the dogs, no shouts for them to stop. They made it to the road in front of the mansion and stopped, huddled at the last tree. Lucy reached through the metal and stroked the rough bark unconsciously, even as she looked this way and that.
Edmund pointed wordlessly. A guard walked on the road in front of the mansion's left wing, but his eyes were on the building, not on the lawn. The two stayed as still as possible, Lucy remembering another night. Do not let yourselves be seen.
The guard reached the end of the wing and turned around, walking towards the edge of the house. Lucy glanced the other way, but couldn't see any other guards. The two waited, forcing their breaths to be even, while the guard walked back, but no one else appeared. No one else appeared.
And finally the guard turned the corner.
Edmund pointed towards a particular window in the right wing, waiting till Lucy nodded, then clasped her hand and shook it. The next moment she ran.
Edmund stayed, stayed till she reached the house and began running by its wall, nearly invisible in its shadow. Aslan, keep her safe. Then he began running to the left wing.
Peter's window was six from the middle, his parents had said—they'd said his room was sixth in the hallway, Edmund corrected himself as he panted. Three, four, five, six. He took another knife from his pocket and bent over to look at the bars. They were bolted in place, one at the end of each bar. Glancing at the end of the wing—no guard!—Edmund put away his knife and got out a wrench, thanking Aslan he'd given one to Lucy as well. The first bolt only took eight seconds.
Lucy had the first bolt off, and the second and third were within easy reach, but she didn't know how to get to the top one.
That problem solved itself, however, for the bolt had rusted, and when the other three were off the bars gave way. Lucy caught them with a quickly-quieted cry of pain. Holding her breath, glancing down the length of the mansion—no one came.
Thank You, Aslan.
She set the bars down and raised the window. Covers rustled inside, and Lucy, never stopping to consider whether or not it was actually her sister, parted the curtains and climbed over the sill.
Queen Susan sat in the bed, a thin grey nightgown barely covering her shoulders, her wide eyes on the window. "Lucy?" she breathed out. "Am I dreaming?"
"No!" Lucy whispered back urgently, a hand on Susan's wrist, holding for one brief moment before letting go. "Here, put these on—we're getting you out!" She thrust her hand into the sack and brought out Susan's travelling dress, holding it up for her sister to see. Susan took it with mechanical hands, eyes still on Lucy's face.
"Out?" she asked.
"Yes," Lucy replied firmly, and Susan looked at the dress before her, tightening her grip on the fabric.
"It's real," she said in wonderment. Looking up, she asked, "And Peter?"
Edmund gently pulled the bars away from the window. Glancing in either direction and seeing no one, he raised the window, breathing a silent sigh of relief when it went easily. Putting both hands on the sill, he pushed up—only to have two hands grab his own.
For a terrifying moment he thought they were caught, but the hands were smaller than an adult's, familiar— "Peter?"
The hands let go at once. "Edmund!?" came the response, voice low but incredulous.
"Here, put these on," Edmund instructed in his quietest voice, shrugging off the sack and handing it through the window. Peter knew better than to ask questions. There was a gentle tug on the bag and Edmund let go; within a minute, Peter stood clothed outside the window.
"Susan?" he whispered.
"Lucy is getting her. We're to meet at that tree."
Without another word Peter surveyed the right, Edmund turning to the left, and then both crossed the dark road.
Two huddled shapes, like sacks of potatoes, were already there when the boys arrived.
"Peter!" Lucy exclaimed in a fierce whisper. A swift hug, and then the four turned, heading down the long driveway. Every step it felt like someone would come, would stop them, like a yell would rip apart the silence and then the chase—but step after step, the gate got closer. Freedom grew closer.
They arrived. Lucy bent to get the hinge; Edmund pulled Peter over to the gate and demonstrated pulling it inward, trying to notice how the too-big clothing waved around Peter's torso and wrists.
It had fit him before.
Susan slipped through first, then Lucy, then, after a short silent argument, Peter. Edmund breathed a sigh of relief, that Peter had conceded Edmund was in better shape, and then slipped through himself. The three older children held the gate in place while Lucy slipped the hinge back in, and pushed it down with all her might.
Just then a sharp cry sounded by the house.
"The guard must have seen the bars," Edmund muttered. "Run!" Across the street, into an alleyway, and then through—and then the Four soon lost themselves in the maze of London. Edmund had asked a school friend for a key to his shed with the excuse of borrowing a shovel, and there the three spent the night—"not the most comfortable, but away from prying eyes." Susan and Lucy fell asleep quickly, Lucy with her arms around Susan's waist and Susan with an arm around Lucy's shoulders, her other hand around Edmund's wrist.
The two boys did not fall asleep right away. "I'll take first watch," Peter said in an undertone, careful of his sleeping sisters.
"I've probably gotten better sleep—"
"I couldn't sleep right now."
Edmund let the silence settle; when Peter noticed Edmund wasn't leaning back to sleep, he shot his younger brother a questioning look.
Edmund raised an eyebrow. "What's got you bothered?"
A short sigh, and Peter shook his head.
"Not ready to talk about it yet?"
"Edmund—"
Once again, Edmund let silence fall.
"They were so sure we were lying," Peter said suddenly, angrily. "So sure they knew what the truth was. They hounded us, day in and out, and we could have gone home, I could have gotten Susan home, if I'd just admitted—"
"Their limited view of the world?"
Another sigh, and Peter shook his head. "A world with no Aslan, where the best of all worlds was the doctor with kind words and no respect—I couldn't live in a world like that. But why Aslan would allow it, would allow something like that to exist—"
"That's not your actual question," Edmund cut in, and Peter laughed, short but loud, and Susan stirred.
"Hush," Peter said softly, "you are safe," and Susan stilled. Peter stayed quiet until her breathing became deep and even once more. "Aslan lets us make our choices, and the doctor made his. But why we would be caught in that place…that's what I can't fathom. Was it a punishment? A battlefield? A place we were meant to show the truth?"
"You may not know the answer to that question," Edmund reminded Peter.
"No, I know. But I wish I could see Aslan. Sometimes just looking at Him is enough."
"Because remembering His goodness and majesty is enough for trust." Edmund's eyes turned to Lucy. "Some of us remember that better than others."
Another short laugh, followed by a yawn, made Edmund smother a smile. "You and her are mad, both of you, breaking us out of a place like that. But thanks. I'll remember more of Aslan's goodness once I've had some sleep—and some freedom," Peter said. "You up for first watch?"
"Yes," Edmund replied. Peter lay down by Susan, between her and the door, and soon fell asleep. "My High King," Edmund finished softly. He kept watch till morning.
*I may have looked up a picture of mental hospitals from the 1940s in England, and the main one was known as Bedlam, which was not a compliment.
**"Although hydrotherapy, metrazol convulsion, and insulin shock therapy were popular in the 1930s, these methods gave way to psychotherapy in the 1940s. By the 1950s, doctors favoured artificial fever therapy and electroshock therapy."
***I think it was distractions, not opposition, that led Susan away from the faith when she was older. When something else becomes an equal priority, then a larger priority, over the truth, the truth becomes unimportant. When the truth is challenged, however—when it becomes a matter of life and death—it's a different kind of battle. But this is also AU.
Prompt: One of the Friends of Narnia is called mad/insane.
Inspired partly by the essay "The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment," which pointed out if you take away justice from a punishment system and make it all about restoring the criminal or the criminal's good, you also give the people who punish unlimited power. There is no limit to the punishment because it's not determined by the offence, it's determined by what needs to be changed in a person. Which is absolutely terrifying; there's a kind of safety in knowing if I commit a crime, the punishment will be limited by the crime I committed, not by someone's idea of who I should be. The essay is on youtube, if anyone wishes to listen to it. (But that doesn't deal directly with people struggling with insanity, since that is not a crime, but a disease. But it's the source for the character of the doctor.)