Work Text:
Lucy took a quick look over her shoulder. The door was closed. There was no one to see her. There was no one at home. There was no one to catch her in the act. And still… And still it felt as if someone was watching her.
The pile of cast-off clothes, saved and put aside for later use, lay on the table where mother had put them, smiling as she did so. “I think these will fit you now. I thought that perhaps you’d like to look them over now that there is less of a need to hold back.”
At that moment, she’d been so very happy. She knew intimately how much work Susan and mother had put into making these dresses, skirts and blouses when they had no spare coupons for frivolities (Four children? Lucy remembered the clerk’s pursed lips, her mother’s expression. And they all need… I see). Lucy had dreamt of wearing lace again back then, dreamt of perhaps having a small item in the sheer floral fabric behind the counter among the more fancy items. It had been--
The front door closed. Lucy turned her back on the clothes. Peter. He was back early.
(Susan is no longer…)
Lucy bit her cheek. Forced her thoughts away.
In Narnia, she had worn embroidered silk from Calormene. There had been pins with rubies in her hair and finely stitched gloves. An ink-master from the south had decorated her arms with grapevines and no one had said a word of reproach when, each year, new vines were added. No one had judged her as worth less the more finery she wore.
In Narnia, she had known herself.
Who could she be in England?
Not a woman that resembled Susan, that much she had been made to understand. Not if she was a Friend of Narnia.
“Lu? Are you in?”
Peter tapped her door and waited for her invitation to enter before coming inside. It took only a moment for him to see the clothes - then he smiled while pulling out a chair. Lucy wanted to hit him. “Susan’s cast-offs? How thrifty of you.”
“You’re home early.” She was not going to talk to him about Susan.
“Father asked me to come back early today - there was something he wished to tell me.”
Drat. She had hoped to have a little more time to herself. Family came first this week, however. Mother had made that clear.
“Did you need me for something? I was intending to look this over for mending. Mother would be glad to see them come of use.”
Peter glanced at the pile of Susan’s most well-loved outfits from her school years. Lucy knew he didn’t see the care behind them, the creativity behind each decoration and the thrift that allowed each extra embellishment. He only saw Susan heading out wearing them, off for another social event.
“You’re a good girl, Lucy.” Peter came to his feet; Lucy held her breath. “I’ll let you get to it.”
Only when the door had closed behind him did Lucy dare to let her breath out. Good girl. Always a ‘good girl’.
She sat down and picked up the dress that she recognized as the one mother and Susan had worked on the most. There wasn’t a lot to do - Susan had a smaller waist, Lucy was taller, but it was not by much. The seam allowance would be more than enough for the alterations. The fabric had come from a dress that had belonged to her grandmother and the colour matched Lucy’s best (and only) hat perfectly. Susan had gone out dancing many times wearing it, and when Edmund had made a witty comment about how some people were more into fashion than was seemly, Susan had only laughed.
Lucy had heard her crying under her blanket later. It was one of the few times that her sister had allowed Lucy to crawl under the blanket next to her. After that… It had stung too much to do that after seeing the difference in how Edmund and Peter treated them. And...it had not always been them.
It was funny how you often regretted actions taken years earlier when you had gained some perspective. When Lucy was twelve, it had seemed as if Peter and Edmund had a point. She was now seventeen and… and she didn’t only have this life to remember and gain understanding from. She had thought that she remembered Narnia and her life there, only to find out, as she grew older, how much she had not fully grasped as a child.
“It will look lovely on you.”
Lucy pricked herself. She hadn’t heard mother come in. She eased the needle out of her finger with a grimace and pushed it into the hem. Part of her - the part that had fallen into brooding - wanted to snap at her mother.
She wanted to be better than that.
“I hope so,” Lucy said instead. “I’m not sure that there’s enough of an allowance in the waist.”
“That’s from your father’s side of the family.” Her mother bent to have a look. “Susan takes after me, but you and your brothers are much more like your father. It will be so nice to have you all here for a few days.”
And not a little tight on space. They would have to double up since there was only one spare room. “Is Susan coming?”
“Susan is coming.” mother looked at her. “She said that she wanted to speak with you.”
“Did she?” From the amused look on mother’s face, Lucy must have had the funniest expression on her face.
“Perhaps she’s hoping that you will have more in common now that you’re older.”
Mother had picked up on it then - the rift between her eldest daughter and her other children. She’d never said anything, but Lucy had wondered. “I hope so,” Lucy admitted and found that she was smiling. How odd - she could’ve sworn that the feeling in her chest was pure fear. “Perhaps. I haven’t always been kind.”
“You were a child.” It was strange seeing the long-suffering look on mother’s face - she was usually all smiles and gentle kindness. “And you spent a lot of time with your brothers. I have always thought that things would change as you grew older - some girls take time to find their path to womanhood. I figured that eventually, you’d find your way back to your sister.”
It hurt to hear it. But it was the truth. Lucy had forgotten the woman part of her until she was ready for it and...mother was right. Now that she was, she did want her sister.
Even with what felt like oncoming doom, there were chores to do. The next day found Lucy in the garden, setting up for an afternoon of weeding before she needed to prepare her room for an extra occupant. She wanted Susan to feel welcome and she was far from sure that her brothers felt the same way.
“She’s planning on staying for two or three days,” mother had told her when Lucy asked her how long Susan would be with them. “If her work will give her that many days off.”
Mostly, Lucy didn’t envy her sister’s employment and small rented room, but sometimes, she did wish that she had the same sense of direction in her life that had brought Susan to where she was. When Susan had wanted to leave, no doubt in part because of the lack of welcome from her siblings, nothing had stopped her from finding both employment and accommodation to suit her. Lucy was far from sure that she would ever be that brave.
“Lu?” It was Edmund, tie askew and hair ruffled from his bicycle ride home. “Did Peter remember to tell you about our dinner? Polly invited us--” He summarized a letter exchange that had evidently gone on for some time, that had ended with the proposed dinner while the self-described Friends of Narnia were all roughly in one place.
“Is everyone coming?” she asked at the end.
“It looks that way. I assume that you will come - I told Peter that there was no way that you would miss out.”
And whilst that was true… Lucy felt the guilty twinge of her conscience along with the yearning for how things used to be. “Will you invite Susan?”
Edmund shrugged and looked away. “It’s not as if she would come.”
“You can’t know that.”
He gave her an odd look that Lucy had to admit was justified. “It’s not as if she has ever said ‘yes’. Is something wrong, Lucy? You seem distraught.”
The smile that had been practiced over two lifetimes was easy to put on. “I’m fine. You’re right, I just thought it would be a nice thing to do.”
“You’re a good girl.” Edmund reached out to ruffle her hair before she could sidestep it. “I’ll see you at supper - I’m trying to convince Pete to set up the old chess set with me. He owes me a few pennies from our last game and I wouldn’t mind making a few more.”
“You’re incorrigible.”
“Yes, but I’m your incorrigible brother.” Edmund winked at her and headed inside to badger Peter - with which she wholeheartedly wished him luck. Peter always seemed to be in a better mood after some time spent with Edmund.
Turning back to her weeding, Lucy took a good look at the situation at hand. The dandelions were trying to get into the vegetables again and she was not about to let them.
Some time later she was pulling hard at the dandelion roots, wondering how they had become so deeply embedded in what seemed very little time. She could have sworn that there had been no sign of them the last time that she needed something from the garden.
“Lucy?”
The sound of her name made her look up before she had put a name to the familiar voice. At the sight of her sister, she jumped to her feet. “Su!”
Lucy stepped around the vegetable patch as she looked her sister over. It had been so long... and mostly due to decisions made on Lucy’s part. Lucy was the one that caused the expression on Susan’s face to be wary rather than glad. It was on Lucy to take the first step.
“I’ve missed you,” Lucy said, trying to put every single emotion hammering hard in her chest into her voice. “I’ve really missed you.”
And just like that, Susan’s drawn expression turned into a brilliant smile, and she stepped forwards to pull Lucy close. “I’ve missed you too,” she confessed into Lucy’s hair, voice thick.
Lucy didn’t think that Susan meant just the sister that she had left behind when she moved out. Her hands no doubt creased her sister’s tidy coat as Lucy clung to her, but she didn’t care. Sometimes, she thought, the years taken from them as they left Narnia felt unbearably cruel.
“I had to grow back up. I had to be able to understand…” Without warning, her eyes teared up and she had to bite back a sob. “Oh, Susan…”
“Shhh, I’m here, you’re here. We can start over.”
It felt strange sharing a bed with Susan again after so many years. When had they last done so? It had been far too long to easily remember, for sure. Susan had offered to sleep head-to-toe, but Lucy remembered how it had been in Narnia. They had both slept without moving - two lovely corpses, a friend of theirs had called them. Separate blankets would be enough.
Not that the lack of space was the matter foremost in her mind. The subject of Narnia hung heavy between them and Lucy was honestly not sure how to breach it. Or even if she would breach it. Susan wouldn’t, that much she knew. Not after everything that had happened.
Oh, how she just wanted to be able to speak up!
Then again, she had to admit, the answer to that was to simply do so. She had promised to do better, to be better. That had to begin somewhere.
“Su?” Lucy knew that her sister was awake. It did seem more polite, however, to give her the opportunity to pretend not to be.
“I’m awake.” Susan turned over to lie face to face with Lucy. Only the outlines of her face were visible in the darkness, but Lucy’s memories filled in the rest. “I wondered if we would talk.” She made a noise that Lucy only belatedly realised was a laugh. “I suppose that sometimes you live down to the person other people think you are.”
“It’s been too awkward to talk lately - now as well.” Lucy forced herself to continue. “I only recently started to wonder if our disagreements over Narnia were truly over what I thought they were.”
“I’m not sure myself what interpretation of what I said could lead to this whole… thing.” Susan sounded tired. Lucy fumbled under the blankets, searching for a hand to squeeze. When she found one, Susan’s hand enveloped hers - and suddenly, Lucy wasn’t sure who was supporting whom.
“I thought they understood that I am the same person in England as in Narnia,” she continued. “But I don’t think that is what they expected - or wanted.”
“They don’t want the Susan that ran with dryads and feasted with Bacchus,” Lucy agreed slowly. “The Narnian Susan in England stands out too much.”
“They are beginning to question you as well.” It was a statement, not a question, and suddenly Lucy wanted to weep. “Back then, I wondered: why was it all about me and not you? But I guess it was the age-old conundrum of men coping with a girl turning into a woman.”
“For the second time.” Lucy giggled. Everything suddenly seemed utterly absurd. “All of this conflict, because we grew up twice, in two quite different places.”
Susan shifted and, by the small amount of that light seeped through the curtains, Lucy could see her expression was serious. “Not only that. I’m… We all said some rather cruel things about Narnia - no, Lucy, let me finish. Aslan must have given you the same speech. That you needed to find him and a path for you to walk in your own world. And...I think we all interpreted that very differently.”
“As for me… I want to remember Narnia - I treasure those memories and hold so much of the life I led there close to my heart, but...I refuse to let those memories define who I am here. In England. I want to find whom I am meant to be regardless of Narnia and Narnian experiences. I… don’t think that Peter took the same meaning from those words - and Edmund has always looked up to Peter.”
Lucy waited until she was sure that Susan had said her piece, then, slowly, trying to find the words for what she felt even as spoke, said: “It was different for me.
“I went from a grown woman to a child and… I think that we all underestimated what that means for a person. I also… I don’t like the phrase ‘was closer to Aslan’ - that implies favoritism that simply wasn’t there, but… I was a priest. At least something close to it. I never lost Aslan the way that you and the boys did. I did lose who I was as a person, and I think that I’m only finding her again now. I’m not sure that person is who Peter and perhaps Edmund thought that she would be.”
“Peter, like me, lost less, I think.” Susan sounded like she was carefully keeping her voice neutral. “Edmund ought to have had an experience closer to yours, but…”
“He holds things close to his chest,” Lucy agreed. “Both here and in Narnia. If he shares his thoughts with someone… I would be surprised if he did that at all.”
“Half of that is likely due to his age,” Susan said dryly. “I remember him at the same age in Narnia. Different, but very similar. And, for better or worse, girls tend to mature faster.”
“It doesn’t stop us from making bad decisions.”
“That,” Susan agreed, “we know for sure.”
The day after their heart-to-heart, Lucy did some hard thinking. Susan had, for a long time now, been unwelcome among the Friends of Narnia. To Lucy, it felt wrong for Susan to continue to be unwelcome when so much of what was held against her was subjective opinion. Then again, Lucy doubted that those subjective opinions were likely to change, and she was also wholly unsure whether Susan wished to be one of the so-called Friends of Narnia.
Still, it only felt fair that Susan should have that option.
Which sounded simple, but was far from it. Lucy knew her brothers and their abilities to hold grudges. For her part, she was far too willing to forgive when accountability ought to have been more encouraged. It all came down to herself, however: what was she, Lucy, happy to live with, and what was she not?
Another evening passed, surprisingly empty of the petty sniping and side-looks that had been introduced to the household with Susan’s arrival. Lucy spent it getting to know her sister again, shut up in their shared room. As she was falling asleep that night, Lucy decided that she knew what she wanted. She wanted Susan to have a choice, and for people to own their own feelings and look past them. How likely that was… It was not up to her.
The next morning, Lucy woke up to her heart pounding. Her mouth was dry and her legs had tangled in her blankets to the point of being difficult to extract. There was a sense of waiting inside of her - as if she was expecting something.
She recognized the feeling. Aslan would, in the not too distant future, open a Door.
Lucy got out of bed, careful not to wake up Susan, and put on her clothes. This was not the first time that she had woken up in this manner. She had known when Eustace and Jill had gone to Narnia and then returned to England, and had, in fact, for a few moments found herself beside a Lion. It was likely that this Door was for Jill and Eustace again, she thought. If there was to be a dinner for the Friends of Narnia, she ought to let Peter know.
Not that Peter would be up, she realized when she heard the familiar snoring at his door. It could only be just past dawn. It was still an hour or more until the rest of the household would get up.
“Silly me,” she whispered to herself and smiled. Oh well, she might as well do some of the preparation for the family dinner. The potatoes would not peel themselves, nor would the carrots, and the dried fruit ought to be put to soak in the rum. When Peter got up, she would ask him to walk her to the shops. They would talk about both her premonition and Susan.
As luck would have it, Peter came down in search of his customary cup of morning tea just as Lucy was wiping her hands on the towel tucked into her apron, having finished her preparations. When he saw Lucy he hesitated, then he gave her a quick smile.
“You’re up early.”
“My sleep was interrupted.”
Peter looked at her sharply.
“Yes, it was one of those dreams.”
She had told him before of waking up and knowing things that she shouldn’t, and they had agreed that it wasn’t likely to be just happenstance. Not when it was her. Not when they knew Aslan.
“You think that someone will be visiting Narnia?” There was an odd expression on Peter’s face. Guilt, but not quite. “Soon?”
“That would be my guess. I thought that, perhaps, we should bring it up at dinner.” So that there would be less of a surprise - Jill had told them all of the situation she and Eustace had found themselves in the last time they visited Narnia.
Peter winced.
Lucy’s stomach dropped. Suddenly, it felt as if she might have to reevaluate the reason behind yesterday’s calm evening. She had thought it was by chance that no one ran into Susan, but… She swallowed hard, for a moment not able to feel anything but a sick lack of...something. Then, with a deep breath, she allowed herself to know that this had been coming. It had been coming ever since she stepped off the path that Peter had guided her towards.
“I see.” She knew how to do a polite voice and she knew how to keep the ice out of it. This time, she didn’t bother. “I supposed that I spent too much time with Susan. Or perhaps I spoke too rashly with Edmund.”
“It’s not that!” Lucy hoped that his protest sounded as feeble to his ears as it did to hers. “It’s… You’ve been very close to Susan these past days. I thought that perhaps you would like to stay with her.”
Perhaps he honestly believed that. She wanted to challenge it - challenge him - but she had been sent a message this morning. And she was trying to be better.
Lucy took another deep breath. Pushed the ugly lump of everything out of her mind. “Something happened at the meeting, from your reaction.”
Peter blinked, then gamely followed the change of subject, albeit with far less grace.
“We had a visitor…” he began, then proceeded to tell her the whole story. Lucy tried to focus on what he was saying through a growing sense of impending change. Something big was going to happen.
“You want to use the rings,” she summarised at the end of his recitation. “To send Jill and Eustace to Narnia. Are you sure that’s wise?”
“We discussed it together.”
And there it was again, the coldness that she had picked up on before.
Another deep breath. She was beginning to think that perhaps doing better was something that she didn’t actually want to do in this situation.
“I see.” But she didn’t. Not at all. And at this moment, she didn’t want to see...him or their reasoning. “I need to go to the shops for Mother. Perhaps we can chat more later.”
The sheer relief on his face was like a punch to the gut.
They did not chat later. The family dinner that mother had planned for months went through - they were all exquisitely polite. No one wanted to disappoint their mother. Then they went back to their various dorms and rooms. Lucy, to their mother’s delight, asked to join Susan for a fortnight with the intention to perhaps find employment in the same area.
Lucy had told Susan that matters had come to a head and that for now, most likely, Lucy would be considered to be the same as Susan - distinct from what was expected for a Friend of Narnia. She hadn’t told Susan everything - or all of the details. Before she could do that, she needed time to come to terms with it herself.
She didn’t think that she had done anything wrong. At least not if considered as something that Aslan would think of as unkind or beneath her. He, as she knew him, believed that everyone had their own path to walk.
It didn’t make it stop hurting now that she had found out where her path diverged from the people that she had considered herself closest to.
“I just don’t understand how they could accept me in Narnia and not here,” Lucy told Susan one evening while stirring her tea, waiting for it to cool. “Nor how it can be so wrong to dance and dress up. We did both frequently in Narnia - and so did they!”
Susan had been sitting by the window, tracking raindrops as they streaked down the glass, her own tea cupped in her hands. “I’ve been thinking about it as well. It all comes down to what you consider excess, I think. Perhaps I was too keen to dress up and go out like I used to at first. I didn’t want to stop being the person I had been in Narnia.” There was a silence and when Lucy looked over, Susan was, surprisingly, smiling to herself. “Peter attempted to convince me that I shouldn’t be going out at all. Mother, on the other hand, sat me down and discussed moderation. You should’ve seen Peter’s face when mother told him not to tell me off.”
“I remember that.” Peter had been frustrated for days over what he considered ‘showing off’ when there was a war going on. The icy chill with which Susan had treated them hadn’t helped the situation at all. Then, just as suddenly as she had started going out every evening, Susan had begun to go out less and ignore Peter more. Lucy ought to have suspected that it was their mother’s influence.
“I do think,” Susan continued, “that Peter is much more concerned with what is proper than I am.”
“You have always wanted to keep moving forwards. Peter wants to protect what he already has.”
“And in the end, those two ways of viewing our lives don’t go well together.” Susan sighed. “But let’s not get stuck in gloom! Have you had any luck with finding an employer?”
Lucy grinned. “I did! It took a bit of convincing, but Mrs Hillsborough is willing to take me on as a sort of apprentice. She would really have liked a boy now that the war is over, but I promised her that I have no plans to marry, and that my family supports me.”
“That’s great!” Susan stood and walked over to a clear jar on the nearby dresser, filled with small coins. “That deserves breaking out the penny jar.”
“You said that you were saving for a new coat!”
Susan looked over her shoulder at Lucy, and Lucy had to swallow hard. She had never seen Susan this happy before in England.
“My sister has a job and when she gets her first money, we can find a flat together and split the cost. I think we can afford a celebratory cake.”
Lucy sniffed hard, eyes a little bit wet. “Well, when you put it like that…”
The cake was delicious.
The morning of the fifth day of Lucy’s stay with Susan dawned foggy and wet, the sun failing to pierce the dense grey mist rolling down from the hills. Lucy had never thought a fog like that could appear off the coast and as far inland as this. Standing on the porch outside of Susan’s let, she wrapped herself tightly in her worn coat and stared into the wall of nothing. It felt as if something was about to happen.
“Lucy?” Susan came up next to her, yawning but still impeccably dressed. “Is something wrong?”
Lucy shivered. Extracting a hand from the coat, she reached for Susan’s hand, finding it warm and steady where hers was neither.
“I think it’s today.” It came out as a whisper.
Susan’s hand clenched around hers. “You think that they are making the attempt today?”
“I think something will go wrong.” She couldn’t put her finger on what it was that made her think so, but the certainty was there.
“Would Peter take your call?”
Lucy thought that he probably would, but… “We don’t know where they are or where they are intending to meet up.”
For a moment, Susan was silent. “Then we wait,” she said, finally. “We’ve waited before.”
It had been at another dawn, in another world. To hold a vigil in England… It almost felt as if their past was haunting them.
“Let’s go inside,” Lucy said. “I’ll light the candles if you make the tea.”
If they were to hold a vigil, it would be a Narnian one.
The fog thinned and dissipated some time before midday. Shortly after that, the candles went out.
On the day of the funeral, Lucy found herself lingering outside the church, not sure whether she wanted to go inside. Little of what was preached in that place coincided with her own beliefs but she wanted to be there for those for whom it did. Susan was inside, having long since decided that she respected her family too much to not follow through on their wishes. Lucy did as well, it was just…
She couldn’t put her finger on it, but it nagged at her.
The church doors squeaked open behind her and Susan stepped outside. There was a box in her hand that Lucy recognized - it had belonged to their mother and had held most of her small collection of jewelry.
“I thought I would find you here.” Susan came over and stood close to her, the heat of her body warming Lucy’s cold skin. “I know you don’t like churches.”
“I don’t like the Church of England,” Lucy said dryly. “I will come inside, don’t worry.” Though she hadn’t known that she would until that moment. “What do you have there?”
“The Rings.” Susan turned the box in her hands. “I thought it was fitting to put them in here.”
Lucy stared at the box. “What are we going to do with them?”
“I don’t know.” Then, “I do feel like there’s still something...”
“Somewhere left to go.” Lucy reached out to stroke the lid with her fingertips. “I have this feeling that, in due time, I will dream about this.”
Susan stiffened. “One of those dreams?”
She had told Susan everything that they had not had the time to talk about before. It had not surprised her sister in the least - which had not surprised Lucy. “Yes.”
“I can’t say that the thought is unappealing,” Susan said after a while. “But not until…”
“Not for a while,” Lucy agreed. “Maybe not at all. Let’s take it all as it comes.”
“Agreed.”
Susan put the box away and took Lucy’s hand. “Let’s go inside. The sooner we confront the Church of England, the sooner we can put our family safely into Aslan’s hands.”
Lucy had to swallow a half-hysterical giggle. “That...is very true.”
And so they went, hand in hand, inside.
As sisters.