Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

That first Christmas with all four Pevensies together is a joyous event, perhaps the most joyous of any Christmastime ever had before or since. 

Susan presents herself at the orphanage where Lucy lives, dressed in her finest (a velvet dress, fur muffler, and high-heeled shoes all borrowed from Moira’s practically endless closet), carrying two separate forms of identification and a letter introducing herself as Lucy’s older sister, asking to take the youngest Pevensie home for Christmas Day. It takes a few appeals to Christian charity and references to the Christman-deprived likes of Ebenezer Scrooge to convince the squinty-eyed, suspicious old matron to hand over her charge, but Susan’s years of practice with diplomatic negotiations get her there in the end. Lucy skips down the sidewalk all the way back to Susan’s dorm, where they’ve set up for the day, and Susan is so happy to finally be together with her favorite person again that she can’t stop herself from joining in (nor does she really want to, when she hears how it makes Lucy giggle to see her normally dignified older sister making a total fool of herself in public and not even caring). 

Peter works a similar miracle at Edmund’s foster home, though Susan privately thinks that the Fortons wouldn’t notice Edmund was missing until at least a week had passed, bringing the four Pevensie siblings together to celebrate the holiday for the first time in over twenty years. 

They decorate Susan’s dorm to the fullest extent they can manage without getting a fake snow machine (although Edmund is strongly in support of that idea). 

Susan and Peter even manage to pull off a daring secret nighttime trip to the nearest Christmas tree lot, where they purchase the very last live tree the vendor has. They then carry it home several blocks to Susan’s dorm at the university (stopping at several keys point along the way to catch their breath and readjust the branches to be less scratchy), get it inside, then set it up and decorate it with tinsel and a popcorn garland, all without waking Edmund and Lucy, who are sleeping soundly in a cuddle pile on Susan’s bed.

The Christmas dinner they attempt to cook up in the dorm kitchen is slightly less successful, possibly because Edmund and Lucy prove to be more of a hindrance than a help. They run in circles around the counter island playing some strange and extra violent version of tag, dare each other to pick hot potatoes straight off the roasting pan with no oven mitts, and re-enact dramatic swordfights with the stirring spoons, but Susan doesn’t berate them for any of it. She thinks that this is probably one of the first times in either of their lives that they’ve gotten the chance to act younger than their age, and so she believes they deserve time to enjoy it. 

This also happens to be the same advice she gives Peter when the two burgeoning pranksters steal every present from his stocking and replace them with black rocks, and then feign ignorance at the whole thing, telling Peter he must have simply been so naughty over the past year that even Father Christmas noticed. After a few minutes of giggles and smirks that they probably think are subtle, Susan gives them both her patented look of skeptical disappointment (the key is the arched left eyebrow) and they return all of Peter’s presents to him. 

Presents are exchanged on Christmas morning, and the siblings who have never before had someone to get gifts for or to get gifts for them find even more joy in the process than normal young people. Lucy, who thanks either to fantastic intuition or dumb luck, has been getting ready to spend the holiday with her brothers and sister for longer than she’s known them, presents her older siblings with fantastically detailed drawings of a very familiar-looking old castle and grounds, with the horse stables, archery range, jousting arena, grand hall, library, and royal bedrooms all given their own drawings, and small cartoonish versions of the kings and queens exploring around. If she didn’t know that such a thing was impossible, Susan would swear that sometimes the little figures move around between the drawings, visiting each other and trying out different activities. Edmund has written them all personalized stories that he’d described to an English teacher as ‘a cross between high fantasy and historical fiction worlds constantly crossing over due to unknown magics’, but that the Pevensies all recognize as collections of their best moments in the shared dreams they once lived. Peter, bemoaning his lack of creative talent compared to his two youngest siblings, gives out his store-bought gifts, but takes back his complaint when Lucy exclaims that no one’s ever bought her something ‘that they had to walk all the way to Camden Market for and got all wrapped up’. The gifts include a silver pocket watch for Susan that he found at a secondhand store, a handy pen-knife multitool for Edmund, and a knit winter hat with a bright pink pom-pom on top for Lucy, which she immediately jams on her head and then refuses to take off for the rest of the day. 

Edmund and Peter both thank Susan multiple times for their gifts and put them to immediate use, Peter packing up his new gym bag and Edmund starting to write another story, the plot of which he’s just dreamt about, in his new notebook with the fancy new pen. Lucy pretends to be annoyed with Susan for spending even more money buying her a second gift, but the way she immediately starts drawing a picture of the stuffed Mrs. Beaver in her new sketchbook tells Susan that she’s only joking. Susan herself, who was somehow not expecting any presents despite taking on the bulk of the organizing for the holiday, comes away with the largest haul of her life. She supposes that years of previous bleak and disappointing holidays have stopped her from ever getting her own hopes up, but that just means she’s entirely taken aback and overjoyed when her siblings pile her lap high with packages, including a secret final gift from all three of them; a beautiful silver necklace with a series of star-shaped charms on the end. 

“We pooled everything we had,” Peter explains, while Susan gapes at it, “I found the chain in the same secondhand store as the pocket watch and brought it to the father of one of the guys on the team to make the charm and do the engraving. He’s a jewelry maker, and gave me a good discount because he knows me.”

“The design was my idea,” says Lucy proudly, “One star for each of us, see? And they’re all connected like a constellation, the same way that we’re connected.” 

Susan’s eyes begin to well up, but she holds it back. 

“Read the writing on the back,” suggests Edmund, “I wrote the engraving.” 

Susan turns the charm over in her shaking hands and reads: For Susan, who brought us together again . Then, she really does burst into tears. 

It’s not until Christmas and New Year's have passed them by that the real problem in the Pevensie siblings' lives reveals itself. 

One bright and crisp January morning that should have been very happily spent between two sisters searching for deals at the Farmer’s Market, turns rather messy when Lucy is nearly half an hour late rather than her usual five minutes early, and then arrives at Susan’s door with tears pouring down her face, rather than her usual skipping and smiling. Susan ushers her quickly into the dorm, trying not to let her shock and worry show too obviously on her face. Lucy tries to blubber out an explanation, but Susan just shushes her and pulls her up onto the bed to cuddle her and stroke her hair.

Eventually, Lucy’s sobs subside enough that Susan can make out the words. “Er-Erin told me that she’s going to-going to tell her mother to get me transferred to a-a different orphanage. Because she’s-she’s tired of having to see my ugly, smug face.” Lucy breaks down in hiccoughs again, and Susan has to rub her back in comforting circles and whisper kind things for several minutes before she’s ready to speak again. “I think it’s because, well she said that that-that I’ve been ignoring her lately, and I think she’s annoyed that she can’t make me cry as often and that I’ve been so much-so much happier since I’ve found you guys and the other girls in class have noticed and some of them have been a lot nicer to me, which Erin hates and-and so she’s trying to get me sent away from you. Because no one wants me to be allowed to be happy! I’m finally happy for the first time in my life and she’s going to take it away forever!” With that, Lucy fully breaks down again, collapsing into Susan’s lap, inconsolable. 

Susan relates the whole scene to Peter the next day, pacing frantically back and forth across the floor of his dorm room as she does, and appealing to him for help finding a solution. “And I tried to tell her that it's all going to be okay, but I don’t know if she believed me. Not that I blame her, since I don’t know if I believed me either. That awful, snotty little Erin brat really wants to ruin everything for Lu, and I’m afraid that she’s got the power to do it too.”

“But what can we do to fix it, Susan? Go visit the place uninvited and try to convince the matron not to send Lucy away? I don’t see that conversation going too well,” Peter sighs desperately. 

“We could…adopt her or something,” Susan throws out suddenly, flailing her arms around as she brainstorms, “We’re legally of age. And we could adopt Ed, too, while we’re at it, get him away from those neglectful Fortons.”

“Would the government even let us adopt them?,” Peter asks, trying to be the voice of reason, “I’m about to turn twenty and you’re only eighteen. We’re not exactly the kind of people the government trusts to raise a thirteen-year-old and fifteen-year-old.”

“But we’re their older siblings, even if the government doesn’t know it! We’ve still got the same last name, for crying out loud, that has to count for something!” Susan pauses to think harder for a minute, even as she continues violently pacing back and forth across the floor, “Maybe we could claim that all the records of our family got destroyed in the war!”
“Susan…the war had been over almost five years when I was born,” he reminds her, “Or, well, the second time I was born.” 

Susan nods, embarrassed by her mistake. Events between all of her lives have been blurring together in her mind recently, now that she has all her siblings back together. But she continues on anyway. “We just can’t leave Lucy in that horrid place with all those girls who are so mean to her, we just can’t, Pete. I see how it’s affecting her, even when she tries so hard to hide it and put on a big brave smile for us.”

“I know, Su, I know.”

“It’s just, if we wait much longer…” Susan actually stops pacing now, her face softening and eyes beginning to water, “Then that awful Erin girl could do something really awful with the power her mother has over the orphanage and…get Lucy sent somewhere else. She could take our Lucy away from us. Take our little, sweet, innocent sister away! I can’t live without her again, Peter, and neither can you, or Edmund! We’ll fall apart, you know it.”

“I know Su,” Peter says again, stepping forward to wrap his arms comfortingly around her shoulders. 

“We have to do something,” she mutters into his shoulder, trying to hold back sobs, “We just have to.”

That’s how, one week later, Susan and Peter find themselves wearing the best clothes in front of a rather boring-looking woman’s paper-strewn and disorganized desk at the offices of Her Majesty's Inspectorate, appealing for guardianship of their two younger siblings. 

“We were a very happy family, you see, Ma’am,” Susan is explaining, while the woman fills out the appeals form, “Until we lost our parents, that is.” She and Peter had agreed before they came–no outright lying to the government–and this is not a lie. It’s more of an omission, or a misrepresentation of facts. “After that, we were given into the care of a…well, I suppose you could call him an Uncle. A guardian, anyway. He took in the four of us, but we didn’t stay with him long. He was…” Susan trails off, not quite sure how to describe it.

“Difficult,” Peter continues for her, “Very kind and generous some times, cruel and withholding at others.”

“What was this Uncle’s name?” the woman asks, pen hovering over a line on her paperwork.

“Aslan,” says Susan without thinking. 

“Aslan?” the woman repeats, raising her eyebrows skeptically. 

“He was an odd sort, you understand,” Peter jumps in, “It may have just been an alias, but it was the only one he ever told us.”

“I doubt he’ll be in any records under that name,” Susan says, after pretending to think about it, “He was always sort of difficult to pin down.” 

The woman nods, looking unconvinced, but keeps filling out the form anyway.

“After we’d been looked after by our Uncle for a while, tumultuous though it was, in his favor one moment, out of it the next, there was an…accident,” Susan says, continuing to spin the slightly altered tale of their lives, “And I think he must have blamed us for it because afterwards he split us up, sent us to different parts of the country, different orphanages, with no way whatsoever to contact each other or him.” 

“And then years went by, without us knowing if we’d ever even see each other again,” continues Peter, “Until recently when by total coincidence Su-sorry, Susan-and I reconnected at university.”

“And we were quite happy to have found each other again, because we’d each lived so long with no family to speak of. So then we decided we just had to find Edmund and Lucy, assuming they were feeling the same sort of way, and to make sure they were safe and well-cared for, you understand.” 

“And are they?” The woman asks, looking up from her papers, “Safe and well-cared for, that is.”

Susan and Peter exchange strained eye contact, trying to silently agree on a succinct yet truthful answer. Luckily, the government woman has just realized her pen is dry, and so has turned away to grab a new one from an overflowing mug and does not notice the Pevensie’s lightning speed conversation with just their eyes. 

“I wouldn’t…exactly say so,” Susan begins delicately, “Our youngest sister Lucy lives at an orphanage here in London, and she’s had a lot of troubles with the place. Bullying, harassment, and the like from the other girls, you understand. All made worse by the fact that her biggest bully at school is the daughter of one of the orphanage’s biggest philanthropic supporters, so none of the adults in the situation have done anything about it. Right now she’s terrified out of her mind that the girl who hates her is going to get her transferred out of the city, to another orphanage, away from us and everything she’s ever known.” 

Susan hopes she’s not imagining the way that the government woman’s eyes soften. “So you would be willing to make a formal complaint against the,” the woman pauses to check the name in her files, “Barathrum Home for Girls? And to jointly file for custody?” 

“Yes, Ma’am,” nods Susan, refusing to allow even the smallest of trembles into her voice. 

The woman makes a note on her paperwork, and then continues to flip through the file in front of her. “And the boy’s guardians?” she asks, “The…Fortons?” 

“Neglectful, Ma’am. They had a daughter who was very kind, but ever since she’s gone off to university, things have gotten decidedly worse in the house. Edmund has to do practically everything for himself. Cooking, cleaning, getting himself back and forth to school and any other activities he might want to do. We try to help where we can, of course, but it’s difficult with the distance-”

“He says it’s not a problem for him, because he’s very self-sufficient,” says Peter, “But we don’t think he should have to be, at that age. He should have someone who cares, to help and look out for him. You understand?”

The woman nods again, eyes now definitely softened, and she makes a few more notes. 

“If you were to be granted custody,” she asks, “Where would you and the children be living? It’s not as though they’d be allowed to have trundle beds in your university dorms.” She gives a little giggle at her own joke, but cuts off when she sees the looks on Peter and Susan’s faces. 

Peter looks at Susan, and then sits up a little straighter in his chair, preparing to answer the question. 

“I admit that housing may be a potential issue, but…”

Then he trails off and descends into awkward, stiff silence. He shoots Susan a desperate, begging look and she wracks her brain for something suitable to say, but comes up empty. 

Then, suddenly, the government woman snaps her fingers together as though an idea has just occurred to her, gets up from her desk (sending several stacks of papers toppling over onto the ground), and begins rummaging through the filing cabinet behind her desk. For a moment, Susan wonders if they’re being dismissed, albeit very strangely. 

“I thought your names sounded familiar,” she says, back still facing them as she opens drawer after drawer, clearly in search of something specific, “But I couldn’t put my finger on it until just now when you mentioned housing. I saw your names, several weeks ago, on a document-”

Susan and Peter exchanged confused looks. 

“What?” Susan mouths silently, “Why would our names be on a government document?”

Peter just shrugs in response. 

“It’s here somewhere,” says the woman, pulling papers upon papers out of her files and letting them land around her, “With the other wills.” 

“Wills?” repeats Susan, “As in end of life wishes?” 

“Yes, yes,” says the woman vaguely, still ruining whatever precious little organization existed in her office to begin with. “Aha! Here it is!” She emerges from the filing cabinet, triumphantly holding up a wrinkled manila filing folder with the name ‘Plummer’ written across it in smudged ink. She wades back across the office and sits down at the desk, flipping through the folder rather than giving Peter and Susan any real explanations. 

“The woman who’s will this is, Ms.Plummer, she died almost 20 years ago, and her house has been managed and kept-up by a distant relative, a cousin or a niece or something, I think. But anyway, the relative, whoever she is, has suddenly and unexpectedly received a proposal of marriage and is going to move out to the country with her new husband.”

Susan nods along to the story as politely as she can manage, though she still has no idea what this has to do with them. A little itch begins in the back of her mind, though, while the woman continues to speak, a familiar sensation telling her that there’s something she needs to be remembering. 

“While she was clearing out the house to prepare for her move, she found an original copy of Ms.Plummer’s will, with an extra provision no one in the family had seen before. So they took it to the family lawyer, who verified its authenticity and said he remembered helping Ms.Plummer write it all those years ago. Anyway, they sent it off to the government to see if it could still be fulfilled after all this time, and it ended up here in my department, because we’ve got the most complete set of birth records in the whole country and they wanted us to try and track down the people who the will refers to. But I’m so busy, you can see, I just filed it and never got around to working on it-” She gestures around to the mess of an office, and Susan silently sends up a prayer that their guardianship paperwork won’t get lost in the ocean of papers. “But anyway, here, why don’t you look through it and see if anything sticks out to you?” With that, she slides the old, fragile-looking document across the desk towards Susan and Peter. Scared to pick it up, Susan leans over the desk and begins to read:

This is the last Will and Testament of Polly Plummer. I, Polly Plummer, being of sound mind and body, do hereby declare-

“Bottom of the fourth paragraph, dear, that’s what will interest you,” the woman suggests kindly. Susan directs her eyes down to the aforementioned section and continues reading:

I leave the deed and usage of my London home, 1955 Woodland Way, to my second cousin Penelope Plummer, until the time either of her marriage or death. At the occurrence of either of these events, ownership will be passed to Peter Pevensie. If he is either unwilling or unable to take responsibility for the property, it passes to his younger sister Susan Pevensie, and so on through the line including Edmund Pevensie and Lucy Pevensie. This bequeathment is made in the hopes that the home, in particular the attic and the gardens, will give them a place to come together and remember all their joyous, magical adventures. If none of them are able to take responsibility, the house will be sold and all profits donated to the London Children’s Hospital. 

Susan has to hold back a gasp when she sees her own name on the paper, in handwriting that seems eerily familiar. “When was this written?” she asks. 

“You see, that’s the strange thing,” says the government woman, looking politely bemused and also slightly hopeful, as if she’s expecting Susan will have an explanation, “It was written in 1946. Before, correct me if I’m wrong, any of the four of you were born.” 

Comprehension washes over Susan, and she hears Peter let out a soft ‘aha’ beside her, showing that he understands as well. The woman raises her eyebrows expectantly at both of them, and Susan scrambles internally for an explanation. 

“Ms.Plummer knew our parents,” is the first thing she thinks of, which is essentially true but also potentially misleading.

“They had our names picked out very far in advance,” Peter adds, “And they always knew they wanted four children.” 

The woman nods, and Susan hopes she’s just as gullible as she is disorderly. “And what does this mean, this note here, about how she hopes the home will be…’a place to come together and remember all your joyous, magical adventures’?”

“Oh,” Susan grins at this question, because she can actually answer it easily (although maybe not entirely truthfully), “Ms.Plummer’s house was the place where our most beloved childhood make-believe games were born; games she helped make up and taught to us, which we still remember fondly to this day. So it holds great sentimental value to all of us. She likely was already planning to teach them to us before we were born, so she was just looking forward a bit when she wrote it down.” 

“Ah,” the woman nods pensively, as though she’s trying to decide whether Susan’s claim makes sense, “Spent a lot of time at her house growing up, did you?”

“I suppose you could say that,” answers Peter delicately. 

The woman looks down to make a few more notes on her papers before speaking again. “Well, I suppose that solves the housing question.” 

Susan pauses to let herself imagine it, her and her siblings living in Ms. Polly’s old house, having it all to themselves. Separate bedrooms for each of them, that they could decorate to their heart’s content. A kitchen where they could make big family dinners. A study for Edmund to write in, the attic converted into a studio for Lucy to paint in, a large backyard for Peter to practice fencing, and, of course, a library for her to read in. It’s beyond anything that’s ever appeared in her wildest dreams. Susan can’t help but feel it shouldn’t quite be possible, and yet it is. 

“And assuming that you make enough money to maintain the household, keep yourselves and the two younger ones clothed and fed…” the woman pauses for confirmation of this fact.

“Yes, Ma’am,” says Susan promptly, “I receive a very generous scholarship for attending university that more than covers my tuition, and given that I wouldn’t have to pay for housing, I could put even more of it towards raising Ed and Lucy. I also earn a bit on the side through academic help, tutoring and editing people’s papers, those sorts of things.” 

“I work a few hours a week as an assistant sports and games coach for the local secondary school,” says Peter, “And I could take on more if we needed the money. Though I don’t anticipate that we would.” 

The woman writes all of this down and then flips back through all the notes she’s taken thus far during the meeting, reading them back over. Susan is frankly astounded that anyone can decipher that handwriting, even the person who wrote it. 

“Well, seeing as you’re the closest living relatives, you have housing and sufficient income…” she says, “I can see no reason to deny your application for custody of your younger siblings.” With some difficulty, she pulls a large green stamp out of an over-crowded drawer and then stamps the word ‘Accepted’ over their main application form.

Susan lets out a little happy shriek and then has to stand up and pace a bit to get her excitement out. Meanwhile, Peter leans almost entirely over the desk to shake the government woman’s hand enthusiastically. “Thank you so so much, Ms…” his eyes flicker down to the nameplate on the desk, which has become unhidden during all the shuffling around, “Ms.Vesta. It really does mean so much to us, to have our family finally together again.”

Mrs.Vesta smiles warmly at him, even as she has to readjust her hair and sweater after Peter’s over-eager parting gesture. “Of course, dear,” she says, patting his hand kindly. All of her carefully built dull government worker facade has come crashing down within half an hour of meeting the two eldest Pevensies. 

“If you ever want any help straightening up the office,” Susan offers, stepping over a pile of empty tea-stained mugs on her way towards the door, “I’ve got plenty of experience with cleaning and sorting.” 

“I might just take you up on that,” Mrs.Vesta smiles, “And who knows, maybe there’ll be a job with Her Majesty’s Inspectorate in your future.”

Susan tilts her head to the side, considering the offer. She imagines what the job would be like; helping place other orphaned children in their forever homes, making sure all the schools are up to snuff and serving every kind of child, and reuniting other families besides her own. “I’d like that,” she decides, and Mrs. Vesta smiles even wider. 

With that, they all say goodbye, with many more thank-yous and vigorous handshakes, and Susan and Peter manage to wade their way out of the office without breaking anything. 

“What do you say to finding and adopting Eustace next?” Peter jokes as they walk out of the office, elbowing Susan playfully in the side. 

“Oh, Peter, don’t,” Susan half sighs and half laughs, “If Lucy hears you say that she’ll never let it go until we actually do go and find him. And while I may be able to tolerate cousin Eustace’s company at the best of times, I certainly can’t raise him in my own house.” 

Peter laughs exuberantly enough that another government worker sticks his head out of his office door, confused, but Susan can’t bring herself to mind. She doubts whether she’s even been quite so happy in all her life as right now, knowing that nothing is ever going to tear their family apart again. 

At the doors of the government building, the two exchange a quick, triumphant hug, and then split off in opposite directions, to go collect Lucy and Edmund.

“Remember, don’t tell her anything,” Susan calls at Peter’s retreating back, “Just say that we’ve got a surprise!”

Peter sends a thumbs-up back towards her as he continues to walk, and as soon as she watches him descend safely downward into the nearest tube station, Susan turns around and continues on her way to go fetch Edmund.

When they’re all back together in Peter’s dorm, she can hardly wait to break the news, and fidgets impatiently all throughout Peter and Lucy’s chess game, while Lucy gives a forcefully positive account of her school day.

“Has Edmund put bugs into your stockings again, Susan?” she asks eventually, “You’re acting awfully strange.” 

“Hey! I haven’t done that in years!”

“Once is enough,” mutters Susan darkly, before answering Lucy’s question. “I’m fine, Lu. Just excited. You see, Peter and I have some news to share with you two.”

“Are we getting a cat?” asks Lucy eagerly. 

“...no.” 

“Aww, shucks.” Lucy sighs and pretends to sulk. 

“It’s even better than a cat, Lu,” smiles Peter.

“Okay,” she says, abandoning her fake pout, “Just know you’re setting up some awfully high expectations here.” 

“Well, Peter and I went to visit a government office today and-”

“Why?” interrupts Edmund.

“Maybe you’d find out if you ever let me finish,” says Susan, channeling her inner school teacher.

“I think you might just want to cut to the case, Su,” Peter advises, “You’ll never get through the prologue with these two.” 

“Fine,” Susan sighs, slightly annoyed that the introduction she’d been mentally planning on the walk over is going to be wasted, but still too excited about the news she’s delivering to feel any real blow to her mood, “We found out that Ms. Plummer, Polly, left us her old London house in her will. And the four of us are going to get to move in a few months from now. Together.” 

“Together?” repeat Edmund and Lucy.

“Yes. Together,” says Peter, beaming now, “Because we’ve been granted permission from the government to adopt you and become your official adult guadians.” 

Edmund and Lucy both let out happy screams and leap up to hug their older siblings, eyes suddenly filled with tears, though Edmund might deny it later. 

A few minutes later, once the initial excitement has subsided, Lucy’s settled back down at the chessboard and Edmund’s settled behind his newest book, Susan takes a moment to remind everyone what this momentous occasion really means. 

“We’re all going to be together. All the time,” she promises, relieved and proud that for the first time in her life, she’s certain that what she’s saying is true. 

“Just like we always were in Narnia,” says Lucy, sighing with nostalgia.

“Narnia,” repeats Peter, whispering the name of their old kingdom like a prayer. They’ve never said it out loud before, and the first time doing so feels like they’ve opened the window of an old, dank room and let in a gust of warm, fresh air. All four of the siblings sit in joyous silence for a while, reveling in the magic of the moment. 

“Was Narnia…a real place?” Susan asks eventually, raising a question that has been on her mind for months, if not years.

“I always assumed it was a game we’d played as children,” answers Peter, “But the memories seem so…”
“Vivid,” Edmund finishes, “As though they must have really happened.”

“Of course they really happened,” says Lucy simply, not looking up from the chessboard where she’s contemplating her next move. 

“That would certainly explain a few things,” says Susan casually, as though that is not a deeply earth-shattering idea to accept, that even that fundamentally unbelievable parts of her dreams have been real this whole time.

It has all seemed so real, almost touchable, this whole time. But to say that it actually is, that the four of them really became kings and queens of a magical world and lived a whole life there, is an entirely different thing altogether. 

“We found each other, didn’t we? We’re all real. Why would only one part of our dreams be true?” asks Lucy rhetorically, and Susan can’t deny the logic there. 

“So we really were kings and queens,” Peter whispers, “The Magnificent, The Gentle, The Just, and The Bold.” He looks at each of them in turn as he speaks their old titles, and they all sit up a little straighter, as if imagining crowns on their heads and thrones at their backs. 

“But why are we back here in England now, then?” asks Edmund. 

“We’ve come back before, haven’t we?” asks Susan in an attempted answer, “England then Narnia then England then Narnia then England again.” 

“Or all that but then add another Narnia and England, for me and Ed,” says Lucy.

“Right. We weren’t allowed back.” Susan looks over at Peter and finds the same decades-old pain and betrayal she’s feeling freshly reflected in his eyes. “Lions really are liars.”

“What?”

“Oh, nothing. Just something I remembered back from when I was a child. The third time. Or was it fourth?”

“Depends how you count,” shrugs Edmund, “But that doesn’t answer my real question; why are we doing this all again? What happened the last time? The last time we were going to try and go to Narnia?”

Susan thinks as hard as she can, but whenever she gets close to what feels like an answer she hears the piercing screech of a train whistle and feels her whole body recoil. When she looks up, all of her siblings are wearing pained expressions like they just experienced the same thing. 

“Something bad,” is Peter’s whole answer, “Something very bad.”

They all sit in silence for a very long time, as the chill they banished only minutes ago seems to seep back into the room. Susan nearly starts to shiver, and pulls on the closest garment, which happens to be Peter’s fencing team sweatshirt. It dwarfs her skinny frame and messes up her hair, making Lucy giggle at her. The silence breaks, as it always does with the tinkling sound of Lucy’s laugh, and suddenly they’re all laughing together and Susan is flailing her sleeved arms, using them to hit whoever is closest. 

Eventually, she sinks back into her chair, smiling once more, and attempts to put the conversation back on track.

“Everyone else in the whole would would think we were crazy, you know,” she says, “If we ever told them what all we’d lived through.” 

“Imagine trying to explain to one of our history professors that we remember the war too,” Peter jokes, “Even fought in a few ourselves.” 

“Imagine if I tried telling the Doctor that the reason my bones are so brittle is that this is the third time I’ve been fifteen,” adds Edmund. 

“Imagine if I could tell the other girls in my class that I used to be adored by thousands of subjects, threw the grandest balls in the land, and had new gowns made every season,” sighs Lucy. 

“You’re better than any of them even without all that,” Susan promises, and Lucy blushes. 

“I just can’t think of a way that we could prove it was ever real. What would we even do, go find our old castle? You can’t exactly look up ‘Land of Narnia: fantastical kingdom of magical creatures and mythical beasts’ on a map,” snarks Edmund. 

“No one likes pessimism, Ed,” says Peter, scolding, “Or sarcasm.”

“What are you, my teacher?”

“Thank goodness for me and my sanity that I’m not.” 

A pen hits Peter smack on the forehead, and Edmund ducks down behind his book, feigning innocence. 

Susan rolls her eyes at the both of them while Lucy giggles, but then she pauses to think for a moment. A memory occurs to her, unbidden; Aslan the lion’s deep voice echoing through the crowded ballroom, commanding her to remember. She feels an immense pressure on her shoulders, one she’s gotten used to over time but that hurts nonetheless. The pressure to remember one small detail that’s hanging just out of reach. She used to feel like it was hopeless, and would give up without trying, but now, when she looks around at her siblings’ faces, (Peter smiling at the challenge as he looks around for something to throw in return, Edmund pretending to stare studiously into the pages of his book but actually looking smugly pleased with himself, Lucy pink-cheeked and grinning mischievously as she swaps Peter’s chess pieces around on the board while he’s distracted), Susan knows that she can do it. She can remember, for their sakes. So she thinks, as hard as she possibly can about how they could possibly get back to Narnia, until something sparks somewhere in the back of her mind, and she finally, really, remembers. 

“Wait! I do know a way!” she shouts, jumping up from her chair and then rushing over to her desk where she begins rifling through the drawers while her siblings shoot confused glances at each other. “Aha!” Triumphantly she pulls out an old, wrinkled envelope and marches back over to where the others wait. She throws the envelope down on the table, and they all stare down at it. 

“The Professor Digory Kirke Memorial Scholarship Fund,” Peters reads aloud.

“There’s a return address here,” notes Edmund, “And it seems rather familiar.”

“The wardrobe!” Lucy gasps, understanding washing over her face as though she too has just remembered everything thanks to Susan’s prompting, “Do you think it’s still there, in the Professor’s house?” 

“Well,” says Susan, reaching back to adjust her hair and mentally beginning to compose a packing list, “There’s only one way to find out!”