Title: And She Remembered
Author: Ultra-Geek
Rating: K+
Summary: As Susan ran, she remembered. She remembered two kings, one just and one magnificent, and two queens, gentle and valiant. She remembered Home.
Disclaimer: Yeah, I own nothing.
AN – You know, I don't really know where this came from either. But someone once said something in a review that I've found to be basically true: Narnian plotbunnies are the worst, because they just won't shut up. I'm still going with King's Bane, but this story wouldn't leave me be until I wrote it out, so here it is. Enjoy.

They'd wanted her to come to the train station with them.

One by one, all three of her siblings had asked for her to come. "Please, Susan?" Lucy had stuck out a lip. "Can't you just come and try to remember? Just this once?"

"There's nothing to remember!" Susan had snapped, applying lipstick and considering shoes. "And besides, I'm meeting Robert this afternoon."

And then came Peter, as always.

"Su, you're being silly," he said when she gave the same reasons she had to Lucy.

Anger flared in Susan's chest. "I'm being silly? You should talk, speaking of imaginary worlds."

And then Edmund had just leaned in the doorway. "You're not coming?"

"No."

"You made Lucy cry, you know."

"She should learn to grow up!"

Edmund sighed softly the way he'd taken to doing whenever she tried to talk to him about that silly fantasyland. Somehow, though, it cut deeper than all the other arguments made by Peter and Lucy. Peter grew angry; Lucy got as if she pitied her sister, but Edmund? Edmund only became sad. "All right, then. Have fun on your date," and he left.

Susan recalled these things as she walked primly down the street. People milled about her, and she smirked half of the way as she noticed the eyes of many passing gentlemen appraise her.

"…And the lion shall lie down with the lamb!" the voice of a soapbox preacher rang down the street. Susan paused. She suddenly felt like there was something breathing down her neck. A bead of sweat ran from her temple. Two words were reverberating back and forth inside of her head like a badminton match. They bounced back and forth and back again, each time slightly different as if trying to make sense of them.

The lion.

The lion.

The lion.

The Lion.

The Lion.

The Lion.

The LION!

Susan froze, leaning against the storefront she was passing. Her breath came in short bursts and she loosened the scarf that was tie around her neck. She clutched a fist to her chest as her heart hammered and raged as if searching for away to escape. Susan closed her eyes. The name slammed into her memory like a bombshell. Her free hand drifted to her mouth. Something broke down inside of her, sending a tirade of thoughts and scents and touches, sights and wonders and conversations lit by the light of the moon. They swirled around her and inside of her and straight through her. "Oh, Aslan," she whispered. "How did I forget? How could I've forgotten Narnia?"

And suddenly, Susan turned and ran. She ran, her feet pounding into the pavement as she sprinted for the train station. She could feel her dark curls flying loose from their strictly enforced styling. She'd spent an hour getting them just so; but it all seemed so trivial now. She pulled off the crisp gloves and threw them, leaving them crumpled and lonely in the gutter. But most importantly, as Susan ran, she remembered.

She remembered not Peter Pevensie. Susan remembered the High King Peter the Magnificent, Emperor of the Lone Islands, and so many other titles it would take an age to say them all. She saw, glistening in her mind's eye, a tall and erect figure that forever battle he lost, won two more. He wasn't an ordinary London boy, but King over all Kings, save for Aslan. A King respected. Loved. The monarch who'd chased off hundreds of suitors wishing only for children and the gentle Narnian Queen to put on their trophy shelves.

Susan dodged a car and leaped onto the next curb.

Now, she saw not a brooding skinny boy with legs to long for the rest of him. There was no more soft, regretful sighs when she told him to stop being silly, that she expected this from the other two but not him. Gone was the schoolboy who came home with bruises and bloodied lips. Susan could now see the warrior king who he once was. A man who played chess with the bears and star gazed with the owls. The one who went nearly ten years without loosing a sword duel. Now, she remembered King Edmund the Just.

The girl paused to allow a woman and her seven children to pass in front of her before continuing her mad charge.

Susan forgot her sister was still in school. She could instead conjure the image of a Queen loved by any who spent more than a moment in her presence. The eldest Pevensie sister could see that same Queen charging bravely into battle, the cry springing to her lips as she rode next to her brothers. A sister who planned parties and battle plans. Susan could now recall Queen Lucy the Valiant.

But now, now she came to a street that had much to many cars to weave through. Susan halted. She could wait a moment. "Miss," the woman next to her said. "Are you all right?"

Susan looked up at her. She looked at her reflection in a shop window to her right. The meticulously applied eye makeup ran down her face in black rivers, taking blush and all manners of her mask away with it. But Susan saw beyond all of that. She saw a woman with hair that reached to the floor. A Queen that was the beauty of the world and coveted by any man. But behind the pretty face was a brain, one that stopped Warlords dead in their tracks. And an archer, one who had never missed a shot. Susan wiped her face, feeling the last of her ignorance leave with the makeup. "Yes," she said in reply to the woman. She laughed, her head thrown back. "I've never been better!"

Finally, finally she remembered Queen Susan the Gentle.

The woman obviously thought that she was a bit crazy, but Susan didn't care. There was a lull in the traffic, so she shot across the street.

As she ran the last block, Susan remembered.

She remembered running barefoot through the fields. She remembered recklessly throwing herself from a cliff, knowing the griffin wasn't far behind. She remembered the fauns and the satyrs jumping around a fire. She remembered Oreius. She remembered Mr. Tumnus and the Beavers. Caspian and the D.L.F. Susan could finally see the shining castle of Cair Paravel, and later its ruins. She remembered Edmund gasping after the Battle at Beruna after the White Witch stabbed him through. She remembered the moment Peter became Sir Peter Wolfsbane. She remembered freeing the stone statues with Lucy.

She remembered!

"Oh, Aslan," she gasped as she skidded into the station. "Forgive me. Help me find them!"

…And there one of them was. His back was turned, and he was watching as the eldest and the youngest bought sweets from a stand a ways down the track. "Edmund!" Susan cupped her hands around her mouth, the name echoing around the noisy arena. He turned, looking at her in confusion. Peter and Lucy looked at her too, mirror expressions on their faces.

"I remembered!" she screamed.

"What?" Edmund bellowed back, pointing to his ear. "I can't hear you!"

"I remember Narn – "

She was caught off by screeching metal. Roaring fire, intense heat. The force knocked her backward and when she opened her eyes, the sky was blotted out by billowing smoke. There were people screaming, sirens ringing, a roaring that came from everywhere and no where all in one moment. Bloody hands and feet stuck out from the wreckage.

Susan fainted.

At their funerals, she wore a black dress that billowed in the wind. She nodded politely to all of the condolences, never taking her eyes from the headstones. She didn't cry. Only once did she cry. Now, Susan was the only one left. She would not disrespect her siblings' honor by shedding useless tears for them. They were in a much better situation than she was, after all. Perhaps even back in Narnia.

Susan bent and set down three red roses, one for each of them and two daisies for her parents. She backed up a step. During the first night, she'd come to a conclusion. She had forgotten. She'd been downright horrible to them. And now, now she was the only one left. Susan now could understand why Edmund had always strove to be better than his best. It was the only way for traitors to make penance with themselves.

So Susan would wait. And she would listen and look for a sign. But in the meantime, she was here. She had to make sure that no one would forget them. That no one would make the same mistake she did.

"Have a bit more patience with me," she whispered, and dipped into a deep curtsey, befitting only a Queen of Narnia. "I love you all. Wait for me."

And in that moment, she swore she heard a roar echo from the misty silence.