AN: Warning, this chapter is VERY sad. I even cried a little when I was writting it. But I believe I did warn everyone that this fic was not going to end happily. You want a happier ending? Read the tie-in, "The Susan Code" That ends more happily.

London England, 1949. (Day of the Infamous The Last Battle railway crash)

"Susan, please." Peter pleaded with her.

"I told you once, and I'll tell you again, no." Susan huffed, turning to her mirrored dresser and working a brush through her hair. "Darn, this knot." There was no knot there, she was just trying to change the subject, as Peter well knew.

"Why wont you come with us?" Peter asked, refusing to give up that easily.

"Because I have more important things to do than go to someone's house and dig up rings that belonged to Professor Kirke's old uncle." Susan told him.

"Like what?" Peter snapped. "hang out with your idiot friends?"

Susan glared at him. "My friends aren't the ones that drink like horses and run around naked at parties."

"Mark was not naked, his underwear was still on." Peter reminded her.

"At the masked ball yeah." Susan agreed. "But what about that party at Debbie's house when he pulled off his clothes and showed us his-"

"Susan!" Peter cut her off before she could say it. How unladylike could she be? "Mark's moronic ways are not the point. Stop changing the subject."

"Why? I already said no." Susan insisted.

"Susan this is important, it's about the well being of Narnia." Peter told her. "Don't you care about it anymore?"

"There is no Narnia." Susan said bitterly. "When are you going to grow up?"

"When are you?" Peter demanded getting very angry at this point. "What if Aslan heard you talking like that?"

"There is no Aslan." Susan said. "I don't believe in magic Lions."

Peter's eyes narrowed and darkened. "You take that back."

"Make me." Susan frowned at him and turned back to the mirror. "Why don't you go play your silly games with someone who gives a-"

"Susan!" Peter cut her off. What had happened to her? She wasn't even a little bit like the girl he'd fallen for. She was horrible. Edmund was right. How could he have even had hope that she was still Narnia's queen? That she was still his queen? Who was this witch and what had she done with his girlfriend?

"What?" She asked. That night when they'd almost fought about Narnia, she'd looked innocent. Now all of that was gone. In only 7 days she'd gone from 'spilt personality' to 'girl from your worst nightmares'.

"Susan...what's happened to you?" Peter asked as he took a step towards her. "Who is this?"

"What are you talking about?" Susan asked.

"What happened the girl who was kind and gentle and cared about others, the girl who believed in Aslan? That's the girl I'm in love with." Peter said looking at her mournfully. "Not..." he waved his hand up and down point at her. "This."

"This is me." Susan said. "This is who I am now, if you don't like it then..."

"Then what?" Peter asked.

"I don't know." Susan shook her head. "What happened to us? We used to so...different."

Peter took a step away from her and she noticed he was holding back tears. "You happened. You changed."

"People change, Peter." Susan said. "It's a fact of life. And I could say the same about you."

"I didn't change." Peter said.

"That's just it, you never grew up and I did." Susan looked like she might cry now.

"Susan, Please." He tried one last time. "Just come with us."

"I can't." Susan said loudly, nearly shouting. "Don't ask me to do that!"

"If you wont do it for Aslan or Narnia, do it for me, okay?" Peter begged. "If you care about me at all, come with us."

"That's not fair!" Susan cried. "Why do you pull these guilt trips on me?"

"It's not a guilt trip." Peter told her. "I care about you."

"You've got a funny way of showing it." Susan retorted.

Peter laughed bitterly. "I've got a funny way of showing it? You should look in a mirror some time." He turned to leave.

"Peter!" Susan called after him.

He'd hoped she'd stop him. Maybe she'd come now. Maybe everything would be alright, if only she would give in and admit that Narnia was real.

He turned around. "Don't go, why don't we just take the day off and talk or something?" Susan offered. "I wont go to my events and you can blow off the 'other world's club' (This was what she sometimes rudely referred to Edmund, Lucy, Jill, Eustace, Digory, Polly, and Peter as) and we'll fix what ever is wrong."

"I can't just blow them off." Peter looked horrified at the very thought. "Are you out of you're mind."

"You've blown off things before." Susan pointed out.

"Not things like this." Peter said firmly. "I'm sorry, Susan but I'm going, if you come with me, great, if you don't..."

"I can't believe some childhood game is more important to you than I am." Susan fumed.

"Narnia wasn't a game, darn it!" Peter shouted.

"Stop it." Susan said.

"No..." He looked her in the eye now as a new realization dawned on him. "You're not ever going to be yourself again are you? This is who your going to be for the rest of our lives isn't it?"

"I am myself." Susan said firmly.

Peter tried to hold back his tears but a few escaped. "This isn't going to work out."

"Are you breaking up with me?" Susan asked looking very hurt.

"I don't want to..." Why wouldn't she just do one thing, that proved that she believed in Narnia? One thing that proved she was still the Susan they knew and loved. "...Look, you don't have to go into the garden with us, just wait on the train with Lucy and the others. That's all you have to do."

"I wont do it." Susan was adamant.

"Goodbye Susan." Peter said as he turned to leave this time he had no intention of turning back. "And I mean that."

"Wait you are breaking up with me aren't you?" Susan realized.

"It's more than that." Peter said bitterly giving her one last look. "I never want to see you again."

How could he say that to her after all they'd been through? "Peter!" She called after him but he didn't turn around.

That evening, the door bell rang and Susan answered it. Two police officers stood there. "Miss Pevensie?"

"Yes?" she asked, moving her hair behind her ears.

The two men took off their hats and said, "We're so sorry...but..."

She barely heard their next words but she knew what they meant anyway. They were all gone. He was gone. Susan reached out her hand and took from them a briefcase that had been found. Later that day, she burned it in the back yard. Enough people had seen the research already. Ella Sting would surely come for it, but she wouldn't get it. No one was ever going to read about Professor's Kirke's Mermaid or Peter's mermaid ever again. But there was one thing she saved, The love letter to Polly. It made no mention of the mermaids and she felt it belonged, not to the ashes, but to the story-book word of broken hearts.

Before she went to sleep, she pulled Peter's old love letter out of the draw, opened the envelope and slid the professor's letter in there too. "This way, at least they're not alone." She whispered softly before she crawled into bed and cried herself to sleep.

Weeks later, Susan stood by the large memorial stone with the names of all those lost in the crash carved into it.

Gently tracing her fingers along the name "Lucy Pevensie" she whispered. "I'm sorry, Lu."

Her eyes looked at the names of her parents and then Edmund's. Then she let her fingers run along the Professor's name remembering the good kind man who's name was "Digory Kirke". Then to "Polly Plummer".

"You should have been Polly Kirke." Susan said softly but not without a sting of bitterness. "And I should have been Susan Pevensie-Burke or at least dead like you all. But I blew it. I wanted to be grown up. I wanted to forget...I'm back now...but it's too late." Tears slid down her face.

Susan then placed her fingers on Peter's name. "I still love you...High King." More tears escaped. "I always will." She sobbed. "For now on, I'm going to be the girl you fell in love with, even if you're not here. I'm going to be me again. No more lies. Just one more secret. I'm so sorry for everything."

After that, Susan placed took the dreaded lipstick tube out of her purse. "What was once used for vanity, will now be used for good." She opened the tube. In lipstick she wrote. "Queen" next to Lucy's name. Then "King" next to Edmund's name. Then "Lord" next to Digory's. Then "Lady" next to Polly's. She wished there was something she could write for Jill and Eustace too but wasn't sure what. So she scrawled, "Royalty" in-between their names for both of them. Last she put "High King" next to Peter's. The lipstick was now worn down to a knob. Susan flung it across the grave yard. It wasn't littering if it was cleaning a person. She heard the ping of it striking a grave stone in the distance.

"There!" She said feeling as though shackles and chains had been taken off of her arms and feet. She was on longer locked in by her own selfishness. By her own longing to escape the person she wasn't sure she could still be.

A sad but still existing smile now formed on her face. She ran and ran as fast as she could until she reached Peter's spot. Their spot. Susan then dived into the stream and came up as a mermaid. She looked up to the sun, causing the tears in her eyes to feel like they were on fire. Spreading out her arms she let the stream carry her in it's current for a bit. She let all the faces of her family and friends float behind her now closed eye lids. Her tail trailed behind her as she floated. The mermaid believed in fairytales once more, but not in happily ever after. She believed in the dismal endings of the old stories and wondered if she, like the little mermaid, would someday join the daughters of the air, longing for the love she'd lost and slowly soaring into a heavenly kingdom.

AN: Thank you everyone for reviewing I think I got more reviews on this fic than on any other I've ever written thus far so thank you all very much. Now click the review button to tell me what you thought of the end. No Flames please.