Disclaimer: I own none of these characters and neither the Narnia universe nor the James Bond universe.

Summary: Self-care is not betrayal, and love does not require obedience. Another take on the Problem of Susan.

Author's Note: Thanks to my sister for her beta reading. All remaining errors are entirely my own silly fault.

No Betrayal

by marbleglove

"Well, Olivia," Susan said to the headstone, "I guess you're going to win this round of Who-Speaks-First. I hope you're pleased with yourself."

It was a nice headstone, honoring "Olivia Mansfield, devoted wife and mother," and did little to represent the hard woman that Susan had known for so many decades. Olivia's personal life had been rather fraught – if she was a devoted wife and mother, it was as wife and mother to her country rather than to her actual husband and children. She had been calculating and determined, a natural statistician who knew how to gamble with the lives of her agents. She hadn't always won, but she had known how to play the Great Game so that when she lost, she lost small, and when she won, she won big.

Susan had been impressed by Olivia; Olivia, as so many others before her, had never been quite sure what to make of Susan. But she had been too smart to not make use of her. Susan had been the head psychiatrist of MI-6 for three decades and had worked with Olivia personally for much of that time.

Now that Olivia was dead, and the mantle of M transferred to Gareth Mallory, Susan was here to help Olivia one last time.

Or maybe Olivia was still sufficiently here, in memory if not in person, to help Susan one last time.

"I'll even break my rule of making you figure things out on your own, and tell you something you need to know," Susan said. "You did not betray that young man."

There were so many young men, really, that had died under Olivia's command. She would have paused here during a therapy session, to let Olivia fill in which young man Susan was referring to. Raoul Silva had certainly claimed to be betrayed. Susan thought Olivia would have felt worse about her treatment of James Bond, though.

James was currently twitchy and unhappy and avoiding all the MI-6 therapists even more assiduously than before. Gareth, the new M, was refusing to send him out on another mission until someone had signed off on his mental health. No one wanted a repeat of Raoul's breakdown. Personally, Susan thought James would calm down better with a mission than with a mandatory therapy appointment, but she understood Gareth's qualms.

James and Raoul were too much alike in many ways. Olivia would have understood that dealing with James meant dealing with Raoul. Raoul's reactions to torture, the change from devoting his life to his country to allowing his country to become collateral damage in his quest for personal revenge, was what made both James and Gareth so nervous at moment.

Often it was important to just speak some things out loud and let it become obvious with the speaking which were fears and which were truths. If a patient couldn't or wouldn't speak, then Susan would speak for them.

Susan kept her eyes on the headstone, even as she listened. London traffic created a background of white noise. A breeze rustled the leaves of the trees and bushes dotting the cemetery. A few birds called out here and there. It was peaceful.

Since no one else spoke, she would do so. "You failed Raoul, yes. That poison pill should have killed him, and you failed him when it didn't. But any venture risks failure – there's no avoiding that. And failure is not betrayal."

She could imagine Olivia arguing with her about that. "Telling someone you can keep them safe and then failing to do so actually is betrayal," Olivia would have said rather tartly.

Susan smiled at the thought. "You never promised him safety. In fact, you did quite the reverse. In his pain and his madness, he thought you should have cared more for his life than for your country. But your priority has always – explicitly – been the safety and success of the nation. He volunteered to be your tool. All your crazy, broken double-Os do. You used him down to the last dregs to forward the best interests of your nation. And that was your right and your responsibility."

She paused again in her half-sided conversation, letting the sounds of nature settle a bit around her. The trees and the birds and a lone stray cat. When there was no response, she continued.

"They ask you for it, too. And they avoid me because they think I'd try to stop them." That makes her laugh a little bit, and shake her head. She understands the type of devotion that makes these men and women want to give themselves, body and soul, to something greater than themselves. It is not a decision she'd ever make for herself, but she does understand it.

"Your crazy double-Os always avoid me and my department. They think I don't understand. They worry that I'll suggest or even mandate early retirement. I'm not that foolish. Though I think I probably failed Raoul, too, by not making sure he understood what he was volunteering for when he gave his life to the nation as a double-O. He wasn't at a place where he could keep that decision."

This time when she paused, Susan heard the deliberate scuff of movement behind her. It made her smile. She didn't turn around, though – she wasn't done yet with her talk.

"I'm too old and experienced to take on that kind of guilt, though, for other people's actions. Raoul made his choices. And I know better than to think myself omnipotent.

"And here is something that I'll tell you, in this time when you can't scoff at me and my faith: not even God is omnipotent. He will not deny free will and He cannot do two mutually exclusive things. Even He must make choices of what is good and what is right. And there is no betrayal when sometimes He doesn't choose you."

Susan found herself looking up at the clear blue sky. It was beautiful, and it kept her from looking around. "God Himself must make choices about which tools to use to accomplish His will, and sometimes, often times even, He chooses to use those tools to their destruction."

She pulls her eyes back down to Olivia's headstone, speaking directly to it again. "Your agents beg to be made useful. It is faithfulness rather than betrayal, to make their lives, and their deaths, useful."

She let the silence settle once more. She said what she had come to say.

"Rest in peace, Olivia."

When she finally turned away, she was not at all surprised to see the figure sitting on the stone bench nearby, well within listening distance.

"So how much of that was for my benefit?" James Bond, 007, asked. It was a rhetorical question, but Susan answered anyway.

"It was for the benefit of anyone who could hear me, if they benefited from it."

He took an obvious look around the empty cemetery. There was no one else to hear.

She took an obvious look around, as well, her eyes settling on the birds in the trees, the orange tabby cat under a bush, and Olivia's headstone, before finally returning to look at him. "Don't think yourself more important than you are." It was reassurance rather than chiding.

"That was Silva's mistake, wasn't it?"

"One of them, yes."

It did seem her talk with Olivia had done James some good. He looked much more relaxed this morning than he had last week when he had literally dodged down a side corridor to avoid passing her in the hallway.

He still looked sleep deprived, on this Sunday morning, and either hung-over or possibly still buzzed from heavy drinking last night, but he also looked calm in a way he hadn't before. He didn't look hunted.

"And what were his others?"

"Lack of self-care."

"I would have thought that was a benefit for people like us."

"Tools must be kept in good condition, mentally as well as physically, to be useful. What it means for a double-O to be in good mental condition is very different than what it means for more socialized individuals. But you should still be in good condition."

James looked dubious. "And what does good condition mean for a double-O like me?"

"It means that while I'm glad to be standing upwind of you this lovely morning, your excessive drinking and affairs are not, in fact, excessive. You live an extreme life – your safety valves must be equally extreme."

He barked a laugh. It was more surprise than real humor, but there was some humor there, too.

And it was with real curiosity that he asked, "Do you really believe in a god?"

A rather abrupt change of topic, but that was par for the course, when dealing with agents on this level. Susan went with it. "Oh yes."

"That's rare in this field. Mostly we just believe in ourselves."

"I believe in myself, too. And sometimes we must make a distinction between belief and worship."

"Believe in a god but don't expect him to solve your problems?"

"Exactly."

"Shall I tell Mallory that you're comparing him to god?"

"He might even agree if you tell him I compared the previous M to God."

"We didn't betray each other," James changed topics again, even more abruptly than before. Susan had no trouble following the change, though. It had been obvious that James alternated between anger and guilt when it came to Olivia's death, and his own pseudo-death as well.

"No, you did not," she confirmed. She had spent a lot of years thinking about what betrayal was and what it wasn't.

"I'll speak with you, when I need a psych eval."

Susan nodded her agreement. She also gave in to the inevitable and made her way to the stone bench. She was getting too old to just be standing around like this. Even if he really was in desperate need of a shower.

"Does this count as one?"

She side-eyed him a bit at that. He was clearly pushing to see what her limits were. "If you'd like it to be."

"It looks like you come here often enough for it to be your office." James was watching the stray cat that had been casually getting itself closer to them.

"Mm," she said, neither agreeing nor disagreeing. "I do like outdoor sessions, when the weather is nice. It's so rarely nice, though."

"Can I escort you back to the office?" He really was wonderfully good at acting the perfect gentlemen, even when he so decidedly was not.

"You should go home and get some sleep. And more, importantly, a shower. I'll stay here a bit longer and enjoy the sun while it lasts."

He looked suspicious, as he should, but eventually went away when she continued to just sit on the stone bench, enjoying the sun.

The tabby cat finally hopped up onto the bench beside her.

She gently stroked it.

"Are we going to talk about this?" Susan finally asked.

It had been so many years since she had turned her face away from Narnia that she had almost expected her voice to stutter at this reopening of communication, but she was as steady as she'd ever been in any of her therapy sessions.

It was Aslan who was tentative in His response. "I once told your brother Edmund that anything could be forgiven if only one asked."

Susan's hand paused in its slow stroke, and she felt a tiny spark of anger but allowed it to sputter out and away, and she continued to her movement. "Yes. He told me about that."

"I spoke with Edmund again, before coming here. I never knew how hard it was, when one is in the wrong, when one knows one is in the wrong, to still ask for forgiveness. To ask for forgiveness, even knowing that one doesn't deserve it, and can do nothing to earn it."

And Susan took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Yes. Yes, it is very difficult indeed. Humans who make mistakes regularly, little mistakes and big mistakes, get practice at being in the wrong, and apologizing for it. But we also get practice in forgiving those mistakes. If we live life right, we get practice forgiving as well as being forgiven."

"You have lived a very good life. You are living a very good life."

"I like to think I am."

"Susan, I could not do anything other than what I did."

"I know."

"I am so very powerful, more powerful than you can even imagine, but I still have constraints."

Aslan was trembling beside her, not purring, but trembling as if with the cold, although it was not that cold. Susan pulled Him up to her chest so that she could wrap her arms around Him, and let His head tuck into the side of her neck and under her chin.

"I know, Aslan. I know."

"I had to cast you out of Narnia. Both times, I had to."

She just held Him close. She had always known that He had only cast her out because it was necessary, but that didn't change the fact that she had been cast out. Through no fault of her own, she had been ripped from her life. Her joy and her people had been torn away from her. It was not His fault, and yet, it had been His action.

"I am sorry, Susan. I am sorry for what I have done to you."

Susan had to twist a bit in order to kiss the soft fur, and she could only reach His shoulder, so she lay the kiss there.

"There is nothing that needs forgiveness, You did only what was necessary. But thank You, for Your apology."

"But I did harm you. It was necessary but I still hurt my gentle queen. And I am sorry, Susan," Aslan finally looked up at her.

"If You need my forgiveness, then You have it." She hugged Him close and whispered in His ear. "You are forgiven."

"I have missed you so much, My gentle queen."

"And I have missed You, My Lord, though I have taken joy in seeing You, here and there, over the years."

"Will you come with Me once more?"

"Oh, Aslan. One day, I will go with You if you wish, but not this day. This is my world, and I am happy here. And busy. I won't willingly leave this world behind."

"But when you're done? Will you come to Me?"

Susan kept her arms wrapped around Aslan, holding Him to her and feeling His heart beat against her own chest, but looking out across the cemetery.

"I cannot worship You, Aslan. I am sorry for that. I will always love You, but I cannot promise to be obedient to You. I am sorry." She whispered. She was sorry, but no matter how sorry she was, she could not – would not – change what she would do. Just as Aslan could not make the changes necessary to accommodate her needs, she could not make the changes necessary in herself to blindly obey Him as she might once have done. "When my life here is done, then I'll return to Your world, if You still want me. If You'll still have me."

"I will still have you, whenever and however you come to Me, My gentle queen. It has not been by My command but by your own will that you have lived your life as the gentle queen. Once a queen of Narnia, always a queen a Narnia."