Firstly, it is with great caution and humility that I even entertain the notion of writing a Chronicles of Narnia story at all; these books are precious to me, and I wouldn't change a thing. But ever since I first read them as a child, Susan was my favorite character—she was a combination of who I knew I was and who I wanted to become. So to read about her exclusion from Aslan's Country at the end of The Last Battle was heart-breaking. But I firmly believe that this means that Susan survived the train crash, and is left alive, but the rest of her family is killed. But Aslan's country, as Heaven, has no sadness or tears, so her absence wasn't felt at the end of the book.

However, when I saw the movies, I found my heart breaking for Susan once again, with her "what could have been" with Caspian, my desire to reconcile the books with the movies became so much stronger. So, here follows my attempt to do several things-- finish Susan's story post-The Last Battle and reconcile her near-relationship with Caspian with the rest of the cannon. So the following will follow the books and the current movie-verse, and begins just after The Last Battle ends.

This is my first foray into the Narnia fanfiction, and my first long, multi-chapter endeavor in a while. I ask for patience, and promise that it will finished. Please let me know what you think; all feedback is treasured.

I own nothing; C. S. Lewis is a genius here and Disney did some cool things too. I'm just borrowing.

I hope you enjoy. -rosa

Till They're Before Your Eyes

Prologue

Things were foggy; she could have been floating on ocean swells. She felt pain, but couldn't pin it down. She clawed her way up to the surface. The first awareness was of the dark. She blinked, again and again to find no change. Ever logical, she fought the crushing fear, blocking it as she froze, listening. Feeling. A soft wheezing sound, a steady beeping. A less than comfortable bed; a needle in her arm, the smell of flowers. Hospital.

She blinked again. Nothing. Logic whirred and worked until somehow, the realization put itself into words despite the mental haze nearly smothering her.

I can't see.

The sheer terror that seized her with that realization came with the memory. In her mind, she could see the human bodies, tossed about the train like snow in a snow globe, she could hear the screams and the screeching, and the deafening crash, and she could feel her older brother's arms around her like iron. Though her throat burned even with breath, she heard herself screaming his name, over and over, until four others joined it, littered with the phrase, "I can't see," and she didn't stop thrashing, not for the frantic voices, not for the soothing ones, not for the pity or urgency, not until she felt a stab prick her leg, and she fell backwards into darkness, all voices fading into silence.

XXX

"The term is over; the holiday has begun. The dream has ended; this is the morning."

The beauty of Aslan's country could not be contained within a handful of paltry words; descriptions of rolling green hills or clear skies glowing with a sunlight that never burned or sparkling water that never froze or of birds ever singing fall short. There were no tears, no emptiness, no longings. There was no marriage, only the delight of being family. There are stories that sentences cannot capture, songs that poetry can only stumble around. There is no loss, no sense of time, only joy.

"Now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before."

Memories of the past were not lost, but there was no pain in remembrance, no sense of loss. Only joy was in stories, all celebrated. Even stories of an absent queen did not bring pain, for there was unwavering confidence in Aslan, a hope that never faltered. Her stories were told often around lighted tables, and no one grew tired of smiling.

As in Narnia, Aslan was not always physically present, but unlike Narnia, and especially unlike the Shadow-Lands, faith in him was unbreakable, for Aslan was fact and their place in Aslan's country and their joy was proof no longer needed. Joy, joy, joy abounded.

Aslan himself took near complete joy in watching the Friends of Narnia live so happily in His country. But unlike his children, He could still see into the Shadow-Lands, into the world from which He'd rescued them. Unlike Peter, Edmund, Lucy, and their parents, Aslan had watched the train accident take place, and he could recall every sound, every scream, every crack of bone. Aslan, as He existed in the Shadow-Lands, had not caused the train to malfunction, but he had not interceded either. And though it gave Him delight to see three of his dearest children finally at peace-- to see Peter's burden lifted, Edmund's redemption complete, Lucy's faith rewarded—He was not spared from knowing her struggle, her broken heart, her abject fear, for He knows all.

When Susan had first entered Narnia, her logical mind reeling, Aslan had seen in her the greatest shock. As slightly older, she did not quite have the imagination of Lucy or the curiosity of Edmund, and being humble as she was, did not have the longing for hero's glory as Peter. But Susan overcame her uncertainty in those days, and when she had ascended her throne, she became the most level-headed and gracious of the four monarchs, always looking for peace before war, and always broken-hearted by the battles fought for her hand in marriage. In the years of Narnia's Golden Age, Susan had always served as sovereign Queen when Peter and Edmund rode to war, and Lucy rode off for negotiation or her own exploration, and being left behind was always torture for Susan, but she knew that the people took comfort in her presence in turbulent times. Having these memories of anxious loneliness, it was no surprise to Aslan that when Susan returned to Narnia the second time, she was anxious to prove herself in battle and make up for the years she viewed as idle.

And Aslan, omniscient as He was, was not surprised to find that—since she turned down countless suitors as Queen during the Golden Age—Susan was, perhaps subconsciously, eager to find love in her second visit to Narnia. Her last visit had lasted for a long breadth of years; how was she to know to guard her heart, that this visit would be but a month of Narnia time? Aslan had not told her, and Prince Caspian had been struck by the beauty of the gentle Queen of legend, just as so many other suitors had been, 1300 years before.

But Aslan knew what no one else knew, what Susan and Caspian had hoped for years only to let go of. Aslan knew that their connection those long years ago had not been the same; Caspian had not just been another young man in awe of Susan's physical beauty. No, in that month of battle, of brushes with death, of arguments and danger, of laughter, Caspian had seen past her beauty, had seen in Susan what her brothers saw, what no other suitor had ever seen—her strength, her compassion, her righteous fervor, her gracious spirit.

And Susan was no different. She was not simply a sixteen year old girl with a crush in that month. No, she had been a woman of almost thirty once, knowing full well of desire, of longing, knowing why she turned down each and every suitor. Though back in the body of a teenage girl, the Narnian air aged her spirit, and she saw in Caspian what she'd never seen in any suitor; his eyes on hers, not on her body; his attention on her words, not her appearance; his desire to keep her safe, not to have as a trophy. She knew he saw her as she truly was.

And Aslan was not without sadness for having to separate the two after Caspian's coronation. But it had to happen so that all would be set in motion. Caspian would live on, his sense of deep loss muted by years, and he would eventually make a pleasant marriage to Ramandu's daughter, and Rilian would be born. But even after his wife's death, and up to his own, Caspian would think of Susan, wonder what could have been. And now, Caspian was here, in Aslan's own Country, fellowshipping happily with his spirit-brother, Peter, with the other friends of Narnia, with his son. Ramandu's daughter joined her father in the stunning night sky of Aslan's Country, and Aslan watched Caspian take pleasure in gazing up at the firmament in unbreakable peace. Here in Aslan's Country, Caspian was finally free of the ever-present sense that he had missed out on something, and his memories of Susan brought him only joy.

For Susan, the separation proved much shorter but far more difficult. But Aslan knew it had to happen, to set it all in motion. Susan came back from her final trip to Narnia, utterly heart-broken. Though only a teenager, she had once been a grown woman, and she knew that the one man not related to her she had ever met that had seen past her beauty and loved her still was gone forever. With this knowledge, Susan came to believe that the only thing she had was her beauty; she spent the years before the accident hiding behind, forcing her memories of Narnia into the context of a game, of a dream, so it would hurt less. The less she thought of Narnia, the less she thought of him, and what she had lost. Her siblings did not understand the depth of her pain; they were confused by the sudden change, later exasperated. Peter's one mistake had not been seeing his sister's new behavior as defense mechanism against the hurt; he thought she had lost faith, become selfish. But truly, Susan had lost in faith—the one thing she ever wanted in all her years on Earth and in Narnia, a man to see past her face and into her heart—had been taken away by Aslan's own decree, and she was confused, hurt, and later angry.

It hurt Aslan to watch this; he loved Susan. But it must happen this way. Because Susan forced herself into becoming obsessed with her superficial beauty, she had been in the lavatory of the train when it derailed, examining her reflection. The contained space saved her from being thrown about as violently as the others, and she clutched to the sink as the train lost control. Peter, his oldest instinct being to protect his first sibling, had run back to her, throwing the door open and locking his arms around her in that last moment as she clung to the sink and he to her. But when the train flipped over, he lost his grip and was thrown from the small room, and crushed, his death quick. Now, in Aslan's Country, he would not remember the last, overwhelming sense of failure of having let Susan slip through his hands for the final time.

When the train flipped, Susan hit her head violently on the sink and knew no more. Her last sight would have been a glimpse of Peter falling. She would wake up in the hospital, the lone survivor of the crash, her entire family claimed. She would wake up permanently blind, traumatized, and alone.

This too, was necessary. Without her sight, Susan lost the ability to see her reflection. A year would pass for her; she would withdraw completely into herself, too old for foster care, no close living relatives. She would be taken in by a kind elderly widow who had attended church with the Pevensies their entire lives, and Mrs. Ainran, or Miss Dawn as Susan called her, along with Susan's guide-dog, Spark, would be Susan's only friends and the only two stumbling blocks on her path to complete despair.

Now, it was time. Aslan would set into motion the final invasion of the Shadow-Lands; He would send the last Narnian to cross the boundary for the noble purpose of rescuing the lost Queen of Narnia. So many years of battle, of hurt, of preparation, redemption and rescue leading up to this moment, this solution. The only way to allow two people the chance they never had; the only way to get a lost daughter home.

In the Shadow-Lands, they called this sort of thing "God sending an angel."

Aslan would send Caspian.

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