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[quote_gentle_unquote]

Although she realizes almost immediately what's going on (she has, after all, been fearing it, and has the greatest measure of the general contents of each room in this place), the full weight of the situation takes a day or so to hit Susan, as she flits from closet to cupboard to store-room and finds them empty save for the items she's specifically handled in the past. Her emergency closets - the ones she's been appointing - are intact; the rest seem relatively barren.

And so, she thinks, grimly, the other shoe has dropped.

Certain residents would be forgiven for imagining that Susan Pevensie might gloat, to have her worst fears proven right. A Cassandra, vindicated, smugly telling others left and right that she told them so, and they ought to have been more interested in preparations. But they would have been wrong about this, too. Distracted and panicked enough to forget entirely about her standing lunch date with Lancelot, she instead walks steadily, smoothly to her room, where she shuts the door firmly (she means to latch it, but she's so caught up in her frenzy that it slips her mind) and paces, pulling at her hair until it's half-snarled, tugged partially free from its usual crown of braids. Her other hand she keeps firmly in her pocket, clutched tight around the very last cruel new thing the Mansion had given her, right before it stopped cooperating entirely.

Water, she thinks, abruptly, mid-step. Will the water run out? But there's a lake out there, and there are trees to boil it; it might be significantly less convenient but they shan't run out of water. The taps are still flowing, but will that last? And so she fills some of the vases she's been accumulating with whatever will come from the tap, just in case she needs it later.

Then, with the wind fully out of her sails, she sinks into a seat on the edge of her bed, despondent, with her head in her hands for a spell. It might be a good twenty minutes, it might be several hours - she couldn't say. She'd been ever so worried about this - she ought to have pushed harder. She ought to have been more organized, to have really impressed upon people that they oughtn't assume that just because they've got a good thing now, it'll be there forever. But she let herself get distracted. There were other, more pressing things - things that seem ridiculous now, in retrospect. Sorting through junk papers? Getting caught up with a man to the extent where she forsook her self-appointed responsibilities for days on end? Love - if that is indeed what she feels for him - is no excuse. She should have - she could have - she ought to have -

I mustn't fall into this trap again, she tells herself, firmly, springing from her bed as swiftly as she'd sat down and striding over to the desk she'd moved into her room when she started writing her letters. (She's now missed dinner, too. The light outside is already dwindling, and the electricity doesn't seem altogether forgiving - it's working, but it's dimmer. But she oughtn't waste the few candles she'd set aside. What if they're needed more later?) It is far too easy to get caught blaming oneself until all that's left is blame. I really mustn't go back there.

But that tiny knot of cold in the center of her - the one that she'd very nearly unpicked over the past few months - tightens and grows. Grimly, she takes out paper and a pen. Her mood is dire. It's only appropriate to start the next one:

Dear Peter, she writes. I hardly know what to say to you.

She sticks the end of her pen in her mouth and chews.

Comments

[quote_gentle_unquote]

She makes a questioning noise.

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot draws back enough to look at her, "In the tower-- it felt, to me, like a warning. The tower itself, I wondered about. But-- why provide us with... staples in a place of abundance?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan blinks, and her eyelids feel leaden - like dragging them open and regarding Lancelot is a Sisyphean task. She does not realize it, but she's trembling, even after she sways closer to Lancelot - Lancelot, who is sturdy; Lancelot, who has ever made her feel warm. "It's as I feared."

[lanselos_du_lac]

He refocuses his attention on her, sharp but warm. Her trembling is evident, and he draws her in a little, holds her a little more tightly. "Tell me, love."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I've been worried," she says, leaning against him. "Waiting, I suppose. For the catch."

[lanselos_du_lac]

With the hand that isn't still clutching the chess piece, he strokes her hair back. His arms stay tight around her. "Do thou say more."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"It's been so lovely here." There are the monthly events, but one day out of thirty isn't so bad. "That sort of thing doesn't tend to last."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Sweet heart, there needn't be a catch." This once, he's not entirely sure he believes it himself. But Susan, so far as he knows, has earned what she has. She deserves not to fear the loss of it simply because it has brought her joy.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I ought to have prepared better."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Nay," with as much reproval as he can muster. He draws back a fraction. "Who here hast prepared better than thee?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"No one," she allows, "but no one in Narnia was terribly concerned with preparations, either, so that's hardly an excuse."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"My love," softly, and with another brush of her cheek, "I hear thee, but this is not Narnia. This is not anything predictable. This place is mad, and helpful only when it chooses to be. Thou hast set thy hand to understanding it, aye, but that does not mean thou hast failed when it plays another trick on us. It is thy work and good sense that will see us through."

His tone, his expression, make it clear that he has faith in her; if he looks a little deeper, he will find that that is also faith in them. In what they might do together.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Oh, Lancelot," she says, turning into his touch, and bursts into tears.

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot gathers her in, both arms tight around her, and kisses her temple. He feels, at this moment, that he would do anything for her -- he would go to war, he would chase down the mansion spirits and get a proper explanation, he would answer any hurt she may have -- and he knows none of these are possible, or even what she would want. But now, he understands, the important thing is feeling that burning inside himself.

So he holds her fast, murmuring reassurance; he does his best to be as present, as sure, as solid as he can be.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan does not often cry, and she cries in front of other people even less. Outside of the day that she first remembered Narnia, the last time she cried in front someone was Ingrid, in Ingrid's flat, right after she'd finished (silent, shaking, but ever so carefully-composed) identifying her family's bodies. She didn't weep at their funerals - just after, with a bottle of some terrible wine she'd found under the sink, alone in her room. The few times she got caught, surprised by her grief in the middle of a story she'd been reading for Lucy, tears barely came at all.

If she were a little more composed, she might think that the fact she can cry at all is a good sign. There's no longer that dreadful quietness in her core that held her removed from the world. She's feeling things again, with more and more regularity. On a good day, she might marvel at being overwhelmed by her feelings.

To-day is not a good day. But Lancelot is here, and that is a good thing. She can cling to him. She can let him support her through this. She wants him to.

She's been more in touch with her grief, of late; writing those secret letters to her siblings has put her into closer contact with it. It's more tangible, now. It's certainly crowding in at the moment, threatening to sweep over her and knock her down, like the tides of the Great Eastern Ocean rushing in to the shores just past Cair Paravel after a storm. Too, she's been starting to learn, more and more, that she needn't go it alone here. That day in Ingrid's flat, clutching her hands so tightly that Ingrid had marks from Susan's nails for over a week etched into the sides of her fingers, she'd felt like she might drift away from anything and anyone. But as she clings to Lancelot, she knows: he can tether her, if she lets him. And so she presses her face against his shoulder, and closes her eyes, and wraps her arms fiercely around him, and - so assured - lets herself let go of her grip on that knot of feelings inside of her.

[lanselos_du_lac]

The more she clings, the more tightly he holds her. He is murmuring to her, sweet words but not without sense.

After a moment, he urges them -- albeit somewhat awkwardly -- toward a chair. He sits and bundles her into his lap still tighter, rocking her just a little.

What he does not say is something like, "Do not cry." He doesn't even say, "It's well" -- it isn't. He just does his best to be present, and to make sure she knows he has him and whatever she may ask of him.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

She likes being on his lap, likes when he holds her close. They're at her desk, now; her side that isn't snugly tucked against Lancelot is pressed against the front of it. That book of awful poems gets nudged as he rocks her and falls to the floor; a slip of paper tumbles out of it. She's blind to this, of course: the pressure valve has been loosened, and everything is tumbling out.

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot does notice, but he is never going to find a book more worthy of his attention, more interesting, more precious than Susan. He's not about to be distracted on account of a book.

He keeps her there, in his arms and with all of his attention on her, as long as she needs.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Eventually, the tears quiet; the shaking does not slow.

She shan't apologize for this. Lancelot might chide her if she does, and anyway she doesn't want to be sorry about it. But she does say, "I don't know why I'm reacting like this," wetly and muffled against him.

[lanselos_du_lac]

He brushes a hand over her hair, "That's all right. We shall sort it eventually."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

He's ever so good. She nods, and leans more heavily against him.

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Perhaps," he says carefully, rubbing her back gently, "this was needful-- this reaction."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan lifts her head and peers at him - admittedly, a little blurrily. "You think it a catharsis?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot brushes her cheek, "Aye. Can I--" He pauses, then says, "I experienced something similar. When Arthur was here. It was awful, but I think it did help."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan blinks. "Tell me," she says; in her state she's once more unable to modulate her tone, and the words come out more insistent than imploring.