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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

[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.

[lanselos_du_lac]

He settles her closer, takes a breath -- it feels like a very long time ago, even though it was not, and it also feels so very sharp, still painful.

"When he and I were talking, that day, I told him all I felt," his hand strokes down her arm. "I suppose we had it out. But when I started to speak of what my last few months at Camelot were like... something broke, like a dam. Everything came spilling out, everything I had been feeling but trying to avoid for so long. All at once. I could not stop it. I wept, hard, the kind of weeping that hurts. I was shocked, because... it is not often I weep at all."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

This cuts through the morass forming inside Susan, and she reaches up to rest a hand on Lancelot's shoulder, stroking a thumb along the neckline of his shirt. "Nor I," she says, and then, "You never said."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"No," quietly, "I know. That was a hard time, and I wasn't sure how to understand it." He takes her hand and kisses her fingertips. "But-- it wasn't only about what was passing between us. It was everything that I had been carrying for the better part of a year."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan tries to wrest greater control over herself so that she can focus more on Lancelot. "I see."

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot notices this and says, "I tell thee this not to speak of myself, but to-- I think this may be a reason for thy reaction. Perhaps thou'rt feeling all things at once, and moreso now that thou hast found evidence that this place is harder than we knew."

He draws her in, kisses her temple, her cheek. "I love thee," softly, "I have thee. Thou'rt safe, with me."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I know," softly, and though her tone is still largely inflectionless, there is a gratitude about her words.

[lanselos_du_lac]

Very softly, he asks, "How can I help thee?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I don't know," she admits. "I feel so - overwhelmed."

[lanselos_du_lac]

A little nod, there's no need for a specific answer if she doesn't have one. He says, "I will rest here, with thee, tonight."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

A tiny spire on the shard of fear lancing through her melts away and she nods, gratefully. And since Lancelot is here - since he has her, since she's safe with him and can lean on him both figuratively and literally - she clutches at him and tries to sort through at least one of the things weighing on her. She lands on, "Sagramore and Grantaire seem to think this shall last for some time," and then she straightens up sharply as another jolt of concern lashes through her. "I nearly forgot. I've got to make an accounting of the stores."

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot covers her hands with one of his own; his other arm is still tight around her. His tone is gentle, "I would help thee, but I think-- if we are reasonably sure things are not changing, then perhaps resting, refreshing, is a better plan for tonight."

He's making a suggestion, not dictating what should happen. He really will go with her, if she feels the need to do this now.