#comeback stage

What she’d always been, though, in all those other lives, was a sister. So when she was old enough to recognise that she was growing up alone, she started waiting patiently. After all, destiny had been kind enough to give her Peter, Susan, and Edmund in her past lives. Surely it wouldn’t deny her in this one.

Yet the years passed, and so did her childhood, a very lonely one by her standards. There were friends, of course, but they were poor substitutes; she longed for family, an understanding that would span entire worlds and lifetimes.

When asked why she spent so much time by herself, she would reply, “I'm waiting for someone,” even though no one might ever arrive. Still, she waited. Perhaps this time around, they would be the ones to discover her, just as she had discovered Narnia.

Peter was a surgeon. The job required him to be slow, thoughtful, methodical—all adjectives Peter’s siblings would have laughed at if used to describe him. It suited him in this life better than the last one, he thought. Wielding a blade to heal, rather than to cleave or stab or maim, was something he only dreamt of doing back then.

It kept the loneliness at bay. Peter always thought he was never meant to be alone, that none of them were; still, he wished that he was the only one, so the others wouldn't know how odd it was without each other. It wasn't miserable—just tolerable.

There were traces of familiarity in the people around him: a pair of inquisitive brown eyes, long dark hair, the nose he saw so often in his own bathroom mirror. It's never them, of course, but Peter somehow never made peace with the fact.

He caught a glimpse of a reddish-brown plait disappearing around the corner, having to snap himself out of his stupor. These late-night shifts didn't do him any favours, especially in this hungry state. He'd long resigned himself to yet another night of browsing the third-floor vending machine’s abysmal selection of crisps.

“Peter!” came the enthusiastic call behind him. Plastering on a smile, Peter turned around to greet the doctor approaching him—Robert, a jolly, round-faced anesthesiologist he'd worked with often. “Would you like to eat with me? My old woman's packed up too much, God love her.”

Robert was always well-supplied with a fully packed lunchbox courtesy of his wife and daughter. Peter, who lived alone, couldn't be further from well-fed even though he was fully capable of cooking for himself.

“I couldn't possibly, Bob, I'll just grab a Lay’s and go,” Peter smiled.

“Nonsense, Pete. You're thin as a scarecrow. I need to lose weight, besides,” Robert said good-naturedly. “C’mon, we'll grab you a cup of tea, as well. A surgeon can't fall asleep in the middle of an operation, can he?”

He spent many a night on the fire escape with Robert, talking about whatever came to them—they didn’t have much in common except for their profession, and so they talked about that, new developments in surgery and their students in the university they occasionally lectured at, gossip about the other doctors in their hospital. It was a refreshing change of pace, and he solely had Robert and his wife to thank when he started tipping towards a healthy weight.

Fire escape snacks turned into Friday dinners and Sunday brunches. Robert’s daughter took a great liking to him, an auburn-haired little girl with curious eyes that reminded him of his own dearest Lucy.

He was Uncle Peter from then on. He'd never been an uncle to anyone before; he had no siblings in this life, much less nieces and nephews in the previous one. He thinks he wouldn’t have had children of his own—God knows he spent most of his short life raising them—but he wouldn’t have minded spoiling a little carbon copy of his siblings.

As it was, little Anna adored him well enough. Robert and Martha often called him the godfather she never had. And when Robert asked him for a lift to Anna’s school to pick her up when his car broke down, well, he was all too eager to see how the little angel was.

“Thanks a bunch, Pete,” Robert sighed, closing the passenger door as he settled into the seat. “Martha's shift won’t be over ‘til five, I'm afraid."

“It's no trouble at all," Peter laughed, pulling out of the hospital parking lot. “How is the little bugger?"

“Oh, you know the rascal—I can't keep up with her at all,” Robert said fondly. “Anna cannot stop going on about this new teacher she's got. Sue something, I think was the name? Something old-fashioned.” Robert snapped his fingers. “Susan, I think it was.”

Peter very nearly sent them flying through the windshield with how forcefully he hit the brakes. “What?”

“Christ’s sake, man, what's gotten into you?” Robert asked, half ire and half concern, but Peter could barely register the words. There was no chance. There might be any number of women in England named Susan—and yet—

“Do you mind if I go in and see Anna?” he blurted out.

“’Course not. She'd love to see you,” Robert replied, still a tad bewildered.

“Alright.” Peter exhales deeply, finally stepping on the accelerator. “Thank you, mate.”

“Are you sure you're alright?”

“I'm sure. Quite sure.” Peter drummed his fingers over the steering wheel. “Never felt better.”

“Right,” Robert said in disbelief. “School’s just after that exit, there.”

When they arrived, the parking lot of the school was already full and bustling with parents and guardians. Impatiently, Peter pulled into the sidewalk and executed the best parallel park he'd ever made in his life, all but bounding out of the driver’s seat before Robert could even remove his seatbelt.

He trailed after Robert into the lobby of the school, craning his neck for something, anything.

“Daddy! Uncle Peter!” a voice cried, and he looked down to see little red-haired Anna grinning up at him with a noticeable gap between her front teeth. “Look, I lost a tooth today!”

“Hullo, Anna. Getting into trouble again, I see,” he greeted, but his attention was elsewhere, hand gripping the little girl’s as his eyes darted over the crowd of parents and children. He thought he saw dark hair—a flash of blue eyes—

“Goodbye, Miss Susan!” Anna called out.

It was unmistakable. Like a man possessed, Peter waded through the throng. Her eyes—it was like looking into a mirror.

She had her hands pressed to her mouth. When he finally reached her, he could see that they were trembling. “Susan?” he said breathlessly.

Susan wasn’t capable of anything more than an equally breathless “Oh,” but that was enough for him. He swept her up in his arms, uncaring of everything and everyone else around them, and buried his face into her hair.

He knew he wasn’t meant to be alone.

Susan was a teacher. She didn’t know what pushed her towards this particular vocation—she was never the best at school, and she’d taken up fashion in university, not education. But her students reminded Susan of her own children, so long ago, both in this world and the other one. How bittersweet it was to see them grow before her eyes; how rewarding it would be, knowing that you've taught them all that you can.

She and Peter have talked about them at length. Many, many years after the crash, she’d been blessed with twins: a boy and a girl whom she loved more than life, who had her nose. She let her husband choose their first names, on the condition that their middle names were Edmund and Lucy. A tribute to the first of her children.

“You would have been a wonderful uncle,” she said to Peter once. The words brought him to tears, and she had laughed and teased him, but she knew the feeling. She had her regrets after the crash, and Peter had his own. Most of them revolved around their absence from the other’s lives. It didn’t matter—they had the rest of this one to make up for it.

Like a true mother, she was not supposed to play favourites, but at school she gravitated towards a little girl with piercing brown eyes and thick black hair. She had a name as lovely as her—Egeria—but her friends had simply settled on “Eggy”, and she didn't seem to mind. Susan liked to think that all her students liked her well enough, but it seemed that Eggy liked her best.

Her father was a tall, serious banker who never exchanged more than three words with Susan. Her other father, Susan gathered from the teacher’s lounge, worked in government or something or other. Very busy, they would always say. Very hush-hush. None of them have ever seen him on the school grounds, which only fueled the speculation. Surely little Eggy must have gotten her sweet disposition from one of her parents.

Until a rainy Thursday afternoon, when Eggy had shyly informed her that “Papa” would be picking her up today and not “Daddy”, and she would like very much to introduce them. Susan had fixed the precious child’s ponytails and agreed that she would very much like to meet her Papa.

A car came round the school at three o’clock on the dot, much earlier than the other parents would have. Sure enough, a man in a neatly pressed black suit and equally dark umbrella stepped out. But for all his sombre appearance, Eggy’s squeal of “Papa!” was full of delight, and the mystery man bent down to embrace her.

The man straightened, saying, “Thank you for looking after Egeria, Miss—”

Their gazes met, and Susan knew those brown eyes even as they hid behind a pair of gold spectacles.

“Susan?” Edmund gasped.

“You know her, Papa?” innocent little Eggy asked.

Susan laughed, but it sounded more like a sob. “Yes. We know each other very well.”

She lurched forward into Edmund's arms, laughing like a woman possessed; he had a few inches on her, but somehow Edmund shrank in her embrace, a child once more. “Susan… I can't believe…”

Susan pulled away, smiling, wiping the tears from her eyes. “Peter will be thrilled to find out he has a niece.”

Edmund was a lawyer. It seemed only fitting—his parents in this life always said that he was never a curious child, but that he already seemed to know everything he needed to.

One of the truths he had always known was that there was something missing. Even though he had two parents, and eventually a partner and a child of his own, he felt as though he was living a life that wasn’t truly his. Like he was a shadow of the real Edmund, or a particularly convincing imitation.

Often in his work he would find himself referring to laws that didn't exist in this world, or historic events that only he seemed to remember. He’d always chalk it up to fatigue—what is the field of litigation if not tiring?—but he knew, somehow, that these memories were part of the other Edmund, the one that he was emulating now.

But then he met Susan, and then Peter—and everything made sense. The lives they had lived, both in this world and in Narnia, their painful separation, the way this life was divided into before and after them. They understood it all.

Apparently, he was the one most changed out of the three of them. His having a family was of particular amusement to his older siblings, and Edmund couldn’t really disagree. Despite having one of his own, children were still a great mystery to him. Often he asked himself what Peter and Susan would do; they were the only parents he’d known.

Or recognised, to be more precise. He still loved his parents here—but there were memories that superseded the ones they made with him, and Edmund’s firsts weren’t really theirs. The two people in his living room had that honour.

It felt strange that he was the one with responsibilities for once. Peter and Susan had no children of their own now, but they were all too happy to look after Egeria when he and Andrew couldn’t. His husband was quite sceptical, what with the sudden appearance of a surgeon and a teacher in their lives, but Egeria loved Peter and Susan, and his husband couldn't really contest that.

“I’m glad that Egeria likes them, but a man can’t help wondering,” he said as they were washing the dishes, watching their daughter play with Peter and Susan on the settee.

“They're my brother and sister,” Edmund said simply.

“You're an only child.”

“I wasn't always.”

Andrew stared at him, sighed, and said, “Well, you sure know how to keep our relationship interesting,” and left it at that.

Edmund was glad that he did. He knew he was persuasive, but even he couldn’t convince Andrew of everything he and his siblings have been through. All of them.

If Peter and Susan and he were all here, then Lucy had to be somewhere, didn't she?

Providence came to him in the form of his assistant, who hesitantly knocked on his office door one mundane Thursday, clutching a file to her chest. “Attorney?”

Edmund sighed. Her hesitance meant nothing good, which meant he wanted to get this over with. “Yes, Grace? Do come in.”

She did so and sat carefully on the edge of the seat in front of his desk. “One of our… friends is asking for a favour. There’s a few environmentalists locked up at the nearest police station, but as far as we know they were protesting peacefully.”

“Let me guess—I need to represent them,” Edmund finished.

“It might not even come to court,” Grace said hopefully. “Just give the fuzz a good scare in your suit and all.”

Edmund sighed again, finishing up the last of his coffee. “Alright. I’ll go over to the police station on my lunch break.” Grace nodded brightly, scampering back out of the office and into her own cubicle.

The extra errand meant that he only had time for a pathetic bowl of pot noodles before he had to book it to the police station. After a brisk introduction to the wary policemen, they allowed him to visit the detainees.

At first glance, it was apparent that the protesters didn’t belong in the jail—all the other accused looked unkempt, clearly the kind of profile the police were trained to seek out. Petty criminals who only turned to crime because of their unfortunate circumstances. Edmund curled his lips in distaste, hoping that they would be released soon.

He situated himself in front of the cell that held the environmentalists. “Good afternoon,” he said. “I’m a lawyer from Martin and Philips, and I’ll be representing your group. My name is—”

“Edmund!” someone exclaimed in delight.

He would recognise that voice anywhere. He would recognise that face anywhere, in any world, smiling up at him as though she were expecting him all along.

“Lucy?” he gasped.

She laughed, pressing her face to the bars to get closer, and it was in that dark jail cell that Edmund felt he was finally real.