[Closed Post] ..the sky will come for you once..

[lanselos_du_lac]

The day is warm and bright -- it's lovely, in fact -- and so Lancelot is doing his best to ignore the strange tension that has been dogging him over the last few days. He is, of course, keeping to his usual routine, which helps, and now he is in the little clearing where he and Magnus meet for training. He's waiting for Magnus to arrive, checking the straps of Arthur's shield while he waits, and doing his best to clear his head and focus up on what he has determined they need to focus on today.

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[quote_gentle_unquote]

So subtly as to be nearly imperceptible, Susan stills; her unflinching gaze becomes a shade more watchful. Carefully - around the warning klaxons blaring deep inside her - she asks, "Is that something you might want? Marriage and children?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

He cannot help it; there is something to the way her posture changes, something in her gaze that turns that swell of warmth into a warning.

(He thinks, briefly, of the way it sometimes seemed the temperature in the room would change when Guinever was feeling fragile. It was worst, of course, when he came to her after Corbenic, prefacing everything with phrases meant to ease her at his own expense, that yet did nothing of the sort. Guinever and Susan are, in nearly every way, not alike. And yet.)

Lancelot sits back a little -- bracing himself, perhaps. But he does keep her hand in his.

"It was," he begins, "the sort of thing I always expected. The sort of thing that was assumed. I had no lands, any longer, to pass to a son, but that can be changed. Once I came to court, and came to love the Queen, I put all such thoughts aside. None of that was for me. Those were not things I could ever hope for, and that was well enough because I loved her so. Now--"

He stops, makes an effort to make himself not sit rigid, to not anticipate a blow.

"Here I spend time with Sunny, and it is so joyous. I-- the day that some were changed to children, I was with Galahad and it hurt to think I never had him by me as he should have been, that his mother gave him over to be raised the way he was. I would have..." Lancelot stops, takes a breath. It doesn't help. Around the tightness in his chest, he says, "I do not know that I want that. Or that I might. I only know, now, that I kept myself from it and that no good came from it. We all of us were hurt, and then badly wounded, or worse. And now I do not know what I wanted, except that I wanted -- or I would have wanted -- to love them and care for them and ease them, and that I did none of them any good."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan kisses him again then, partly to ease her racing mind, partly to give herself time to sort out her reaction. But she oughtn't let it run too long - she shouldn't want Lancelot to think she's trying to distract him from the conversation.

She hasn't got anything sorted out by the time she draws away. "When you say you were all hurt and that you did no one any good- do you mean you and Arthur and Guinever, or you and Galahad, or just Galahad and Arthur and Guinever, or --?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"All of us," tightly. He has to clear his throat, glance away.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"And," she says, soldiering on, "my love, when you say you did none of them any good, what precisely do you mean by that?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"They came to harm, we all did. If I had-- if I had chosen differently, held to what I was meant for, I could have spared us all."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"'Spared' how?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

His free hand comes up to rub at his forehead, "I don't know. It aches, that's all."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Your love isn't something to be borne, or suffered," Susan says, squeezing his fingers between hers and moving her other hand to lift his gently away from his forehead, then folds it against his chest, over his heart. "You don't make lives worse for being in them. You know that, right?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot freezes, for half a breath, and then looks at her directly.

Susan is so beautiful. She means what she says. She is always honest. In so many ways, she is like enough to himself to really understand him.

She believes this to be true.

Lancelot shakes his head a little. He isn't disagreeing, exactly, but neither can he say he knows this. (It has been, what? A year perhaps? A blink. There is plenty of time for things to turn sour.)

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Lancelot," says Susan, a little more sternly now that she's captured his attention. "A life spared your involvement wouldn't bring ease or comfort. Goodness knows I understand having regrets, but you oughtn't regret your love."

[lanselos_du_lac]

A strange little breathless laugh escapes him, and before he can stop himself he says, "It isn't my love I regret."

As soon as he's said it, he realizes he doesn't quite know what he means. He does not regret loving anyone, any of them. He holds all of that dear, he refuses to relent. He isn't even certain he minds the cost to himself of that love. It's only that--

"I don't want my love to tear everything down. To twist things. I don't... I want to feel I've done right by those that matter to me."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Very well," says Susan, nodding once. She lifts his hands and kisses them, each one in turn, a soft kiss to his knuckles. "You want to feel like you've done right by those who matter to you. What would this look like?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

By now he's so tangled in his thoughts, in what he feels, that this practical question is bewildering. Lancelot's fingers tighten around hers.

"Christ," he says, giving her a searching look, "I don't know."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Let's start with a simpler version of the question," she hopes! "What might make you look at me and think, yes. I've done right by Susan?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

At last there's the faintest relaxing of his expression, his demeanor. "Oh-- I see that when I've done thy tea correctly. Or when we have a good talk. Or when I can know I've understood something important or of interest to thee. Or after we have lain together, and I know I've pleased thee well."

Then, after barely a beat, he finishes, "But these are small things."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

She releases one of his hands to cup her own over his cheek. "You sweet, silly man," she says. "Oh, you're so terribly good. So you get the sense that you've done right by me when I seem content as a result of your actions?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

He flushes but says, "Yes, of course."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

She smiles at him then, that same small genuine smile he gets so often from her. "And what would make you think, I've done right by Laertes?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"I suppose," thoughtfully, "when I can see that I've helped him with his home, with making his family happier or more comfortable. The work I do in the garden, that I think will help all of us, come Dark. When-- when he lights up and I know I've surprised or pleased him somehow. But again-- these things are small. They're only what I would do any day. I cannot know how things will turn out, or when I might err, with either of you."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"You may rest assured that I've never been given to holding my tongue," says Susan, with only the faintest tinge of ruefulness to her tone. If Lancelot were to err, in some indefinable way that she can't at all envision, it isn't as if she'd hold it close to her chest and let it fester. She'd address it straightaway, and they'd come to some sort of resolution. Or not, she supposes, but she doesn't want to think of that possibility, and so she does not.

Something else, though, has drawn her attention. "Why does the size of your - actions, I suppose - matter?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"It isn't as if I'm doing great deeds," with a tiny shrug, "these are all ordinary things. I suppose-- I don't know, exactly, why it seems to matter."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Were your relationships with Arthur and Guinever comprised primarily of great deeds?" Susan wonders, and then tilts her head. "What makes you feel as if a friend or a lover has done right by you? Me, or Laertes, or Grantaire... or Sagramore, I suppose, or any of your other friends?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Well," he begins, "it sometimes feels that way to me. My service to the King, the honour paid to Guinever. We had some similar smaller day-to-day things, but... perhaps my thinking on this has changed, since arriving here. As for thine other question, that has changed as well. With any of those I love, here, things are very different. I feel best when I know thou'rt all open with me, honest, and that thou'llt help me when I struggle."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan considers all this with pursed lips and a little hum. "I suppose it might be difficult to feel mundane about a relationship with royalty, even if they are incredibly dear to you," she says, eventually. She'd never had that problem in Narnia, but then again, she was the royalty.