The Life We Left Behind

A tiny, shocking and impossible surprise

It all looked and felt just so very, very odd. The four of them had lunch together, on kind of a double date – but then it was also inside her old palace, and even though it looked much brighter and less intimidating now that it wasn't ruled by the terror of a real ‚Evil Queen' anymore, their homey meatloaf with peas and mashed potatoes and their cute little glasses of house made lemonade that they ate and drank at that long medieval table in the dining hall that Regina still remembered all too well from countless lonely meals, simply felt awkwardly out of place.

Also, even though she was basically having lunch with herself, she was still struggling to come up with a proper conversation topic. Thankfully, Killian eventually cleared his throat to break the silence: „Well, I don't know whether this meal comes from cooking or from magic, but it's delicious, Re... Regina? If... that's your name?"

„Of course that's my name, what else should be my name? I don't have the distinction of being named after a random object replacing any missing body parts, such as yourself."

„Right... I can see that."

„So", the original Regina finally found back her words, „tell us again how the two of you ended up living here?"

Her other half raised a disapproving eyebrow. She certainly wasn't evil anymore, that much was easy to see, but apparently she was still sassy and easily irritable.

„Well, whatever happened to you since last we met must have seriously messed with your head, it seems."

„What do you mean?"

„Why are you so surprised to see me here? You know I live here? We met, Regina, right here!"

She frowned in disbelief. „What?! When?"

„Some years ago, I don't know when... when you were stuck here during the final battle against the Black Fairy, don't you remember?"

She thought about it for a moment, then her eyes widened as the memories came back to her. „Actually... yes! Yes, I do. Now that you mention it... I completely forgot that that was real!"

„Well", she cut off another piece of meatloaf, let it disappear in her mouth along with a few peas covered by a blanket of mashed potatoes and chewed, „I would have hoped that my selfless act of basically sacrificing myself for all of you boring Storybrooke people would have been a bit more memorable than that..."

„Oh my God, that's right! You... you did that! I remember now!"

„Well, good! Bit late, but... thank you."

„We made it back to Storybrooke right after. And then, what happened to you?"

„Well, I was back, my castle was back... Robin came back after he had been out with Friar Tuck, he claims he hadn't even noticed that anything had happened at all. And then we just moved on with our lives. We, uhm...", she looked at Robin with a loving little smile like Regina had never seen on her ‚evil' half before and gently placed her hand on his, and only now did she notice the diamond ring on her finger, „well, Robin proposed, we got married. And how does this line go? We've lived happily ever since."

Regina took a long look at her and smiled, a smile that came deep from within her heart, and even though that basically meant that her evil half had gotten to experience the joy of a loving relationship for much, much longer than she had herself, even though she was supposed to be the ‚good' one with the happy ending, she was absolutely sincere. „Congratulations! I'm so happy for you! Really, I am. You deserve this. I always had a feeling that the two of you ended up together."

„Of course you did, because I told you when we met, which you have forgotten all about, but... anyway, thank you very much, I know I deserve this! I had to suffer too much in life not to. We both did... So, how about you? How did this curious", she gestured back and forth between Regina and Killian with her knife, „combination come to pass?"