Every Queen Fanfiction, Ever.

Epilogue - I Still Love You

It was January 2016. It had snowed in London, and a couple of two sixty-year-olds, a man and a woman, were walking through the snow.

"Rod, can I stop here for a moment?" the woman said to her husband, pointing at a coffee bar they were just passing. A chalkboard standing before this establishment said: 'JOE'S COFFEE BAR: GRAND RE-OPENING', with a cartoon picture of a woman drinking coffee under it. "I really want to go there. It reminds me of when I was young. I went to Joe's many times in the late sixties. They had really good latte macchiato there..."

Rod shrugged and said: "Okay, honey, if y'want it..."

"But Rod," the woman replied, "I actually wanted to go to Joe's alone, you understand? You can go to the pub if you want. I can get you ten quid for a pint..." she said, while pulling a £10 bill out of her wallet. "Especially for you, dear."

"Ta," he said. He kissed his wife on her forehead and walked away.

Now her husband was gone, the woman could finally go to Joe's. But she wouldn't be there all alone. She didn't knew there was someone waiting for her in the coffee bar.

The woman looked around. Joe's had changed a lot since she had came there for the last time: a grinning, bearded barista with arms full of tattoos was getting the coffee for his customers ready, almost all furniture was made of rough lumber, and the walls were covered with posters, most of them with lame puns on 'coffee'.

Then, the woman heard a familiar voice over the sappy John Mayer and John Legend ballads that came through the speakers of Joe's.

"Abigail? Is that... Is that you?"

"Yes, yes it is," the woman said, while turning around. Then, she saw the person who had called her name.

It was a man of roughly her age. He was tall, and his hair could be described at best as a big, grey-white colored mane of curls, something you didn't see that often anymore with people his age. 

"Blimey!" Abigail muttered.

"Remember me?" the curly man said, smiling a bit.

"Kinda..." Abigail said, thinking who this man could or should be. He looked familiar. Suspiciously familiar.

"Wait. You look like someone I knew from a very long time ago. It was a tall young man called Brian with an afro. He was my first real love. I have never, never forgotten him. Even after that little incident at a stereo card store."

"Oh well, I remember that like it was yesterday," the curly man replied. "I was young and unthinking."

"How do you know tha-" Abigail said, until she looked at the man again and realized her assumptions were true. "Bloody heavens, Brian, I hadn't recognized you like this!"

"I can understand that," Brian said. "The years haven't been particularly kind to me. Anyway, fancy a cuppa? I'll pay for you."

"Oh, that's sweet from you," Abigail said, smiling. "Can you order a latte macchiato for me? I'll seek a nice place where we can sit together!"

Not soon after Abigail picked a place, Brian returned with a latte macchiato (for her) and a tea (for himself).

"Goodness, Brian," she said, while sipping on her latte macchiato (it tasted just like it used to taste). "I'd never thought I'd run into you again! Especially since I'm a married woman..."

"You're married?" Brian said in surprise.

"Yes. To a wonderful man called Rodney. My name has been O'Scoundrel for over three decades now," Abigail said, smiling. "He has been bullying me for a long time, until he confessed to me once that he, in fact, was in love with me. In fact, that was the very day I saw you for the last time. He handed me a tissue, and then I knew this was true love. We fell in love with eachother, got engaged, and we finally got married in the spring of '79."

"Do you also have children?" 

"Yes, I have three beautiful children with Rod. Want to see them?"

"Sure," Brian said, while sipping his tea.

Abigail got hold of her wallet and showed Brian an old photo which was inside this wallet, along with some props like an old, creased stereo card showing Neuschwanstein Castle. It showed three children, a girl and two boys, probably taken in the early 90s.

She pointed at one of the two boys on the photo. "This is my oldest son, Fyodor. He was born in 1981 and we named him after my favourite writer, Fyodor Dostoyevsky."

"Hm..." Brian said.

Then, Abigail pointed at the girl. "That's my only daughter, Agrippina. Named after the mother of the Roman emperor Nero. I always have thought she had such a beautiful name..."

"She looks just like you," Brian remarked. Abigail smiled.

Then, she pointed at the last boy. "Brian? Do you know how we named our last child?" Abigail said with a big smile on her face.

"I honestly won't know. After all, I haven't seen you in more than forty years... But judging by the names of your other children, I assume it'll be a very... exotic name." he said.

Abigail laughed and said: "No. His name is Brian, Brian."

"Named after...?"

 "You."

"After me?!" Brian said in surprise.

 "I... I never told Rodney. I always said to him that it was my dead grandfather's name."

"Why? Why would you do something like that, Abigail?"

"I still love you, Brian. I still do," she said.

"You do?"

Then, the couple fell silent. They stared at eachother for a while. And then, they fell into eachother's arms, after forty-seven long years. 

"Tell Rodney he can stay in that... bloody pub," Abigail said in Brian's tight embrace.

John Legend was still singing sappy ballads.

And Lady Fortune knew they'd be happy. She had known it, all the time.

The End