What Once Was Mine (Marianas Trench Ever After Album fanfic)

What Once Was Mine Chapter Twelve

I changed chapter eleven a little bit on 12/04/2016 so if you read it before that point, go back and read it again. 

Haha finally. It's done. Not quite what I was hoping, not quite what I was expecting, but it's done. The ending's a lot less dark than I'd anticipated it to be when I was coming up with it a week ago, but it's nice. Enjoy this conclusion of a very terrible series!

Chapter Twelve-No Place Like Home

The Queen fell, and the battle was over. The king once again ruled the kingdom. Now it was time for the boy to return from whence he came.

King's P.O.V.

[The King no longer an outcast, retook the throne.]

At last, it was all over. I regained the throne, and with the help of all the other toys, we rebuilt the kingdom, starting with the village. It was a tough job, but it had to be done. We built one house after the other. When tired, builders rested at the palace, while others took their place. Those unable to help with the building cooked, cleaned, or attended to the workers. Eventually the kingdom returned to the way it had been for a long time before Carolina's rule.

Peaceful.

Josh's P.O.V.

We returned, and all of our memories flooded back to us. Porcelain was the girl who had left the orphanage three years ago. The orphanage had told the children that she had been adopted, but I knew better.

And I did know better. I was unloved. An orphan. I had no loving family to return to.

"Josh," Porcelain utters, "I think we just made a big mistake."

Her real name is Stella, and she has been my best friends since I was three years old. When she disappeared, I was distraught. The others bought the story that the orphanage spun, but not me, never me. For weeks I cried for her. Despite being younger, she'd always been stronger than I was.

Now we were back, both back, and once again I wanted to cry. Though this time it was not completely out of sadness.

"We're-" I gulped. "We're doomed.

Life was back to normal- back to scrubbing the floors and waiting for a family that will never come.

[Porcelain and I went home, but found that after everything we'd been through, it no longer felt like home.]

Weeks passed. No one remembered that Stella had disappeared. No one realized that I had disappeared.

Stella adapted to the situation. She relearned the routine, discovered old friends, and did well in her studies. Meanwhile I continued to struggle, with both studying and sleeping. Every night I had a similar nightmare, each containing either Carolina or the Prince.

"Are you okay?" Emily asks me. Despite knowing Stella for longer, I felt closer to Emily, especially in these last years. She was like my little sister.

"Yeah," I lie to her, "I'm fine."

She nods, knowing I don't want to talk. She continues to scrub the stairs. I finish my step and move up one.

"It's just Por- I mean, Stella..."

"It's weird, isn't it?" Emily asks. "That she came back after all these years, I mean."

I stared at her. Unlike the rest of the orphanage, she remembered that Stella had disappeared for three years.

"And everyone acts all weird around her too. Like they all know her, though she's been gone all this time." She looks at me with a pensive expression. "She was gone right? I'm not crazy?"

"No, you're not," I tell her, a little stunned.

She still remembered. Somehow, she still remembered. I don't know what to make of this, but it's not something that I care to question. She runs her fingers through her hair, looking relieved at my answer.

"I was worried I was the only one," she says, smiling.

We finish scrubbing the stairs, not mentioning Stella again for another two weeks.

"She's gone," Emily says to me. "Her new family seems nice."

Stella was gone, and this time, she'd actually been adopted. This time, she actually said goodbye.

By the time Stella left, she was a whole other person, different from the Porcelain I knew, and different from Stella who'd yet to go to Toyland. She was polite, the polar opposite of the original Stella, but she was also confident, unlike Porcelain, or at least, the Porcelain I knew in the short time I'd known her. Thinking back, I didn't really know her all that well.

"Lucky girl," I say, though it came out far more bitter than I meant it to.

Emily puts a hand on my shoulder. "You'll find your place in this world, I know it."

I know she means to comfort me, but in reality my time is running out. Teenagers aren't ideal. Prospective parents preferred babies and young children. Emily had a far higher chance of being adopted than I did. She was also more ideal personality-wise, being a hardworking and kind individual.

"I know what you're thinking," Emily tells me. "You think I'm a lot more likely to be adopted than you are."

She sits down on my bed beside me.

"But I'm just as bad as you are."

I give her a quizzical look. "How so?"

"The headmistress didn't want me to know, but I overheard them talking about me." She looks at me sadly. "No parent wants a child who'll die in a few years."

Tears start to form in her eyes. I hold her tightly in my arms. Soon we fall asleep together.

[So we chose to return to Toyland where we lived happily ever after.]

I don't know how it happened, but it just did. One moment I was in the human world, the next I was in Toyland with Emily. I got up, recognizing the landscape around us as the place I'd first met the Toy King. I shook Emily awake.

"Hm?" She murmured, rubbing her eyes. "Where are we?"

In the distance was the village, no longer the desolate wasteland it once was. Instead the village had risen, full of life and colour.

"Emily, we're home," I tell her. "And it's a hell of a lot better than where we came."

[The End]