A Thief and a Queen

Page 23

Written for OQ Fix It Fic Week Day 4: The events after 4A never happened day

Used the suggested prompt: Regina and Robin discover that they met and fell in love in the EF until Cora found them, separated them and put a memory curse on them

Regina pushed Isaac into a chair and used magic to bind his hands to the armrests, just in case. He struggled against the bindings, pulling his arms up a few times before he settled back down. Isaac rolled his eyes at her. "Is this necessary?"

"Since you have a tendency to run," she said, leaning against a table and crossing her arms. "Yes."

He rolled his eyes. "Okay, what do you want? Your happy ending too? I know you've certainly have had your share of hard knocks. Out of all my characters, you seem to get screwed over the most."

She let a wry laugh, believing that to be the biggest understatement she had ever heard. But Regina shook her head. "I have my happy ending. I feel I finally belong somewhere. I belong here, in Storybrooke, with my family and my friends."

"Someone's sounding a bit like Snow White," Isaac taunted her. He then pulled against the bindings again. "So why do you want me here?"

"We want to talk," she replied.

He frowned. "We?"

"Yes." Robin emerged from the shadows of her vault, leaning against a spot on the table next to her and crossing his arms as well. He smirked at Isaac. "We."

Isaac's cocky demeanor melted away and his eyes widened. "I heard you two were together here. I figured this day would come."

They glanced at each other, both frowning in confusion. Regina let her arms fall as she stood up straighter. "What day?"

"You mean you haven't figured it out?" he asked, narrowing his eyes as he studied him. "You haven't guessed the truth?"

"The truth?" Robin echoed, his own arms falling to his side as he stared at Isaac.

Regina reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a folded-up piece of paper. She opened it up, revealing the image of her younger self kissing Robin in the tavern where Tinkerbell had first shown her the Man with the Lion Tattoo. Holding it up, she showed it to Isaac. "Are you talking about this?"

His mouth fell open and he looked up at her, surprise in his eyes. "Where did you get that?"

"It appeared one day while I was in the library," Robin said. "Was it your doing? Were you trying to give us a message from the book?"

Isaac shook his head and Regina frowned. "What is it then? Is it an alternate version? A cruel joke? A sign that we can change our stories? What is it?"

"It's not supposed to exist," he snapped. "Your mother destroyed it decades ago."

Regina's heart nearly stopped when she heard her mother was involved. Her hands shook as she pulled the paper close to her chest and Robin wrapped his arm around her. "What does my mother have to do with this?"

Isaac sighed. "That is the real page twenty-three from the book. She destroyed your real story so that everyone's memories changed to hide the truth—you went into the tavern that night, Regina, and met the man with the lion tattoo."

*****

"Whiskey?" Robin asked, holding out a glass filled with the amber liquid to her.