Here we go: new chapter, new world, same old characters - or maybe not quite? The title is, I think, a far-from-subtle hint at where we are, but there's more to it than meets the eye. If things are a little confusing at first, don't worry - they're supposed to be, and the answers are coming. ;)

I've been receiving some truly lovely feedback and I want to thank you again for doing this, it really puts a smile on my face and gets my creative juices going. Enjoy!

There'd been a tornado, her mother had told her. Dorothy remembered a falling tree, too, though her parents had never mentioned that and when she did, father frowned in disgust and mother shrank back in some inexplicable fear. She stopped mentioning it, even though she couldn't get it out of her head. Maybe the tree had only been part of her nightmares, not an actual memory.

Nightmares kept her constant company. Her world was small and confined, and so were her dreams, largely populated by the only two people she'd come in regular contact with. One of her recurring dreams was of her saving her parents from a broken branch threatening to crush them. Why it was a nightmare she couldn't have said, for surely them surviving was good news? Perhaps it was the end of the dream, the two pairs of eyes gazing at her from a cold, hostile darkness: her mother's pouring tears and her father's cold and framed by bushy brows furrowed with fury and repulsion. She'd wake up sweaty and trembling, and there'd be no more sleep those nights.

Dorothy hadn't always been unhappy. In fact, it hadn't even occurred to her to consider her fate an unlucky one while mother had still lived. Surely every family had their problems, right? So maybe her father was cold, maybe he saw a worthier object of affection at the bottom of a glass than looking at his daughter. Wasn't it normal for fathers to be a little stand-offish with their daughters anyway? Maybe if he'd had a son. Or if she tried harder.

Maybe it was her fault.

Mother had loved her. Then she was gone, and things changed.

Father, well, he'd merely tolerated her - because of her mother, it turned out after she'd died and everything went from bad to worse. Dorothy tiptoed around him. She steered clear of him when he was too intoxicated or in too dark a mood. When he did suffer her around, her hunger for love and approval would surface in all kinds of desperate acts, little kindnesses and extra treats he never appreciated or even acknowledged. She even played barmaid to him, pouring one drink after another, and when she dared ask if he hadn't better stop now, the mildest response was an ugly glare. And that was when she hadn't done anything odd to provoke him.

Odd was unwelcome. It was wicked.

Dorothy could do things. More precisely, things happened to her, through her, without her having much say in the matter. Unnatural things. Hiding them had become second nature to her, although she was prone to failure often enough, especially when she was upset. Fear would make them come out, and on the rare occasion that anger over her unfair, twisted life got the best of her, Dorothy would lose control so badly she'd end up curled on the bed in the corner of her room. And she'd feel such tremendous guilt, such shame, such confusion. None of which she had anyone to talk to about.

Something was wrong with her. She would have done anything to change. She didn't know how.

Maybe it was all her fault.

Eventually, she'd rock herself to a restless sleep.

They had a ritual, one they'd indulged in ever since she was old enough to be trusted with a blade. No, that's not true. The chore had belonged to mother, but now she wasn't there anymore to do it, so Dorothy had taken over.

It was shaving day. Everything was prepared with special care. She could do this, he'd see. Perhaps she'd even earn herself a warm look after ages. Praise would be entirely too much to expect or even process. Perhaps a brief, barely audible thanks was something she could hope for if she did well and he was in a good mood.

His foam-covered face scrunched up as she approached it with the blade in hand. It always did. It didn't matter, because she'd give him no reason to today. He'd see. The blade was razor-sharp, its path slippery, and her hand so gentle for fear of causing him injury that it merely slid off the skin ineffectually on first stroke. She pressed gently, scraping off foam and stubble. No blood. Good. She risked a smile and a look at him.

His stare was icy and left absolutely no room for doubt: I don't want you here.

Her hand slipped.

Her father yelped.

Quick, something to clean him up with. Dorothy snatched a kerchief from thin air. She hadn't been planning on it, she had merely needed one. The oddity in her seemed to respond to such impulses sometimes. Often. This time it had produced a handkerchief for her.

Her father yelled. The words he pelted her with stung like a hailstorm and left her soul bared and beaten.

The truth stared her in the face, finally revealed by the bland and brutal drunkard she'd called father all her life.

He wasn't her father after all. This man, this stranger, this pathetic drunk never wanted her. He never wanted the child his wife had so desperately desired to take in, but he'd agreed to it all the same. Perhaps it would've been better if he'd just refused to altogether.

It was time to leave. Where for, she didn't know. Just away from here.

Perhaps she could look for her family, find out why they'd done this to her.

Mothers didn't just abandon their babies. Something must have been wrong with her even then. No one wanted her.

It had always been her fault.

Who am I?

She retrieved her pocket mirror, one of the few possessions she'd been attached to ever since she remembered, and also one of the very few things she'd taken with her when she'd finally left the house and her father - no, not her father - behind. She surveyed her reflection.

Her forehead was crinkled with emotion, a vein prominent under the skin - it had a way of doing that when some intense battle was raging inside her. Her mouth was set, and there was a small but striking scar above her upper lip. The crease in her forehead deepened. How had that scar gotten there? She must always have had it. Perhaps she'd been born with it, or got it when she was too small to remember. Before her adoptive parents took her in, maybe. Why hadn't she ever asked? Or had she?

With her eyes tightly shut, she ran her fingers through her hair. The carved handle dug into her skin as she clutched the mirror, staring at her reflection once again. Her hair was long, braided, black. Was it supposed to be black? Hadn't it been flashes of red in the mirror just the day before? Had it ever been red?

Nothing made sense anymore. She held the mirror at arm's length, almost overcome by the sudden urge to throw it, to watch it shatter to a million pieces. The world was being pulled from underneath her feet. Everything she'd known, or thought she'd known, was a fraud. Perhaps she was going crazy. Perhaps her powers were indeed wicked. Perhaps they would destroy her, drive her insane.

She stared at her reflection with wild eyes, scared of her own image, yet full of the desire to smash it at the same time. Her voice came out strange, much too dark and much too tearful, when she shouted her frustration into the looking glass and heard a broken sob instead.

"Who am I?"

The forest made no answer but the rustle of leaves; neither did the dark waters of the tumbledown well stir. She leaned over the stone rim and gazed into the depth. How deep down would she have to go to find answers? Were there out there, at the bottom of a well like this, real or figurative but certainly dark and desolate, not unlike her soul?

"Who am I?" she whispered into the abyss.

"Only you can decide that."

The honeyed voice had come from inches away. She whipped around, but there seemed to be no physical form attached to the sound. Was she hearing voices now?

"Wh- who are you?"

"Now that I can answer." The night shone white for a moment, and when it faded again, a white-clad woman stood before her. "My name is Glinda."

"The Good Witch of the South?" The Witch was legendary in Oz, of course, but hadn't been sighted in ages. For all anyone knew, she might as well be a mere legend.

"One and the same."

Glinda stepped closer, looking her over from head to foot, completely disregarding the concept of personal space. The uninvited closeness and the brazen look surely did nothing to spark much trust.

"They call me Dorothy," she said flatly, taking a step back. They did call her that - at least they had. But now the name, like everything else, had become strange and alien. It didn't seem to belong to her anymore. Even her own body wasn't what she remembered: the hair, the scar…the eyes. Weren't they different, too? Her throat constricted with a stifled cry. Who the hell am I? "I'm looking for my past. My real roots. Do you know anything?"

Her hands shot up as the words spilled over her lips, and wrapped around her torso in a self-hug.

Glinda tilted her head. "Oh, yes. And so do you."

"No, I don't. That's the problem."

"Indeed."

Was the damn witch mocking her? But there was such kindness in her tone and eyes both, now that she looked more closely.

"I don't understand."

"The memories are there. Closed away from your consciousness, but they exist. You wouldn't have noticed anything suspicious if they didn't."

"Like the hair. Or the scar." She touched a stray raven lock, then tucked it out of sight with an utterly irrational sting of anger. Glinda's forehead crinkled as she turned on her. "How do I remember?"

Glinda wasn't intimidated, though; she might look harmless but she didn't scare easily.

"The first thing you must ask yourself is: are you absolutely certain you want to remember?"

"Why wouldn't I? It can't be worse than this, can it?" Glinda's wry smile sent shivers down her spine and a chill through her heart. Her grip on herself tightened as her exasperation ebbed away and gave way to anxiety instead. "Can it?"

"Again, only you can answer that."

"But to do that, I need to remember first!"

"Yes. It's a vicious circle," Glinda nodded. "There's no way back when you do." She recoiled as a white hand reached up to her cheek. The witch's fingers seemed to glow ever so faintly in the darkness. They were surprisingly cold. "Don't answer now. Think about it. Take tonight."

The rock cut and pressed into her skin, but she clung to it all the same.

Glinda had disappeared and no matter how many times she called for her, there was no response, not even when she repeated the words that had worked as a password previously, the words that played over and over in her head like a broken record: who am I, who am I, who am I… A broken record? What did that even mean? She shook her head, bit her lips, probed the mystery scar with the tip of her tongue.

Having no one to talk to, she addressed the clearing at large. "My whole life has been a lie. If my other self keeps resurfacing like this, it'll only drive me insane, unless I know why."

Glinda didn't seem too keen on helping her, or perhaps that was precisely her way of helping. Whatever she had lost must have been complicated at best. Even that other, forgotten part of her hadn't had a fairytale life, it would seem. Would the self-proclaimed witch respect her decision eventually? Was she merely being played? Glinda hadn't, after all, shown a single sign of her magical abilities. Unless you counted her sudden appearance, but many a trickster could perform similar sleights. Perhaps she could try her powers on this woman. If Glinda was indeed magical, surely she'd be no match for a confused girl who'd never been able to repress or control her own powers.

Who am I, who am I, who am I…

Her head buzzed with the mantra, the rhythm of which finally cradled her to sleep right there, curled up against the cold, hard forest floor.

And she dreamed, and it was unlike anything she'd dreamed before. When she woke, her head ached from having rested again the weathered stone of the well. She remembered nothing of the quickly flashing images rushing before her eyes. But she remembered words - words spoken to her. About her.

Child. My apprentice. My wife. Your Majesty. Evil witch. Madam Mayor. Mom.

She buried her face in her hands and felt the hot dampness of falling tears on her fingers.

"I want whatever else there is of me," she declared without a waver in her voice once Glinda had reappeared along with the rising sun.

The witch smiled. "Very well."

That was easy. Was it a trick? It almost seemed as if this was what the witch had wanted to hear all along, except it made no sense because Glinda had no reason to particularly care about her plight.

"Give me a hand," Glinda gestured, leaning over the well. "I'm not strong enough to do it alone."

That didn't bode very well, did it? "I- don't know how."

"That will sort itself out soon enough - more or less. Just focus your emotions on this. Use your desire to know."

She closed her eyes. There was no need to see as well as sense her failure. For the first time, someone was asking her to use her powers rather than repress them. The problem was, she knew nothing about how to properly do either. But she wanted to. She wanted to know everything there was to know.

A strange warmth seeped into - or from?- her fingertips, spread into her palms, and a flash of bright light sprung up at the back of her closed eyelids. Her hands weren't empty anymore. Something heavy was weighing down on her arms, large and rough once, but now the edges had been dulled by time, and frayed.

She looked at Glinda rather than the large book she was holding.

"Whenever you're ready," the witch nodded.

The book was indeed huge and thick, and ancient. The inscription on the cover was in some strange, exotic runic writing she'd never seen before. Yet the longer she looked, the more familiar the symbols seemed, and soon the words sprung out at her as if she'd always read Elvish: The Book of Records.

Biting her lip, she inserted her finger at a random spot between the yellowed pages and flipped the tome open.

The blast of knowledge she'd expected to occur like a candle flickering to life failed to come. Instead, she was a hollow vessel into which water began to trickle, gently first, slowly. Then memories were pouring back into her like a raging storm, filling her to the brim, threatening to overflow. She heard cries of pain, wails of loss, burning rage, cold anger, the poisonous sting of malicious words, concealed cries for help in the all-engulfing darkness, and an occasional rare spell of laughter - all without realising they were her own, that they were reoccurring now as she was reliving everything again.

It ended as abruptly as it had begun.

She was on he floor, her back against the cold well, and Glinda was crouching opposite, watching her face with sympathy and maybe a grain of anxiety.

No words came. Not just yet. So she just nodded: she remembered.

Glinda smiled.

"Welcome back, Regina."

Regina sat on the edge of the well fingering the spine of the book. It was so much like Henry's. Perhaps the two were somehow related. Now wasn't the time to find out, however; there were more pressing matters to deal with. Because now she remembered who she was, and what she had lost.

"Why couldn't you just have told me earlier?"

"It was essential for things to start sinking in before I intervened."

Of course it had been. All magic came with a price. The torture of the crisis of identity was likely just one small part of this particular price. Her work had only just begun, and there would still probably be hell to pay.

At least now it would be back to her own hell.

"Is this- It's Zelena's memories, her life I led here, isn't it?"

"Correct."

Regina recoiled. She and her sister had much in common - much more than either of them knew, or had known. Neither had anything to envy the other. No, this wasn't the time for outbursts of sisterly emotion either.

"This is not how the time warp was supposed to work. I was supposed to never have existed."

"You meddled with the ingredients," Glinda pointed out, "and the slippers did part of the job, too."

Oh, the baby. Of course. Regina had snatched it from harm's way. The spell must have been bastardised. The slippers, apparently, had done their job, even though she didn't quite understand which part of this mess that had been. The travel, for sure. Would she have been erased if she hadn't had the slippers, the way Zelena had planned? Or would she have survived in some other form, since the time portal had been tampered with? Either way, it didn't matter much.

It was time to focus on what needed to be done.

"So Zelena and I have switched places?"

"It would seem so, though I expect much has changed in the Enchanted Forest at this point."

"What must I do?"

"Retrieve the brain, the courage, and your heart. Then you'll be able to defeat Zelena."

Again. A nagging doubt registered somewhere at the periphery of her consciousness, a doubt that might have had something to do with the white magic this would undoubtedly call for. She'd produced it once, she'd have to find a way again.

"And when I have? Then what?"

"You'll return to Storybrooke. All of you."

"Henry?" Because in the end, he was always the one that mattered before anyone else. Yes, there were others Regina cared about: a certain outlaw, a certain princess… Those must have been swept by the time portal and ended up here, which meant they would return to Storybrooke with her. Henry was different, he'd never belonged to this world. Would he be safe, would she find him back home?

Glinda nodded, and Regina let out a breath and grinned. "It'll be as if this warp had never happened," Glinda explained, "but since it's not technically time travel, you'll all retain your memories of it."

No, it wasn't exactly time travel. It sounded more like an alternate universe of sorts. Weird, but better. This way she wouldn't have to worry about involuntarily changing a thing in the past and launching a massive chain reaction in the future.

"Can't you do it? Or help?" It was unlike her to ask for help. Regina'd always liked to take care of matters herself. But this she had little experience in. Being a hero was still new and sent jolts of panic through her stomach.

"Zelena stripped me of my powers. What I have left is far too little to be a threat to her or, indeed, much use to you. You felt it yourself: I barely have any warmth left in me, despite the remnants of light."

Regina traced the runes on the book cover absent-mindedly. How strange everything was: here was a good witch running out of white magic, and a once evil witch called to the rescue, a feat that would require that she fill herself with light instead of dark. Life had a strange sense of humour.

"I'll go straight away." She glanced down at her feet. Her shoes looked just as they always had in Oz, the same worn, peeling leather.

Glinda reached out, and the moment she did, the slippers materialised in her hands.

"One other thing, Regina," she withdrew the shoes as Regina made to take them. "The people you'll meet aren't the same people you'd once known. Their new lives have shaped them, and as far as they're concerned, the old ones had never existed. Keep that in mind."

Regina nodded slowly, an indistinct chill running through her. Was it possible that Snow wasn't Snow and Robin wasn't Robin in this twisted new world? How could they be anyone else?

Easy. Just a while ago, she'd been someone else. Even now, she wasn't the exact same Regina she'd been before walking a mile in Zelena's shoes.

Regina placed her feet into the ludicrous footwear. If this time warp could be undone, if that was what it took to get her family back, well then undo it she would.