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The sound of music emanating from her office puts Regina immediately on her guard. It's old, something from the collection of records from the 30s or 40s that she acquired at some point to amuse herself during her curse. The selection doesn't immediately expose the nature of her intruder; indeed, it confuses the matter further. Who would break into the mayor's office in a town running amok just to listen to some old record?
Perhaps she shouldn't be so surprised to find Maleficent here, telltale flaxen curls bathed in the grey light of early morning, sitting on the floor next to the spot where her record player sits, arms folded on the table as she watches the record spin. Then again, the sight of Maleficent has always been uniquely breathtaking.
"You can operate machinery after all," says Regina, far less sharply than she'd intended. "I'm impressed."
Maleficent doesn't even look up in acknowledgement. "Of all the useless inventions I've encountered here," she says quietly, voice slightly muffled by the fabric of her sleeves, "I like this one the most."
Regina scoffs. "Why?"
Maleficent hums thoughtfully. "Back in the Old World, if you wanted to hear music, you had to enchant something to play it for you."
"Or you could have asked someone," Regina retorts as she hangs her coat.
"Don't be ridiculous," Maleficent replies dismissively. The song ends and she moves at last, but it's only to pick up the needle and reset it to the beginning. Regina recognizes it now—Rodgers and Hart.
"You know," Regina dares a gradual approach, "if you're just going to listen to one song on repeat, there are easier ways."
"Now, Regina, I said I liked something from your New World. Have you come just to spoil my good humour?"
"You're the one intruding, Maleficent," says Regina, but still she can't find it in herself to put any bite in her words.
Maleficent looks up at last. Even with her features mostly shrouded in shadow, Regina can see the way her eyes sparkle with mischief. "Oh, I am sorry, you must be very busy."
Regina doesn't quite laugh. "It isn't that. I thought you were someone else."
Maleficent rises. Even devoid of her magic, there's still a superhuman grace about the way she moves that sets her apart from the mere mortal she appears. "You receive many early morning visitors?" she wonders crisply. "Who else would it be, I wonder? Your pretty curse-breaker? Her mother, little Princess Snowflake?" She takes measured, purposeful steps towards Regina as she speaks. "Mister Gold, come to claim this music-playing contraption for his little shop of oddities?"
Regina averts her eyes, focuses her attention on turning on her desk lamp and moving papers around into meaningless piles. "I don't know," she says. "Maybe." She doesn't know how to explain that she doesn't know much of anything anymore—what's going on in this town that was supposed to be her refuge, or what's going on in the minds of the people whose motives she'd thought she understood perfectly.
Maleficent will not be ignored. She lays her hands within Regina's deliberately limited field of vision and leans over Regina's desk, and Regina is left with little choice but to look up.
"Did you need something, Maleficent?" Regina tries—she really tries—to sound irritated, or standoffish, or even aloof.
Maleficent's smirk indicates that she has been woefully unsuccessful. "Why, Regina, you wound me," she says, and her voice has taken on the warm, rich shade of mockery. "Have you no time for an old friend?"
Regina licks her lips without meaning to, turns her attention to tidying the stack of meaningless paperwork she's clutching for dear life. "What would we talk about?" she tries to scoff, gestures vaguely towards the record player. "Things that happened a hundred years ago?"
Maleficent chuckles airily and straightens her posture. "Oh, Regina," she says, almost sweetly. She returns to the record player and resets the needle again. "The years roll by," she continues as the music picks up again, "but a hundred years, to a steadfast heart—" she touches her hand to her own heart, and extends the other to Regina. "—are but a day."
Regina stares at Maleficent's outstretched hand, almost uncomprehending, still clutching the useless papers to her chest as though they might shield her.
Maleficent inclined her head thoughtfully. "Unless, of course, you would prefer to forget."
"I..." Regina speaks before she intends to, before she knows what she'll say, and swallows hard against whatever treacherous words might have followed. She sets her stack of papers down with painstaking slowness, feels trepidation running ice cold through her veins for reasons she can't quite define.
She doesn't know how to explain what has changed, or what hasn't.
She crosses the room with her eyes trained upon her feet, takes Maleficent's hand with her own even as it trembles. Maleficent places a long, slender finger beneath Regina's chin and wills her to look up, and Regina is surprised to find just the faintest glimmer of uncertainty hanging about her features.
"Would you?" Maleficent presses. "Prefer to forget?"
"No," Regina breathes without hesitation.
The corners of Maleficent's lips twitch into a subtle kind of smile, and there's a softness about her eyes that renders the expression more genuine than her usual smiles. She pulls Regina's hand up to her lips and presses a kiss against her knuckles, and then she draws Regina into her, wraps an arm about her waist and leads them into a slow, dramatic twirl fit for the center of a grand ballroom.
Regina feels a tingly sort of warmth spreading through her, feels herself beginning to smile as she allows herself to fall into step with Maleficent's old-fashioned dance, something that was out of style even by the time Regina attended dances in the Old World.
She considers teasing Maleficent to this effect, but the words catch in her throat. In the Old World, they would never have been afforded the opportunity to dance together in a grand ballroom, be the dance old-fashioned or new. If Maleficent wishes to make up for lost time, well, then, far be it from Regina to stop her.