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“And that’s why it’s essential that we have a ball!” Snow declared.
Regina blinked. She had tuned out Snow’s blathering at the town council meeting—the way she always did—but now she’d clearly missed something important.
“Come again?”
“I said”—and there was a hint of irritation under Snow’s cheery demeanor. Apparently, she hadn’t been subtle in not listening. “In that we have all those new residents from the Land of Untold Stories, it’s important to welcome them with a big event where everyone can meet each other.”
“Why a ball, though?” Emma put in. “Can’t we just have a potluck for once?”
Regina smiled gratefully at her. That was a much better idea.
But Snow had her counterargument ready. “It’s traditional there. We want to make them feel welcome, don’t we? And who doesn’t like a nice chance to wear a frilly dress?”
This was idiotic. But if she put it to a vote then she wouldn’t be the one shutting it down and making Snow pout. She put on her best mayor smile. “Let’s vote on it. All in favor?”
Her heart sank as she saw well more than half the council raise their hands.
She swallowed. “Alright, then. So Snow, since you’re our Welcome Wagon,” and she smiled her very fakest smile, “you’ll take charge of the preparations?”
“Of course! I’ll get right on the announcement so that everyone has time to find their dates!”
Dates?
**
“Hello?” Regina called. “Anyone home?” The sound echoed a bit off the rocks. She couldn’t understand why Maleficent had to move into some cave in the woods instead of living in a house like a normal person. Something about reconnecting with her roots. She shook her head in annoyance.
“Hello, little queen.” It was spoken directly into her ear like a caress, and she jumped.
“I hate it when you do that.”
“But I so love making you react,” Maleficent purred. Then she stepped back to a more respectable distance and crossed her arms, looking her up and down. “I’d ask to what I owe the pleasure of your visit, but I know why you’re here.”
Regina stared her down, hoping that the shock hadn’t made her blush. “Oh you do,” she said more than asked.
“You need a companion for that idiotic ball Snow White is throwing.”
“I might,” she acknowledged. “And if I did, I would remember that you and I always have a good time.” She let her eyes wander over Maleficent’s form to emphasize what her drawl implied.
“We do, though less so when you call out someone else’s name in the throes of passion. Or had you forgotten that? I haven’t.”
Regina had totally forgotten that little detail about their most recent tryst, and she suddenly needed to be somewhere, anywhere else. “Alright, I’ll just see myself out.”
Even poofing away didn’t get her away fast enough not to hear how hard Maleficent was laughing.
**
“Dr. Whale, do you have a moment?” Regina really shouldn’t be talking to him about this in Granny’s—privacy and all—but she hadn’t been able to catch him in his office for several days, so she might as well take the opportunity.
He turned around to face her in the line, and how did his facial expression go from neutral to slimy in a split second? “Oh you need me, huh?”
That was a strange way of putting it. “I suppose you could say that. I wanted to see if you have time in your schedule.”
“Oh yeah? For next week?”
“Yes, if that’s convenient for you.”
He snorted. “You must be desperate.”
She was taken aback by that. “I wouldn’t say that. But I have been trying to get ahold of you for days.”
“You’ve got a lotta nerve, lady.”
“I beg your pardon?” Now she was truly baffled.
“Just waltzing in here acting like I’m at your beck and call.”
“Well I didn’t want to discuss it here, but I saw the opportunity and decided to take it because it was convenient.” This was getting very annoying.
“I tried to lynch you!”
“Believe me, I recall. But you’re the only option in town so I have to let bygones be bygones. What is your problem, anyway?”
“You, thinking I would ever go with you to the ball. I don’t blame you, because I’m a catch. But I have standards, you know!”
Regina suddenly wanted to vomit. “Wherever did you get that truly revolting notion?”
“You just asked me if I’m free next week!”
Now she was angry. “Because Henry needs his checkup and I can’t make an appointment because your latest secretary quit because of sexual harassment. Exactly like the last four! Honestly.” She turned on her heel and stalked out of the diner, plan to get coffee forgotten.
**
When Regina went into the diner several days later, she had a vivid and nauseating memory of her last visit. Fortunately, Whale was nowhere in sight, and he had actually left a quite civil message later that afternoon confirming an appointment for Henry for next Friday. She really wished one of these endless curses would bring them another doctor sometime.
She shook off those thoughts, knowing she was just distracting herself from why she was really here. Which was of course what she’d been accused of last time she was here. But it certainly wasn’t Dr. Whale she intended to ask. Squaring her shoulders, she crossed the room in quick strides and took one of the stools at the counter. At least Granny’s was almost empty at this time of day and she wouldn’t have the same kind of audience as the previous time.
“Hi Regina, what can I get you?” Ruby asked, looking up from wiping down the counter. She really was very beautiful.
“I was hoping to just have a talk, if I could.”
“Shoot.”
“I was wondering if you’re free next Saturday.”
Ruby looked at her wide-eyed. “Free?”
Regina nodded. “To go to the ball with me.”
“With you?” Surprise made her voice almost reach a squeak. “I- uh- oh boy. What an offer. I’m. Wow.”
“So is that a yes?”
“Damn. I- you are, like, insanely hot, do you know that?” She huffed out a breath. “I am tempted. I am so, so tempted.”
Regina’s heart sank. “I hear a ‘But.’”
“Yeah, but- well- it would hurt a friend’s feelings.”
“Someone already asked you.”
“Not exactly, um- it’s- uh- complicated. But I really can’t.” Then she muttered something under her breath that sounded like “would never forgive me,” but Regina didn’t catch it.
“Who would never forgive you?”
“Emma! So great to see you. Can I get you a bearclaw?”
Ruby looked downright relieved to see her, and Regina knew she’d lost her window of opportunity. She got down from the stool and nodded at Emma before leaving the diner.
**
“Well you know, sis,” Zelena said, “there is one man in this town who would never turn you down.”
Regina scoffed. “Plenty of men would never turn me down. And women.”
“Uh huh. And how has that gone so far?”
“Can we change the subject?”
“We can stop talking about your failures at finding a date any time you like.” Zelena leaned her cheek on her hand.
“Thank you,” Regina sighed, feeling relieved.
“And move on to how to have success at finding a date.”
She glared. “That is not what I meant.”
“I don’t know why you’re being so stubborn.”
Regina jumped out of her chair and started pacing around the kitchen. “Because this is absurd! Why do we have to have a ridiculous ball? Why is there an idiotic demand that we have dates? And how is it that every other moron in this town has found one except for me?”
Zelena crossed her arms and stared her down. “See previous comment about your stubbornness. Why don’t you just ask your precious Robin Hood?”
“Ugh. I’d rather ask Whale.”
“Who turned you down rather publicly, as I recall.”
“I wasn’t asking him!”
“Be that as it may, he still has turned you down and is therefore not a better choice than Robin. Isn’t he your oh-so-special soulmate?”
Regina waved that off. “That was fairy nonsense. I can’t believe I ever bought into it. He doesn’t bathe, for god’s sake! I will never be that desperate.”
“Again.”
“What?”
“You’ll never be that desperate again. Seeing as how you already have been once.”
“Ugh, you’re impossible. I should have talked to Emma.”
As Regina stormed out of the farmhouse, she wondered what Zelena meant by “That’s the best idea you’ve had yet.”
**
“What did you mean when you said you needed a drinking buddy?” Emma asked, though she was definitely standing on Regina’s porch holding a good-quality bottle of whiskey.
“You seem to have figured it out,” Regina said, taking the bottle and stepping back to let her in.
“I meant,” Emma said, “why do you need me to bring booze? Rough day?”
“Rough week,” Regina corrected, leading her into the study. She went to the sideboard and poured them both overly generous glasses. It wasn’t as if Emma couldn’t spend the night in the guest room rather than drive home. She did it often enough.
“I heard about that weird incident with Whale,” Emma said as she took hers. “So gross that he just immediately assumed you were asking him out.”
“Utterly appalling.” Regina settled into the other settee across from her and took a sip from her glass.
“So what else happened?” Emma prompted.
“Well your mother got the town council to agree to that idiotic ball.”
“Ugh, don’t remind me.”
“And then she’s forcing us all to get dates like this is some kind of middle school dance.”
As Emma took a drink, something flashed across her face that Regina couldn’t quite read.
But the next thing Emma said was an easy, casual “I feel you” that made Regina almost think she’d imagined it.
She didn’t dwell on it. “Have you noticed that there is really a shortage of attractive, single people in this town?”
Emma chuckled ruefully. “It doesn’t help that almost everybody’s related in increasingly bizarre ways.”
“No, it doesn’t. And so here I am, mere days before this event, which I don’t even want to attend, with no date!” She felt herself gesticulating wildly without quite meaning to, but it was really an absurd situation.
“You can borrow mine,” Emma muttered.
“What?”
“What?”
“I can borrow your what?”
Emma looked embarrassed. “My date.”
Regina chuckled. “That’s very chivalrous of you to offer up your boyfriend, but Hook is very much not my type.”
“He’s not mine either, but I seem to have wound up stuck with him.” She shook herself. “I’m sorry, we’re here to talk about your dating problems, not mine.”
“It is kind of making me feel better,” Regina confessed. “Though I’m surprised. You two seem so happy.”
“Hook is happy. My mother is happy that I am with him. I stick on a smile and am-” she paused, searching for the word. “Resigned.”
Regina felt a little flicker of hope that she immediately shoved down. She had been so sure Emma was happy. “That doesn’t seem like much of a reason to date someone.”
“I guess it isn’t, but I kind of fell into it. And, like you said, it’s not like there are other options around here.”
“There are more than I thought there were,” Regina muttered mostly to herself.
“What’s that?”
“Nothing.”
Emma didn’t push it, and they sat in companionable silence for long moments, sipping their whiskey.
“How did you do it?” Emma asked suddenly.
Regina blinked at her. “Do what?”
“When you broke up with Robin. Everybody thought the two of you were so happy, too.”
She shrugged. “I just woke up one day and realized it wasn’t what I wanted.”
“And then what?”
“I called him up and said it was over, why are you ask-” She had a sudden realization and turned to look at Emma fully. “Are you asking me how to break up with your boyfriend?”
“No,” Emma said into her glass, fooling no one.
Their eyes held for a moment, and then they burst out laughing.
“I almost wish you were,” Regina said, surprising herself. She really hadn’t had enough to drink to say something like that.
“I wish I already had.” Emma was looking at her very intently.
“No time like the present,” Regina said lightly.
Emma took out her phone.
“You’re not.”
“I am.” Emma set down her glass and got up, scrolling to find the contact as she walked out of the room. “Hey, Hook? Killian.”
It took every shred of willpower Regina had not to go try to eavesdrop. Instead, she concentrated on how warm the room had gotten all of a sudden, wondering if her drink needed more ice.
Emma came back surprisingly fast. “Well, that’s taken care of.”
“Now what?”
“I feel really free.” She sprawled out again on the settee she’d been sitting on. Regina knew she shouldn’t find it endearing, but she did.
“I can tell,” she said dryly.
They stayed there, quiet, for long minutes, and it was so easy. When had being with Emma gotten so easy? They hadn’t been at each other’s throats in years, but had been friends for a while, but this was something more solid.
“Damn it.” Emma sat up. “Now I don’t have a date for the stupid ball.”
Regina knew she shouldn’t laugh so hard, but the disgruntled look on her face was priceless.
“Yeah, yeah, yuk it up.” A beat. “Hey, do you want to go with me?”
“Oh great, now I’m your safety date.”
“Not at all.” There was that intense look again.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah.” She came to sit beside Regina, eyes never leaving her face. “I would love to go to the ball with you.”
Before her brain even knew what she was going to do, Regina leaned in and kissed her. Emma made a little surprised sound and Regina would have pulled back, but in the next moment Emma had cupped her face and was kissing her back intently.
She didn’t know how long it went on—seconds, minutes, hours—but eventually they pulled back to look at each other again with contented sighs.
“So does that mean you’ll go with me?”
“Yes, you idiot.” They smiled at each other. “Besides, think how much it will upset your mother.”