A/N: This is total crack that I smashed out in an hour. Apologies for the extreme stupidity of it.
"Emma!" Snow threw her arms around Emma, sobbing noisily and messily. "You're back. And you're not evil. I'm so glad."
Emma felt the breath being knocked out of her as David joined in on the hug. And then what little breath she had left was stolen from her by the overpowering stench of rum and unwashed pirate. Hook had clearly forgotten about daily bathing without her there to remind him.
Emma cringed. A group hug with her parents and her pirate was not high on her list of things to do. She had far more important tasks to complete, like taking over Storybrooke, and then the world. She narrowed her eyes evilly and broke out of the hug.
Snow peered at her, a concerned look on her face. "Emma, sweetie. Do you have something in your eye?"
Regina was woken by strange sounds coming from the kitchen. At first she thought it was Henry; he'd been eating a lot lately with the growth spurt he was going through. She waited a couple of minutes for the familiar sound of footsteps on the stairs and in the hallway. When they didn't eventuate, she pulled on a robe and tiptoed her way to Henry's door. When she pressed her ear against it, she could hear the soft sounds of his snores. She snuck downstairs, determined to surprise whoever was foolish enough to break into the former Evil Queen's house, readying her magic as she went.
She pressed herself against the wall adjacent to the kitchen, preparing to ambush the intruder. As she did, she heard a voice.
"Hey, Regina. You can come out now."
She stepped into the kitchen, taking in the scene. "Emma? It's two in the morning. What on earth are you doing here?"
Emma mumbled something that Regina didn't quite catch.
"Sorry, what was that?"
"I was looking for inspiration. No one's taking me seriously. Snow keeps saying how glad she is that the Dark One's power didn't stick." Emma kicked her heels against the kitchen bench, looking entirely like a sulky adolescent to Regina's eyes. "Why doesn't anyone believe that I'm evil?"
"Oh, I believe you're evil, Emma. You're sitting on my kitchen bench, eating my secret stash of Valrhona chocolate." Regina's expression took on an entirely more outraged cast. "And is that my 1963 Armagnac you're necking out of the bottle like a college kid at Spring Break?"
Emma shrugged and looked at the label on the bottle.
"At least have the decency to sip it slowly out of a glass. At three hundred dollars a bottle, it's meant to be savoured." Regina snatched the bottle out of Emma's hand and poured a measure into each of the two glasses she'd pulled out of the cupboard. If she was going to have to endure this conversation, she might as well get some pleasure out of it.
Through a mouthful of chocolate, Emma mumbled, "It's not fair. No one believes that I'm evil. I'm the Dark One, damn it. You know, big scary evil. Killer of armies. Toppler of monarchs. Stealer of babies. Eater of hearts. Etcetera."
"Have you actually done any of those things?"
Emma frowned. "Well, no. Not yet. I'm just warming up. It's like running. You can't just go out and decide to run a marathon. You've got to work your way up to things, like with a couch to five miles program. I'm on the prophesied saviour to ultimate evil program at the moment." She screwed up her face. "I really wish there was an iPhone app for it. It'd make things so much easier."
"Have you actually done anything evil yet?"
Emma looked pensive. She started counting on her fingers, and Regina rolled her eyes impatiently. "If you have to think that hard about it, then you probably haven't."
"No, wait. I made the fairies do the Thriller dance in the middle of the main street for three hours."
"Amusing, but not really evil."
"I turned Hook into a cat."
"Definitely a public service. He'll probably bathe a little more often than once a year now."
"I trained him to hunt bluebirds and leave them on the doormat of Snow's apartment."
Regina snorted in an entirely undignified manner. Just because she and Snow had made peace with each other didn't mean that she couldn't enjoy imagining the expression on Snow's face, when confronted with the tiny corpses of her avian friends. "That's a very small start in the right direction. But you're not going to convince anyone like that."
Emma's shoulders slumped. "Okay, so I'm still working up to it. Like I said, you've got to walk before you can run. But there's a really wicked-looking dagger with my name on it. Surely that's got to count for something."
Regina sighed. "Fine. It's the clothes. No one's going to believe you're evil when you're wearing plaid. They might believe you're a lumberjack… or a lesbian. In which case, the three people in Storybrooke who voted against marriage equality might think you're evil, but otherwise…" Regina shrugged.
Emma pouted and Regina mentally smacked herself to try and dislodge the thought that was taking up residence in her brain. The Dark One was actually kind of cute in an ineffectual way.
"It's just not fair. I mean, you're essentially good now, but people are still kind of terrified of you."
Regina placed a soothing hand on Emma's thigh. "Listen, dear. If it's really this important to you, I can help you out." She waved a hand, and a card appeared between her fingers. She held it out to Emma. "This is my stylist's number. He'll fix you up."
"Thank you." Emma grabbed Regina by the shoulders and kissed her hard on the mouth. Just as Regina started to enjoy the kiss, Emma disappeared, leaving Regina feeling entirely unsatisfied. Now that was evil.
Regina was woken for the second night in a row, this time by the overly-excited Dark One bouncing up and down on the end of her bed.
"Regina! Regina! It worked! Snow saw me and burst into tears."
Regina reached over and switched on her night light. The first thing she noticed was Emma's hair. Platinum blonde. Ugh. She could understand why Snow had burst into tears. She should have called Vincenzo and given him a little bit of guidance to avoid this travesty. Or maybe he was losing his touch, because Emma looked entirely too much like she'd just stepped out of the pages of an Anne Rice novel. It had been a while since she'd used his services. Now that she thought about it, there was that terrible side-pony he'd convinced her to wear back in the Enchanted Forest.
Emma was still bouncing around, and Regina sighed with exasperation. "Really, dear? This couldn't have waited until morning?"
Emma shook her head. "No it couldn't. Because I'm evil. That means I don't play by the rules." She said that last part with all the pride and conviction of an eight-year-old naming the planets in the solar system.
"Of course, dear." Regina sighed and lay back down, pulling the covers up to her chin. Maybe if she ignored the Dark One, she'd go bounce somewhere else.
"So what do you think?" Emma struck a dramatic pose on the end of Regina's bed, showing off the structured black trench-coat she was wearing.
"Very evil, dear." She bit back a laugh when Emma toppled over, clearly unused to the height of her heels. It was important to remain encouraging. "The collar is particularly dastardly."
Somehow, Emma managed to recover from her mishap with a tiny amount of dignity intact. She slinked her way up the bed, coming to hover just above Regina's face. "You know what else is evil about this trench-coat?"
"No." Her breathing hitched and she could feel her heart beating hard and fast. Even with a bad dye job, Regina still found Emma alarmingly attractive.
She suppressed a shiver as Emma leaned closer and whispered in her ear, "I'm not wearing anything underneath it."
Just as her brain had fully processed Emma's statement, the Dark One disappeared. Regina felt a hint of moisture at the corner of her eye. She was so proud. That was at least an orange-belt evil manoeuver.
Yes, she certainly was proud, but she was also frustrated. She didn't have the dagger, but she was damned well going to try this anyway. "Emma Swan. Dark One. I summon your evil ass right now."
A moment later, Emma appeared in exactly the position she'd been in before she disappeared, but without the trench-coat.
Regina smiled.
