Emma's deeply intoxicated with a delicious and yet spicy mix of the assortment of alcoholic beverages in her apartment. After an idiotically placed bet with the wolf, Ruby, she finds herself downing just about any and every cocktail the waitress hands her.

She throws her head back as the last shot Ruby shoves into her trembling sweaty hands tastes more like her feet smell after a long day of walking through puddles and mud than any drink she's ever had the pleasure of tasting

"What the fuck was that?" Emma grimaces, just remembering the foul taste makes her want to throw it back up. "Tastes like as—"

"Something we of the old world called a Loathly Brew." Her friend interrupts with a proud nod. Ruby smiles sympathetically but continues pouring another drink. She pushes it across the counter in front of her friend and waits for the blonde to drink this one too.

"Absolutely disgusting but knocks you off your ass into bed with someone you never thought even had a wild side." The only sober one of the two continues.

Smacking her lips, either to get a more concentrated taste of the brew or to air her mouth out, Emma groans. "Yeah well it was horrible."

"You should have seen your mom when she drank it," Ruby says with a hint of nostalgia. A sense of heaviness and regret aerifies around them but is suddenly gone like a blown out candle. "She would have the birds send really naughty messages to Charming."

Mostly disgusted but mistily digressed with this amount of alcohol in her, Emma giggles in a way that she would deride herself for relentlessly if she were sober. "So she'd drunk-sext him?"

"Oh yeah," Ruby wiggles her eyebrows suggestively. "I'd carry her all the way home, which mind you wasn't an easy task since she was like dead weight, and he'd find us in a spare room passed out. I think deep down Charming might believe your mom and I have hooked up at least once."

"I don't want to hear about that!" Despite leaning across the counter towards the waitress with big green eyes full of fascination and amusement, the drunken Sheriff groans disgustedly. "Hey, do you know any spells?" she asks suddenly.

"Spells?" Ruby echoes, unable to keep up with the blonde's train of thought. "What do you want to know spells for?" She digs into her cheesecake then licks the cream off the spoon with indifference.

"Snow won't teach me any. I asked Blue but she says magic is dangerous," Emma scoffs. "Someone should have told Regina that."

"They did." Ruby frowns. "She just didn't have a choice." With an air of awkwardness, suddenly Ruby grins mischievously. "I do know a few spells however."

Like a fuse launching a rocket, Emma's eyes grow wide with surprise and amusement. Her smile puts the sun to shame. "You do?!"

"I do. But the spell books are at the library." Ruby drops her head in defeat momentarily. Her black and red streaked hair drops over her face as a veil and she looks at the blonde with excusatory eyes. "The library is closed."

"I'm the Sheriff," Emma says standing tall. She looks like her father. Confident. Proud. Attractive. "If I need to use the library then I'll use the library."

Ruby smirks. "Some might consider that abusing your authority."

"Yeah well some didn't take down a dragon and save this damned town from evil so some can shut the hell up." The slur in her speech is well hidden after years of adolescence but it's obvious she's drunk. Otherwise she wouldn't even be suggesting it. "Let's break into it."

"Gold would kill us."

Emma rolls her eyes and waves off the thought with annoyance at the mention of the pawnbroker. "Gold can't do anything unless Belle gives him permission," she's already running into the small living room to retrieve her rainboots. "Come on. It'll be fun."

"You know," the brunette strolls into the living room behind her friend. Though eager and excessively amused, she moves with diligent deliberation that makes Emma groan impatiently. "Usually I'm the one that suggests the illegal stuff."

"Hey I wasn't always a Sheriff." The drunken idiot says as she slips her gummy yellow boot on. She looks down at her visible white socks but she's still proud of herself that she even matches her cotton yellow pullover that fits around her tightly. She quickly pulls the other boot on.

"Emma Swan? A bad girl gone good? Impossible," Ruby mocks with a laugh. "Don't let Henry hear you say that. He'd disown you."

Emma snorts as she ties her the yellow laces. "Come on, servant. Let's go steal some books."

"You know it technically won't be stealing if we just write down that we took them and return—" she's cut off by a drunken harsh "shhhhhh" from the blonde.

Profoundly out of character Emma grabs her yellow raincoat and pulls the waitress out of the apartment not bothering to lock the door. They opt out of taking the yellow bug when Emma momentarily tantrums over wanting to jump in the puddles.

Before both women run down the street laughing at nothing but everything, Ruby grumbles lowly enough that her drunken friend doesn't hear her. "Yeah she's definitely Snow White's kid."

The rain pouring down on Storybrooke causes a fog in the streets that should be dangerous if Storybrooke weren't the safest place in all of Maine. Ever since the truce between the Charmings and Regina there has been nothing but bad attitudes since the end of the curse.

Thankfully no retaliation or violence.

Though it's obvious Regina doesn't even like walking on the same ground as Emma Swan, she sure treats her a helluva lot better than she treats Emma's parents.

But with joint custody of Henry, Emma's just glad she's not getting those snide, mildly threatening, comments coming her way either.

The drunken blonde runs happily to the other side of the visibly impairing fog and calls for her friend to find her.

"I'm a freaking wolf, Emma. I can find you." Ruby says, with less confidence than she intends to. She knows her attempt at intimidation isn't taken seriously because she hears an uncharacteristic giggle from the other side of the white smoke. She steps in another deep puddle and curses something wicked only loud enough for herself to hear.

"Whoa! Ouch! Son of a bitch, shit!" Emma grunts from the other side.

Ruby crosses over with hesitance before finding her friend sitting on the ground and rubbing her ass. "You okay?" the worry downgrades into pity. She reaches out a hand.

"Yeah," Emma uses the waitress' help. "Didn't see the pole."

The brunette fixes her red beanie before letting out a chuckle. "Can you pick a lock?"

"I can do you one better," she reaches deep into her jacket pocket with concentration. Her tongue sticks out of her mouth and Ruby lets a smile slip. "I got a key. Belle gave it to me just in case something ever happened, you know. Now," she looks at her keys with concentration. "I just gotta figure out which one it is."

There's a variety of different keys for different doors and buildings on the keyring. Ruby frowns in discouragement. "Well this shouldn't take long." She mumbles sarcastically.

But it does. After numerous attempts to help and being shot down by the ever so proud Emma Swan, the waitress finally just pushes her best friend's daughter aside and uses Granny's maxed out credit card from her wallet to slide into the crevice between the threshold and the lock.

With mostly talent and practice, she finally gets the lock to budge and pushes the door open.

Emma gives her an indiscernible look.

"Looks like we're in," the short woman says, choosing to ignore the judging look from the tall blonde. "Follow me." She continues in a hushed whisper and closes the door behind them.

"Do I even want to know how you know how to do that?"

She chuckles sheepishly as she uses the flashlight app on her phone to see down the aisles. "No, you really don't."

"Would I have to arrest you if I knew?"

"You'd have to publicly execute me if you knew."

With that, no one says anything more on the matter. Emma follows Ruby, only stumbling over three times much to her credit, until they reach a recently added section of the library. One Ruby herself had to convince Belle to put up.

There dozens of dusty old books that have been handled far too many times to still be stitched together. She navigates by memory to the ones she's looking for.

"Now what kind of spells are we looking for again?" she asks as she stands on the latter.

"I dunno," the Sheriff shrugs ignorantly. "Protection spells I guess. I definitely would like to know some healing spells. You have no idea how many times I've stubbed my toe in the last week just because Henry refuses to put stuff back where he found it."

Ruby chuckles from high up on the latter. "Why do you think Regina's always so grumpy?"

Emma snorts. "I thought it was because she couldn't get laid."

"Not so much as can't. Just...won't."

"How does someone not want to have sex? I'd kill to have sex again." The blonde says with a hint of sadness in her voice. "It's been way too long."

"Are you telling me you and August? Never at the beginning?"

Nearly bumping Ruby off the latter, Emma keels over dramatically. "Oh dear god. No!"

Catching herself, she throws her friend a warning look but it softens when Emma looks genuinely apologetic. "He seemed to like you a lot. But of course, back then you had your eyes set on someone totally different."

"Yeah. I was tracking Regina." She says like it's not a big deal.

But the way Ruby is smirking suggests it actually is. "Yeah, Regina. Do you always watch someone you're tracking eat?"

"Yeah. It's how I get to know them."

"And staring longingly at them helps you get to know them too?"

Emma scowls at her. "Would you just get the fucking books so we can go?"

Ruby barks a laugh but grabs a few of the books and jumps off the latter. She lands her on feet in the same way a cat would land on all fours.

Emma looks impressed and momentarily terrified of her friend.

They run back to Emma's apartment like they've just stolen something far more taboo.

Both women peel their rain jackets off as soon as they enter the apartment. Emma crashes on the couch and Ruby goes to the kitchen to gather the most common ingredients they'll need.

"You think we'll get in trouble for this?" Emma asks from the couch suddenly tired.

"What happened to 'I am the Sheriff blah blah blah?'"

The blonde waves her off as she would her nagging mother.

Ruby returns moments later and drops all of the items in her full arms onto the oblong coffee table. "Okay, this is the necessities. You're missing some things so we're gonna have to substitute what we can."

"Will it even work?"

"We'll see." Ruby reaches over the back of the couch to dig into her jacket pocket. She digs into the other one too and pulls out three more books. "Don't get mad but I got a few extra."

"What are these for?" Emma drops the Protective Magic spell books in her hands and grabs one from Ruby.

The Tyros: Satyr Sorcery.

The blonde snorts. "Looks like something from Practical Magic."

"I love that movie," Ruby reprimands, hitting her friend on the shoulder.

"You and every other single twenty-something year old female lonely enough to watch it on Oxygen or Lifetime."

"I'm going to pretend you didn't say that. Anyways Belle told me the spells actually work. It's from the old world."

"You always believe everything Belle tells you?" Emma mocks in a way she remembers being mocked in elementary for a crush.

Ruby visibly reddens but otherwise ignores the sheriff. "We could create a man from scratch Emma. I don't think you understand the awesomeness of it all."

"Oh I understand. You're interested in sex toys. I'm interested in protecting my son."

"Oh please. You're interested in finding a faster way to work that doesn't involve having to say hello to every damn resident on Main Street in the morning."

Without even looking apologetic, Emma opens the book. "Okay maybe I am."

Ruby smirks proudly.

"I've got another," the waitress says as she opens the old small book in her hands. The bind is sewn together with thick leathery thread. "Merriment and Wizardry." She reads aloud. "Sounds like a really bad straight-to-DVD movie."

"Well let's hope there's a good plot," Emma licks her finger then turns the page.

The first chapter goes through enchantments. Ruby gets the bright idea to try to enchant Emma's gas fireplace to ignite every time she enters the room.

Unfortunately it ends badly with both women stomping out the flames in the carpet.

"Last time I ever let you enchant anything with fire!" Emma rages as she pours water onto the burnt carpet and her sweater. It boils down to a simmer and the steam coming from the fabric nauseates her.

"How was I to know it would try to set you on fire!"

"You probably said it wrong." She drops back onto the couch. "Is there one to heal burns?"

Ruby hands her the healing book without taking her eyes of the personification chapter. "We should totally personify your car. Henry would love that!"

"He's not ten anymore," Emma says patting her arm with a cold wet towel. "Things like that would just annoy him. Everything annoys him these days."

"What abou—"

"I don't want any object of mine to talk to me, Ruby."

"Fine. Grouchy pants."

"More like burned pants." The blonde gestures wildly scorched part of her jeans around the ankles. "Besides I don't want to personify or enchant anything. I just wanna learn how to protect Henry."

The brunette flips a few more pages before stopping on one. "We could take all of the bad out of Regina?"

There's a short silence before Emma's reaching over to Ruby's side of the couch for the book. "No way,"

"Yes way," she surrenders it. "It's right there. In black and white."

"I doubt it." Emma tosses the book back to the other side of the couch and goes back to dabbing her wound. "You can take the Evil Queen out of her castle but you can't take the Evil out of the Queen."

"To deprive one of an unwanted quality repeat the following,"

Emma gives her friend a warning look. "Don't you dare."

"What? I think it'd be fun. That means no more mean lady on Mifflin street. No more jabs at your parents or your past. She wouldn't even know it was us not that she'd care cause she'd be nice."

"You can't just mess with someone like that."

"You think Regina likes being evil?"

Emma gives her a dumbfounded stare. She never really thought of it that way. And that kind of bothers her.

"Probably not." Ruby continues. "We might be helping her. Gold implanted something so dark and twisted inside of her she has no one to help her. No one believes in her not even her only son. This could be good for her."

"I'm not going to mess with her like that." Emma says with finality.

"Fine." Ruby frowns but it doesn't last long because a challenging grin takes its place. "Guess we'll just have to make your vibrators talk." She dashes off to the master bedroom and Emma runs, stumbling and falling, after her.

Two hours later across the town, Regina Mills is woken from her sleep by her own thrashing and convulsing. Her body, rigid and pained, falls back into her pillows with one final quake before an excruciatingly painful heat quivers through her body like chills.

The pain is unbearable. Like her skin is being ripped from her bones with delicate and thorough precision.

She falls unconscious unable to handle the pain much longer.

A/N: So I got my final DMCA violation notice. One more and they take my internet away. So here I am, posting most of my work because I'm bored and writing is all I've got. Anyways let me know how you're liking this. I plan to post a lot of other stories I'm working on but I tend to abandon them without encouragement.