This is a nonmagic AU but falls within the same world as my other story 'Counting Coffee Cups' does (you don't need to read one to understand the other) Emma and Regina are married happily and yeah, you'll get the rest.

This will just be a short little two shot. With the next part up shortly.

Belle rolled over with a pained groan. Cracking one eye open, she began to wonder if it was possible to hear light.

She was pretty sure it was.

When she rolled over, she was confronted with a warm, firm stomach. Small flashes of the previous night came back to her.

She pulled herself upright bit by bit, then suddenly, all at once. The change in position made her head swim and her stomach churn, but she ignored the urge to lay back down as she searched around wildly for the shock of blonde hair that she hoped desperately to find.

When she didn't find it, she smacked the lump she had woken up half on top of.

"Ruby, wake the hell up."

The brunette muttered incoherently when Belle just hit her again, "Ruby, up, now!"

Finally she cracked open her eyes, "What do you want? It's too early."

Belle put a finger to her lips to quiet her and nodded her head subtly to her left at the third and final person in the room.

"What's wrong with Em?"

The brunette rolled her eyes, "Look at her. Do you see anything different?"

Ruby sat up properly to look better at the sleeping blonde before it hit her, "Shit."

"Regina is going to kill you."

The waitress was immediately defensive, "Me? How is this my fault?"

"It's your fault because you bet me."

By this point, Belle was up and pacing the length of her bedroom where the trio had ended up at the end of the previous night.

Ruby rolled her eyes and stretched out her back, "Not my fault you took the bet. Regina is going to kill you."

"Shit."

Belle came back and perched on the edge of her bed, shooting another look to where Emma lay sleeping on the armchair in the corner of the room.

"God, is it just me or is it getting worse the more you look at it?" Belle asked, paranoid.

"Well stop looking!"

"It's like a train wreck, I can't stop." Belle sighed in exasperation once more before reaching over and smacking Ruby solidly on the arm, "Why did you let her do that?"

"I'm not her babysitter."

The two were interrupted from their childish bickering as Emma groaned and stretched. Her arms went up in a high arc to stretch her back. Belle froze watching her friend as Emma shot her a questioning glare, "What are you staring at?"

"Nothing." Belle's response was far too quick.

Emma reflexively reached a hand up to brush across her cheek, "Do I have something on my face?" Ruby froze as Emma's hands went further up and brushed the top of her head, "Ruby, where's my-"

"I swear it was your idea."

"Ruby, what happened-"

"I tried to talk you out of it, but Belle wasn't helping."

Finally, Emma snapped, "Ruby, why am I bald!?"

The waitress gulped, looking at the clearly displayed skull of her best friend, "Well last night, Belle and I celebrated St. Patrick's Day, and you celebrated St. Baldrick's Day."

"Excuse me?" Emma was hardly holding in her hysteria while Belle tried to edge her way out of the apartment without drawing suspicion to herself.

"St. Baldrick's Day. It's this fundraiser they do for cancer research, you get pledges to shave your head."

"Oh my God." Emma murmered, running a hand over her bare head.

"You got like five hundred bucks donated from all the guys at the bar though."

"Oh my God." Emma repeated.

"And you always did look better with short hair." Ruby tried, recalling the time in high school that Emma cut her hair to her chin.

"I've got to get home." The blonde was up in a moment, gathering her things, "Regina will probably be freaking out."

"She'll probably freak out more now that you've got no hair." Ruby muttered.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Just shut up and give me a hat."

Emma came in through the front door of her small brownstone about thirty minutes later. She found Regina in the kitchen, humming happily as she spun from one counter to the next, preparing breakfast.

Emma snuck up behind, wrapping her arms around her wife, nuzzling her nose into Regina's hair, "I love the way your shampoo smells." She breathed.

Regina smiled, turning in her wife's hold. She reached up and pulled the hat Emma had stolen from Ruby off her head, "I always knew that your brain was big, now I can see clearly." She teased, running a hand over the smoothness.

"Yeah, yeah. It was so much better than I thought it would be, tricking Ruby and Belle."

"So you don't have any regrets?" Regina checked.

With a sigh, Emma shook her head, "No. I know I made the right choice, plus with the money I raised at the bar last night, it's a total of over two thousand dollars, just from my head. Not counting whatever the rest of the english department made."

"You students really must have wanted you to shave your head." Regina chuckled.

"You should have seen them when Doctor Emerson first came into one of my classes to suggest it." Emma recalled the chaos her co-worker had sprung on her a mere two weeks ago.

("The reading list for the rest of the course should be accurate, and I expect for all of you to have 'The Bluest Eye' in class next week." Emma was just getting ready to dismiss her students when the head of the Yale English department burst into her room.

He was the most active 60 year old that Emma had ever met, and he always teased her like a daughter, making her adjustment to being on staff quite easy.

"Hello, Professor Swan, mind if I address your class briefly?"

They both knew that he wasn't asking, he was telling, and the sneaky smile on his face had Emma's stomach churning.

"Of course not, Doctor Emerson."

He made his way to the front of the lecture hall, "As you all know St. Patrick's Day is coming up soon, which for you means green beer, and crappy pick-up lines." He joked, "But here in the English department, we take this holiday personally. Four years ago, Professor Steven's daughter, Emily, was diagnosed with cancer and to help raise money for research on childhood cancer, each year the English Department Professors auction off their heads. Or rather their hair."

This was the first that Emma had heard of the tradition. It was her first year teaching, and she was a supporting friend of Professor Stevens, she and Regina had even baby-sat Emily a couple of times when she was out of the hospital and Stevens and his wife were taking a night out. Her students twittered in happy excitement.

"Professor Swan, will you be participating in the tradition of St. Baldrick's Day?" He asked merrily.

Her students all cheered loudly, giving her no option but to give in. She nodded her consent, with an embarrassed grin at how excited her students were to see her shave her head.)

She told her wife that evening, already plotting how she could get back at her best friend for the April fools day prank that Ruby had played the year previous.

A/N- Please hold for adorable Swan- Mills baby cuteness in the next part.