A/N: Posting this here because I should keep all my writing in the same place-and posting on tumblr was not successful. I hope someone out there enjoys.

"Nurse?"

That voice somehow always had had the power to make her drop whatever she was doing. Even now, with a bit of a catch, a gravel—from a lack of sleep, perhaps, but more likely nerves, because it wasn't quite familiar. She had never known the Evil Queen, not even by reputation. She had been one of the few, the very few, drawn from another realm entirely. Just her and a few of her less troublesome patients. Enough to make the mental ward the Mayor had established look legitimate, she supposed. But in those 28-odd years, Nurse Louise Ratched had heard enough of Mayor Regina Mills' voice to know most of its variations. At least, so she thought.

Those years had been a blur for her much as they had for everyone else, but it had been somewhat different for Louise, she supposed, her implanted memory supplying that her and the beguiling Mayor had something of an arrangement—but not the later realization that their arrangement wasn't quite as pleasurable as the Mayor had with the Sherriff. Or the decision (whim? impulse?) one day to leave her ward and not head straight home to her equally sterile apartment, but to town hall where the Mayor was holding one of her open forums. There, Louise lingered in the back, hoping she wouldn't have to come up with a concerned citizen pretext, when she was rewarded by the Mayor's exquisitely expressive eyes catching her own for a moment—first in surprise, an expression Louise had never seen before that moment, she was sure of it—and then in sly amusement, one she knew intimately. The Mayor almost always came to her desk with a smirk as if they shared the cleverest of secrets, and Louise almost always found herself returning it despite not entirely understanding the joke. But when had that started? It didn't feel like it had always been there. She knew she was stoic. Harsh. But she prided herself on it. Don't let the crazies have the upper hand. But with the Mayor…she found herself near malleable, enjoying nothing more than the tiny moments they had. The barely exchanged pleasantries. So one day, that day at the forum, when the Mayor was pleased for a moment to see her in exchange, she started applying her precise mind in full force. How the Mayor seemed to have a different voice for the crowd, for that member of the zoning board who stole a moment with her before she could leave, for Louise even. How her smile could be brilliant, but fake; shining, but harsh; how it could fall away instantly, without remnant or shadow, rather how Louise tried to make hers. How it seemed that the Mayor was aware of Louise's fascination even before Louise herself was, when that smile would change into something rather like a jungle cat, and the typical we have a secret smile would fade into a secret of another kind. And when the smile became accompanied by single red roses, her favorite, clichéd as it was—

"Nurse Ratched?"

Louise turned, ashamed to have let herself fall into the memories, and even more so when the owner of the voice she so enjoyed approached her harried, her foresty boyfriend trailing concerned just behind with his newborn baby in his arms.

"She really shouldn't be out of the nursery."

Louise was surprised to hear herself, normally so calculated in her expression, and certainly not one to ignore the Mayor outright, not to scold the man she had become taken with, if even so recently. She caught the Mayor's brief glimpse of surprise as well, but it quickly faded behind something so—tired.

"This hospital is not the safest place for her right now."

Louise would've expected a scolding, at least another level of anger—but she supposed this whole baby issue was complicated to begin with. Louise herself had never been much for children, but she knew the Mayor was just as well as she knew her smiles, and Her Honor could barely seem to look at the infant in much more than the occasional glance.

"Of course, Madam Mayor. My apologies."

The Mayor sighed a little. "That's not necessary. Thank you for your concern."

Louise warmed a little at the attention, uncomfortable as she was with this version of the Mayor without fire, massaging her palms in what seemed to be an alternative to fidgeting. The feeling was ruined, however, when she felt the boyfriend's gaze, uncertain in everything but still managing to observe the two women, trying to figure something out as the moment lasted a little long.

"Was there something I can do to help, Madam Mayor?"

"Oh—Yes. My sister—" The Mayor looked down for a moment, but when her eyes returned to meet Louise's, there was something of her authority back, her steel. "I need you to do your best to not let my sister through and into the ward."

Louise didn't hesitate in responding, despite knowing full well she would be a mere mortal up against a wicked witch. "Yes, Madam Mayor."

She caught a glimpse of that inexplicably wonderful surprise in the Mayor's face once more.

"I know that you will not have much with which to stop her. But I should be back in time—I just need her delayed." The Mayor hesitated a moment before continuing, "I do not wish for you to get hurt. Just…try what you can."

In all her years working in all sorts of startling conditions, Louise had never been so thrown. She may not have known the Queen, but the Mayor had her own calculating ways. Louise knew she was useful. She knew she had a role. And she knew that the Mayor enjoyed her attention. But she enjoyed their moments knowing they were primarily unreciprocated. She had been loyal because the Mayor was fair and smart and knew how to play her just right.

But now—with that passing moment of care—Nurse Ratched knew that she would be forever in the service of her Queen. Forest boy or no.

"I understand, Madam Mayor."

Regina smiled. Simple. Small. Sincere. Then she vanished with the boyfriend and the baby in her distinctive purple smoke.

Nurse Ratched strode behind the desk, staring down the doors. She pushed the sleeves of her cardigan up and put on her most intimidating face. She had fire to go up against this witch.

And she would win.