A/N: This is more of a prologue, really. More actual interaction in later chapters! Also I apologise in advance for what will probably be some very short chapters. I'm basically writing this story as therapy for a really long, really angsty Evil Snowing fic that I'm writing completely out of order with horrendously long chapters, so advance warning that this will probably also be aggressively fluffy. (I'm not a naturally fluffy person - I worry it just comes off sounding drunk.)
Chapter 1: Gossip Mill Fodder.
It all started like this:
Emma's sort-of new boyfriend had a sort-of ex-girlfriend who decided that she'd really love to see Emma skate.
The sort-of ex-girlfriend (Tamara) also had a probably new boyfriend (Greg) who thought it was a great idea, came along with her to the next open competition, and turned out to have had some (undisclosed) bad history with Regina, who was also competing. (Small world.) Somehow, no one's quite sure how, Tamara and Greg teamed up with Emma's other sort-of new boyfriend (Hook) and decided that hanging around the zamboni entrance getting in the way was a great passive aggressive move to generally disrupt the whole area and put a lot of the competitors off.
Gold went to get rid of them but in the process of moving the whole mob through the narrow rinkside space of waiting competitors, Greg managed to shove Emma off-balance, possibly accidentally. Emma was waiting to go on the ice, she was obviously wearing her skates, and unfortunately Henry was there to wish her luck and was, at that moment, unhelpfully sat tucked up against the barrier in the only direction Emma could stumble. Regina was standing next to Emma, saw the impending fall, saw Henry on the ground and Emma's unguarded blades, and moved to intercept, yanking Emma upright and keeping Henry out of harm's way. In the process Regina managed (in her skates) to stand between the matting on both the concrete floor and the metal screws in it, and rumour has it she had a face like thunder to realise it.
The result of all this was that Tamara and Greg were banned from the ice rink, Emma went on to happily win her category, the ice rink gossip mill was temporarily distracted from the customary Regina-Gold cold war, and Regina got a couple really nasty nicks in her blades. (Sharp metal edges do not generally like either rough concrete or competing metal edges.)
Unfortunately the normal guy she got her blades sharpened with was on vacation. The other guys at the same shop were not nearly as good. Frustrated with her blades constantly catching the ice at odd angles (particularly since she attributed Emma's win to her own unexpected fall when she skated directly afterwards) she took a chance with the sharpeners in the rink shop itself, hoping 'Grumpy' couldn't be as bad as had been rumoured. It was true, he wasn't. But neither was he exactly ...good.
Emma was lauded as being a greatest skater the club had; Regina ended up with a pair of overly sharp blades with a somewhat peculiar rocker.
The following Saturday morning Snow (who had been roped in for last-minute skate-guarding on the public session after Ruby had failed to show up, and who had always had a soft spot for the not-always-appreciative Regina) roped Regina in as unofficial co-skateguard on the grounds that Regina seriously needed to blunt her skates in a place where she wouldn't keep getting dirty looks because of messing up the ice, and hey, unofficial or not, Blue in the office would let her do it on the public session for free. Snow herself just wanted any company other than her official co-skateguard Whale, a hockey guy who managed to combine a complete disregard for bad falls with a sleazy over-attention on any teenage girls who happened to show up. Regina was not un-sympathetic.
And so it was, attempting to blunt her blades in her seemingly hundredth show stop of the session, that Regina caught her blade at the wrong angle, flipped her whole body up into the air, and came down hard and unexpectedly and brought Snow with her. If Regina had had time between standing happily upright and suddenly breathlessly finding herself slammed and scratched and entwined with Snow on the ice, she probably would have thought 'Goddammit, Emma' and made more of an effort not to land on her left forearm.
But she didn't.
Instead she and Snow were disentangling themselves and trying to check they were both alright when she looked up to find one of the hockey parents slid to his knees by her side. It was only when she followed the concern on his face and the hand he'd stretched towards her bare forearm that she realised she was dripping a not inconsiderable amount of blood onto the ice.
"Ma'am, you're bleeding," he said, eyes pausing on her face and flicking back to the wound.
"It's Regina," she said, shifting away from him, "and I'm fine."
Next Chapter: He's great-looking, great with Snows and really great with doors, but also really quite crap at running in skates - it's Robin!