A/N: Yes, this is the sequel to For the Love of the Game. Yes, there is actually a plot involved (not much of one)that has more than Regina swinging a baseball bat. No, I still don't own the show or any of its affiliates.

There were fifteen steps that separated Queen from Queen, and of those fifteen steps only three were blocked by an unfortunately placed waitress by the name of Ruby Lucas. Tall and lean, she possessed the grace to scurry out of the way but not the willpower to force herself out of the destructive path between the two women standing off at either end of the diner. Instead, Ruby leaned back against the counter bar to enjoy the show, brown eyes carefully cataloguing the series of events to relay later at the White Rabbit bar on the outer edge of town to those less fortunate who missed the stand-off.

"Regina."

"Snow."

And that was how it went for the next five minutes, with the two women alternating between confirming each other's names and long periods of silence. Frankly, it would have been downright boring if not for the blonde head beside the older of the two brunette's. As the blonde curls bounced, the tension increased in the diner- like a hairpin trigger was the only thing to decide their fates and the blonde's bouncing feet the only thing to keep them from total destruction. Time continued to pass, confirmed by several well-timed glances to the wall clock above the main door, in slow motion as the two Queens squared off, each ready for the impending fight.

Then, it was nothing. Like a vacuum sucking all of the tense air out of the room, Snow White offered the olive branch to her former step-mother with a simple, "Do you still take your coffee black?" As if nothing bad had ever transpired between the two of them; as if Snow White's daughter wasn't hovering by the Evil Queen's side looking more guilty than she had any right to when she was holding the woman's hand.

"One sugar," was the succinct reply, though more staid than their usual conversations consisted of. "And for you, dear?" Regina turned to the hovering presence by her side, observing the wide-eyed expression and downright nervous state of the blonde woman.

"Hot chocolate with cinnamon," Emma replied with a slight twitch to her right eye. "And a bottle of Jack, if I can get it."

"No drinking. I want you sober enough to remember this later, Emma," Snow White informed her daughter. "Did you get all of that, Ruby? Oh, and a hot chocolate for Henry, too. He shouldn't have to suffer because his mother forgot to mention she was dating the Evil Queen before they announced they were getting married."

The twitch along Emma's right side became more pronounced as it worked its way down to her fingers. If the subtle accusations over what had happened at the baseball field or the not-so-subtle looks of sympathy and regret from her mother didn't stop soon, the twitch might become permanent. "She's not the Evil Queen," the sheriff blurted. "Well, she's still a Queen, but she hasn't done anything evil lately."

Except hit a home run to prove a point, make a half-assed proposal to the town's savior, and then start a staring match with said savior's mother on home plate when they announced the news of their impending marriage.

"Which we'll be discussing as soon as I can wrap my head around the fact that you want to marry the woman who tried to kill me several times." Though she had been stuck in stasis without memory of her daughter for twenty-eight years, Snow White had the motherly glare down, and she used it with surprising ease and effectiveness. "Or the fact that you've managed to hide it from me for so long."

Emma shrugged in response. It really hadn't been that hard, well, not until the community baseball game where she had the ill-conceived notion of betting with Regina in order to force the other woman clear out of the closet she had so convincingly hidden them in. After everything that had happened in the last few years- breaking the curse, being transported to Fairy Tale Land, coming back, watching her mother wallow in guilt after manipulating Regina into killing her own mother, saving Storybrooke, going to Neverland, saving Henry, kicking Gold's ass from here to eternity- the announcement that she wanted the town to know she was in a relationship with Regina "Evil Queen" Mills had not seemed that newsworthy. Or, at least, not to the level of emergency meeting post-game at Granny's.

"That was my choice." Regina offered as she held out a chair for her son to clamber onto, forcing herself not to recoil at the astounding amount of dirt collected on his shorts from the game. "Your daughter wanted to inform you shortly after we decided to continue seeing each other. It was only when she offered me an out today that I realized how very much I wanted to acquiesce to her demands regarding our relationship status and the town."

The sheriff nodded along with the tedious explanation of her fiancée's thought process. Acquiesce, her rear end. If anything, she had been closer than ever to breaking through Regina's seemingly unbreakable walls that would cause the other woman to slip in public and call her anything other than "Miss Swan" with thinly-veiled contempt riding low in her voice. "Technically, I offered you a hit. You only had to hit one ball for me to lose the bet. You were the one who took it one step further, whacked the ball over the back fence, and proposed to me."

"I don't like to lose," the queen offered in a clipped tone. "What's more, I do what I feel is necessary to keep my possessions close."

That would have been sweet if she hadn't been referred to as a possession, Emma mused as she blew against the rim of her mug full of hot chocolate, cinnamon, and, pleasantly, a hint of liquid courage.

"Is that all it was? Believing Emma would leave if you didn't offer her something more?" Snow sounded about as amused as she might if Emma announced she was marrying one of the Lost Boys who ran amuck in town, causing all sorts of destruction about the mill apartments or, god forbid, the lecherous Captain Hook. "Is that really what you want, Emma, to be someone's possession? That's-"

"Get off your soapbox, Snow," the blonde snapped. "Regina didn't mean it like that. If she had, I'd be wearing some jacked up doggy shock collar that prevented me from leaving her front yard. And-" She dragged her shirt collar down to expose her collarbones, "Look, ma, no collar." As she spared a glance to Ruby in thanks for whatever liquor was added to her usual order, she caught a glimpse of Henry across the table, looking far more serious than a boy his age should. "Henry?"

"Why don't you want mom and Emma to be happy, grandma?"

Snow's head snapped back at the light accusation. "I never said that, Henry. I just want to make sure your mother knows what she's doing. Marrying Regina...she should consider it first before jumping in blindly because of a shiny trinket."

"There's no ring yet, mom. It was more of a spur of the moment kind of thing, remember?" Emma turned to her side, silently inquiring. "There isn't a ring, right? I mean, you don't go around carrying one in your pocket or anything, do you?" Funny, she couldn't see Regina being the one to randomly spring the question on some unsuspecting guy or gal around town, yet, in a way, she had.

"Well," Regina responded dryly, "I had been holding onto one for the time when Miss Lucas grew tired of bringing lukewarm coffee to my table and wanted to become a kept woman, but I suppose I could repurpose that ring for the sheriff."

The sheriff scowled at the table. "That's not even funny."

"There's no ring," the brunette corrected, dropping her hand from the table to rub gentle circles along her partner's knee. "Emma offered me something this afternoon that I couldn't let pass by. When given the option to one-up her, I did without question but that doesn't lessen what I feel for your daughter, Snow."

"But, you couldn't-" Snow took a deep breath and considered the two women sitting opposite her. One, her beautiful daughter, and the other, her former step-mother who had tried to wipe her off the face of the planet on more than one occasion- and yet, somehow, it made sense that they would drawn to each other like a moth to a flame. No, she corrected herself, the moth always burned in agony when it fluttered to the flickering flames; she wanted something more for her daughter than pain and destruction. "You couldn't have asked her in a more romantic fashion, or, for heaven's sake, Regina! You could have at least asked me or her father for her hand in marriage!"

And there was the kicker. Poor Snow White wasn't as involved in everyone else's business as she would have liked to be. Emma smirked around the edge of her mug before she lowered it to the table. "I thought it was decent," she said with a shrug. It had certainly gotten the point across that Regina wanted her to stay. "So, are we done with the parental intimidation routine yet?"

"Yeah," Henry piped up with a grin. "Can we talk about how cool it was that mom hit a home run? It was awesome! Like, one, two, three, and then, thunk! It flew right over Hook's head."

"Captain," Regina corrected lightly. "He prefers Captain Hook, dear."

Henry nodded obediently. "Right. It flew over Captain Hook's head. It was really cool, mom," he added almost shyly. With his head ducked to his chest and big eyes blinking widely, he asked, "Do you think you could teach me how to hit like that before the next game? And throw. Emma tried to teach me but all she managed to do was throw the ball wide and hit me in the head when a crow dive-bombed her."

Regina blinked at the news that her son had been involved in an accident, a head injury no less, without her knowledge. Her fingers flew through his hair without prompting, searching for sign of brain injury or any defining marks or bumps. Finding none and suitably satisfied that he had walked normally, clumsy but normal, at the baseball field and into the diner and appeared to have no other nasty side effects attributable to her fiancée's fear of birds, she turned to the blonde woman and scowled. "How could you not tell me he was hit in the head?"

"He was wearing a helmet! Besides, my fingers slipped before the ball left my hand; it was more like a light tap on the head." Emma defended herself to the best of her abilities, well aware the full trial and sentencing portion of Regina's ire would come at a time when there were no witnesses around. "If you're so upset by it, then you can teach the kid how to bat properly the next time we go practice."

"Don't think I won't."

"You should."

"Clearly, he needs someone with more self control than to let a ball fly at him when the mood strikes."

"There was a bird, crazy lady; it flew right at my head!"

Regina broke her heated stare from the blonde, reluctant now that they had acquired quite a bit of an audience in the other patrons of the diner. "Henry, I'm going to take you to practice this weekend. Perhaps your mother would like to join us, provided she can keep her butter fingers wrapped tightly around the ball this time."

"Yeah, cool," Henry said flatly, not entirely thrilled with the idea of spending the afternoon with the bickering twosome. He loved his mothers, but there were some things he didn't need to see- the bickering flaming into looks of desire or, worse, the kissing and the hand-holding and all the stuff that happened when he was sent off to his grandparent's house for the night for 'family bonding'.

"And, perhaps-" Snow interrupted, not ready to acknowledge the standard normal bickering that went on between her daughter and the (former) Evil Queen might actually be considered flirting. "Perhaps you could teach me as well, Regina."