Prompt: How about Outlaw Queen Missing Year? Ball with a waltz, lots of eye sex/tension, sass, with an almost-kiss blocked by the Uncharmings.

She knew every step as well as she knew every spell in her mother's book - step towards partner, rotate to the left, stop, grab hand, twist, stop, step away from partner, bow, step towards partner, rotate to the left, and so on - and she was completely sure that being pressed against your partner and swaying slowly from side to side were not part of the dance. Yet here she was, with her head resting on his shoulders and his strong arms hugging her tightly to him, probably making a scene in the middle of the ball. She could feel eyes piercing through them, judging them or her ,most likely, but she realized she couldn't care less. Not that she blamed them, the Oh-So-Evil Queen dancing with no one less than the Prince of Thieves. They were a sight to be behold.

It all had started at the council meeting; their discussion about the Wicked Witch was starting to get as repetitive and unhelpful as usual, so her mind started wandering to other more interesting thoughts such as why in heavens was the thief staring at her? He should be paying attention to Snow White and has he been to the Forest lately? Because the stink seems to be more intense than usual she probably would have asked him out loud if it wasn't for the little Merry Man sitting on his papa's lap because apparently now the band of Lazy Men were to occupied on a hunting trip to take care of the boy. Regina sneered at the thought, wasn't the kid accustomed to the wild anyway? Surely a war conversation was no better than a few deers getting killed. At least not for this child. Apparently she sneered a bit too loud because a second later the silence in the room became so evident, it dragged her off of her thoughts.

"Do you have something to say, Regina?" Asked Snow, lifting an eyebrow at her. She had to bite her tongue to not make a sarcastic remark about how there were lots of things she had to say.

"No."

"Then you agree?" What?

"Well..." She looked around the table to see if any of the faces of the people surrounding her would give away what she was supposed to agree or disagree with. And then she saw him. The thief. Imperceptibly nodding at her.

"...I supposed I do." A glimmering smile spread through Snow's face and she realized that trusting the thief had been a mistake.

"Then a ball it is." And right then and there, Robin Hood, who happened to be smirking at her, became number one on her enemies list.

The ball had been Snow's idea of uniting the plebe with the nobles. Since Storybrooke had changed mostly everyone's thoughts on social class, they wanted to show, to those who hadn't been affected by the curse, that social class was just a label and that they were all equals. But of course they weren't, Regina knew that. It was easy to feel as equals in Storybrooke were you had your beautiful house and the richest people in town lived in a mansion and payed taxes. Yet here people either lived in slums or in castles, there was no in-between, but Snow didn't seem to understand this and her desire to unite everyone would bring up more troubles than solutions. The Enchanted Forest was as prepared for social equality as they were to use phones and the internet. They just weren't. And this made her hate this forsaken land just a little bit more.

She had decided to look as regal as she could -to remind everyone that she was still the queen even if she wasn't evil anymore- but then Snow had begged her to look 'more casual' and maybe use lighter colours, and just for the sake of getting rid of her step-daughter, she had agreed. She really should stop agreeing to everything Snow asks her.

Since her dark colored dresses had basically been banned from the ball by Snow, she opted to use one of her old gowns. It used to be one of her favourites - the light blue of the velvet reminding her of Daniel's blue eyes that were now nothing more than a distant memory - and she probably would never admit it -not even to herself - but she was glad she could use Snow's stubbornness as an excuse to use the dress again. Her makeup softer than usual -and just in case, she would also blame Snow for that- and her hair up and curlier than it would normally be, to let to view the open back of her dress.

You could say she looked different than usual, she wouldn't say it was a shocking different, but the way people turned their heads when she walked by, made her question if in reality she actually looked much more different than she realized.

The stares were annoying her to no end, didn't they realize she was still the queen. She could hang them all on the courtyard just for daring to look at her in the eye. And maybe she would, they still call her the evil queen, so why not give them what they ask for? She decides that the next person she sees staring, will be the first hanged in the morning -she knows she won't hang anyone come the morning, but at least imagining people hanged will take her thoughts away of how self-conscious the idiots around her were making her feel. And then she sees him, the thief, walking towards her with a smug smile on his face. And oh how she would love to swipe it off his face by either slapping or kissing him, she just can't decide yet.

It was probably too obvious to turn around and walk away, and since when did she care if she was being obvious?, so she squared her shoulders and plastered a disgusted grimace on her face, maintaining eye contact with him. Just to let him know she's not pleased by his approach, or by his mere existence to be honest.

"Your Majesty, I must say you are quite the sight"

"So you've finally learned the proper way to address me. I'm impressed, thief. Maybe the next thing you should learn is not to steal clothes from a royal when you happen to be a guest in said royal's castle." Just as she decided to ignore his compliment, he decided to ignore the venom in her words.

"I'm glad to know I can impress you, milady. And I appreciate your concern about the origin of my clothes, but I assure you they've been lend to me by Prince James. And even if I must admit I've been tempted by the many goods I've seen in the castle; the only thing I plan to steal from a Royal, is a dance from the Queen."

Regina lifted her eyebrow in a mocked glance "A dance from me?"

"Unless there are other Queens at the ball tonight. I believe the Queen is you"

The sniff she let out in response, was something she knew her mother would've categorised as 'unladylike like'

"I know I am the Queen. I just don't understand why?"

"Why what, Milady?"

"Why would you dance with me? And I thought we had established that it is 'Your Majesty', not 'Milady'"

"We had, but I decided to ignore that." Robin didn't show any signs of being affected by the cold stare she gave him "And as for 'why', Milady, I don't see why someone wouldn't want to dance with a beautiful lady such as yourself."

"A beautiful lady that happens to be the Evil Queen"

"Ahh but the 'Evil' moniker seems something of an overstatement to me. Bold and audacious perhaps, but not Evil."

"Believe me, thief, the name served me well"

"And I'm sure it did, milady, I'm just saying that right now I can't see anything evil about you"

"Well don't get accustomed to this looks, because the reason of it, is this damned ball, and it won't be repeated."

It took Robin some seconds to understand that she though he had referred to the way she specifically looked tonight. As if he could see her as evil when she was wearing her normal clothing.

"I didn't mean tonig-"

"You wanted to dance. Let's do it. Now" Robin was taken aback by her sudden change of behaviour, but took in her acceptance of his offer and led her over to the dance floor.

"Not that I'm complaining, but what changed your mind?" The contact of his hand in her waist had shivers running through her spine.

"Swap places with me."

"Wha-"

"You want to know what changed my mind? Swap places with me." Robin did as he was told, positioning himself where Regina had been a second before.

"You see that man behind me? The one with the Santa type of beard?" Even though he didn't understand what a 'santa' was, he nodded at the sight of the only man with a beard behind her.

"He was coming to ask me for a dance." Robins raised both of his eyebrows in surprise. "Does it surprise you that someone would want to dance with me other than you?"

"Not at all, Milady. What surprises me is that you would prefer to dance with me instead of him. I'm sure a Lord is more worthy of dancing with Her Majesty, than a common thief like myself."

"He was my husband's friend" Regina avoided his eyes, and he decided it must be a delicate subject for him to inquire into.

"Then I'm glad I could be of use. Even if I must admit, I'm not a great dancer." He's attempt to lighten up the mood failed miserably, she still won't meet his eyes and the only thing he can think of to comfort her is to hug her.

Of course he doesn't really hug her -he doesn't want to be roasted for his boldness- but he does move his arms around her waist to a point where it could still be considered part of the dance -judging by the stares they are attracting to them, no one thinks it's part of the dance.

He'll blame his bluntness on the intoxicating perfume of her hair if needed, yet he still meant every word. "I lied. Before. When I said the only thing I planned to steal was a dance with you. I'm also planning to steal your heart, Regina, I've been planning it for a long time now.

Let me know what you guys think, and if you want me to I'll write more