AN: Yay! New Swan Queen story! I think the summary explains well enough where this story is aiming to.

If you've read any of my other fanfics you know how it goes, if not, just have patience on me because I'm (as this Regina) a piano major at a prestigious music school, so that keeps me busy. Even so, I hope you enjoy. When you finish please review/fave/follow and tell me what you think!

Chapter 1: Two sets

Every chair on the stage of Carnegie hall was taken by crappy-looking musicians in every day clothes. Regina Mills went out of the stage door, followed by her friend and manager: Kathryn Nolan.

"Wow" she exclaimed as soon as she saw everyone set and talking with their instruments on her laps. "Who's the concertino? She's super hot" she asked in a low voice to her blond friend.

"Oh my God, Regina. Don't you check who you're playing with?"

"Well yeah, I know the conductor and the overall orchestra but I don't read name by name! Just spill it Kathryn, who is she?" she asked.

"Belle French, she's australian. Prodigy child that gave her debut concert at age 8 in Sydney. She got out of Australia to study with different teachers and give concerts aroud the world. She's taken classes with the only known alumni of the ever so famous David Oistrakh and came now to New York to take some theory classes at Julliard" Kathryn told her.

Regina rolled her eyes. "Hate prodigy children. Thanks Kat, I'm gonna rock this Mozart"

She finally walked to the center of the stage and everyone stood up, she signed with her hand to make them sit down, shaking her head. She hated to be treated any different when each and every one of the musicians forming this orchestra had gone through the same path as her, except for the prodigy concertino. Even if the girl was an unbearable violin prodigy child, she was hot, so Regina approached her and shook her hand following the tradition just to be able to check her from closer.

"Maestra Mills it's a pleasure" the aussie said.

"Pleasure is mine" Regina answered. "I'm no maestra but thank you"

She walked to the beautiful and shiny Steinway piano that was placed in the middle of the room, she sat on the chair and waited for the conductorwith her legs crossed. The conductor was a very talented man who had been a prodigy child of the piano but had had to interrupt his carreer due to the loss of control of his left hand muscles, it had been a tragedy but had been fixed when he found out he had great talent for conducting, he was one of the best in New York. Regina greatly admired him and had also become her good friend. He was known as Mr. Gold or simply Gold. When he entered the room every musician but Regina stood up from their chairs, he, as Regina had done before, shook his head and made them sit again.

"Leave that to the moment we have an audience filling this room" he said as he approached the podium. Before standing on it he went to Regina's side and squeezed her shoulder reassuringly. "Ready?" he asked her.

"As ever" she said.

The man walked to his podium and stood up, he opened his music on the music stand and looked at his orchestra. "I want a clean rehearsal, is that clear? No funny business. One full runthrough as if the one and only Mozart was here in the room with us" he said, he had a funny accent, he was scottish.

Regina sat on the chair properly and looked at Gold, he looked back at her and waited, when she nodded he put both his hands up in one smooth movement and, as if magic was coming out of his hands, all the musicians lifted their instruments and placed them in the correct way to play. Gold again looked at Regina, who again nodded and he conducted his orchestra to begin. Regina listened the first notes and felt a chill go down her spine, she loved Mozart's 21, she always had, and this was the first time she would play it with an orchestra that wasn't the Julliard youth orchestra. On the sixth bar she placed her hands on the cold piano, on the seventh she took a deep breath, and finally on the eighth she started playing.

She played softly but with desition, her favorite interpreter of this concert was of course the great Maurizio Pollini, she tried to capture as much as she could of Pollini's escence on her interpretation but without it being plagiarism.

The rehearsal was a success.

Regina Mills was a young, succesful and talented young pianist who was currently doing a piano major at New York City's finest music school: Julliard. Regina knew she was studying in one of the best music schools in the world, she knew she was studying with one of the best teachers of the world, she knew it had been a very hard thing to get in and that she had done her best at all times, but still her dream was The Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw, Poland. All her friends said she was crazy, but Warsaw had been her dream ever since she was 15 years old and she would never give it up. In that moment she was 22 years old, two years younger than Martha Argerich had been when she had won the Chopin International Piano Competition. Regina was in love with Martha Argerich.

Regina was the daughter of Cora Mills, a legendary ballet dancer from the MET ballet company who had retired and gave classes at the dance academy of Julliard. Cora had always wanted Regina to follow her steps as a dancer but Regina had always been keen on studying music. Music was Regina's life, she had started playing the piano at age five and had continued doing it and actually getting more and more interested in it as time passed. She had been playing the piano for almost 20 years, same time she had been reading, almost.

Her debut concert at Carnegie Hall was the next day and she was more than ready to go up that stage and play Mozart's 21 in front of hundreds of people. She had been ready for a long time.

Emma Swan was a completely different story.

Emma Swan was a pretty crazy young woman, she was always the party booster and she was always the one at the front on the wildest rock concerts. She lived a pretty hectic life, surrounded by a big collection of friends just as crazy as her. But even with all that party madness she was a very inteligent person that was studying a literature master's degree in Columbia with a very good scholarship thanks to her high marks. She lived in the dorms and shared room with her very good friend Mary Margaret Blanchard who was also studying literature, the next year they would leave the doorms to share an apartment with their friend Ruby (who studied fashion) and their friend Belle (who was an australian violin prodigy).

Emma Swan loved her life, she loved the parties, love the classes, loved the city, loved it all. Plus, she was a total babe and she knew it, she worked out to keep her body in good shape but still ate more junk food than the whole of New York City together. Upper west side was awesome for crappy cheap pizza places and cheap bars with hot waitresses. Life was good.

The day Belle was on her last rehearsal for the Mozart... thing at Carnegie Hall Emma had stayed home for a Marvel marathon. She was half-way on Spider Man number 1 when her roomate opened the door to get in.

"Oh God" Mary Margaret exclaimed tired and threw herself to her bed, that occupied half of the small dorm room. "I'm so tired"

Emma paused her film and look at her friend. "What'd you do today?" she asked.

"I went out with David to this small museum. It was pretty cool but we walked all the way from the 23rd to the 86th because we had no money left for the subway. Never doing that again" David was Mary Margaret's boyfriend.

"Where's David?" Emma asked.

"He headed home" the pixie haired brunette put her hands on her head and closed her eyes, when Emma was about to press play on the remote control again her friend talked again. "You know tomorrow is Belle's thing at Carnegie. We should go. We must go. Are you going? Ruby's going"

Emma sighed. "I really don't wanna, not my kind of thing. But I should, right? If you go I go"

"Yeah, I'll go. We have free entrance but we have to call Belle to confirm"

"Okay, yes. I'll go but first I might have a Harry Potter marathon. What time is it at?" Emma asked.

Mary Margaret rubbed her eyes. "I don't know... six? Check the Carnegie Hall site online"

Emma grabbed her Samsung phone and searched for the website. She was an android fan. She scrolled down and didn't find what she was looking for.

"There's no Belle French here. Just the Nutcracker ballet thing, an opera thing, a piano thing and another thing" she said.

Mary Margaret frowned. "Gimme that" she said and extended her arm to be handed the phone. She scrolled too. "It's this" she said. "Regina Mills Mozart piano concerto 21"

"Oh okay. What time is it?"

"Six"

"Good. I'll have time for a decent Harry Potter marathon and we can go out of here at five" she said and pressedplay to continue watching the Spderman movie.

Emma wasn't happy to have to go to the concert, but it was a friend and she had to do it. Also, she didn't know what Carnegie Hall had for her the next day.