"To be or not to be! That is the question. Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to….to….uh…"

"Suffer-"

"Right! The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Or to take….or to take…"

"Just take your time, David. You know this, I know you do."

David takes a deep breath, and sweat is visibly forming on his forehead. He takes a moment–a hilarious moment–to close his eyes and dramatically lift his hands in the air, is if imploring to the gods of theatre, please. Please don't let me fuck this up.

Emma thinks, as David fucks up the speech again, that the theatre gods stopped assisting Storybrooke High's vastly underfunded production ofHamlet a very long time ago. She leans back in the swivel chair, the one nice chair and she can't even use it when Archie's back in the booth trying to be all director-y, (even though she knows he's basically doing this all on instinct and Wikipedia searches.) She stretches in her chair, reaching her arms up and twisting side to side, hearing her back crack wonderfully.

At this point it's going to be ages before her cue line–Thus conscience does make cowards of us all-so she might as well get comfy. And snack. Benefits of being the head lady of the light booth? She gets to decide all the secret snack places. She pulls a bag of cheetos from a drawer to her right, and offers them to Ruby, who is painstakingly trying to fix costumes in the seat next to her.

She rolls her eyes. "Ems, I can't really get cheeto dust on Rosencrantz's tunic."

Emma snorts. "Yeah, I highly doubt Killian will care. He's just here to fill an art credit."

Ruby lifts a brow. "And to woo you, my lady."

Emma puts her arm over her eyes and leans her neck back. "Oh god, and he tries to use Shakespearian lines too sometimes. Something tells me using lines from Romeo and Juliet is a bad omen."

"Like how saying Macbeth is a bad omen?"

They both pause, and widen their eyes. Emma's cheeto is halfway towards her mouth, and suddenly with her stomach plummeting downward, the fake cheesy goodness doesn't seem all too appetizing.

It only takes a moment before there's a crackle of noise on their headsets and then-

"You idiots!"

Shit.

"Tell me, do you want to ruin everything, Ms. Swan? Ms. Lucas? Because I assure you that both of you are incredibly replaceable."

Emma and Ruby share furtive looks, and Emma dejectedly places her cheeto down. At Regina's comment, Ruby huffs. She is very good at costumes, thank you very much. She's been making them herself since she was a little kid.

"Regina, I don't really think this is-"

"Dr. Hopper, I will handle this!"

Emma sighs and clicks the little button her headset box. "Regina, and I think I speak for everyone when I say this, calm the fuck down."

There's a few seconds of silence, and on stage, David looks a little confused, and this time not just because he can't remember one of the most famous speeches ever written or maybe because he doesn't know whether he locked his car or not. Other actors are popping their heads out of the curtain, looking either amused, irritated, or terrified. The freshmen being chief among the paled, gulping and staring at Archie in a plea for help. Killian is snorting and Neal is hitting him in the chest to stop. Mary Margaret looks somewhere between worried and irritated and keeps glancing backstage.

"Well, don't come crying to me if David winds up actually stabbed by the prop sword because of your thoughtless slip of tongue." The crackle in the headset fades, and a glance at Archie and yep, he's as paled as the freshmen. He clears his throat and tries to smile before indicating that David should try again.

(David fucks up on the first line.)

"Jesus fuck." Emma mutters and rubs her temples. Regina Mills is aggravating, irritating, intense, and god, so, so attractive, especially in those tight techy clothes. A black shirt stretched over her chest, black leggings, her hair slicked back-

Hell. Emma rubs her eyes.

"You know how to pick them, Ems." Ruby says, shaking her head and going back to her stitching.

"Hey! The heart wants what the heart wants." Ruby rolls her eyes.

"More like what Emma's pants wants what Emma's pants wants."

Emma practically whines and finally pops a cheeto in her mouth. Ah, sweet, blessed, orange fake cheese.

"C'mon, I like her for more than her looks."

Ruby shakes the tunic a few times, allowing the air to fill the puffed sleeves as she admired her handy work.

"So you wouldn't mind cuddling after a round of steamy lovemaking? Making her breakfast in the morning and getting her boxes of her favorite chocolates from sees?"

Emma scratches the back of her head. Her cheeks burn. Yeah, so she's thought about it. Dating Regina Mills. Usually she decides that they'd end up killing each other before the end of one week, so she doesn't indulge in these thoughts too often. But when they come they're relentless; all cutesy lovey-dovey shit that used to make Emma want to vomit. And now she wants to do them all with one of the most hardass people she's ever known. Great.

"Maybe." She says cryptically, popping in another cheeto.

"So you want to spoon Regina Mills."

"Ruby."

"Would you be the big spoon or little spoon?"

"Ruby I'm going to rip your costumes to shreds."

"Emma and Regina sitting in a tree-"

….."Uh guys."

Another crackle in the radio.

"Yeah, what's up, August?" Emma says, pressing the little button. "Something up with a light fixture?"

"Not exactly. Mary Margaret was practicing the lullabye and sort of….twirled into the props table. And Poor Yorek's down."

Emma's heart hammers. "How down?"

"Four teeth are out and his skull is cracked."

There's shouting in the background, and Emma can only guess who it is. And this time, well, yeah she agrees. That skeleton head's not even there's. They borrowed it from Dr. Whale, Regina's biology teacher. Damn budget cuts.

"Uh, make sure Mary Margaret doesn't get murdered, okay? I'm pretty sure one of the freshmen is storing weed in one of those vases from the first scene, so we probably don't want the cops sniffing around."

There's a bit of dry laughter on the other side. "Will do, Swan."

Evidently, Archie hears the commotion because he finally gives up and takes off his glasses. He settles them on his script before taking a deep breath and venturing on stage. David hears a yelp that sounds suspiciously like his girlfriend and he bounds backstage.

Emma grins and adjusts the lighting board so that the shadows from backstage are splayed on the back-wall. She lets the show go on for a while, Regina's stark silhouette yelling at Mary Margaret's.

"You foolish idiot!"

"Come on, Regina, it's not my fault-"

"It's literally your fault. Your hip came into contact with the prop table, causing the-"

"God why do you have to be such a bitch! You're the reason this show can barely even get rehearsal time with your stupid need for absolute perfection all the time-"

"Oh so it's my fault I'm stuck managing a troupe of colossally incompetent morons?"

As the shouting escalates, Emma dims the master light down to fully dark, although the entire stage is still visible in the afternoon light, and and pops another cheeto in. She then goes to the apple computer synced up to the speakers–effectively their sound system–all loaded up to play Ode To Joy, the next sound cue, and unplugs it, and blares Bad Reputation full blast in the lighting booth, effectively drowning out the commotion backstage.

Ruby bobs her head and laughs when Emma begins her Joan Jett air guitar impression.

"God, Kristen Stewart was so good in that movie."

"Seriously? I mean. I don't know." Emma shrugs. "It was a good movie in any case."

Ruby turns her head. "How did you get August to agree to be a stagehand, by the way?"

Emma laughs and turns down the volume of the music. Dr. Hopper and Regina are now on stage, and having a slightly heated argument. Well, as heated as Dr. "Let's approach this rationally" Hopper can be. Regina perks up at the sound of Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, and looks over at the lighting booth. She gives Emma a withering glare and Emma gives a thumbs up and waves back. Although she's still angry, Emma can see the slight twitch up of her lips.

"Regina needed another stage hand. I promised him I'd give him thirty bucks towards that new typewriter. And I'd buy him a croissant every time we went to Granny's."

Ruby finally finishes Killian's tunic with a flourish, and begins work repairing Belle's bodice, accidentally snared on a sharp nail on the way onstage.

"A croissant?"

Emma shrugs. "The man loves croissants. Probably more than he loves people."

"How about writing?"

"Probably as much as he loves writing."

There's a pause as Archie gives the signal to Emma to bring up the lights to their original setting. She nods back at him, and moves each fixture with practiced ease.

"You should tell her." Ruby muses.

"What?"

"Regina."

"What?"

"Y'know that you wouldn't mind climbing her balcony." Ruby waggles her brow.

Emma groans. "I thought we said Romeo and Juliet was a bad omen?"

"We said that quoting Romeo and Juliet is a bad omen. I just referred to it." Emma scoffs and brings up the master light. Archie gives her a thumbs up to say all looks good, and she watches as he begins to direct David once more.

"It's kind of a star-crossed lovers story though, isn't it? The stage manager and the techie doing lights, always doomed to never cross paths from their respective domains."

"…Not quite."

Ruby sighs in exasperation. "Just tell her, Emma. What's the worse that could go wrong?"

"She could impale me on my own spinal cord."

Ruby snorts and goes back to her sewing. "Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind; And therefore is wing'd Cupid painted blind."

Emma would've started to plug her ears, but the headset is in the way. "No, nope. No Shakespeare. I'm not going to be with Regina lalalalala, she thinks I'm the scum of the earth, I think she's irritating as hell, nope, not gonna happen."

"Your loss."

Emma eats another cheeto, and bites down with an extra vigorous crunch.

"Hardly."

Except, yeah. She thinks of Regina again, and stupidly, what it would be like to hold her. To make her breakfast. To take her on movie dates, maybe kiss in the car, hold her hand all the way there.

Her loss.

"Oops, sorry!"

"Mary Margaret I swear to fuck if you broke that skull again-"

"Nope, August caught it!"

"Well it looks like you're not a waste of space afterall, Mr. Booth."

And despite everything, Emma grins.

David tries the speech one more time, and nearly gets through all of it, and then fumbles on the last three lines. An exasperated sigh echoes from backstage and Regina comes out in all her stage manager glory, and glares at David with all the malice she can muster.

"Uh, Regina-" Archie warns.

"Save it, bug." Archie gulps.

And then–holy high hell Emma is still gaping–Regina closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and executes the entire speech. Her voice fills the theater, and Emma feels goosebumps. Her eyes are impassioned, inquisitive, fearful. Her whole self seems to transform before Emma's eyes, becoming almost part of the space, reacting to it. Oh my god. Regina can act. She can act.

After she finishes, she smooths down her pants. "Just like that, Mr. Nolan."

For once, everyone backstage is absolutely quiet. Open-jawed. Like Emma probably is.

She glares at Archie. "I presume you want to continue?"

Archie blinks and opens and closes his mouth a few times. He adjusts his glasses and clears his throat. "Yes, uh. Thank you, Regina. Your demonstration was…..quite well done, and appreciated."

Without another word, Regina exits to her backstage domain, and Emma starts to set up the next cue, her eyes sort of permanently widened.

"Holy shit." She murmurs.

"My thoughts exactly."

Just another day at Storybrooke High, Emma thinks. Just another day. And yeah, she totally likes Regina Mills. A lot. No big deal.

Right?

(Nope.)

Right.

A/N: : Based on this post: post/66965327465/coffee-shop-aus-are-lame-i-want-m ore-characters

I have no idea if this will ever be continued, but I cackled the entire time while writing it. (All the lines from a Shakespeare play are obviously not mine.)