They walked into the gym together and the tacky decorations only intensified. Emma glanced over at Regina with a hardly repressed smirk on her face. Regina snorted but said nothing. There were a few couples in front of them checking into the party, and oh god they were actually announcing people as they walked in as if it was prom all over again.

"Do you feel like we're at prom again?" Emma asked, echoing Regina's thoughts.

"I was just thinking the same thing, so yes."

"Some people just never leave high school," Emma said as they moved forward one place.

"Um? In all technicality you never left high school, Emma."

Emma laughed. "It's not like this is the same high school I went to back in the day. And it's not like I act like I'm sixteen, now do I?"

No that she did not. "Fair enough."

They stepped up to the table and Regina was staring at Samantha Dix, the president of their class senior year, ten years older, but still with that same rather obnoxious smile on her face. She had been nice to Regina in school though, so she ignored the rather unfortunate expression as she had back then.

"Regina, wow, is that you?" Samantha's eyes swept up and down Regina. "Definitely not the mousy girl I remember who always talked about science."

Regina smiled politely. "Oh, I still talk about science all the time, I'm a professor at MIT starting this coming year, but yes, I've grown into my features nicely."

Samantha dug around in the large-ish box in front of her. "Still Mills, right?"

"Yes, it is." And would be as long as she had say over it. A career in science worked out better if you kept your name the same for publishing purposes.

"Ah, here it is." She held out an envelope for Regina. "That has your name tag in it, a schedule of the night, and a blank name tag for your date." She finally actually looked at the woman standing by Regina and her jaw dropped just a bit. "Oh, well, I don't suppose a name tag will be needed for you, Miss Swan. It's nice to see you again too."

Regina looked between Samantha and Emma for a long second, watching their interaction. She should have thought of this sooner. What she had thought would be a last hurrah for the other woman could totally be misconstrued as something more. And maybe it was something more? Regina hadn't figured that out still, but that wasn't the point right now because news of their maybe date tonight would be across town by morning. And even though she was ten years out of high school maybe it could still adversely affect Emma and her career. Maybe that new job in Boston suddenly wouldn't be a thing if they got wind of this. Oh god, why hadn't she thought this through sooner?

"Nice to see you as well, Samantha. How's life been treating you? Did you go for that nursing degree you wanted?"

Samantha nodded. "Yup, passed chemistry with flying colors thanks to you. Got engaged to one of the doctors last summer too, so life is good right now."

"I'm glad to hear it." Emma looked behind her at the little line that had formed. "But we should let you get back to your job. Perhaps we'll talk more once the party gets going." She smiled once more, and then gently pulled Regina farther into the gym.

Regina tried to take a deep breath. There had to be some way to do damage control here, right? But then they were walking forward and the announcer was calling out their names and Regina could feel so many eyes on them and there went all real chance of damage control. She watched as everyone in the room took in their entrance, eyes looking them over, some in a predatory fashion, some in surprise, some with envy, and some with just a hint of disgust.

"Everyone is looking at you," Emma said quietly. "Seems like showing them what they were missing is going well."

"No, I think they're looking at the both of us. Maybe this wasn't a good—"

Emma cut her off. "Only because we're the hottest couple in this room. Look at Tony Lafou, he's got a beer gut the size of Canada now. I fucking called that." Her lip curled a little bit. "Also he's looking at you like you're a piece of meat. Didn't think that would change either, but I hoped he would stop being a narcissistic chauvinist."

"Emma, but—"

And once again she was cut off by Emma slipping her arm out from under Regina's,but a second later wrapping it around Regina's waist and drawing them forward. "Look Regina, pigs in a blanket! They're totally my favorite." She smiled at Regina, this knowing look in her eyes before grabbing a plate and an ungodly amount of pigs in a blanket and munching away happily.

Regina had the feeling that she'd just been played in a pretty big way, but she wasn't unhappy about it either, really. Emma had managed to shut out Regina's worries without a big scene or even a long conversation, she had just brushed them aside, shown Regina that it was all fine, and gone on with the night. And if Regina hadn't have fallen in love ten years before she thought she might have again, and maybe she was in a way, twenty-eight year old Regina was finding new, more mature reasons to love the woman in front of her. She shook her head and grabbed her own plate with a reasonable number of pigs in a blanket along with some of the healthier options.

She munched on a carrot as Emma gestured over to a gaggle of girls that she remembered vaguely. She thought they were cheerleaders, but she wasn't sure. She hadn't run in the same circle as them and they hadn't taken any of the advanced classes that Regina had.

"So you haven't been in town for the veritable blow up that happened a couple years back. Milah there," she pointed at the dark haired one in the group, "married one of her professors from Storybrooke Community College after her freshman year. It was a big thing in the teacher community because almost all of us thought she did it to save her grade in his class, and it didn't hurt that he was rich as sin to boot. It went well for a few years, but then the whispers started flying that she was cheating on him. Gold, that was the professor, was pissed about the rumors, especially since he was basically the last one to know." She gestured again across the room to Killian Jones. Regina definitely remembered him, the slime ball. "Turns out Milah had been banging Jones since the beginning, and probably even before, but no one was a hundred percent sure on that point. So Gold goes to divorce Milah and leave both her and Jones with peanuts and maybe not even those, but then it turned out that Milah was pregnant. And she didn't know whose it was. Gold had wanted a child for longer than I think any of us here have actually been alive, so he stopped everything. They got a DNA test but the biggest plot twist here was that Milah was having twins they found out later, fraternal, and the boy was Gold's and the girl was Jones's."

Regina pulled in a breath. "That can happen?" She tried to reason it out, but it had been a good while since high school biology.

Emma hummed her confirmation. "It's rare, but it happens. Gold waited for Milah to have the kids and then until they were switched from breast milk to formula a few months later and then he not only slapped a divorce on Milah, but a custody battle for both of the kids. He discredited both Milah and Jones as parents calling them young and reckless, and he wasn't too far off, just in scale of their problems. He won of course, but the town for a while took sides, either Gold's or Milah's, hardly anyone was with Jones, but who blames them."

"Wow, I really did miss something."

Emma laughed. "Oh yeah, there's nothing to do here, really, but the gossip I always good at least."

"What about the kids, are they doing well?" Regina asked.

"Oh yeah, Gold got a nanny for them, smart girl, a few classes ahead of you, lost her job when the library had to cut funding, but then Gold swooped in an employed her. He ended up marrying her too last winter."

Regina titled her head. "Well then, at least someone got a happy ending out of that." She stopped for a second. "Let me guess, Jones is unemployed now and Milah has to support him?"

Emma snorted and nodded. "Oh yeah, they have to live on his boat because they don't have enough money for an apartment and it was the only thing that Gold didn't take from him. I give Milah another few months of his shit before she snaps and leaves him."

They both watched Milah looking over the male contingent of the reunion with hungry eyes.

"I give her a few weeks with how she's looking at some of these people," Regina said.

"I think you might be right."

They turned towards each other and just shook their heads.

"And straight people think lesbians are the dramatic ones," Emma grumbled.

"We can go rather nuclear, but I think that's rather a feature of being human than anything." Regina glanced over at Milah again. "But that is a bit beyond the pale there."

"See?" She popped the last of her pigs in a blanket into her mouth. "You wanna know who has five kids already?"

Regina's shocked expression was enough for Emma to go on. The other woman gestured over to a corner to Ashely and Thomas. They had been the couple that had gotten together at the beginning of high school and had never split up. Regina was a little shocked to see them still together, honestly. Puppy love like they had had didn't really last in her experience.

"No, really?"

"Yup, has the first one a year out of high school, waited a few years after that one, then had the last four practically right on top of each other. Only reason they're making it is because Thomas got a job at the mine and it pays good money. Ashley is at home with the kids working on an online college degree I hear so she can teach kindergarten when all of them hit school age."

"Jesus, I can't even imagine."

"Right, I can't either. I mean, I'm pretty sure I will want kids someday, but five? No, never, that's like a fucking class of kids almost. I would like a break when I get off work."

"Definitely." Though she wasn't sure she wanted children at all. She was still so scared that she would turn out to be too much like her mother in all the wrong ways. She couldn't raise a child like she had been raised. It would be too cruel. But maybe…if it was with Emma with her casual goofiness and laid back attitude, she thought they would balance each other out as parents well. She shook herself. It was much too early to think along those lines.

Regina looked out over the room that was still filling with the last minute stragglers. She caught sight of Phillip and Aurora and smiled. They had been in all the advanced classes with her and so she had known them well, not well enough that they hadn't lost contact after a few years, but still, they were a welcome sight. Mulan came in right after them. Regina hadn't known her quite as well, she was only in the advanced English classes and was the school's star fencer, but she remembered that she was close with both Phillip and Aurora.

Mulan caught up with the other two and slotted herself in the middle of the group, wrapping an arm around both of the other's waists and drawing them closer, saying something that had the other two laughing. It seemed oddly intimate.

"Do you know anything about those three?" Regina asked.

Emma glanced over where Regina was pointing but shook her head. "I remember that they all picked University of Maine and didn't comeback much after that, or at least I didn't see them if they did."

Regina kept looking at the three of them while they started to move about the group, greeting old friends. "Do they look couple-y to you?"

"All three of them together you mean? Or two of them?"

"The three of them."

Emma huffed out a breath after a long minute. "You know, I'm not exactly certain, but then again if I take all of their actions and consider them in each of the separate groups of two, I know it would totally read to me as couple behavior."

"Yeah, I was thinking along the same lines."

Emma smiled. "Good for them. Not exactly something I thought I'd see from someone coming out of Storybrooke High, considering the whole dynamic on gay people is still a bit tense, but more power to them."

Regina nodded along to that, but her curiosity had been peeked, and she really wanted the answer. Then again, this wasn't a science problem and the answer probably wasn't really any of her business unless one of the group told her of their own free will.

"Haven't you learned in your ten years here, Emma, small towns hide a great deal under the surface."

"Well, that is true, definitely true. You make a good point." She threw her plate in the trash. "You remember that one time when people were convinced that the mob was running drugs through the area?" She laughed.

Regina grimaced. Oh, she remembered. Everyone had thought it a rumor, but she distinctly remembered her mother meeting with more than a few shady people at their house at late hours and a glimpse of a suitcase full of money. By the time she had graduated the meetings had stopped, but Regina still remembered.

Emma looked at her. "Wait, what was that look for?"

"Nothing." Her mother was dead, some of her secrets should probably be buried with her.

"Ok, no, I'm going to remember that for later, but for now I'll drop it." Emma turned to look at the dancefloor that was starting to fill up now that the music's volume had been raised. "But for now, wanna dance?" Emma held out her hand, looking at Regina expectantly.

Regina took her hand without much hesitation. Dancing sounded like the perfect thing at the moment. There was a flash of the past, a remembered wish from prom that Emma could have been dancing with her that night that had been left by the wayside after Ruby and Kathryn and Daniel had all pounced on her and drug her to dance and laugh and consume more blue slushie in one night than she'd had in her entire life. But really, in this place that was all about the past and remembering, maybe she should just live in the present for once. It was starting to evolve as everything she had ever wanted anyway.

Emma led her out to the dancefloor where the music was so much louder, which was always surprising despite what she knew of sound mechanics now. It was some pop song that had been popular when they were in high school and Regina remembered it pumping out of practically every car that drove by her senior year. It may have even been their class song, she didn't know.

The crowd was pressed in together tight which meant that Emma was very, very close to Regina. Emma laughed and raised her arms above her head and started to dance, smile large on her face. Regina stood there for half a second just looking at the other woman in awe, heart beating hard in her chest. Then she finally managed to remember that she was supposed to be moving and dancing and having fun, though she was definitely having fun anyway, if her version of fun was getting to stare at the woman of her dreams dance in front of her after eating her weight in pigs in a blanket, which Regina was pretty sure it was.

Her hips found the rhythm easily and she thanked Mal for all those weekend visits to bars that were probably in the wrong part of town but the music had been good and the alcohol had been cheap enough for a grad student salary and Mal had been patient enough to teach her how to let go and actually club dance, not try to force herself into some stilted dance her mother had made sure she knew in preparation for her supposed career as a politician. God, when she told Mal about this she was never going to hear the end of it. She would almost be as bad and Kathryn and Ruby.

Someone bumped her forward and she stumbled just a bit, but Emma's arms were around her in a second, catching her. She looked up and her breath caught at the protective look on Emma's face as she looked over Regina's shoulder and glared hard enough that Regina actually felt people move back a bit behind her. She stood up and rubbed the back of her neck and mouthed her thanks as there was no way that Emma was going to hear her with the music as loud as it was. Emma just gave her a thumbs up and stepped a little closer.

"Gotta make sure you don't fall again, right?" she shouted just loud enough for Regina to make out.

Regina took another unconscious step forward until there was only a few inches between them once more. "As long as I can return the favor as well if you need it."

Emma nodded and in a second was back to dancing as the song changed to something more modern. It still had a fast beat and was easy to dance to, so Regina didn't pay much attention to it. Instead she focused on the moving body in front of her, matching her movements to Emma's and soon it was almost as if she didn't know where she started and Emma began. The music was tying them together in ways she didn't understand and that maybe science didn't have an answer for, or at least she as a physicist didn't have the answer. And really, for just this once, what did it matter?

Songs past, Regina could feel them moving closer to the other and she didn't mind one bit until a slow song came on. She tried to pull back a bit to suggest they go grab a drink, but Emma wasn't letting her go anywhere.

"Nice to have a bit of breather, isn't it?" Emma asked instead now that the music was quieter. She shifted her hands to Regina's hip as she started to spin them slowly around to the slow beat.

Regina took a deep breath. "Yeah, yeah it is." She hesitated for just a second before raising her arms up and circling around Emma's neck. They fit together easily, not perfectly like in some sort of cliché romance novel, but it was still right.

People around them fled to the drinks table and there were only a few people dancing around now. If Regina closed her eyes now she could pretend they were the only ones here. Oh how she really wanted that, but this would do for now.

"This is nice," Emma said quietly. She bent just a little to rest her chin on Regina's shoulder.

"Yes, it is." She could smell Emma's hair this close, a mix of strawberries and something slightly floral.

The song played on, but it was like they were in their own little world. She couldn't really even recall later what song it was. But about Emma she could recall everything, how her breath felt against Regina's neck, how her muscles flexed under Regina's arms, how the smell of her perfume and shampoo mixed, the fact that she hummed along with the song almost absently, how she could feel Emma's heart beating through their chests pressed so tightly together.

But then the music started to speed up again and their little moment was shattered. They pulled apart and smiled shyly at each other. Maybe, just maybe, it was true what her friends had suggested, what she hoped, that this was a date, because the more they interacted the more it felt like one and even if she was being cautious about putting a label to what they were doing, everything was inching closer to being undeniable.

"Would you go grab us something to drink?" Regina asked her. "I have to go freshen up."

"Alright, sounds good. I'll probably grab some more pigs in a blanket too."

Regina snorted. "You're going to eat so many of those that you'll turn into one."

"And here I thought comments like those were only used by exasperated moms. You of all people know how impossible that is."

"Of course I do, but are snarky comments really bound by the laws of science?" She rolled her eyes.

"I'm going to go with yes, yes they are, as with everything else."

"Go, Emma, before one of these idiots with a beer gut that still think they can eat like they have a six pack gets them all."

"You make a good point." Emma slipped into the thickening dance crowd a second later.

Regina sighed and shook her head and headed towards the bathrooms. But as soon as she cleared the crowd she was practically tackled to the ground. She didn't even have to look to know who it was.

"Oh my god, Regina! I knew she had to look good out of all that teacher garb, but Jesus Christ have you seen how she's dressed?" Ruby asked, practically shouting at the top of her lungs.

Regina made a hush gesture, but she knew that it would do little good. Kathryn stepped beside Ruby and nodded along.

"Oh yeah, I mean if you had any doubt about if this was a date or not, you just have to look at her dress to know it's totally a date." The blonde smirked like a cat who'd just eaten the canary.

"Honestly, Gina, A plus on the foresight of crushing on that ten years ago. In that dress she makes me question my sexuality." Ruby wolf whistled just for emphasis. "Tell me you're totally going to hit that. I mean you just have to."

Regina sometimes wanted to strangled her friends and this was totally one of those times. "Ruby, no, I am not going to hit that. It is the first time we've been out together and I am not that type of girl, and until she makes her intentions totally clear this isn't even a date. I don't want there to be any sort of miscommunication that would ruin the friendship we have together." She tried to step around them, because she really did need to use the bathroom as much as she just wanted to avoid her friends, but they saw the move coming and blocked her path. She let out an exasperated breath.

"But Regina, with how you two were dancing earlier this totally is a date," Kathryn said reasonably. "I mean we've been best friends since pre-school and I don't think we've ever danced anywhere near like that. Slow danced together, sure, but never all up on each other."

Regina had nothing really to say back to that. Kathryn was right as much as she didn't want to admit it.

"And you totally do want to hit that at some point. I mean you've wanted to hit that for like ten years now." Ruby waggled her eyebrows.

"That's not the point right now, Scarlet Rose Roth."

Ruby gasped and lunged forward, covering Regina's mouth. "Shut up! People are just starting to forget that my parents thought it was clever of them to name me two different shades of red and nicknamed me after a third. Do you think I want anyone here to remember red cubed? Do you? That stupid chant still haunts my nightmares."

Regina just raised her eyebrows with a smirk. When Ruby's hand finally dropped she spoke again. "Technically it should be red to the fourth. Your last name is a derivative of the German word for red."

Kathryn grabbed Ruby before she could cover Regina's mouth again and Regina nodded her thanks.

"And if you don't want people to know that, then I suggest you lay off with my wanting to have sex with Emma. Tease away at the fact that I've had a crush on her for ten years or that I'm being overly cautious or what have you, but that's where I draw the line. Are we clear?"

Ruby sighed dramatically but nodded. "Spoilsport."

"You've been calling me that since kindergarten and yet you still haven't gone anywhere. Now come on, I really do have to pee and you've held me captive here long enough. I'm sure you're smart enough to walk and talk."

"I'm waiting for my threat," Kathryn said, catching up as Regina strode towards the locker room bathrooms.

"I'm hoping you're also smart enough not to need one, but just remember junior year of college Kathryn if you're really feeling left out."

Regina felt the other woman fade back a step. "Ouch, yep, point taken."

"Who's to say we don't tell all of these things to Emma, Regina?" Ruby asked.

"Mutually assured destruction."

"That didn't actually really work in real life," Ruby protested.

Regina glanced back over her shoulder as she pulled open the door to the bathroom. "No one got bombed, did they?"

"That's not how that worked! That's not how any of that worked!"

"Yes, I know, your double major in history and political science can tell me how it did work, but I can tell you how the bombs they made worked, so I suppose our knowledge on both sides is incomplete."

"Really, Regina, you just had to go for the historical inaccuracy, the one thing that actually sets Ruby off? I'll be hearing about it all night after you go back to your date, and it totally is a date."

Regina smirked and slipped into a stall. "You tease me about Emma and I get to have some sort of retribution right? Consider this yours."

She could practically feel her friends stewing on the other side of the door, both for different reasons as she went about her business. Regina emerged a couple minutes later and washed her hands.

"I think we should mail Emma Regina's seventh grade class pictures," Kathryn said in a mock whisper.

"Oh god, the one where it rained and Regina hadn't learned about waterproof makeup or good quality hair products yet?"

Regina whipped around murder in her eyes. "Don't you dare. I thought we settled this."

"Yeah, that's the one," Kathryn continued on as if she hadn't heard Regina speak. "By the time Emma saw her at sixteen she was much more put together. Don't you think she'd find little awkward Regina adorable?"

Regina sat back against the sink. "Why am I even friends with the both of you?"

"Because you love us," Ruby said, finally turning back to her.

"Sometimes debatable."

Kathryn and Ruby were suddenly at her sides again, squishing her in a tight hug. Regina returned it without much fuss.

"Idiots, the both of you."

"Your idiots," they both said at the same time.

When they let her go Regina finally walked out of the bathroom and back into the crowded room. Her eyes immediately sought out Emma and she found her just where she thought she would, by the refreshments table, munching away on pigs in a blanket, holding two cups of punch easily in the crook of her arm. She had just taken a step to go over to Emma when Ruby's voice stopped her once more.

"Oh god, Regina, you've got it bad. You just looked like a lost puppy until you finally saw her." Ruby was smirking again and Regina wanted to groan.

She turned to face her friend. "I did not look like a lost puppy. I was just looking for her, nothing more. There was no lost expression on my face puppy like or otherwise."

"And you would know because you can see your own expression," Kathryn said, deadpan.

"I can feel what expression my face shifts into and have lived long enough to know what each expression feels like. It is my own body after all."

Kathryn and Ruby just looked at each other with a 'sure' look on their faces.

"You can deny that Regina, just like you're denying that this is a date with Emma, and the fact that you want to kiss the hell out of her too, but that doesn't mean that it's not true."

"You both won't rest until I admit all of those things, will you? You're going to try and to do something stupid like pop in to visit Emma while not actually meaning to do anything of the sort and then just casually drop literally all of my secrets into the conversation."

Again Kathryn and Ruby looked at each other. "Yeah."

"Definitely."

Regina took a deep breath. "Why?"

"Because admitting it to yourself is the first step to solving your problem."

"It's not a problem. You're talking about this as if it's an addiction."

"Isn't it?" Ruby tried to cock an eyebrow but she was smirking too widely for it to really be effective.

"Fine. Fine. This is a date between Emma Swan and I, I looked like a lost puppy when I was looking for her because I'm so gone on her, and I really, really want to kiss her. Happy?"

"Hey Regina," Emma said from right behind her.

And in that moment Regina wanted to die. But she was definitely taking her friends with her.

She whipped around. "Uh, hello, Emma."

Emma held out a full cup of punch to Regina with a knowing smile on her face. "You were gone for a long while so I decided to find you." She looked over Regina's shoulder. "Hey you guys, haven't seen you in a while."

"Hi Miss Swan," they both said.

"You look great," Kathryn said.

"Yeah, where did you get that dress?" Ruby asked, expression innocent, but Regina knew her intent was anything but.

"Got it the last time I was in Boston as an after interview treat at one of the little shops. Couldn't tell you where now, but it had a great selection, just not teacher salary friendly. And thank you Kathryn, you look lovely as well."

Regina, meanwhile, was chugging the punch glad that there was a healthy dose of alcohol in it to numb what had just happened.

Emma perked up as a vaguely familiar song came over the speakers. "You guys don't mind if I steal her back for now, do you? I love this song."

"Go ahead," Kathryn said.

"If anyone was stealing her tonight it was us." Ruby smiled.

Regina skulled the last bit of her drink at that and placed the cup in Ruby's hand. "Well since you aren't dancing you can take care of that for me." It was stupid, petty revenge, but it did make her feel at least a little bit better.