AN: I just want to say that I don't know if Ruby's name is actually Ruby Lucas or if it's something I'd be stealing from AWCM, but I will call my Ruby, Ruby Oliver. This chapter is a bit longer than the previous two, but I can't be sure they will all be like this, also it's divided in two because if not it would be ridiculously long for my standards. Enjoy!
Chapter 3: The Party (Part 1)
She had done it, she had actually done it and she couldn't believe it! Regina had convinced Cora to let her host a party at the mayoral mansion, the first party she had ever hosted in that mansion, and it wasn't just any party, it was the great annual Halloween costume party.
The party often changed place, but it was mostly at the town's Diner front yard (hosted by Ruby Oliver who was the grandchild of the Diner's owner) or at the school's gym when the year's hosts convinced the principal.
She didn't know how she had managed to convince her mother, it was hard enough to let her go to it for more than 3 hours every year, it seemed almost as a dream. Even if Regina didn't care much about popularity and having thousands of friends, hosting the party had always been her dream, she thought that having it in the mansion was an amazing idea as the house was big and had many places to hang Halloween decorations from. She could invite everyone, including the freshmen, as her house was way bigger than the school's gym or the Diner's front yard. Generally only one big but selected group of seniors was invited, together with 10 sophomores and 3 or 4 freshmen. Of course Regina had always been invited for being the Mayor's daughter even before being in highschool, as well as Ruby for being the 'second prettiest in town' and Graham for being the sheriff's son. But she wanted to give everyone the opportunity to go.
She could barely hold her excitement and had been sitting on the edge of her bed with her white iPhone between her hands for ten minutes, thinking what was the best way to tell her best friends the breaking news. She finally got the right words and unblocked her phone, then pressed from her favorite contacts the name 'Rosie', which was how she had her friend saved.
The phone beeped three times before the blonde answered. "To what do I own the pleasure of Regina Mills calling my cellphone?" she teased.
"How do you feel about hosting the Halloween party?" Regina asked excited.
"Well... honestly I don't know, talking to the principal kind of gives me the nerves and choosing some people to go doesn't seem nice, shouldn't we let David Nolan and friends do the job? Or the Oliver girl ask her grandmother again?" her friend answered seriously.
"No, in my house" Regina nearly squealed.
The other end of the line stayed silent for some seconds and the mayor's daughter bit her bottom lip imagining her friend's face. "WHAAAAAAAAAAT!?" Rose finally shouted and Regina had to take the phone away from her ear to prevent getting deaf, when she heard the scream stop she pressed it again to her cheek. "How the hell did you convince Mrs. to do that?" the other girl asked.
"I... cast a spell on her" she answered and they both laughed. "No, actually it's like if I had done it, it was a miracle!"
"Yes! I must say I'm impressed. But the party should be like next week, shouldn't we start planning and buying and informing or something?"
"Yup, why don't you call Graham and come over? I'll wait for you"
"Consider it done, magical witch" Rose said and finally hung up.
Regina smiled to herself and ran downstairs with her phone hardly pressed in her hand, when she got to the living room she turned around, remembering she needed to inform her mother that her friends were going to the mansion.
"Mother! Rose and Graham are coming to help me plan the Halloween party" she shouted while she climbed up the stairs again, running to her mother's studio.
She hurriedly opened the door to find Cora Mills standing in front of her desk with her arms crossed and an angry face. "You do not shout or run like an animal in this house, young lady, you shall keep your manners or I will cancel this party with a snap of my fingers" she said, snapping her finger.
Regina took a deep breath and nodded. "I apologize, mother"
"Good, your friends are allowed to come but you will avoid bothering me with screams or knocking my door, understood?" Cora replied.
"Yes, mother" she smiled lightly and bent her knees in a princess-like bow, to then turn around and get out of the studio. She was so tired of her mother's rules, but she had to respect them if she didn't want trouble.
Some minutes later the doorbell rang and Regina walked happily to the door, she opened it to see her two friends standing outside.
"Hey lucky bish!" Graham said hugging her. She laughed and let them both in. They sat at the dining room table.
"Where's Mrs.?" Rose asked.
"As they say, indisposed. She's locked inside her studio with the strict order to not e disturbed by anything, or she'll take our heads off. Like the queen of hearts from Alice in Wonderland" Regina said.
"Oh my god, she COULD be the queen of hearts! Or any queen actually, your mother should have been born to a royal french family in the 18th century" Rose laughed.
"Yes Gina and you'd be the typical princess who runs away with a poor guy because she doesn't want the castle life" Graham added with fun.
"Ugh, why don't you two stop bothering and better help me plan this party?" she said.
"All right, are you planning to invite everyone or just some people, because the entire school fits in here" Graham asked her.
"Everyone" she replied with a smile.
"How are we getting everyone an invite? Because we'd better do invites, we don't want Boston or Portland people or graduates to decide that a Halloween party hosted by 'Storybrooke Mayor Daughter' is better than their own" Rose asked.
"I had this super cool sort of Mean Girls idea, you know Mean Girls the movie? Of throwing the invites from the school balcony but that would never work in Storybrooke High so I don't know, maybe giving it to the teachers or to some people of good will who spread them through school" Regina said.
"Mean Girls? Seriously?" Graham laughed "You are such a 7 year old Regina. But the teachers sound as a good idea because I'm sure that if we give it to someone else they will avoid giving it t the freshmen or to the 'nerds', and you say you want everyone"
"Okay, we'll do that. Can you ask the principal how many people there is in every class please? Rose and I would rather avoid that and you are the brave man of the group, please?"
"Only if you do me a favor" he said.
Regina raised an eyebrow and the nodded. "Bring it"
"I'll tell you later" he smiled. "So, Rosie, any ideas?"
"Can we make it a themed costume party?" she asked.
Regina and Graham eyed each other but turned again to their blonde friend.
"Don't look at me like that! When my brother Matt was a senior they had a Marvel themed party, I thought Disney could be fun, with Halloween decor in the house but the people as Disney characters. Please?" she said.
"Okay, let me guess, you will honor your childhood bullying memories?" Graham said.
"Yes, I'll be Tinkerbell. What will you be? Prince Charming because you consider yourself sooooo handsome?"
"No! I have two weeks to think. Gina will be Snow White, because she's the fairest of them all" he said winking at the brunette girl.
"Oh my god no, Snow White is annoying and I'm not the fairest of them all. I have two weeks to think too" she said.
"You are the fairest of them all and you know it" Rose told her.
They then spent the rest of the afternoon designing the invites and thinking how they would get the house arranged. They got to the conclusion that they would ask some people to hep them buy the decor so it wasn't that expensive to them. They would put food and non-alcoholic drinks for everyone wit their own money. The invite said clearly that whoever wanted to drink something with alcohol in it would have to bring it him or herself to the house. All drugs were strictly prohibited inside the house, that including cigarettes, only outside in the garden. The three friends were excited, it really didn't matter that Regina was putting the house, the party was actually hosted by all three of them. Graham and Rose left the mansion late at night.
One Week Later...
"Regina, dear, you will get late to school if you don't go out soon" Cora said knocking her daughter's bedroom door.
"I'm almost ready, mother" the teen replied from inside, she was brushing her long hair as quickly as she could to braid it and not have to care about it the rest of the day. She had been all morning getting all of the invites inside paper envelopes, after this she only had two tasks in the day: Give all the envelopes but one to Graham and Rose so they gave them to the teachers and make sure Emma Swan got the one invite she kept so the blonde went to the party. That had been Graham's price to talk to the principal, that she made sure his 'bon-bon' went to the party. Easy.
She finally went out of the room, with her backpack and the paper bag of the invites on her shoulders, she approached Cora to say goodbye but was stopped by the mayor. "I just wanted to say goodbye properly. You have my phone, your friends confirmed they will stay with you this week and I'll see you the day after your party, I'll be back home at about 6 n the afternoon, I expect the house to be empty of people and clean, is that clear?"
"Yes mother, good luck with your meeting" she hugged her and walked to the door. "Enjoy Portland!"
Cora was leaving for 8 days to Portland, to a meeting of the state of Maine governors. It was some sort of test for Regina. Instead of taking her to the meeting, Cora was leaving her alone in the mansion with two friends of her same age for a week, and then eltting her host one of the biggest parties of the year with no atult supervision. It was a responsibility and trust test, more than anything. But Regina was mad happy about getting rid of the unnecesary princess behaviour for some days.
When she got to school she quickly founs her friends sitting on their usual morning spots, at the school's front stairs, she got near and handed the paper bag.
"We have 10 extra invites just in case you loose something or someone that seems of trust asks if they can invite one more person, give one extra to each teacher and that's it" Regina told them.
"Ok mom, are we going home with you today?" Rose said.
"All week, Mrs. is out in two hours" she answered.
Graham handed her one invite that he got out of the bag. "I'm trusting you on this, give it to your debate club friend and don't say it's me who sent you"
"Consider it done, I'll see you home after debate club, please don't break anything before I get there. Do you already have people to ask for the decor?"
"David Nolan said he would, as well as some poor freshmen Graham took advantage off saying he'd be popular. You will have to get a third one, as we each already got one too" Rose said.
"Okay" she smiled and headed to her first class of the day.
Everything went perfectly, on lunch break her friends told Regina that the invites had been delivered to the teachers and they would give them on the last class. Regina's last class was science. Their teacher Mr. Gold finished the class 20 minutes early and asked everyone to put their things away.
"As you may be aware if you have lived in Storybrooke long enough" he started saying. He was scottish, so his voice alway included a very strong accent that made Regina want to laugh, but she didn't. "This highschool is well known for it's annual Halloween costume party, and everyone wants to be a senior to attend this party" some people cheered at Regina's right. "This year will be no exception and there will be a party. What will change is the location, and so I want you all to please thank your classmate Regina Mills who will be hosting this year's party in no other place than her house, better known by everyone as the mayoral mansion" the whole class clapped and cheered at the news. "She has been also kind enough to consider her house's size as an advantage to let even the young people of this school to attend the party"
"Wow! You go Regina!" some boy she didn't know shouted from behind.
"And so I'm only here to give each of you an invite" he finished and started naming everyone, reading the names from the white envelopes Regina had readied in the morning. When he finished he excused everyone but Regina saw Emma stand from her place and go to the teacher's desk.
"No, there was no Emma Swan, I'm very sorry" she heard the teacher say.
The blonde and her friends who were in front of the door turned to look at Regina with anger, the brunette so realized her little mistake. "Emma, wait" she called from her table. "Can you come for a second?"
The girl nodded at her friends, who left the lab and then she walked towards the brunette. "What? Am I not cool enough to go to your party, not even because we share evenings every day we have debate club? I get it, sorry I thought the mayor's daughter would like me" she said clearly angry.
"No, actually I wanted to make sure you'd go myself, you know people don't feel personally asked to go if it's just given like that. I should have thought better and given it to you before, sorry" Regina said handing the invite that read 'Emma Swan' written with care with a shy smile.
Emma took it with wide eyes. "Oh crap, sorry Regina, I just tend to be a bit explosive and I talked so mean to you, I thought you were being mean I don't know why, you are not like that. Thank you so much, can I um maybe make up for it? I mean like helping you with something for the party or... you know"
Regina smiled at her. "Actually yes. Could you and your friends maybe buy some Halloween decor and give it to me at school the day of the party?"
"Sure, you are staying to the debate club today, right? I mean and if you do you're still okay with eating with me?" she said.
"Yeah" the brunette laughed.
They got out of the lab and found Emma's friends waiting outside, she smiled at them and showed the invite. "It's okay guys, we are going to a party at the mayor's house"
AN: Reviews are welcomed and encouraged!
I hope to post part 2 either today or tomorrow.
Thanks for reading
-Lily Rickman