PART 1B: HOOK AND REGINA, BECAUSE BELLE'S WAS TOO LONG TO FIT IN THIS AND HATES ME.

Hook sat on the edge of his bed, watching Ruby—still in her bathrobe and curlers— rifle through his drawers, looking for a tie. She gave one last flutter of her hands, and turned to look at him with wide eyes.

"You don't have a single tie?" she said in disbelief, sitting back on her heels.

"Have you ever seen me wear a tie?"

Ruby scoffed. "Well, I find it difficult to believe you don't even have one tie. I mean, what kind of guy doesn't have at least one tie?"

"Ugh," Hook groaned, falling back on the bed and covering his eyes with his arms. "It's too early for this…"

Ruby got up and walked over to him. "Get up."

"No."

She poked his head with a sharp fingernail. "Get. Up."

"Uh, no."

She made an exasperated noise. "Hook, you're the…" She shook her head at the ridiculousness of her next words. "You're the mister-of-honor, you have to get up now."

"I'm tired."

Ruby took his wrists and unfolded his arms from around his face. "Get up."

"Stop yelling at me," he whined, trying to tug his arms back. Ruby only tightened her hold, surprisingly strong.

"Would Neal have a tie in his room?"

"I don't know! It's not like we have sleepovers, Ruby."

"Hook," she said, sounding like an exasperated adult dealing with a particularly difficult child. "You can't go to this thing without a tie."

"Why not?" he said petulantly. "I put on the suit, why do I have to wear a tie?"

"Because!" she said, dropping his wrists. "Because you wear a tie with a formal suit to a formal event! That's why! It's a social protocol!"

"You're a social protocol," he said, tucking his arms under his head. Ruby squinted her eyes at him witheringly.

"That doesn't even make sense."

"You don't make sense."

She scoffed. "You're such a child."

"You're a child."

"You're a child!" she threw over her shoulder, hurrying out the door so she could have the last word.

"Where are you going?" Hook called after her, still staring at the ceiling.

Her voice came back faintly, muffled through the wall that separated his room from Neal's. "I'm looking for a tie!"

"I don't need a bloody tie!"

"Would you shut up? God, you're annoying!"

"You're annoying!"

"Both of you, SHUT UP!" Granny's voice shouted from down the hall. Hook curled his lip: he did not care for that woman.

She didn't care for him, either. Every time he and Ruby broke up, she would walk around with this smug little smile on her face; smirked at him over his morning coffee; delivered his towels without folding them, just shoving a pile into his arms.

It was even worse every time he and Ruby got back together: she would glare at him so venomously, it made the hairs on the back of his neck stand upright; glowered at him when he whispered little jokes to Ruby, making her throw her head back and laugh in her squeaky way (over time, he actually started to think it was cute, rather than grating); made vague threats about poisoning his order. It was hell on earth.

"Ruby?" Granny rapped her cane against a door, still calling from the other side of the hall. "Ruby, make sure the boys don't forget the glaze for the chicken!"

"I can't right now!" she hollered back.

"Ruby, they have to leave for Gold's in ten minutes, I need you to make sure they have everything!"

"I'm dealing with a CRISIS here!"

"What crisis?"

Hook rolled his eyes, pulling the pillow over his face as Ruby and Granny continued to shout back and forth. Their voices were so shrill. High-pitched, screeching noises, the kind that burrowed into your brain and haunted it. In fact, he was fairly certain they'd had a starring role in his nightmares last night.

"Here, I found one," Ruby's voice said.

Hook lifted the pillow, glancing up: Ruby was walking toward him, a tie fluttering through her fingers. He made a noise of disgust, and covered his face with the pillow again.

"Hook." She tugged the pillow away, and tossed it across the room. "Come on, sit up."

"No."

"Okay, we are not doing this again!" she said fiercely. "Sit. Up."

"Uh, no."

She narrowed her eyes at him dangerously. "Okay, I didn't want to have to do this…" she said threateningly. "Killian Jones, sit up and put on your tie."

"Ruby!" he said indignantly, sitting up on his elbows. "How dare you call me that, I thought we discussed this!"

Ruby responded by rolling her eyes disdainfully, and looping the tie around his neck. He feigned choking as she knotted it, rolling his eyes up to the back of his head.

"Stop moping," she ordered, straightening his collar. She leaned back, giving him an appraising look, and smiled. "You look cute in a suit."

"I always look cute," he scoffed as she walked over to his dresser, looking for a comb.

"You know," she said, scattering various eyeliner pencils in the drawer, "it's more polite to thank someone for a compliment than agree with them." She turned around, brandishing a thin black comb. "C'mere, I got to fix your hair."

"I'm not a doll, Ruby," he grumbled, getting up and walking over nonetheless.

She stood on tiptoe, yanking the comb through his hair unforgivingly. He winced when it snagged on a stubborn little knot; Ruby exhaled in frustration, bracing her other hand against his forehead as she tried to pull it free.

"Ow!"

"Stop whining."

"Stop yanking my hair out, woman!"

"Okay, I'm done, all right?" She threw the comb back into drawer, huffing. "Jesus!"

Hook rubbed his sore head, following her as she walked out of his room and headed for hers. Ruby chattered the whole way.

"So, I wanted to wear the red one today, but I found a little tear by the sleeve, so then I thought, well, maybe I should wear the burgandy one, but then I thought, no, it's so boring, and who even wears burgandy to these things? So I was digging around and I found this purply one, which I really like, but I really wanted to wear red, because it's kind of my thing, but then I thought, well, maybe I need a new thing, but it's like, uh, hello, why would I need a different thing when this one clearly works? And I feel like it would get confusing if I suddenly started doing a new thing, but at the same time, it's like, Jesus, Ruby, you're allowed to wear other colors, right? So, now I'm stuck between the other red one and the purply one."

By the time she'd finished talking, they had made their way to their room and were now standing in front of her large closet as she rifled through dresses and hangers. Hook peered in curiously: it was truly amazing how many clothes the woman had accumulated over the years.

"So, here's the purple one," Ruby said, pulling out a shimmery purple dress. "And the red one is…" She turned around in a slow circle, frowning, then snapped her fingers. "In the dresser!"

Ruby crossed the room, draping the purple dress over her arm, while Hook wandered into her closet, running his hand along all the different fabrics. Some were slippery, others soft; one of them practically Bedazzled his hand with all the loose glitter and rhinestones.

"Hey, Ruby," he called, something glittery on the floor of the closet catching his eye.

"Huh?"

"How about this one?"

"What one?"

Hook brought it out, beaming as he presented it to her. Ruby looked at it and narrowed her eyes; slowly she looked back up at him, clearly unamused.

"That's a bikini," she said flatly.

"Is it?" he gasped, feigning shock as he looked round at it. Ruby rolled her eyes.

"Okay, I don't have time for this, I'm not even half ready." She put out her hand, the other one on her hip. "Give it."

He pretended to consider it, twisting his mouth to the side. "Mmmm…. no."

Ruby sagged, making a soft whining noise. "Can't you be a grown-up for, like, two minutes?" she pleaded.

Hook sucked in a breath. "Two entire minutes? You're really pushing it, love. I can give you a forty seconds, that's as high as I'll go."

"Fine. Take forty seconds, put that back in my closet, and go wait for me downstairs." Ruby started to unclasp the curlers in her hair as she walked over to her vanity table. Hook blew out a breath, tossing the bikini back on the closet floor, and crossed the room to flop onto Ruby's bed.

"I'm just going to nap while I wait for you," he yawned. "Wake me up in five hours."

"I do not take that long."

"You do, actually."

"Pretty sure you're exaggerating."

"I wish I was exaggerating."

Ruby tossed her now-wavy hair over her shoulder, then disappeared into the bathroom with her dress. Hook amused himself by pulling the beads off one of her pillows until she emerged from the bathroom again.

"That was not five hours," she said, by way of announcing herself.

Hook sat up, leaning on his elbows to see her twirl around in her shimmery purple dress, clearly proud of herself.

"I look good, huh?" she grinned, putting her hands on her hips. "Don't lie to me. I look good, don't I?"

"I still think the dress I picked out would have been better," he shrugged. Ruby looked at him exasperatedly.

"Stop being an idiot and tell me I look pretty."

"You look pretty."

She beamed.

"Mom?" Henry's voice echoed through the front hall. Regina slowly lowered her cup of coffee, narrowing her eyes in her most dangerous death glare as Henry's cautious footsteps walked to the kitchen.

"Good morning, Henry," she said with exaggerated politeness. "How are you this fine day?"

Henry's eyes shifted nervously to the side and back as he slowly sat down on a chair. "…Good."

She smiled humorlessly. "That's good. Do you have your suit ready to go?"

"It's upstairs," Henry said, his voice coming out faint and shaky. "On my bed."

"Oh, excellent. You can go put it on after you eat, I don't want you to spill anything on it." Regina slowly rose from her, still smiling down at him. "I'll go get your plate."

Henry looked positively terrified by now, which was good: he had terrified her when he had just disappeared off to Dr. Whale's for whatever stupid excuse he gave Emma. He couldn't expect that she would let something like that slide—she had raised him to be smarter than that.

"Where's Robin?" he asked: he was in enough trouble that he didn't feel comfortable being around her without witnesses.

"He's just getting Roland ready, he'll be by shortly." Regina placed her note on the plate of eggs, and brought it over to him, smiling venomously. "Here you are, Henry."

Henry's eyes immediately fixed on the note, following its movement as she set the plate in front of him. He lifted it with trembling hands while Regina retook her seat; she continued to smile at him as he flipped it open and read his punishment.

"You're assigning me a disciplinary essay?" he said in disbelief. "But you took away my computer, how do you expect me to give you a two-thousand word essay—which, by the way, is ridiculous— without a computer?"

"You're very lucky I didn't require it in Spanish," Regina said, taking a sip. "And read the fine print—it has to be in cursive."

"Mom, I don't have time for this, I have actual papers to write for school!" Henry protested.

"Should have thought of that before you ran off without telling me," Regina shrugged.

"I did tell you."

"No, Henry. You said, 'I'll be right back'. And I said, 'Henry, wait. Stop. Where are you going? Why aren't you answering me? Hello? Henry? Where the hell did he go?' And from there, I proceeded to have a panic attack. You didn't tell me where you were going, why you were taking off—"

"I just needed Dr. Whale to sign some service hours forms—"

"You, sir, are lying." Regina narrowed her eyes, leaning back in her seat as she folded her arms across her chest. "I don't have time to discuss this with you now, because we're supposed to be at the church by eleven, and I have another tray of cookies to put in the oven for the reception later. But if you think there's even the slightest chance I'll forget about this, you've got another thing coming, buddy." She stood up, pushing her in chair in. "Now, eat up—you're going to need your strength to stay awake during this ridiculous affair."

Henry grumbled under his breath, picking up his fork, as Regina dumped the dregs of her coffee in the sink. Feeling rather satisfied with herself, she tied her apron on over her dress (naturally, she'd been ready to go for a good hour already; punctuality was an important value, after all).

They were just chocolate chip cookies, but they were quite a masterpiece: she had modified the recipe David gave her almost imperceptibly, adding a few secret touches, nothing more—but everyone agreed, she had transformed what had been merely "delicious" to "orgasmic". The entire house now smelled of warm, chocolate perfection: deceptively homey. It was almost difficult to believe Regina Mills, arguably the most intimidating person in any of the infinite realms, was responsible.

Her phone buzzed, clattering against the counter as it received a text. Regina slid the tray into the over, bumping it closed with her hip as she reached for her phone. It was a text from Robin:

Me and Roland are on our way over.

Regina typed back: Got cookies in the oven, let yourself in.

All right. See you in a few.

Regina leaned against the counter, indulging in her guilty pleasure: Candy Crush. She knew it was ridiculous and immature and childish, and she could come up with no conceivable explanation of why it was so important that she eliminate all those electronic chocolate bars, but she had to.

"Damn!" she swore, as the little cartoon character reproached her for not clearing the board. Oh, how she loathed that bouncing purple imbecile!

The front door opened, and Roland's excited baby babble echoed through the house, followed by Robin's heavier footsteps.

"Regina?"

"In the kitchen!" she called, quickly closing out of her game. She poked her head out of the kitchen. "I'm just waiting on cookies."

Robin swung Roland onto his shoulders, ruffling Henry's hair as he passed him, and followed her into the kitchen. Roland sniffed the air, and immediately swiveled his head, looking for cookies.

"Cookie?" he asked Regina, swirling his finger along his cheek. Regina resisted the urge to clean the child's face with a damp paper towel, and smiled at him.

"No, you may not have a cookie. They're for the reception," she informed him. She always addressed the toddler formally, never indulging in baby-talk: Regina felt that babbling to a child not only humiliated the child, but it humiliated the babbling adult in the process. It was silly to pretend that she wasn't capable of forming grammatically correct sentences, just to appease a small boy. She never did that with Henry, and look at him now: a very intelligent, if inconsiderate and in-so-much-trouble-right-now, young man.

"You look lovely," Robin told her, his eye twitching closed as Roland happily clapped his face with his tiny palms.

"Yes, I do," Regina agreed, smiling. "And you look very handsome in your suit."

"Yes, I do," he agreed, smiling back. "And Roland looks rather dashing, don't you think?"

"I didn't know they made suits in that size," Regina said, not telling him that it was actually a little unnerving: Roland almost looked like a very miniature man in his baby-suit, and years of dealing with Snow and her murderous dwarves (who were thankfully, quite docile now) had made her wary of tiny men.

"All right, Roland," Robin said in a strained voice as the boy leaned across his head, reaching for a cookie. "Come on—you're killing Daddy's neck, now."

"Here—" Regina lifted Roland off Robin's shoulders; Roland kicked his feet, pointing urgently toward the cookie plate, while Robin massaged his neck.

"No, Roland, later," he said, as Roland made insistent whining noises.

"It's fine," Regina sighed. "It's not like one cookie is going to make that much of a difference." She handed him a cookie. Roland beamed and took a bite, smearing melted chocolate around his face.

"Oh, Roland," Robin wailed, dropping to his knees. "You're a mess."

"Cookie!" Roland said, smiling widely at Regina.

"No more," Robin told him. "You've had enough."

"Cookie," Roland pouted.

"No."

"Cookie."

"Roland, I said, no."

"COOKIE!"

"Would someone give that kid a goddamn cookie already?" Henry yelled. "Jesus."

Robin fixed Roland with a stern look. "Now, look here, Roland—"

"COOKIE!"

"Just give him a goddamn cookie," Regina said through clenched teeth. Robin sighed in defeat, and handed Roland another cookie. After a moment's pause, he took one, too.

"My God, these are…" He closed his eyes. "Regina, these cookies inspire me to be a better man." He reached for another one, but Regina lifted the plate away.

"If you guys keep eating these, I'm not going to have enough for the reception," she said, walking out of the kitchen with the plate.

"Where are you going?" Robin called after her.

"I'm hiding these!"

"You can hide them on the table, with a glass of milk," Robin suggested.

Regina closed her eyes exasperatedly. She loved Robin, she did, but as for his jokes…? "Robin, you're really funny and everything, but take my advice: don't quit your day job."

If these had been anyone's cookies but her own, she would have laughed at the idea of hiding them in a room equipped with magical security; however, as they were her cookies and she was well aware that they were maddeningly tempting, Regina thought it was perfectly acceptable hide them in her vault. That was the only place she felt they were truly safe.

"Henry," she called, stepping out of the passageway between her office and her vault. "Go get dressed, we have to leave soon!"

"Whatever…"

"I beg your pardon?"

"I said, yes, ma'm."

Regina smirked in satisfaction as she made her way back to the kitchen. You're damn right, "yes, ma'm", she thought to herself. You're damn. Right.