Chapter 19

The four of them walked in and Emma couldn't help but gasp, she was stood in a hall way with marble floors facing a marble staircase lighted by a magnificent chandelier.

"careful dear you'll catch flies" Emma turned to see Regina walk past her a huge smirk on her face, Emma closed her mouth and smiled shyly at the brunette as she walked into the room on the right.

"Right, what do you two lasses want to drink?" Killian asked leaning in between Emma and Lacey

"Just a coke for me thanks Killian" Lacey said

"Yeah same for me" Emma replied

"What? Come on Swan that's not the right spirit" Killian gently nudged her as he and Will walked away to the room on the left where Emma assumed the bar was.

"Come on, lets go" Lacey said as she walked into the same room as Regina had just walked into it. Emma followed, but this time she held in her gasp, there were a few tables at the top of the room and a long buffet table down the side as well as a lot of chairs spread out around the room. The two girls walked over towards a table and sat down waiting for the boys to return with their drinks.

"Here you are love" Killian said as he placed a drink in front of Emma

"Thanks Killian"

Will sat down at the table with Lacey's and the four of them carried on from where they left on the coach, laughing and joking.

The next half an hour Emma spent mainly chatting to Lacey, Will and Killian, Aurora came over to join them briefly and introduced the man Emma didn't recognise, his name was Philip and he was her fiancé, shortly after that Anna did the same and introduced them to Hans. A few minutes later the four of them drifted off to mingle more, though Emma suspected Killian and Will were going to get more drinks, the two of them already on their way.

Lacey had just walked away as she had seen someone she met at the last ball, Emma's eyes scanned the room till they locked onto Regina's, Regina was stood talking with Maleficent and another woman with short hair that was black on one side and white on the other. Regina seemed to excuse herself and walked over to where Emma was now stood

"Miss Swan" Regina smiled as she approached

"Hey"

"Are you having a good night?"

"so far yeah"

"Good"

Finally for the first time Emma allowed her eyes to admire Regina, she was wearing a slim fit blue dress, that was low cut and hugged her perfectly.

When Emma looked back up to Regina's face Regina was looking at her with a slight smirk on her face and her eyebrows raised.

"Are you having a good night?" Emma asked, trying to act casual, ignoring the warm feeling in her cheeks.

"I am thank you"

The two chatted casually for the next ten minutes, talking about their weeks and Regina filled her in with what she had missed at the last meeting.

"So the man you live with"

"David?" Emma asked suddenly confused

"Yes, what's he like?"

"Uh, he's nice"

"Has he helped you a lot?" Regina seemed to trying to be her tone casual, but it wasn't working. What was she getting at?

"Yeah, he's been great, he's good when it comes to stopping Snow from freaking out about things, and she can get really carried away with things sometimes, so it is really good to have him around when that happens" Emma smiled

"I did kind of get that impression from her" Regina smiled warmly

"Oh you haven't seen her around Christmas time, it's like Santa's Grotto in the apartment"

The two women laughed lightly until Maleficent walked past accompanied by the other woman she had seen them talking to before.

"Regina, come on we are dancing!" Maleficent told her, she appeared to be feeling the affects of the nights alcohol

"No thank you Maleficent, I'm alright here"

"Nonsense darling" the other woman told her taking hold of her hand, "we don't see each other often and we are dancing" Regina sighed and allowed herself to be led into the other room with an apologetic smile on her face.

Emma spent the next few minutes chatting to other people at the ball before walking into the other room to see what the attraction was. Emma looked around half of the room was dimly lit and was filled with people dancing along with the music. The other half was filled with a long bar and more tables and chairs. Emma looked towards the bar and was not surprised to see Killian and Will leaning against it each with a drink in their hands, they also seemed to be feeling the affects of the alcohol.

"Emma!" Emma turned towards where she was being called and saw Lacey sat at the table with another women with long red hair, Emma walked towards them smiling

"Hey"

"Emma, this is Ariel" Lacey introduced her to the other woman, Ariel quickly jumped up and hugged her, she was surprised until she smelt a faint smell of alcohol on her.

She sat down and chatted for a few minutes before they decided to get up and dance

"Emma come and dance with us" Lacey pleaded

"No, honestly I'm fine, I'm not really into dancing, I'm just going to go and get a drink"

"Oh alright then" Lacey said before Ariel dragged her onto the dance floor. Smiling Emma walked over to the bar

"What can I get you?"

"I'll have a beer please"

"Coming right up" the man placed the beer in front of her and walked away to serve someone else.

"Are you sure that's a smart idea?" Emma jumped at the voice as Regina appeared at her side, with her famous eyebrow raise.

"It's just the one beer" Emma said shrugging raising the beer. Regina put her hand on the bottle over Emma's

"But if you have one are you going to want more than one?" Emma stared at Regina's hand over hers and her heart fluttered at the contact, she turned her head to look at Regina, she could see kindness in her eyes and concern, sighing Emma placed the beer down and ordered a coke instead. Regina took the beer and handed it to Hans who was standing just behind them

"What's that for?" he asked

"I ordered it, then realised I wasn't really in the mood for beer" Regina turned away and ordered an apple martini leaving Hans with a puzzled look on his face, it seemed as though he like Emma was not convinced that Regina had ever drank a beer in her life.

"You and Lacey seem to be getting along well" Regina smiled smugly

"What are you looking at me like that for?"

"Because I knew you would"

"Oh so this is all down to you?"

"Partly yes" Regina smiled as she raised her glass to her lips taking a small sip.

"Right ok, if we ever have a best friend ceremony I'll be sure to mention you in my speech" Emma joked and both women found themselves smiling.

"Well how come you are not dancing with your new found best friend?"

"I'm not really one for dancing"

"I find that very hard to believe Miss Swan"

"Regina, I thought we'd got past this Miss Swan thing"

"So did I dear" Regina commented, taking another swig of her drink, Emma felt a twang of guilt, knowing full well what Regina meant by that.

"I'm sorry"

"For what?"

"For ignoring you last week"

"It's quite alright, would you mind telling me why?"

Yes. That was the honest answer anyway, but Emma knew that she owed Regina some form of an answer.

"I guess after what happened after the last meeting I didn't want to face up to what happened"

"So you were embarrassed?"

"I guess you could say that"

"Well Emma, you have nothing to be embarrassed about, it's quite alright and as you can see from tonight a lot of people I know like to have a few drinks every now and again"

Emma found herself smiling again and the two women yet again found themselves looking deep into each other eyes causing a shiver to run down Emma. However they were quickly interrupted by a now staggering Killian walking over to them

"Swan! Come dance with me!"

"What? No. No thank you Killian, I don't really dance"

"I've seen you dance Swan, now come on, Will left me on my own so now come dance" Emma found herself being dragged towards the dance floor looking back at Regina with a pleading look on her face.

/-/

Regina couldn't help but laugh at the blonde's discomfort at being dragged towards the dance floor

"I've seen you dance Swan, now come on, Will left me on my own so now come dance" Emma looked at Regina again a plea written on her face as she was dragged towards the dance floor

"Sorry" Regina mouthed, then she looked at the rest of the room and saw that Will had indeed left Killian, he was now dancing with a blonde woman who was wearing red dress. She saw that Anna was talking to a man who was not Hans, he had longish blonde hair, Regina looked around and saw that Hans was in fact in the corner in a deep conversation with Elsa who did not look happy about her current predicament, she was about to walk over and help when Robin blocked her path.

"Ah Regina, glad I finally caught you"

"Robin hi" Regina smiled politely "are you having a good night?"

"I am yes, thank you, I was hoping I could have that dance I was promised?" he held his hand out to her.

Regina sighed again, she had promised him a dance.

"Ok fine, one dance" she said taking his hand and allowing him to lead her to the dance floor, she cursed internally as she heard the familiar introduction

"you can dance, every dance

with the guy who gives you the eye,

let him hold you tight,

and you can smile, every smile,

for the man who held your hand

'neath the pale moonlight

but don't forget who's taking you home

and in who's arms you're gonna be

So darlin' save the last dance for me"

Robin was holding her slightly closer than Regina would have liked, as she tried to put a little more distance between them, he took that as an indication and gently span her out, she caught a glance of Emma who was standing not far away with Killian, only she had stopped dancing as she was staring at Regina.

She tried to catch Emma's eye but Robin pulled her into him again, she continued dancing with him for another few lines when she saw Emma walking out the room quickly.

"Excuse me Robin, I have to go" Regina said placing a hand on Robin's chest to stop him

"Oh but Regina-" Regina didn't let him finish that sentence as she took off after Emma. As she reached the first room and looked around, there was no sign of Emma, just in case she thought it was safer to look outside, there she found Emma, facing the gate leaning both hands against it.

"Emma are you alright?" Regina asked, suddenly concerned

"What do you care?"

"What do you mean what do I care? Of course I care!"

Emma spun round to face Regina

"Yeah well you have a funny way of showing it!"

"What? What do you mean? I came to your house last weekend to check on you because I care!"

"Oh that's what it was for, you sure about that? Or did you just come to ease a guilty conscience?"

"I'm sorry? What am I supposed to be feeling guilty about?" Regina and Emma were now face to face only a few inches separating them and both women looked enraged.

"Are you kidding me?! You act all goody goody, making me think like you actually care about me, then you ask me out or more agree to go out with me and we go on a few dates and you agree to a proper one and start making me feel like you actually care about when all the time you're interested in him!"

"In who?"

"Oh don't give me that Regina. Robin!" Realisation hit Regina, she got drunk that night because she was jealous, she was ignoring her because she thought something was going on with her and Robin.

"I can assure you Miss Swan that there is nothing going on between Robin and I"

"Oh yeah, sure are you sure about that? Because you may want to tell him that!"

"I have told him that, but you clearly think that you know better than me, like I am clearly incapable of telling a man my true intentions, which I can assure you Miss Swan, I am not!"

"Give me a break Regina, I've seen the two of you, the way he sucks up to you the way you're sickly sweet to him, telling him that you'll get him sorted, and then dancing with him! What was that about?!"

Regina had had enough, she could feel her anger getting greater and greater and the blonde before her was making less sense by the minute.

"Miss Swan, when you have finished being a jealous maniac please let me know so we can continue this conversation like sophisticated adults"

"Don't you dare patronise me!" Emma shouted "I actually thought you liked me, thought you cared about me, thought you were interested in me, but oh no, I was wrong yet again, I was just some new little pet project that you wanted to fix only good enough for-"

But what Emma was only good enough for no one found out, as Regina crashed her lips against Emma's silencing her. Emma froze against Regina but only for a moment and then Emma was kissing her back, Regina slid her arms around Emma's waist as Emma slid hers around Regina's neck.

"Sorry what were you saying?" Regina asked as she pulled away from the blonde.

"I don't really remember" Emma smiled as she pressed her lips against Regina's again. Regina pulled Emma closer to her as she felt Emma smile into the kiss.