A/N: I started writing this months ago in response to the Trapped Together prompt for the last Swan Queen Week, before abandoning it for other things. Apparently, though, I have the attention span of a fruit fly on amphetamines, because while I was trying to write other things today, this fic insisted on crawling back out of the deepest recesses of my hard drive and my psyche. I have no explanation for this, other than I am a deeply disturbed individual.

"When you said you were taking me out to dinner to apologise, I was expecting something slightly better than this. I've learned to have very low expectations of you, but this, this is far worse than even my most pessimistic assessments of your competence."

Regina surveyed her surroundings with a great deal of distaste. It wasn't that they were terrible; the Grand Ballroom of the Silverstar Hotel was actually quite impressive. What wasn't impressive was the event currently being hosted in said ballroom. The event that Emma Swan had brought her to under false pretences.

Emma shrugged, not appearing at all repentant. "Well, you know how it is. Public servants never turn down a free meal."

Regina glared at Emma as she fastened the ugly name tag to her shirt. "Regina Swan? What were you thinking?"

"I needed a plus one to get the free dinner and gift. They just assumed we were married."

"And in what universe did you think I'd ever agree to take your name?" Regina folded her arms, irritation informing every aspect of her pose.

"Hey! What's wrong with the name 'Swan'?"

"It's not so much the name, it's who it's attached to."

Emma fluttered her eyelashes prettily, and Regina clamped down on her automatic response, which was to melt just a little. It wouldn't do let on that Emma had such a thoroughly disconcerting effect on her.

"Would it really be so bad to be attached to me? I've never had complaints before."

It really wouldn't be at all terrible to be attached to Emma Swan. In fact, there were quite a few ways of being attached to her that Regina had considered in fairly extensive detail, but she wasn't about to let Emma know that. Instead, she said, "Yes, it really would be."

"Look, next time we have to pretend to be married, I promise I'll take your name instead. How does that sound?"

In her head, Regina was trying out the sound of the name. Emma Mills. She found that she didn't mind it. In fact, she felt a strange inclination to carve it into a tree trunk, or perhaps scrawl it on the back of a bathroom door with a Sharpie. Maybe even with a heart around it. In an effort to avoid revealing that these thoughts were dancing through her mind at that precise moment, she rolled her eyes and scowled at Emma.

"I can't imagine why we would ever have another reason to pretend to be married."

"There are plenty of reasons." Emma started counting them out on her fingers. "Make someone jealous, go undercover in a swinger's club to investigate an international drug-smuggling ring, for taxation purposes, to invoke spousal privilege in a court of law, to freak out my parents… The list goes on."

Admittedly, Regina quite liked the sound of the last option. She spent a good minute or so picturing the expression on Mary Margaret's face. Perhaps the best revenge really would be to live well… with her arch-enemy's daughter.

She was roused from her pleasant reverie when she realised Emma was staring at her expectantly. To cover her distraction, she changed the subject. "So what sort of gift could be worth four hours of the most excruciating torment?"

"Well, my subscription for Good Sheriffing Monthly just ran out, and it was one of the titles on their list of free gifts."

"Good Sheriffing Monthly? Let me guess, 90 percent of the content relates to donuts."

"Noooo," Emma whined. "Okay, yes. But that content includes some quality investigative journalism. For example, did you know that until very recently, Dunkin' Donuts used titanium dioxide in some of their products?"

"No I did not. And given that I would never pollute my body with that much sugar and trans-fats, I fail to see how that piece of information is supposed to improve my opinion of this publication."

Emma folded her arms, clearly indignant. "You know, it was voted best regional law enforcement periodical three years running. I won't stand here and listen to you besmirch the name of Good Sheriffing Monthly."

Regina sighed in resignation. Emma Swan was an idiot of epic proportions. Of course, she was also an idiot that Regina was unaccountably fond of, hence her presence here tonight. And if Emma was an idiot, she wondered what that made her. She wasn't entirely sure she wanted to know the answer to that question. "You do realise that you didn't have to sign up to a timeshare dinner to get a new subscription. Your budget does include a line for professional development activities, which includes subscriptions to relevant publications."

"Really?"

"It was the line titled: PDAs."

"Ohhhh. That's what that stands for. Dad and I discussed this, and we both thought that it was a fund specifically for dealing with indecent exposure incidents up on Lovers Lane."

"I gave you a reference list of common acronyms. I'm assuming you didn't look at it." It was so frustrating to be surrounded by amateurs. She'd poured her heart and soul into developing the perfect bureaucracy in Storybrooke for three decades, but no one appreciated the elegance of her work.

Emma shrugged helplessly, before looking at her watch.

"Okay, we can leave now."

"I beg your pardon?" Regina said.

"We can go. Your reaction was everything I'd hoped for and more. I actually got us a table in the restaurant for 7:30. It should just about be ready." Emma was suddenly sporting an incredibly smug grin, and Regina began to prepare a list of ways she could wipe it off her face.

"You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of the concept of an apology, Miss Swan. It's not an apology unless there's grovelling. Lots of grovelling. And it certainly doesn't involve playing childish jokes."

"Really, Regina? Miss Swan? After all we've been through together…"

Regina held up a finger to silence her. "You may commence your grovelling at any time." Regina had entertained the idea of Emma Swan on her knees before her on a number of occasions, and although this was a rather more public venue than her dreams had featured, she was prepared to start here before finding somewhere a little more private.

Regina's thoughts were interrupted by an ominous thud from the far end of the ballroom. She turned to face the origin of the noise and realised that it had been the sound of the doors being closed. And she noticed that there were now several very large, very intimidating men standing in front of the doors.

She frowned. "Emma, what's going on?"

"I don't know. Come on. Let's go to the restaurant."

They made their way over to the doors and tried to leave, but were stopped by one of the hulking giants manning the doors.

"Sorry ladies. You can't leave until you've earned your free gift. It's in the terms and conditions of your tickets," he said.

Regina looked a little more closely at the thugs at the door, and at the extremely well-dressed staff milling around the stage area. She pulled Emma into an alcove, whispering urgently, "Emma, if we survive this, I swear I'm going to kill you myself. You've walked us straight into a nest of vampires, and neither of us has our powers."

Emma gaped at her for a moment. "Vampires? They're real? Like Count fucking Dracula vampires?"

"Yes. Vampires. And Count fucking Dracula just happens to be the emcee." She pointed to the sharp-looking guy in Armani holding the microphone, and watched as Emma's eyes almost bugged out in surprise. "Your mother's Snow White. Her best friend is a werewolf. You're having dinner with the Evil Queen. Dr Frankenstein oversaw the birth of your brother. Why on earth are you surprised by the existence of vampires?"

They barricaded themselves inside a bathroom, shoving a conveniently placed broom through the door handles and sliding a sofa up against the door. It was a very nice bathroom, Regina had to admit, with a plushly-appointed waiting room. If they had to wait out near-certain death, it wasn't the worst place in the world Regina could have imagined. Of course it was still far from ideal.

"I'm sure we can wait them out."

Regina raised a sceptical eyebrow. "Really? We have no food, and they're vampires with a room full of walking ready meals. At this point, they could pretty much survive until the end of time, while we starve to death. Either way, we don't leave this room alive."

Emma brightened, fumbling in her pockets to produce a box of Tic Tacs. She brandished it excitedly. "We do have some food."

"Indeed. You are once again living up to your billing as Saviour. A box of Tic Tacs at less than two calories each…" Regina did the math in her head. "That should keep us alive for around an hour. Well done."

Emma frowned, apparently deep in thought. A minute later, she jumped up, waving the box of Tic Tacs around again. "I know! I saw a movie once where the vampires were obsessed with counting things. So what if I spill this box of Tic Tacs on the floor, and while they're busy counting them, we make a break for it?"

"How many Tic Tacs are there in a box?"

Emma tipped them out and started counting, loudly. "Thirty-six," she said, a little too proudly.

"And how long did it take you to count them?"

Emma pulled a face as she thought about it. "Maybe thirty seconds?"

"Okay, so we halve that, and that's about how much time your Tic Tacs would buy us to escape."

Emma sat back down, looking disappointed. "I'm sorry. I tried."

Regina sighed. She laid a comforting hand on Emma's arm. "I know. It was a clever idea, and I'm not even blaming you that much for our imminent deaths."

They sat there in silence for a few minutes. Regina had lived a long life, and frequent near-death experiences had led her to realise that she wasn't quite ready for death. She was roused from her avid contemplation of all the things left on her to-do list, including one Miss Emma Swan, by the very subject of her thoughts.

"You know, if we're going to die here tonight, I feel like there's a few things I should get off my chest. Make sure my conscience is clear and I can rest in peace and all that stuff."

She looked at Emma, who was regarding her seriously. "Go ahead."

"So, the truth is, that spell I cast on your car wasn't actually an accident."

Regina's eyebrows shot up. "What? You deliberately defiled my beautiful Mercedes? What has she ever done to you?" She was outraged. No one was allowed to mess with her car.

"Nothing. But I needed a reason to ask you out to dinner, and I figured it would have to be a pretty big apology if I ruined your car."

Regina frowned as she processed this information. She wasn't sure she quite understood what Emma was saying, because it didn't seem to make any kind of sense. She had an inkling, though, that given it was Emma Swan logic, her theory was likely to be correct.

"Let me get this straight. You engineered a complex scheme in which you turned my car into an over-sized pink tricycle with streamers on the handlebars as a way of asking me out, but not actually asking me out, on a date?" When Emma nodded, she continued, shaking her head in disbelief. "I knew that idiocy ran deep in your gene pool, but I had no idea that it extended right down to the floor of the Mariana Trench."

"I suppose when you put it that way it sounds kind of silly."

"Anything else you feel the need to confess?"

"Henry didn't actually break your toaster. That was me. I tried to heat up a slice of pizza in it."

"I'm not stupid, Emma. I knew that already."

"Oh."

"That's all? Those are all the things you have to confess?" Regina was sceptical. As far as she could tell, Emma Swan had done a lot of really stupid shit in her thirty years on this earth.

"Well not all of them. But they're the only ones I want to confess to right now."

Regina shrugged. "Suit yourself."

They lapsed into silence again for a while. There were muffled voices filtering through from the other side of the doors, and there was the thud of some sort of heavy object hitting the doors. Regina realised that they probably didn't have much time left; she was summoning up the courage to give voice to feelings she'd long tried to deny when Emma spoke.

"I've heard that some people find mortal danger kind of hot. Do you think that's true?"

Regina raised an eyebrow, not responding immediately. She continued to draw out the silence, enjoying watching Emma squirm the longer it lasted.

"Uh… I'm just asking in the interests of um, of science," Emma stammered, filling the silence that Regina had left hanging. A blush rose up her neck, rendering her cheeks a pretty shade of pink.

When Regina was satisfied that she'd tortured Emma for long enough, she finally responded, "Science, you say? I really would hate to stand in the way of scientific endeavour." She undid the top button of her blouse. "Would you be interested in conducting some primary data collection, Emma? All in the interests of science, of course."

"Hells yes. I fucking love science." Emma surveyed the room, before asking, "Which apparatus do you think would yield the best results? The wall, the sofa, the counter, or the floor?"

"I think a repeated measures design might be warranted. Perhaps we could start with the wall and then work our way through the other trial conditions." Regina really did love science so much.

That was all the invitation that Emma needed apparently, because a moment later, Emma's lips were on hers, soft, so very soft, and eager fingers were fumbling with the buttons of her blouse. She couldn't quite suppress a moan when Emma's mouth, hot and wet, found its way to her nipple, and then traced its way further south. And as Emma finally kneeled before her, Regina decided that this really was a heavenly way to die.

They were onto the third iteration of the experiment when the doors finally gave way. Regina was on the counter, her head thrown back against the mirror behind her, with three of Emma's fingers curling inside her. She managed to ignore most of the commotion, as Emma's thumb grazed her clit; she urged Emma on, finally coming with a loud cry.

"Oh my lord, my poor virgin eyes!"

Regina dimly registered the shriek coming from where the doors had previously been. Her head was still spinning a little, but she managed to focus long enough to realise that one of the vampires was standing there, covering his eyes.

"I'll just let you ladies cover up, and then we can have a chat about some wonderful properties we have available in Florida that you might be interested in. Perfect for a romantic getaway."

Regina was confused. The risk of imminent death appeared to be not quite as imminent as she had thought. She scrambled to get dressed, Emma doing the same beside her.

They cautiously made their way to the doorway, where the vampire was patiently waiting for them. He smiled widely, and Regina noted the sharp, gleaming fangs that were visible.

Regina frowned. "Aren't you going to kill us?"

The vampire laughed. "Of course not. That would be bad for business." He held out a hand, and Regina watched with amusement when he winced slightly as Emma took it with the hand she'd just been engaging in manual data collection with a moment ago. "I'm Ivan." He peered at their name tags. "It's lovely to meet you, Mrs and Mrs Swan." He removed his hand from Emma's grasp and surreptitiously wiped it with a handkerchief he produced from a pocket.

"So if you're not trying to kill us, why did you break down the doors?"

"We had a report that one of the bathroom doors was jammed, and of course we wanted to investigate it for our guests' comfort. And then we heard screams coming from inside, so we redoubled our efforts to open the doors." He blushed. "It wasn't quite what we were expecting."

They left shortly afterwards, Regina's bank account approximately $20,000 lighter. She was getting soft in her old age, clearly.

They walked through the parking lot, hand in hand, and as they reached the car, Regina turned to Emma. "You know, you could have just asked me out on a date. You didn't have to go through all of this pretence."

Emma smiled bashfully. "I wasn't sure you'd say yes. I mean, you call me an idiot at least once a day. Sometimes several times a day."

Regina was indignant. "I was flirting, you idiot."

"Oh. But I've heard you call my parents idiots heaps of times too." A horrified look crossed her face. "Were you flirting with them?"

"No." Maybe. "There's a subtle difference. Emma Swan, you are an idiot." She leaned in and kissed Emma softly, before pulling back. "Do you see the difference?"

Emma frowned. "I'm not sure that I do. Can you demonstrate it again for me? I mean, I am an idiot, after all, and it might take me a while to catch on."

"Gladly."

And she did.