The interns were getting ready for their shift in the locker room, when Dr. Belle French entered, the room fell silent. People respected Belle, interns, residents and attendings alike. Belle was a good doctor and to her interns she was a good mentor, her work in the OR and her gentle nature gained her the appreciation of most of the hospital staff, even Dr. Gold who almost never had anything good to say about anyone.

"Lucas, you're in peds today with Blanchard." Belle called in front of the whole group of interns giving them their assignments for the day.

Ruby raised a small fist in sign of victory.

"Jones, you're in the pit with Nolan today." French said. "Please try not to maim anyone this time around."

Soft snickers could be heard around the room. The last time Killian had been in the pit a guy came in with his face split open and he managed to make a bad situation worse that ended with David Nolan swearing Jones would never touch one of his patients ever again.

"Wu, today you are in neuro with Dr. Nolan." Belle called almost bored with the morning routine. "That is Kathryn Nolan, obviously."

"Swan, you're with Mills today." Belle continued. "Must have done something right yesterday, the Queen requested you herself."

Emma looked very pleased with herself.

"Midas is still out with the full which means you lucky interns need to check on his post-up patients." Belle said as started to leave the locker room.

"Uh, Dr. French." Neal Cassidy called after her. "You haven't assigned me to an attending."

"I thought it was obvious." Belle said with a smirk. "Today you are the luckiest one of all. You get to shadow the Chief himself."

The only way to properly describe the look on Neal's face was that of 'oh shit'.

"You're screwed, dude." Ruby said once French was out of the room.

"Shut up." Neal said bitterly.

"Well while you play nurse today, the rest of us surgeons have some doctoring to do." Emma said putting her stethoscope in the right pocket of her lab coat. "See you at lunch."

"Good luck, bud. You're going to need it." Mulan said patting Neal's shoulder.

"If you survive today drinks are on me at the Rabbit Hole." Killian said sympathetically.

"I'd love to stay and watch this beautiful bromance unravel but I got a liver transplant to get to." Ruby said. "Have a great day!"

"You're late." Regina said greeting Emma as she handled her a tower of charts.

"I'm sorry, I had to check on Dr. Midas patients." Emma said "He's still…"

Her words were interrupted when Regina raised a hand, without words instructing her to stop talking. "I'm not interested. Do those," she said gesturing to the pile of charts that were currently occupying Emma's hands. "but first check on my post-ups. Oh and you also need to prep the patient on bed twelve for surgery."

"You got it, Dr. Mills." Emma said trying to keep a positive attitude.

"What are you doing standing here still?" Regina asked. "Go. You have work to do."

Emma rushed to get out of Regina's way in order to get her work done. If Emma had any hopes of scrubbing into a surgery today she needed to not piss off Dr. Mills any further.

After she finished doing rounds on Regina's post ops, she decided to prepare the patient that was to have surgery in a few hours and after that she would finish doing all of the charts. Emma had a game plan for the day and she was sticking to it.

"Good morning, Mr. Ponti." Emma said with a smile. She took a look at the patient's chart. Sixty year old male with Carotid Artery Disease. This should be an easy fix. "How are you feeling today?"

"Please call me Edgar." He said. "Am I going into surgery now? Could we wait for my daughter to get here? She's so nervous. I've told her Dr. Mills is one of the best but she still worries. Every since her mom left us, all we have is each other. I'm sure you can imagine."

"I can." Emma said. "Dr. Mills can probably do this procedure with her eyes closed. I'm here to prepare you for surgery but if you promise not to tell we can stall a little until your daughter gets here."

"Thank you, doctor." Edgar said letting out a breath of relief. "Do you really think I have nothing to worry about?"

"Every time anyone goes under anesthesia there's a risk, it doesn't matter how small or big the procedure is." Emma said. "But I can assure you that you're going to have the best people working on you making sure everything runs smoothly."

"I can't die." Edgar said tears starting to fill his eyes. "I can't leave my daughter all alone."

"You won't leave your daughter alone, Edgar." Emma said. "You're going to be back on your feet before you even know it."

When lunch time came around Emma, Ruby and Mulan shared a table in the middle of the cafeteria. Emma was still doing Regina's charts, Ruby was reading up on her up coming surgery and Mulan was getting a head start studying for the intern exam. They were eating in silence when Killian sat down on the table with a loud thud looking like he could start crying at any minute.

"You okay?" Emma asked barely looking up from the papers in front of her. "Because you look like shit."

"The pit is the most horrible place in this god forsaken hospital." Killian said. "Nolan hates me, so far I've been vomited on twice and seen things a man cannot ever unsee."

Emma gave a small chuckle.

"Serves you right." Ruby said.

"How come?" Killian said. "I've done nothing to deserve this."

"I don't know," Ruby said with a shrug. "I just don't like you."

Neal approached the table, sat down and stole the apple from Emma's tray. He also looked like he was having a terrible day. Which was understandable when you take into consideration that he had to spend most of his day in close contact with Dr. Gold.

"What's got your panties in a bunch?" Mulan asked.

"Gold is an asshole." Neal said.

"Here, here." Emma said rising her plastic cup of soda.

A persistent beeping ripped through the cafeteria causing everyone to franticly look at their pagers.

"Not it." Ruby said with a sigh of relief.

"Me neither." Emma said internally thanking her lucky stars.

"Nope." Killian said.

"Shit." Mulan said as she stated sprinting out of the cafeteria.

A second later another beeping rang through the room and everyone once again checked their pagers as if it was second nature to them.

"It's me." Emma said putting down her soda.

"The Evil Queen summoning you?" Neal asked.

"Yeah." Emma said standing from the table and taking her charts with her. "Wish me luck."

"Good luck, babe." Ruby called after her.

At Ruby's words Neal rolled his eyes and shared a knowing look with Killian. This was not lost on Ruby and for a second she debated with herself whether if she should ask or not. Curiosity eating at her she decided to go for it.

"What was that?" She said gesturing between Neal and Killian.

"You're so in love with her, its pathetic." Neal said with some disgust laced between his words.

"Am not." Ruby said her cheeks starting to blush.

Killian patted Ruby's hand with his own. "Its okay. The first step to recovery is to admit you have a problem."

"You're assholes." Ruby said as she stood up to leave. "Both of you."

Neal and Killian looked at each other and shrugged. Everyone knew Ruby had a school crush on Emma since their first day. Killian suspected Emma knew about Ruby's feelings but never mentioned it because she didn't feel the same way. To a certain degree he understood what it felt to have feelings for someone but not being able to act on them because you were stuck in the proverbial friend zone.

Emma and Regina were scrubbing into surgery side by side. Regina looked at Emma out of the corner of her eyes and remembered the conversation she had with her sister about the young intern being as good as advertised. She would deny it if anyone asked but Dr. Swan caused her curiosity. She knew the hospital grapevine was ripe with gossip so she spent a good part of her day asking nonchalantly about Emma but her efforts were futile. It seemed like people around the hospital really liked her but no one seemed to know much about her.

"Twice in less than twenty four hours." Emma said bringing Regina out of her thoughts. "Has to be some sort of record, right?"

"Excuse me?" Regina asked confused not knowing what on Earth the woman next to her was blabbering on about.

"The times we've scrubbed in together." Emma explained. "Before yesterday I had never been in the OR with you. That's why I'm saying that this is a record."

"You don't have to talk to me as if I were a slow child." Regina said playing up her annoyance. "I'm well aware who gets into my OR and who doesn't."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean anything by it." Emma said regretting opening up her mouth in the first place. "I'm just trying to make conversation."

"Please don't." Regina snapped.

Emma stopped making attempts at conversation with Regina. She didn't even know why she even bothered, they didn't called Dr. Mills The Evil Queen because she was all sunshine and rainbows. It was a borderline miracle that Regina had even let an intern touch a patient let alone scrub in twice in less than twenty four hours.

"Ten blade." Regina ordered before a nurse passed her the instrument.

Regina was taking more time than usual to actually operate on the patient. It was clear to Emma that Edgar's heart was in worse shape than they initially thought but still she expected Regina to do something other than blankly stare at the exposed heart in front of them.

"Close him up, Dr. Swan, we're done here." Regina said as she stepped away from the table.

It took a moment for Emma to comprehend Regina's words. "He's going to die if you don't operate on him."

"He's going to die if tonight if I do." Regina said. "We can't save them all, doctor."

"So that's it you're just giving up?" Emma asked baffled.

"Like I said, we're done here." Regina gave her a pointed look as she removed her surgical gloves. "I hear there's a liver transplant going on in OR two, if you hurry up you might catch it."

Emma promised Edgar they would do everything in their hands to save him. She couldn't believe Regina was giving up so easily. "You can't just walk away and leave him to die. He's a person. He has a daughter that's expecting us to save her father."

"Dr. Swan, there is nothing for us to do." Regina said letting out a breath of frustration. "Look at that heart, its too weak."

"There has to be something we could do." Emma said almost pleading.

"There's not." Regina said. "Close him up, while I go update his daughter."

Regina was a woman of strong convictions. She was decisive and sure of herself, she almost never second guessed her decisions. Today was no different. She did everything within her reach to save that patient but his heart was too far gone. Why couldn't Emma see that? She wasn't this horrible, cold hearted person everyone made her out to be.

"Dr. Swan." Regina greeted when the elevator doors opened and the young intern stepped in.

"Dr. Mills." Emma said.

Regina looked at Emma's reflection mirrored on the doors. Emma was certainly physically appealing but that was not all of it. Regina recognized in her a drive different from everyone else, a particular need to prove herself. Regina thought how easy it would be to stop the elevator right now and push her against the wall. She found herself staring at Emma's lips fantasizing about how they would feel against hers.

"Is there something I can help you with, Dr. Mills?" Emma asked weary.

"What? No." Regina said silently curing herself. "I thought you might be interested in knowing that I updated the patients daughter. I referred him to a cardiologist that might be able to treat him."

"Thank you." Emma said. "I was just about to ask you."

Regina decided to take the plunge and stop the elevator. Here was the only place in the whole hospital where they might be able to have a conversation without being overheard.

"I made the right call today." Regina said. "There was no way I, or anyone else for that matter, could've perfumed that procedure successfully. You'll soon find that surgery is not always about cutting, sometimes is about knowing when its in your patients best interest not to do so."

Emma just nodded in response.

"Do you understand what I'm trying to teach you?" Regina asked mildly annoyed.

"Yeah." Emma said. "But still I can't help but feel…"

"Useless?" Regina asked. "Many times that feeling comes with the job." She said before she pressed for the elevator doors to open.

Regina started to walk out when Emma put her hand between the doors to stop them from closing completely.

"Dr. Mills." Emma called after her. "I know you made the right call. Thank you for the opportunity."

Regina was taken aback for an instant, instead of words what came out of her was a small smile that she saw mirrored on Emma's face as the elevator doors closed between them.