A/N: Against my better judgment (since I should be preparing for my dissertation defense that's coming up in less than 3 months), I started another multi-chapter fic. I started this a few months ago to make sure I wouldn't lose momentum and wanted to have a good portion written before I posted it. So alas, here we are!

This will be told via alternating POV, and as such there's a little bit of setup before our two favorites meet. But, we'll get there, I promise. And these chapters are short because of the meet-cute/chick-lit format, but it'll move pretty quickly. I will update once per week, but hopefully twice per week in some weeks as my schedule permits, especially at the beginning to help get things up and running. Also, hopefully this goes without saying, but this is entirely a work of fiction.

1. REGINA

The bottom of the takeout bag is hot against her palm as she walks up the back staircase to the second floor of her building, her free hand fumbling for her keys that are buried in the depths of her purse. Her fingertips barely catch the monogrammed keyring at the bottom of her bag, but it's enough that she's able to grab hold of the metal object and adjust it in her hand, finding the correct key.

"Good evening, Regina," a man says to her as he walks by.

She gives a polite nod to her neighbor as she unlocks the door to her apartment and steps inside, kicking off her black Nikes and dropping her bag next to the discarded shoes on the ground as she makes a beeline for her kitchen. Setting the bag containing her dinner on the island, she quickly washes her hands to remove the oil from the Pad Thai that has soaked through the bottom of the paper bag. She then promptly gets a plate out of her cupboard and dumps half the container from Third Street Thai onto it, placing the rest in the refrigerator for lunch tomorrow.

Before closing the fridge, she grabs the last bottle of Summer Shandy, one of the few lingering indicators that Jefferson had been living with her up until the previous weekend. They had been roommates for nearly nine years, moving in together as sophomores at Northwestern and living together ever since. Their only time apart had been when she stayed in Chicago for a two-month engagement with the Chicago Shakespeare Theater immediately after graduation, while he went ahead to Los Angeles to start working toward his on-camera career aspirations. As soon as she closed A Midsummer Night's Dream, she packed up her bags and joined him in California. She had moved into their first post-college apartment, a small and somewhat sad one-bedroom apartment he had found in Echo Park, where they had to hang curtains from the ceiling to divide the bedroom and give some semblance of privacy — though they quickly realized it would be better to kick the other person to the couch if one of them wanted to have an overnight guest. More often than not, it had been Regina who found herself sleeping on the black leather IKEA sofa, while Jefferson enjoyed his time with Will, or Killian, or occasionally Alice. Regina had been relieved when they were able to upgrade to a true two bedroom apartment a few years later, and then again when they were finally marginally successful enough to move to a nicer building.

She turns on the television and sighs as she sits down on the couch, looking around the apartment and realizing how empty it feels without her best friend. There is still plenty of furniture, as Jefferson didn't want the hassle of moving inexpensive furniture across the country and opting instead to buy items from Craigslist after he got to New York. But, most of the art had been his, leaving most of the walls bare in his absence. And mostly, she misses him.

As if on cue, her cell phone rings and she smiles when she sees his name on the caller ID. "Hey, hot shot, how's New York treating you?" she asks, muting the television as she pushes her plate aside and rests her bare feet on the coffee table.

"I can't complain," he replies, and she can hear the smile in his voice. She can tell it's taking all his willpower not to let the dam burst with excitement, so she takes pity on him and asks the question she knows he wants to hear.

"How was your first day of rehearsal?"

"Oh my God, it was amazing, Regina," he gushes, quickly recapping his first day workshopping a new musical that is set to open on Broadway at the end of the year.

When he pauses to take a breath, she says, "I'm so happy for you, J." And she means it, though she does feel a slight twinge of jealousy that he managed to be the one to snag a role in a Broadway show, given that he had never really had much interest in stage work, let alone musical theater. His focus has always been film and television, but he happened to have worked with the right person at the right time, and he couldn't pass up the opportunity. But, Broadway has always been one of her many dreams, and she can't deny that she's a little bit envious of his good fortune. But, she pushes that down and focuses on him.

"How's good ol' LA?" he asks her when he's done going over every detail of his first ever Broadway rehearsal.

"Oh, you know, pretty much the same as you left it five days ago. I picked up Pad Thai on my way home, so nothing out of the ordinary."

"Do you miss me yet?"

"Of course. You know I do," she answers honestly, but she hopes that the sadness in her voice isn't evident. She knows he feels guilty about leaving her behind, but he shouldn't. She would have done the same thing.

"I would have thought you would have forgotten about me already…I figured you might be too busy inviting Graham over to have some reunion sex in the living room now that you don't have a roommate to worry about."

She blushes in mortification, thinking about Jefferson's impeccable timing and his tendency to walk in at the worst possible moments during their near-decade of living together. "Ha, no. Definitely not." She and Graham are definitely done — she ended their friends with benefits situation six months ago when he started getting too clingy for her liking. He was a nice guy, and a decent lay, but she had no interest in a relationship with him that was anything more than scratching the occasional itch. And near the end of the arrangement, she wasn't even enjoying it anymore, so she had called it off.

"How did your audition go?" he asks instead, sensing that she has no desire to discuss the Graham situation further. He had always warned her that it wouldn't end well, and Regina hates that he had been right.

"It went as well as it could have," she says. "I won't hear anything until next week. But, it's a great part, so I hope that I get it," she adds. She doesn't like to talk about auditions —she's afraid of jinxing it — but Jefferson has always been the exception to her superstition. They have always helped one another prepare and then debrief their auditions together. And they have always celebrated or consoled the other when the verdict came back. But now he's on the other side of the country, so she imagines a nice dinner out or lamenting together over a pint of Ben and Jerry's on the couch is no longer going to be part of their routine. She supposes they can arrange an occasional Facetime ice cream date, but he's three time zones away and it doesn't seem likely.

"It's a three episode arc, right?" he asks.

"Yeah. At least three, with the option for more, depending on what they decide to do with the storyline. I've never done a dramedy before, so it would be great to have this on my resume. It's not a huge part, but it's still solid screen time. And getting to work with that cast would be incredible. It could open a lot of doors, and it would finally be a recurring thing on a show that isn't targeted to teenagers," she says, sighing. "Not that I'm not grateful for the random Freeform guest spots, but I really need something new," she amends. "I don't want that to become my niche, especially now that I can't play a believable teenager anymore."

Regina had had a modicum of success on a few teen dramas in her early to mid-20s, playing the rich bitch cousin of a lead character who gets shipped off to boarding school after handful of episodes when she's no longer needed, or the new girl in town who becomes popular, only to get kidnapped by a deranged stalker and ultimately killed as a plot device after six or eight episodes. She had been memorable enough to get a solid number of teen fans, but they were moving on to more successful actresses now, and she hasn't found any consistent work since her last series role ended two and half television seasons earlier. In Hollywood, it feels like a dangerously long dry spell for an up-and-coming actress, and she's starting to get nervous.

"I hope you get it, Regina. You're amazing and deserve it."

"Thanks, Jefferson. But enough about me. Tell me more about New York…"

And he does, launching into a story about his adventures the night before, the bodega on the corner that he has already decided he absolutely loves, and the cute guy in the cast that he's forbidden from dating. "They told us 'No showmances', especially among chorus members," he explains. "But, that doesn't mean I can't enjoy the view—"

"Hey, hang on a second," she interrupts him, reaching forward to turn up the volume on the TV when a headline on the CNN ticker catches her eye. "Shit, J, are you by your TV? Turn on CNN."

"No, I'm not. Why?"

"Hold on," she says, putting him on speaker phone. "Can you still hear me?"

"Yeah. Crystal clear. Regina, what's going on?"

She turns the volume up even more as the news anchor changes to the story that had just been teased. "Coming up: The front-runner in the upcoming contentious race for Maine's Senate seat faces backlash after comments she made were caught on video and posted online. Stay tuned for the story after this short break."

"Oh shit," Regina hears Jefferson say.

She quickly shushes him and turns back to the television, which has cut to commercial. "Oh God, Mother, what did you do?"

*.*.*

Jefferson hasn't said anything else as they wait in silence for the commercial to end and the story to continue. She sits through what feels like an endless number of fast food and pharmaceutical advertisements and tries not to scowl when she sees the bitch they chose over her in the commercial for a new line of fancy athletic tampons. She had thought for sure that she would have gotten that part, but they had given it to some has-been professional athlete instead.

Finally, the anticipation is over and her questions about her mother's faux-pas are answered when the advertisements end and the news anchor's face appears on screen.

"And now, for the breaking election news out of Maine. Cora Mills, the Democratic front-runner in the primary race for U.S. Senate, is facing backlash after the news that she made anti-LGBT remarks has come to light."

"What?" Jefferson asks from the other end of the phone line.

"Quiet," Regina says, horrified as she watches the story unfold.

"Cora Mills, who is favored not only to win the primary but likely to beat the seated Republican senator in the next general election, which would make her the first Democratic U.S. senator from the state in nearly three decades, made disparaging comments about the LGBT community. An anonymous source posted a video online less than an hour ago where Cora Mills, clearly unaware that she was on camera, made controversial comments about both same-sex marriage and a discrimination lawsuit from one of her constituents. These statements have caused outrage online among her supporters. Take a look."

Regina is stunned as she watches cell phone video of her mother speaking with an unidentified man at an event. There is no doubt in her mind that it is indeed her mother on camera, as she knows that voice anywhere, that voice that is indeed telling the mystery man, "I don't know why those people need 'marriage.' They have civil unions. That should be more than enough for them. They should take what they can get and be happy with it."

"Jesus," Regina mutters, just as the television cuts to another video of her mother outside city hall.

"Mayor Mills, what are your thoughts on Lieutenant Dorothy Gale's lawsuit against the Coastguard for discharging her because of her sexual orientation, only one month before the repeal of 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell'? Will you be supporting the Storybrooke resident as she goes to court?" a reporter asks on screen. Regina recognizes him as the younger brother of a high school classmate of hers. She thinks back and realizes that he must be from the high school newspaper.

"I have no comment. It's a federal lawsuit, so I will leave it up to the appropriate courts to make their ruling. My thoughts on the matter are irrelevant, and as such I will not be placing my support on either side," Cora commented harshly as she exited the building and walked toward her Lincoln town car.

"Oh, God," Jefferson says, startling Regina. She had forgotten that he's still on the phone. "Did she really have to use the words 'those people'? And would it have killed her to voice support for one of her locals?"

"God, I hate her sometimes," Regina sighs. "This is so bad. And disturbing."

The video ends and the newscaster continues her report. "It is unclear at this time if the video was obtained and released by her Democratic opponent or by someone on the other side of the aisle hoping to preemptively sabotage her Senate bid. While she may or may not be the next senator, Cora Mills is currently mayor of Storybrooke, a small city in Maine. Neither her office nor her campaign representatives have returned our request for comment. We will update you as this story continues to develop."

As the story ends, Regina turns off the television, dumfounded.

"Maybe you should change your name," Jefferson says, breaking the silence. "That way no one will know you're her daughter."

"I don't know what she was thinking. I cannot believe she said that. And I can't believe that she actually feels that way."

"I'm betting her progressive supporters can't, either," Jefferson comments. "But maybe it was taken out of context."

"Out of context? There's no defending that, Jefferson. She didn't even seem to think before she spoke. She was so matter-of-fact about it."

"I know, but I'm trying to give her the benefit of the doubt, because we need that senate seat to go blue in the election. I know those videos are old, but still. She needs to do damage control."

"Yeah…Look, I gotta go. I need to call my parents and find out what the fuck is going on and when my mother turned into a giant bigot."

"Good luck. Call me if you need me. I'm not going out tonight so I'll be around."

"Thanks, Jefferson," she says as she hangs up, running a hand through her hair before she frantically dials her mother's cell phone number.

A/N: Thanks for reading! I may try to post the next chapter tomorrow to get the ball rolling and introduce more people.