Title: Batter Up

Author: RebelByrdie

Fandom: OUAT

Pairing: Regina/Emma SwanQueen

Rating: T for language

Disclaimer: I don't own these fantastic characters, I just want to play with them for a little while.

Beta Reader: None because nobody can possibly deal with all my misspellings, coma-splices and general destruction of the English (and occasionally Spanish) language without going completely insane.

Author's Note: This idea would not leave me alone. SwanQueen + Softball. My brain is a weird, odd, scary place in which things that should never occur happen way too often.

Part I

The insanity started exactly seven days before Miner's Day. Emma had been curled up in her bed: warm, cozy and sleeping soundly when her lunatic of a mother barged into her room and turned on the lights at five am on a Saturday."

"Emma up now!"

She jerked awake and immediately threw her hands over her stinging eyes.

"Who's dead?"

Someone had better be dead for her to be awake at such an ungodly hour.

"No one is dead." Emma rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and could have sworn Snow added "yet."

The brunette smiled at her so widely that Emma was just a little bit scared. "We are at war and you have been drafted. Now get up, we're going for a run."

The hell she was getting up and running at five am. She didn't run before sunrise unless there was an ogre chasing her. Hell she didn't like to run at all unless there was a damn good reason or money involved.

"Coffee and explanation first, please, Snow."

It took two cups of coffee, twenty minutes and a further explanation from both David and Henry before Emma understood. Snow White was insane, completely and totally deranged and she was trying to drag her long-lost daughter with her into Crazy Town.

"Lemme get this straight. You want the three of us." She waggled her thumb between her and her two parents, to go on a run through town at the crack of dawn to get ready for a softball game?

Snow threw up her hands, "Not just any game. The game. It's Red versus Blue, Emma."

Emma looked at Henry and he only shook his head. "Leave me out of this one." He turned to go back to bed, his hands thrown up in mock-surrender "I am not taking sides. I'm neutral like water or the Swiss." Man, her Kid was smart. How had he managed to get out of this one?

"Henry!"

Snow actually sounded upset by that remark. "We're your family. You are a Blue by birth!"

Emma pushed her hands through her sleep tousled hair, "It's a game, Snow, not the Civil War."

David chuckled, "Trust me, its closer to the Civil War."

Then they had dragged her out to run up and down town until she was panting so hard she thought she might throw up and all she could think about was finding a convenient portal to push her mother into.

By the time Tuesday had rolled around she was already sick and tired of their new training regimen.

"Snow." She bent over double and grasped her knees, "I get it, you like running. Seriously, though, can't we pop into Granny's and get something to eat."

"Absolutely not!"

She hadn't had pancakes all week and she was tired and cranky and she just wanted to sit down. "But it's carb-loading. It's good for sports-stuff. That dumb swimmer guy does it all the time and he's on T.V. so it must be true."

"It's fraternizing with the enemy."

The enemy, seriously?

"Just because some players from the other team might be there."

"No we're definitely here." Ruby set the sign with the day's special on the sidewalk and stretched.

Snow glared, actually glared, at her best friend.

"Traitor."

Emma threw her hands up in the air, "Seriously?" She was close to the end of her rope over this whole situation. It almost made her miss breaking curses and slaying dragons.

Ruby chuckled, "Snow's just pissed because Granny and I play for the Red Team and always have."

Snow crossed her arms, "That was before. We're not cursed anymore, you should come play for the right team."

Ruby snorted, "One: Mother Superior snarks at me about my clothes. Two: You already have a catcher and a third base. Not that Grumpy is nearly as good, because nobody rocks Hot Corner like me, but still."

"And Three" Granny added from the door, "We like winning."

Emma groaned at that. The last thing she needed was Snow to get even more worked up.

"This is our year."

Ruby turned to head back into the Diner, "Yeah you've been saying that for what, ten years now? Keep dreaming, Princess."

Emma looked at David to find that he was studying the ground beneath his feet, hands shoved in his hoodie pocket. Her father, Prince Charming, the man who was scared of his own wife.

"Why don't I remember this last year?"

He shrugged, "Last year the power went out and the game was cancelled. Besides, last year we were a little preoccupied."

Last year Mary Margaret had been selling candles, or at least trying to, like a mad woman.

"Is it too late to quit?"

David's eyes widened with something close to fear, "Don't you even think about it." Ah, she got the message, if he had to put up with Snow, so did she. Families stuck together even in the face of softball-induced-madness.

Ruby and Snow were preoccupied with their argument so Emma moved closer to her father and deputy.

"This is getting ridiculous."

David shrugged again, "The good news is that all the ticket sales go to the school."

"And the bad news?" As if she really wanted to know at this point.

He rubbed his hand over his short hair, "Things may get a little more heated than usual this year."

Things could actually get worse at this point?

"Regina's the captain of the Red Team."

Well that explained why Snow was so gung-ho about winni-wait a minute.

"Regina, as in Regina Mills, the mayor. That Regina?"

He nodded.

"She plays softball?"

Emma simply couldn't imagine it. Regina Skirt-and-Heels Mills playing a sweaty dirty game like softball, when Hell froze over maybe.

"You are shitting me."

Ruby had apparently taken a break from working Snow into a tizzy and laughed at their conversation.

"He shits you not. Regina is the best pitcher in town. She smokes the Boo-Hoo-Blues every year."

"Not this year!"

Snow threw an arm over her shoulder, "Emma is our pitcher and she is going to make Regina wish she'd never picked up a glove."

Aw man. She should have never mentioned that she had pitched for one glorious season during High School (the third of four schools she'd attended before dropping out) It had been an accident, really. She had been walking around the track during gym and the ball had just bounced at her feet. The gym teacher saw her hurl it back at the game and had about creamed her panties on the spot. It had been the one and only year that Emma had truly enjoyed high school. She'd played a little pick-up here and there since, but nothing serious, and definitely nothing to brag about.

"Oh really?"

There was a spark in Ruby's eyes now. "You wanna put your money where your mouth is, Princess?"

Snow stepped up, almost nose to nose, with Ruby. "Bring it on, Wolf."

"Fifty bucks says we wipe the field with your pretty blue butts."

Jesus Jack Hammering Christ, Emma could not believe what was happening.

"You're on."

Wednesday saw their first team practice and if Snow was bad, then the Blue Fairy was ten-times worse. For a nun the woman definitely had a quick temper and was a little too into softball. Wasn't rabid competitiveness a sin or something?

"I swear to all the Saints, Nova, if you hit the ball once, just once, it will be a certified miracle and I will contact the diocese immediately!"

The whisper-thin brunette blushed furiously and Grumpy ambled over to help correct her stance for a moment. Emma looked away because they were just so damn cute and sweet that if she watched the dwarf and the fairy anymore she was going to go into a diabetic coma.

Not that Snow was much better, "Emma that was another ball! Hit your strike zone!" She felt like hitting a strike zone, all right. If her adoring mother didn't stop critiquing her she was going to send the next pitch right at her mask-covered face.

After three ungodly hours of practice, they all huddled up by the pitcher's mound to talk strategy.

"Is it the same line up?" Michael the town mechanic and their short stop, asked with a grunt.

Blue shook her head, "Kathryn is taking over first base since Sidney is-"She frowned for a moment, "gone."

Emma snickered a little bit. It was kind of funny that David's ex-wife would be playing opposite of him.

"Is she any good?"

Everyone turned to David and he sighed, "She played all the way through college" Snow let out a frustrated sigh before her husband added, "on scholarship."

Blue quieted everyone down, "No other surprises, though. The Evil Queen won't change up much since she thinks she has a winning team already."

They spent the next thirty minutes talking about the Red Team. Ruby was a home-run queen, Archie could jump like nobody's business. Emma smirked at that and tried really hard not to make a cricket joke.

"Then of course, there's Paul."

Emma looked up from where she had been plucking blades of grass, "Paul who?"

Grumpy sighed, "Bunyan. He's their power-hitter. He's big and slow but he can swing a bat like nobody's business."

Regina had, apparently, put together a good team. Emma let her thoughts drift again. She still couldn't believe the brunette played. It just seemed so un-Regina-like. She hadn't even though the woman owned sneakers, let alone cleats. Still, though, it would be worth it. She was going to help her crazy team mates win just to see the look on the mayor's face.

The mayor's sweaty, dirt-smeared, perfect face. She wondered vaguely, if the ex-Queen would wear softball pants. The tight, nothing-left-to-the-imagination white sliding pants that would cling to her ass like a second skin. Or shorts, Emma let herself imagine the legs she had seen in skirts so many times in dusty white shorts. Maybe she would wear knee-high red socks too.

"Emma!"

She jumped at her name and looked around to find that everyone was staring at her.

"Yeah?"

She felt embarrassment turn her cheeks even redder then the suicides and squat thrusts had.

"I asked you how often you had pitched against lefties."

Oh, was that all?

"I do all right. Why?"

Blue rolled her eyes and sighed, "Regina bats from the left."

Wait a minute, that couldn't be right. Regina was right-handed, Emma had watched her sign enough paperwork to know that."

"But she's right handed."

"Ambidextrous, actually." Snow commented, "She shoots a bow from the left as well."

Seriously? Yet another thing to remember about Regina. Should they ever throw punches again, Emma would have to remember that she could fight south-paw.

"You know what they say about an archer who shoots from the left." Grumpy chuckled and elbowed Happy, and Dopey, their left and center fielders.

"Grumpy!"

Mother Superior looked shocked and Astrid blushed bright red. Emma had no idea what they said, but would ask Grumpy later.

They practiced twice more and Emma had been forced to break up two shouting matches between various members of the two teams several times before Saturday rolled around. She just wanted it to be over. Miner's Day couldn't arrive soon enough.