NEW YORK CITY, 2018. EXACTLY THREE MONTHS LATER....

The jarring sound of the phone ringing next to Regina startles her out of her current trance of sorting through endless paperwork. She's grown incredibly accustomed to it, though, so she sets down her pen and picks up the phone, her long, manicured nails scraping against the plastic.

"LinePoint Hospital, Regina Mills," she speaks distractedly through the instrument while simultaneously leafing through papers. When the person on the other line replies, Regina crinkles her brow. "Miss...Davis, you're not scheduled for an appointment today." At the response, Regina full-on rolls her eyes. "Today is Wednesday-" she waits until she is no longer being interrupted-"--yes, Wednesday, not Thursday, ma'am. Yes. Check your calendar, please. No, I can't move your appointment to 2:30. What's that? No. I'm sorry. All right, goodbye." Regina slams the phone down and suppresses a groan while rubbing at her temples. It's going to be a long day.

"Wow, some people, huh?" A voice in front of her desk sympathizes, and Regina keeps her eyes closed for a moment longer, trying to relieve a headache that's sure to come full force within minutes.

"Honestly," she sighs, letting her professionalism slip for a brief moment before opening her eyes and casting them upwards to see who's standing before her.

Regina's sure that if it were possible to slip and fall from shock while already already sitting down were possible, her nose would be pressed into the flooring. The owner of the voice is tall, blonde, cocky, and...

Emma Swan.

Regina continues to stare in stupefied shock and disbelief at the person she'd been attempting to track down for months, and hadn't seen for over six years. Emma looks essentially the same, though her face is slightly more aged and her hair is slightly shorter and waiver. On her shoulders sits her infamous red leather jacket, and when Regina's eyes move back up to the blonde's face, she finds a lifted eyebrow and narrowed eyes.

"Did I grow a third eyeball?" Emma asks sarcastically, touching her forehead for effect. When Regina continues to stare, unable to find any words to respond to the woman she never believed she'd see again, the woman to whom she'd given the best gift in her power: her son, and good memories. A good life; and here's the result staring her in the face. The only thing she can think of is that where Emma is, Henry can't be far, and Regina internal monologue is so blurred and jumbled in itself, she can't begin to form a sentence.

"Look, I didn't stop by to chat or to be ogled. This is a hospital, right? My ankle got twisted on the job." Emma snaps, her earlier friendly demeanor gone.

Regina blinks several times and shakes her head to clear it. Did she say ogled? "I apologize, I'm not feeling quite myself today. What should I put you down as, Miss...?" She queries, stopping herself just in time from tacking on the usual "Swan" on the end of that sentence. Acting like she didn't know the blonde is proving much harder than she thought it'd be, and she was already screwing it up. She's lost in thought thinking fretfully of how she'll be able to get close to Emma, but then she's talking.

"Emma. Emma Swan."

Regina feels her shoulders visibly relax when Emma says her last name. She doesn't know why she'd been worried that Emma was married, and tells herself it's because she wouldn't want to eventually bring another person back to Storybrooke with her. She wonders why she's even having this internal monologue. Her fingers quickly type the name onto her monitor, and she forces herself to give Emma a business-like smile. "Have a seat. When your name is next on the list on that screen, someone will be able to see you."

Emma groans, shifting her weight. "How long?" If Regina didn't know better, she'd label her tone a whine.

"I wouldn't be able to tell you that." Regina replies airily, mind still working furiously over what she should do next.

If Emma were able, she would have stomped over to the nearest chair, but since her ankle is still screaming at her, she limps over to the seat directly in front of the receptionist desk. From her position, she can see the dark haired beauty at an eye-to-eye level, and she busies herself with staring at her while Regina, oblivious to the blonde's gaze, continues to type away. Emma smirks and lets out a cough to get the other woman's attention.

Regina's eyes flick upwards and Emma fixes her face with an annoyed expression. "My ankle really hurts."

Emma's not disappointed; she gets the reaction she wants as she watches the brunette's lips tighten and her eyes narrow with irritation. "Miss Swan, I'm afraid you'll have to wait your turn."

Emma feels as though an ice bucket of water has been dumped over her when the receptionist says her name--almost as if she'd heard it said that way before. Shaken, she adverts her gaze. Within minutes, she's forgotten about it, and is drumming her fingers on her knee, thinking of new ways to talk to the other woman. She runs out of time, though, because a door is opened and a doctor walks out of it, clipboard in hand.

"Emma Swan?" The doctor calls out into the room, and Emma stands with a grimace. To that, Regina looks up once more and they hold eye contact long enough for it to be uncomfortable before Emma is ushered out the door.

Regina falls back into her chair and exhales as soon as Emma's gone, and puts her forehead in her hands. What the hell just happened?

---

The next day, Regina's back at her desk, suppressing a yawn. She'd barely gotten any sleep that night, mind wide awake and churning thinking about Emma and where to find her again. Regina had eventually gone to her lunch break after Emma had been called, and was extremely disappointed to find that the blonde had already left by the time Regina returned. After work, she'd asked around, trying to get more information about her without looking suspicious, but she'd come up laughingly empty-handed.

So distracted is she that she's successfully pissed off more than a few patients with her absent-mindlessness, and now she's feeling as though she just wants to go home to her apartment.

"Hey."

The voice startles her enough to send her a shock through her blood, and she visibly twitches. Her eyes lift to see Emma standing there, wearing nearly the same outfit as the day before, minus the jacket.

"What are you doing back here?" Regina asks before she can stop herself. She clams her mouth shut and colors.

"That's a professional thing for a receptionist to say," Emma jokes dryly, but gives her a smile. "I'm back because I accidentally left my jacket here," she explains, wanting to laugh at the brunette's bewildered expression.

"Oh. Did you leave it in the room? You're welcome to get it," Regina informs her, trying to calm her pulse. She doesn't have the slightest idea why she's so flustered, and if Emma wasn't staring at her, she would have slapped herself.

"Yeah, but I don't remember what room it was. Can you come with me?" She asks with a cheeky grin, and Regina shakes her head, thinking she hadn't heard her properly.

"I'm sorry?"

"Can you walk me back there?" Emma repeats, undaunted, and not backing down from her request.

"I don't know what room you were in, either," Regina sputters, glancing anywhere but towards Emma to cool her flaming cheeks.

"I think it was the one to the left, all the way down, but I don't want to get lost," Emma says, then smirks when she sees Regina hesitantly raise herself from her seat.

"Very well," Regina sighs, stepping out in her skin tight dress and opening the correct door. She walks faster than she should have to be showing someone the way, but she's so damn nervous and she doesn't know why, that she can't tell her stiletto covered feet to slow. Emma easily keeps up, though, and they both stop at the described destination.  Regina gestures to the unoccupied room, and watches Emma step inside and grab the red leather jacket off of a chair.

"Hey, I never got your name," Emma remarks, brushing imaginary lint off of the garment.

"Regina Mills." She extends her hand in a business-like fashion, but Emma, too focused on her jacket, doesn't see the gesture. Regina lowers her hand. She doesn't know what possesses her to ask the next question, but as soon as she notices that Emma's no longer walking with a limp, her mouth has already opened and asked before she knows it. "What happened to your ankle?"

"Oh, it was just twisted. Got a shot and a bag of ice and that was the end of it," Emma replies carelessly, stuffing her arms into the sleeves of the jacket.

"I see," Regina coughs softly, and, attempting to regain her confidence, she pushes her hair out of her eyes and settles her hand on her hip.

"Although, if you were asking the question of how it got twisted in the first place, I'm afraid I can only answer that over dinner."

Regina clutches to the doorframe and steps back in shock, her heart, after stopping for a moment, speeding up once more. Did Emma Swan just ask her on a date?! When seconds pass, and Regina still hasn't recovered, Emma's suave demeanor wavers.

"Unless I read you wrong and you're not..." Emma's cheeks redden considerably and she adjusts her hair to sit outside her jacket, only for her hands to have something to do. She mentally curses herself for being too forward, and acknowledges that purposely leaving her favorite jacket at a hospital just to be able to see the captivating receptionist again had been perhaps going a bit too far. For god's sake, the woman probably is straight and has a boyfriend already. Emma curses her blushing genes and imagines Henry laughing when he finds out that she'd been turned down.

Regina, on the other hand, has entirely different thoughts rushing through her mind. Besides the fact that Emma, who has no knowledge of their past, had asked her on a romantic date, she's actually considering accepting. What if this is the way to befriend her? She could play along and perhaps get to see Henry, and then by the time they're close enough for her to take them to Storybrooke, they could get their memories back and she could pretend nothing like this ever happened. It doesn't feel like all that terrible of an idea, so she finds herself shaking her head. "No, no--you just caught me off guard, that's all. I would....love to go to dinner with you." Regina replies somewhat stiffly, then forcibly spreads her cheeks apart to soften her tone with a fake smile.

Emma doesn't seem to notice the other woman's apathy, though, and gives her an immensely relieved smile. "I'm glad to hear that! I'm sorry I sprung this on you so suddenly--" here she breaks off, then finds a pad of paper on the counter filled with doctor's tools next to her and scribbles something onto it. "Here's my number. If you want to make it a date, call me tonight. If not, I'll understand."

Regina takes the paper with numb fingers and stares blankly at it, completely bathed in disbelief over it all.

"Oh, and by the way--thanks for the help. With my jacket, I mean." Emma adds, then walks briskly out of the room, easily finding her way out of the building.

Regina stands in the doorway holding the paper for much longer than a few minutes, trying to understand what had just happened so fast.

---

Back at her apartment, Regina's sitting at her small desk, still pouring over the paper given to her by Emma. The only thing that marks the starch whiteness is fairly sloppy numbers spelling out the key to Regina entire cause for coming here. Within a day, she'd come closer than she'd ever been to bringing them home. This is good news, but Regina doesn't necessarily feel ready to get up and dance over it, and instead finds her heartbeat quickening every time she remembers how this paper had come about to her.

The new memories were given so that they could live a good life--nothing should have been changed about their personalities or how they viewed people. So, the one thing that Regina can't understand, is how Emma could possibly be attracted to her in the first place, let alone boldly ask her out after hardly knowing her. Did the curse make Emma gay? Regina colors considerably with that last thought, noting that that was highly unlikely, and simultaneously wants to kick herself with having such a consideration.

Then, as if waking from a dream, she remembers that she has to make a decision--either she needs to call Emma and go on a date with her, or refuse and lost all contact and progress. She sighs, realizing she has absolutely no choice, but in the very deepest part in her mind, she knows that if she'd had a third option, she still might have chosen this one. However, since there's nothing she can do and time is quickly running out, Regina picks up her phone.

With shaking fingers, she slowly types in the number, checks to see if it's right, then double checks it. Then she raises the dialing phone to her ear.

"Hello?" Emma answers on the third ring.

"It's Regina. So, about that dinner? I'd like to cash in that story about how you managed to twist your ankle."

Somehow, when a laugh bursts out on the other line, Regina finds her lips curling into a smile.

AN: I told you Swanqueen would happen! This was an amazingly fun chapter to write, partly because I think it's such a incredibly great opportunity to be able to write them meeting with a clean slate between them.

Let's see where this goes, shall we??

Vote and comment!!:)