Chapter Text
The Mifflin dorm hall was known as the dwelling of Storybrooke University’s most studious students in on-campus housing. It had the earliest quiet hours, housed mostly upperclassmen, and was the one Regina Mills had carefully selected after two campus tours and several hours of thoughtful consideration. She frankly had no idea how her roommate could have possibly settled on the same hall.
Crunch.
Regina glared over her textbook at the woman in question, Emma Swan. Regina hadn’t been a fan of her when they were in high school together, and she certainly was not a fan when Emma was sitting across their shared dorm and eating obnoxiously crunchy, orange chips. She watched her turn a page in her book and internally cringed at the orange prints left on the paper.
They’d been living together for five days, and Regina was still wondering how they could possibly be paired by the roommate questionnaire. So far, the only two reasons she could think of were the algorithm had been faulty, or Emma picked the Mifflin dorm by randomly pulling its name from a hat. Of course, the latter would require some level of forethought. One would have to have a hat and paper. Regina supposed Emma could have simply thrown a pen at a dorm pamphlet and settled on the hall it marked. Regina’s eyes trailed after the now empty and wadded up chip bag as it sailed across the room and landed squarely in the garbage bin. Yes, the pen method certainly seemed compatible with what she knew of her roommate.
She watched Emma dust her hands off before rolling her eyes and turning her attention back to her textbook. It was just a few blissfully peaceful moments later that a rustling sound interrupted her concentration. She looked up again and found Emma opening a pack of dry cereal. Regina sighed. It was clearly going to be a long school year, and classes hadn’t even started.
~
The truly wonderful thing about Regina’s childhood friends was that all three of them were very rarely bothered by her, objectively, somewhat bratty attitude when she was displeased with something. The unfortunate thing about her friends was that when she was in one of those moods, that’s when they most enjoyed teasing her. Take for example, the first week of freshman year, when Regina was having lunch with Maleficent: “... and after that she got out another package of those stupid chips. At this rate, her fingers are going to be permanently stained orange,” Regina finished recounting with a huff. Mal hummed from her place across the table. She was leaning her head against her hand and was watching Regina with a superior little smirk. A few seconds passed and then Regina prompted, “Well?”
Mal quirked an amused eyebrow, “Well, what?”
Regina irritably stabbed at her salad, “It’s your turn to say something.”
Knowing it wasn’t at all uncommon for her friend to launch into a second leg of her diatribe on Emma Swan, Mal asked, “Are you really finished now?”
Still moving bits of lettuce around her plate, Regina answered, “Yes, I’m finished now.”
Mal lifted her head, checked the watch on her wrist, and announced, “Seven minutes, thirty-two seconds.”
Regina blinked and looked back up at her dining companion, “I beg your pardon?”
“Seven minutes, thirty-two seconds,” Mal repeated, “That’s how long you talked about Emma’s eating habits.”
Regina gave a funny little jerk that sent a piece of lettuce flying off their table. “I was not talking about her for seven minutes.”
Mal nodded, “Correct, you were talking about her for seven minutes and thirty-two seconds. It’s important to be precise.”
Regina felt her cheeks flush but did her best to ignore it as she argued, “I was simply complaining about the unfortunate roommate I’m stuck with, because we couldn’t room together.”
Mal shrugged, “I still think we made the right decision. Even if my roommate is a simpering twit and yours is the woman you’ve had a crush on since the start of high school.” Mal paused, looking expectant. Regina refused to rise to the bait, choosing instead to lift a delicate eyebrow at Mal in a is-that-really-the-best-you-can-do manner. She’d been (ridiculously) teased about being secretly infatuated with Emma far too many times to get riled that easily. Seeing that she hadn’t hit the right button yet, Mal continued, “Besides, if we lived together, you’d have to find a new best friend to complain for seven minutes and thirty-two seconds to about the way I eat ‘obnoxiously crunchy, orange chips.’”
Regina rolled her eyes but ignored the jab. “Cruella and Ursula manage to be roommates,” she argued, absolutely refusing to be distracted.
Mal held up a finger, “Ah but you’re forgetting a very important difference in the two situations.” She looked just to the left of Regina’s shoulder and raised her voice slightly as she said, “Cruella and Ursula are idiots.”
“We heard that,” came from just over Regina’s shoulder, followed closely by two loud smacking noises as Cruella and Ursula plopped their trays onto the table.
“You were meant to,” Mal drawled as the newly arrived pair took their seats. She leisurely leaned back in her chair, winked at Regina and said, “What I really want to know is if you heard the part about Regina spending seven minutes and thirty-two seconds explaining Emma’s eating habits for the past week.”
Ursula snorted as she unwrapped her silverware, “Please, not that again. Do you remember in high school when she spent fifteen minutes on the way Emma’s glasses slide down her nose when she reads.”
Regina’s looked rather affronted as she explained, “It’s not that difficult to fix! There was no reason for her to spend everyday pushing them back up her nose.”
Mal seemed to be enjoying herself as she countered, “It’s also not that difficult to ask her to dinner instead of fixating on every single one of her little idiosyncrasies.”
Regina felt her face heat again, “I do not want to ask her to dinner. I just don’t see why she has to be so-”
“Delicious,” Cruella suggested as she poured a smuggled flask of vodka into her orange juice.
“Aggravating,” Regina glared, “I was going to say aggravating, and you do realize it’s before noon, yes?”
Cruella waved a hand in Regina’s direction like she was swatting at a fly, “I never worry about the details. It causes premature wrinkling.” She took a sip of her cocktail with a pointed look at Regina’s forehead. She set the glass back down and added, “Not to mention alcohol is the easiest way to stand rehashing your little crush on the Swan girl, for what? The hundredth time.”
Ursula snorted, “Try the thousandth.”
Regina very briefly considered flipping the table, just to force a topic change, but the damn thing looked like it was made of some sturdy, old oak. Instead she decided to try to reason with them--a fool’s errand if there ever was one, “You three just said I complain about Emma for concentrated chunks of time. That hardly seems to imply that I’d like to go to dinner with her.”
“Yes, it does,” Ursula chimed without looking up from her fish sticks. .
“Well then maybe you really are an idiot,” Regina snapped.
Unfortunately, rather than deterred by her attitude, all three of her friends seemed quite amused by her waspish behavior. Cruella, always the one who seemed to enjoy teasing Regina the most, leaned forward and asked, “Tell me darling, in elementary school, did you ever get in trouble for pulling another little girl’s hair?”
Not expecting the question, Regina frowned, “Yes, why?”
Grinning even wider, Cruella practically purred, “Think about it, dear.”
Regina looked at Mal, who had been watching the conversation with a cheshire cat grin, with just a hint of pleading in her eyes, and it was enough to get Mal to lose the haughty edge to her expression. “I believe she’s trying to tell you it’s time to get off the playground,” Mal unhelpfully clarified.
It was certainly too early in the morning for Regina to try and understand her friends, so in an effort to cut to the chase, she groused, “Meaning?”
“We’re not five anymore,” Ursula supplied.
Cruella nodded in agreement and added, “So stop snarling at the poor girl like a child who has to pull another child’s hair to express their feelings.”
With a chuckle Mal leaned forward and hummed, “In short, learn to flirt without scalding Emma, dear.”
Of course, that was absolutely preposterous advice, since Regina wasn’t flirting. And even if she were , if she truly wanted to, she could certainly woo Emma Swan without snipping at her. Regina could be charmingly polite, and suave if she so fancied. Yes, she absolutely could, she assured herself as she sat waiting for her intro to political science class to start.
“Excuse me?” A male voice interrupted Regina’s thoughts.
“What?” She snapped. She whipped her head to the side to see a thin redheaded man with thick glasses.
Startled by her hostility, the man took a step back, “Nothing, I uh, was just going to ask if this seat was available, but I think I actually see a friend in the corner. Sorry for bothering you.” The man hastily backed away and stumbled towards another man who was watching his friend’s retreat and laughing loudly enough for it to carry across the classroom.
No one else approached Regina about the empty seat next to her, which left her to stew peacefully until class started. At the top of the hour, the professor, Dr. Gold, gave a short introduction of himself and the class before beginning to hand out copies of the syllabus. Regina pulled out the online copy she’d already downloaded and highlighted, still quietly musing about what her friends had said. She supposed it may not be the worst course of action to try being friendly with Emma. Not to win the girl’s affections, obviously, just for the sake of making her living situation for at least the next year easier to bear.
The professor cleared his throat, having made his way back to the front of the class and began, “As you’ll see on page one, I do not appreciate tardiness.”
At that moment, the classroom door was flung open and Regina’s wind-swept roommate appeared on the threshold looking like she’d run across campus to get there.
Emma blundered into the classroom with one strap of her backpack on and a rushed apology spilling from her lips, “Sorry, Professor. My last class was by the dorms, and we got out late, and I got here as quickly as I could but um...” She trailed off under Dr. Gold’s cold stare.
Letting Emma’s unfinished sentence hang in the air for a long, uncomfortable minute, Gold looked back at his syllabus and called, “Take a seat and don’t let it happen again.” Emma nodded and sank into the nearest chair. The chair right next to Regina, as fate-- that bitch -- would have it.
Taking off her backpack, Emma finally seemed to notice who she was sitting next to and offered Regina a hesitant smile. Regina felt her face twitch in what she hoped was something resembling a reassuring smile, but given the way Emma’s eyebrows furrowed before she turned to face the front, it may have been closer to a grimace.
Gold read through the rest of the syllabus without incident, the last page just being a breakdown of the class grading scale and point totals for the semester’s assignments. It had seemed fairly standard when Regina had first gone over it. She’d highlighted the due dates but nothing else had stuck out to her. Gold finished reading and looked around the class. Something about his expression made Regina want to fidget, but she forced herself to sit still. There was no reason for her to have such a reaction. However, as Gold paced to her side of the classroom, she couldn’t help feeling that something was about to go very poorly.
“Now, I need all of you to pay attention. I do not enjoy repeating myself, so I’m only going to say this once. I will number each row either as a one or a two.” He glowered at the class before continuing, “It is a simple one digit number, and if you can’t remember which number your row is, save me and yourself the trouble and drop the class. Does everyone understand?”
There were nods throughout the classroom, and Gold quickly numbered off the eight rows. “Now if you’re a one, please look to your left, and if you are a two, look to your right.” Regina dutifully looked to her right and found Emma already staring back at her. “Now everyone say hello to your permanent partner for the semester.” Regina’s head whipped towards Gold as mutters filled the classroom. She rescanned the assignment page as she threw her hand into the air.
Gold sighed as his eyes fell on her raised hand, “Yes, Ms…”
“Mills,” Regina supplied, eyes flickering over the syllabus for a third time.
“Very well, Ms. Mills. Your question?”
Confident that she hadn’t misread the page, Regina said, “There’s nothing on the syllabus about required group work.”
A snide smirk crept over Gold’s face, “Ms. Mill’s, please read the last line of the syllabus aloud for the class.”
Regina’s eyes jumped to the bottom of the page and she felt her heart sink. The dirty rotten bast-
“Today,if you please, Ms. Mills.”
Regina shot him a filthy glare before reading, “This syllabus is subject to change at any time, at the discretion of the professor.”
Gold leaned his hip against the edge of his desk, “The majority of you taking this class are either going into law, law enforcement, or politics. I, as head of the political science department, and the heads of the other two aforementioned departments have all received several complaints from the upperclassmen instructors that not a single one of the students has learned how to effectively work with others. This semester, we will remedy that.
“Now, some of you may not understand the importance of group work,” his eyes pointedly landed on Regina before he continued, “or why it would be required in fields as competitive as the ones most of you will be entering.” He looked around the class, like he was daring someone to ask why. When no one did, he explained, “There will be times in each of your fields when you must work with another person, which will require at least a basic understanding of the word cooperation.” His eyes again landed on Regina as he added, “I have a feeling that is a skill several of you have yet to acquire. So you will begin working on it this semester. I will take a list of the partners. And before anyone asks, no you may not switch, because the purpose of this exercise is to learn to work with another person, whether you like them or not. Every in-class assignment will be done with your partner, as will your semester midterm.” He held up a clipboard, “After I’ve taken your name and your partner’s you may leave.”