Comfort Food

Comfort Food

Regina Mills barely waited for the automatic doors to slide open before she charged into the grocery store. She was a woman on a mission and no one was going to stop her. If her life had been animated-and there were times she wondered if perhaps her life was some show people watched for amusement-there would've been a dark storm cloud floating over her head. Because she had had a day.

Her alarm clock had decided to go on strike and not go off at all. Regina's internal clock had kicked in, but not until 8:50 AM...when she had to start work at 9:00 AM. She had fired off a text to tell her assistant she was going to be late and to hold her calls when Mary Margaret had reminded her that she had a meeting at nine. And he was waiting for her in her office. Cursing, Regina hopped around her room as she tried to find something to wear that day.

Putting together an outfit ended up being the only good thing about her day. Her car wouldn't start so she had to call a car service to take her to work. At this point, she was almost a half hour late for her meeting and she was cursing the fact she had made such an early appointment. When she got out of the car, she glanced down to find a giant run in her stockings. Horrified, Regina ducked into the nearest ladies' room and pulled the garment off. She was going to have to do this meeting sans stockings while she sent Mary Margaret to get her a new pair.

The meeting did not go as well as she had thought it would. She had anticipated an easy sell to get this company to let them handle their next ad campaign. Regina had spent the days prior compiling all the necessary data she had needed to wow them and thought Ruby had made a brilliant mock up for her to display. Yet the potential clients didn't blink an eye and left her with promises to think about their pitch.

Mary Margaret returned back with her new stockings in time for Regina to wear them as her boss, Mr. Gold, chewed her out for possibly blowing the deal. "I should've had Zelena do it," he spat. "She at least would've been here on time and would've had them eating out of her hand."

He knew Regina had disliked the woman since she had arrived at the firm and the feeling was mutual. Gold had chosen to use Zelena to light a fire under her and it worked. She stormed back to her office and buckled down, focusing on the campaign for Gepetto's Toys. Yet even that went to hell in a handbasket and she had to call all-hands on deck to finish it on time.

Now it was nine o'clock at night and Regina hadn't eaten since Mary Margaret brought her a salad around lunch time. Her stomach rumbled but she only needed one thing after a day like this. Everyone had a comfort food, even high-powered ad executives.

She guided her cart down the pasta aisle, which was looking a bit bare. The employees were falling down on their jobs, not restocking the shelves. But then again, if she was honest, there weren't that many people in here. They probably weren't expecting someone to be grabbing spaghetti and the like at this time of the night.

Which meant there was only one box of macaroni and cheese left. She saw the lone blue box sitting on the shelf as she put her cart to the side. Hurrying up, she reached for it...only for the box to be yanked away before her fingers could grab it.