Sunday: Creator's Choice (and I picked 'That AU' and wrote a vampire coffee shop story)

Regina had just refilled the coffee grinder when Jefferson ran through the coffee shop door and into the break room. She would have gone after him if only a few seconds later an out of breath blonde woman hadn't burst through the door looking around the coffee shop wildly. Regina raised an eyebrow at her.

"Welcome to Storybrooke. Is there something I can make for you?"

"Yeah, I mean no, nothing for me. Did a vampire just come through here?"

"We have a lot of vampires who come through here. This is a specialty coffee shop, after all."

Emma glanced around the shop. The shop was practically empty. Only a small group of people sat at one table, thought it wasn't surprising as it was nearing dawn and most vampires would have already headed home while most humans were asleep or just waking up. She was purposefully evading her question, quite skilfully too. Emma narrowed her eyes, this could be harder than she expected.

There were two very distinct counters and opposite ends of the shop each with their own sign above it that said 'vampire' and 'human' respectively. Regina stood at the human counter. She made the best coffee in the whole shop, and few vampires really appreciated it. They just liked the idea they could drink coffee and blood. If they were partial to a well-made coffee they knew to ask for her.

Vampire coffee shops had popped up throughout the city a few years ago. Most had shut down pretty quickly, due to health regulations and bad blood sources. Now only Storybrooke remained. The two coffee counters sat at opposite ends of the shop for health and safety reasons. It was easier to differentiate them that way and the layout led to dramatically less humans getting the blood tainted coffee that the vampires drunk. Some humans tried for the blood soaked coffee on purpose though and Emma had heard horror stories of tainted blood causing any amount of sickness in those situations. They were only stories though. When you grew up in a vampire city you knew that vampires were the most careful creatures in the world. They lived a life of balance. They had to balance their need for blood with the social expectations around them. They had to be mysterious and elusive, but also completely transparent. A business like Storybrooke was carefully watched to make sure those horror stories remained only stories and not a reality.

"I'm looking for one man in particular, his name is Jefferson. Do you know him?"

Regina raised an eyebrow. She most certainly did know Jefferson, he was one of her children after all.

"I do know him."

"Did he come in here?" Emma glanced at her name tag. "Regina?"

Two loud men walked in and headed straight to the vampire counter. Regina frowned at them, they were obviously going to be a problem this close to dawn.

"You'll have to excuse me for a moment."

She headed around the side of the shop as the men leant forward, baring fangs at the girl in front of them. She didn't look impressed, but it was probably the sort of thing that happened regularly. She sighed and dropped the note pad she had been taking their order down on. They were speaking to her, but were quite enough that Emma couldn't hear a word of it. She didn't need to though, the crude gestures and licking of lips was enough of a giveaway.

"You two can just turn around and leave now and save everyone the hassle of being kicked out." Their server said with a bored tone. She had probably seen more vampires than they had.

They sneered at her and Regina moved around the counter and appeared behind the girl serving them.

"Not only are you being rude to your server, but you're too young to even buy anything in this shop. Come back when you have some years on you and you're not still being bottle fed by your maker." She spat.

One of the vampires slammed his hand down on the counter.

"I want my damn coffee. And I'll glamour a bitch to get one!"

Regina laughed. "You couldn't glamour a chipmunk into shitting in your hand, let alone any of the people in this shop. Now get out before I call Maleficent and tell her that she needs to come down here to pick her two baby vamps up off the floor. If you're lucky she won't kill you."

The two vampires stuttered for a second before racing towards the door at vampire speed.

"Damn babies." Regina muttered. "You alright Kathryn?"

"Nothing I haven't heard or seen before, Regina. Even I could tell they were under age."

Regina patted Kathryn on her shoulder and made her way back to Emma where she busied herself at the coffee machine. After placing what looked to Emma as quite possibly the best made flat white in existence in front of her Regina gestured to a table close to the counter.

"Sit, please. And it's on the house for having to witness that situation."

Emma sat and sipped her coffee, it was pretty amazing. "What was that about them being too young?"

"Oh, simple really. We don't serve vampires under a certain age because our drinks contain at least traces if not more of blood. If they're too young they go into a frenzy after the first sip and as we have both human customers and servers, I'm sure you can imagine the fall out if that happened. Now that were we talking about?"

"Jefferson."

"Right. Now I'm afraid that depends on why you're looking for him as to whether I can tell you anything about him."

Emma leaned back in her chair and took another sip of her drink. Threatening people was normally her go to. She was good at it, really good at it. But she probably wasn't good enough to scare someone who worked in a coffee shop that essentially sold blood to vampires. Especially seeing how easily Regina dealt with vampires from before.

"I'm a bounty hunter, and Jefferson is my lead for the night."

Regina frowned. "That's not right. What did he do?"

"Fed without consent."

Regina's frown deepened. "Did he kill?"

"No."

"Then you have no right to him."

"He broke the law."

"He has a maker."

Emma froze. "What?"

"Jefferson has a maker. You understand the implications of that, yes?"

"I do."

And Emma did, she really did. Vampires with makers were not part of the legal system. Well, all vampires had makers, but the ones who had makers that stayed around and looked after them were different. Most vampires couldn't be bothered going through the paper work around turning anymore and if they did accidentally turn someone they left the vampire to be found and handed over to the state. Some vampires took in the newly turned, but more often than not they were tossed into their own form of group homes.

But those vampires with makers who looked after them were exempt from most laws. Punishment came from the maker rather than the judicial system for all but the most serious crimes as a way of appeasing the cultural differences between humans and vampires. For the most part it worked.

All vampires were registered voters, and their status of having a childe was similar to that of humans. There were rebirth certificates and about a million other types of paperwork. There was a mile long paper trail proving that one vampire was another's maker and police computers had specific databases on vampires just so they could make sure this sort of thing didn't happen.

The fact that Emma had been given a bounty for a vampire with a maker meant that someone had put it out there on purpose. She just really hoped it wasn't her boss, Neal. He was a sneaky man, good with computers who liked to find vampires who had escaped the law and sic his bounty hunters on them. It had given him a certain reputation for dealing with vampires.

Who was she kidding, it was totally Neal. How in the world did she stop from being sued for this?

"Who is his maker?"

Maybe she could apologise. Explain what had happened. After all, she hadn't actually caught Jefferson.

Regina cleared her throat. "That would be me, dear."

Emma groaned loudly.

"Perhaps you should think about resigning?" Regina offered quietly.

Emma nodded. "That might be for the best. And to think, I was going to ask you what you were doing this weekend."

Regina smiled. "Maybe after all of this is over and I've sued your employer for well, everything I can get to stick."

"You're not going after me?"

"Did you know Jefferson had a maker?"

"No! Of course not."

"Then you're safe. Do come back, dear." Regina stood and headed towards the back of the shop. "Maybe next time you'll tell me your name."

Then she was gone and dawn broke over the horizon. Now all Emma needed to do was write her resignation letter and get it to Neal as soon as possible. Good thing bounty hunting was a commission based job and she'd be able to get out of their sooner rather than later.

/-/-/-/

It only took three months for Regina's court case to settle. Neal never knew what hit him. Emma gave her an extra week before coming back to the coffee shop. Regina stood behind the human counter, making coffees as quickly as possible. Even without her using vampire speed it turned out to be pretty damn quick.

"Hello stranger." Regina said as Emma stepped up to the counter. "It's been a while."

"That it has. It's Emma by the way. Emma Swan."

Regina held out a hand. "It's nice to meet you Emma Swan. I'm Regina Mills, owner of this fine little coffee shop. Now what have you been up to, my little bounty hunter?"

Jefferson came in from the back room and took over from Regina just as she handed Emma a drink and made her way to an empty table.

"I quit the bounty hunting. It was good money, but I have enough saved up and at least I won't go after the wrong vampire again. I actually got into the police academy, if you'd believe that."

"Why would I not? I suspect you can do quite a bit when you put your mind to it."

Emma blushed lightly. "Yeah, well Neal liked to send me after vampires a lot, so I'm already better trained at dealing with vampires than most of the police force and they want me to start out in one of the vampire units once I graduate from the academy."

Regina tilted her head to the side. "So if I play my cards right I can have an in with the fang squad?"

"If you're lucky." Emma said with a laugh.

She doubted Regina needed any sort of in, if the speed of the trial was any indication.

"Don't you have a question for me, Miss Swan?"

"That I do." Emma said with a smile. "So, what are you doing this weekend?"