A/N: I've probably started too many projects this week, but I couldn't resist with this one. I really, really tried not to do a Rumplestiltskin one, but I couldn't help it (that's next chapter by the way, heeheehee).

It wasn't that she didn't have a heart.

No, Regina was only evil because she didn't have a soul. Her heart been ripped out years and years ago, at the same moment her mother had torn out Daniel's. It had taken longer to turn evil after that.

Hearts, in Regina's opinion, were only for emotions. For love and heartbreak. Pain and joy. But when someone says that she is heartless, that is terribly wrong. She does have a heart, shattered pieces in her chest. These fragments can still feel love, kind of.

But true compassion, Regina finds, true sympathy, comes from the soul. It's where the conscience that cricket keeps prattling about is. So when someone screams as she tears their lives and homes apart, that she has no heart, what they really should say is she has no soul.

Soulless creatures are the ones that are truly evil. The darkest being can strut around perfectly cruelly with a heart, but they must be missing a soul.

Take Rymplestiltskin for example. He created The Dark Curse, the curse to end all curses, and yet he has a heart. It was far too easy to break really, shriveled as it is. But what dear Rumple was really missing was a soul.

Not that Regina's about to give him one.

As she holds The Dark Curse, this runs through her mind. The curse itself, bears no heart nor soul. It truly is evil. Irreparably so. It forces you to chose between heart or darkness, and that's where Regina stands now. Rumplestiltskin's words are thrumming through her head, and the heart she still clings to beats a little faster. She must decide between hatred and heart, longing and love. They are terribly opposing forces.

This curse isn't gonna be easy, dearie.

No, it's not.

The question is, how far are you willing to go?

She'd said as far as it takes. She would trade her very soul for darkness. Despite their insistence -how petty they were to argue with her, she was only getting what she wanted- Regina really did have a heart and soul. Her broken heart had mended a little, sure. But her soul was not quite yet gone. It was there, but it was empty. As close as one could get to having none.

Regina stabbed her father, the only thing left she loved. And as the dark curse rose from the ashes of his heart, she felt it ripped from her.

Her soul.

The empty thing that had kept her from total darkness disappeared. Her heart did nothing about it.

The curse sucked her soul away from her, and she already felt its absence.

And she loved it.