A/N: This is going to be the place where I post any one shots that I write. I'll continue to add to this as I write more , but I'm also going to be posting some of my older stuff from Tumblr (I'll be labeling that older stuff as "(Old)" in the title in case you'd like to skip it).
He never thought that he would have this. Well, he suppose he must have at one point, back when he was a naïve child, back when he was the straight-laced navel lieutenant who saw the world through rose-colored glasses. But then life happened, Liam died, and he became a pirate. And a pirate ship was no place for a little lad or lass. Even after Milah came into his life, he could never bring himself to ask her if she wanted to try. He saw the sadness on her face when she thought that he wasn't looking, when she stared wistfully off into the sunset. He knew that she was thinking of Bae, of the child that she never got to raise. As much as he wanted to (and gods he wanted to, he would have given up his ship, his treasure, everything, just to have a family with her) he couldn't ask her to replace her son. He loved her too much for that. So he resigned himself to the fact that he would never be a father, and told himself he was content just to hold her in his arms every night. And then the Crocodile killed her. If Killian Jones hadn't been sure that he would never be a father before his love was taken from him, he was certainly sure of it now. If he couldn't have a child with Milah, he didn't want one with anyone else.
She never thought that she would have this. When she was younger, she used to hold onto the silent hope that one day she would have a family. Not parents, of course not; she knew that she wasn't good enough for anyone to want her as their child. But maybe one day, she would meet someone, someone who would love her and want her like her parents hadn't, and she and that person would make a family together. When she met Neal, it seemed like her dream would finally become a reality. When, in the middle of that motel room, he told her that he was ready to settle down, when her finger found Tallahassee on that map, she thought that maybe it was finally going to happen. But then life happened, and she found herself sitting in the middle of a jail cell, seventeen, alone, and pregnant. She can still remember that day in the hospital, the day she had to give her baby away. She can still hear his cries as they carried him away, mixed with the sound of her own sobs. From then on, any time Emma Swan gave any thought to having a family or children, all she would hear were the cries of the baby she never got to know, and all she would feel was the intense guilt of what she had done. Some days all she wanted was her baby back, and if she couldn't have him, she didn't want to have another one with anyone else.
And yet, here they both sit many years later in the middle of a hospital room in a town called Storybrooke, Maine. A ring with a red stone adorns the finger on her left hand, while a large gold band hangs from the chain around his neck. If you were to look closely, you would see that both of their eyes are filled with silent tears of joy. Neither of them speaks, too filled with awe and joy at the little bundle wrapped up in her arms. He leans over to press a kiss to the little head covered with a dusting of dark hair, before pressing another kiss to the crown of his wife's head. As they sit there in that hospital room, they both realize that they have everything that they ever wanted, everything that they thought they could never have. And they wouldn't want it with anyone else.