Disclaimer: I don't own OUAT

A/N: Oh my, something that isn't about Rumplestiltskin? I must be slipping. But there was so much material in last night's ep (2x16) and this was simply the saddest part. I had to do something. So here you go. Review if you like! Thanks~

Enough

X -x-x-x-x- X

"You are the only man I ever truly loved," she spoke softly to him, a sour attempt to comfort him in his last dying moments. Did she really mean it? Perhaps. Or maybe she was just trying to give him closure in this matter.

It seemed to work. Now all she had to do was raise the dagger and at last, she would have all the power...

And it all stopped. It wasn't painful, just a shock as something warm and alive was pressed into her. She stumbled back and looked at the worried face of her daughter.

And everything changed.

It was like a torch had been lit. Light poured in. She was here and at last...

At last...

"Cora, you have a daughter."

"Good," she replied blandly. "Let me see her."

The child was put in her arms and for the first time, she got to look at her. There wasn't anything special about this baby. She looked like any other infant she had ever seen. But it was hers and now she was stuck with it.

She had heard of others talking about the instant love you feel when your child is put in your arms. She waited for it, but there was nothing. She figured that would be the case. She had removed her heart because of Rumplestiltskin but also because she knew this day would come.

Love is weakness...

"Her name is Regina, because she will be queen," she announced and gave the child to a nursemaid.

Now as she stood in the shop, she felt what she should have felt in that moment; the moment you first hold your child. It washed over her like fresh water and she gasped as it all clicked into place.

And she smiled.

Probably the first and only real smile she'd ever had in her whole life.

And her daughter smiled back, finally showing the love she had craved from her. "Mother!"

She smiled again. This was it. This is what she had been searching for. This is what she really wanted. Nothing else mattered. No feeling compared to this, not even the love for the man laying in the background. That couldn't hold a candle to this.

Pure, unwavering, unbiased love.

Everything she ever wanted.

She went to embrace her daughter, to hold her like she should have been, when it all came crashing down.

Quite literally. She couldn't breathe. Couldn't speak. She fell, hearing her child call out for her and felt arms hold her.

She gazed into the worried eyes of this beautiful woman she had created. "What's wrong?"

Nothing else in this world mattered to her anymore and now it was too late. She gathered all the strength she had and took a breath. "This...would've been enough..." Regina's eyes contorted, obviously confused. "You...you would've been enough..."

And it would have been. If she only had not taken her own heart and felt this the day she was born, none of this would've happened. She would've devoted her life to her daughter and not this petty need for revenge.

She was such a child. She never did grow up, because she never had the heart to do it with.

And now it was over.

As blackness overtook and sound disappeared, her final thoughts were of what she foolishly threw away.

Regina...

My baby.

~End