Daughter of Darkness || Once Upon a Time

Chapter Twelve | Family Reunion

❃
|The Labyrinth|
❃

Regina wasn't sure how long it had been since they started walking through the Labyrinth again, but she was sure that they weren't getting anywhere. Eventually, the group stopped for the night. Regina still wasn't talking very much, and when she did, it was only to Henry.

But after they picked a room to stop in, Regina spoke to Cora and Gold, "What happened to him?"

Cora and Gold looked at each other, silently debating whether they should tell Regina the truth or not.

"What happened to Robin?" Regina repeated. "I deserve to know. I'm the closest thing to family he has left over age seven."

"He's gone forever," Cora answered. "If a living person dies in the Underworld, that's the end of the line for them. ...I'm sorry."

Regina just nodded a little bit. She didn't look as if the news surprised her. She sat down, laid her sword down beside her, and went back to being silent, the night Robin had died playing over and over in her mind.

Everyone was almost asleep when someone burst into the room, locking the door behind him or her. No one could see who it was until the person shined a flashlight at the group. "Henry? Dad?"

❃
|The Enchanted Forest, Long Ago|
❃

Cora was absolutely, definitely, 300%  not going to let the Dark One ruin her climb to power. No one was going to stop her this time. So if King Xavier wanted her to cut off her relationship with the imp, she would. She would do it so she could get power, no matter how hard it was.

So Cora summoned him and was ready to tell him to leave until his lips met hers and everything went downhill from there. She wasn't strong enough to say goodbye on her own. She needed magical help of some sort.

Cora's search for a magical solution to her problem always seemed to point her to one answer. To remove her own heart. Cora knew plenty of magic and had ripped the heart out of animals and the occasional person before. But ripping her own heart out? That thought had never occurred to the sorceress. And she really didn't like the sound of it.

But ripping her own heart out was the only solution Cora could find, and it might make things a bit less painful than if she were to end things with Rumple with her heart still in her chest. However, living without a heart didn't seem enjoyable.

And so Cora came to a decision. She would remove her heart only temporarily. Just long enough to say goodbye to Rumple and perhaps for the few days after that. And once she was okay again, her heart would go back into her chest and Cora would move on with Prince Henry.

Well, that had been the plan. Until Cora discovered something that flipped the plan on its head.

She was pregnant.

❃
|The Labyrinth, Present Day|
❃

After a lot of hugging and a little bit of crying and several hours worth of catching up, the shock of seeing Neal again was over. Henry had been the first to react, running over to his dad and flinging his arms around him. Then, Gold got over his shock and hugged his late son as well.

After reuniting with Neal, Regina took it upon herself to make everyone get some sleep. They still needed to find a way out of the endless maze and they couldn't do that while half asleep. And though Regina had been the one who got everyone else to agree sleep was a good idea, she could hardly even close her eyes herself. Every time she did, she either saw Robin falling to his death or bleeding out in Camelot or being dragged away by the fury for the first time back in the Overworld.