Title: Maternal Instinct
Summary: Only after a wave of rainbow light washed over her did Snow White understand. All those feelings, those little snatches of deep emotion, all those times that she could sense Emma's troubled mind had a name now.
Spoilers: If you've seen everything, we're good.
Characters: Snow and Emma, with cameos by Charming and Killian.
Rating/Warning: K+, for language. Family fluff, as per usual.
Disclaimer: Once Upon a Time and its characters were created by Eddie Kitsis and Adam Horowitz and are owned by ABC. I'm just playing in someone else's sandbox.
Author's Note: I had sudden and strong Mama Snow feels so I decided to share. I also apparently missed writing these two like this but this piece ended up being way longer than I anticipated. I've only tried the connected vignettes style a couple of times, so hopefully this works. Feedback makes my little day! Enjoy. :)

Mary Margaret Blanchard opened her eyes and stared up at her darkened ceiling, trying to determine what had woken her.

When a shaft of dim light appeared under the curtain separating her bedroom from the apartment proper, the answer came to her: it was Emma. Something was troubling Emma.

Mary Margaret had no idea why she was so in tune with her new roommate's moods. She didn't understand why she would lie awake until she heard Emma come in for the night. And she certainly didn't understand moments like this, when she would start awake in the dead of night simply because Emma was unable to sleep. It had happened a few times now in the short time that Emma had been living here, though, and Mary Margaret had learned to trust her new instincts, confusing though they might have been.

She threw the covers off her legs, climbed out of bed, and padded to the curtain. When she brushed it aside, she squinted against the comparative brightness of the kitchen.

The range light was on, which accounted for the light Mary Margaret had seen from her room. Emma stood at the fridge, peering into it as if she could somehow find the answers to her troubles among the leftover chicken, jug of milk and bottles of soda, and Mary Margaret's lunch for tomorrow.

Mary Margaret opened her mouth to ask Emma what was wrong but closed it again, unsure how to broach the subject. She was still learning how to navigate around and through the tall walls Emma Swan had erected around her heart. In the short time Emma had been here, she had discovered that asking a direct question was a bit like walking through a minefield. Most times things would be fine and Emma would answer the question no problem but sometimes a question could trigger a metaphorical landmine.

Opting for a gentle teasing, she leaned against the doorjamb and said, "The food on offer isn't going to change the more you look at it, you know."

A startled Emma slammed the fridge door closed. "Shit, sorry, did I wake you?"

"No," Mary Margaret told her, though she wasn't quite sure it was the truth. Nothing Emma had said or done had woken her. She'd been quiet as could be, except for the thoughts tumbling through her head.

Without a clue as to where the instinct was coming from, Mary Margaret nodded towards the kitchen table, a silent instruction for her roommate to sit and make herself comfortable. The hesitance in Emma's eyes caused a confusing but deep stab of pain to Mary Margaret's heart. The pain eased when Emma's curiosity won out and she sat at the table as instructed.

Mary Margaret pulled a pot and the cocoa powder from the cabinets and the milk from the fridge. Within minutes, the entire apartment smelled of sweet, warm chocolate. When the drink was ready, she poured two mugs, topped them off with whipped cream and the requisite sprinkle of cinnamon, and carried them both to the table.

Emma smiled after taking her first sip. "This is so much better than whatever midnight snack I would have come up with. Thank you."

"You're very welcome," Mary Margaret replied, returning the smile. She decided not to mention that she knew Emma hadn't been searching for a snack. No, Enma's racing mind had left her unable to sleep and she'd gone downstairs in an attempt to quiet it.

Part of her wanted to push, wanted to simply ask Emma what was wrong. She wanted to help Emma the way she helped her students: identify the problem and figure out how to solve it. But there again was that little voice telling her that pushing was not the way to go. The way to make Emma comfortable was simply to be there and willing to lend an ear when she was ready.

The two of them sipped their cocoa in comfortable silence for a long moment. And sure enough, Mary Margaret's patience was rewarded when Emma set her mug down with a soft sigh. "Graham offered me a job as his deputy. I took it."

Of all the things Mary Margaret thought Emma might say, that was nowhere on the list. Taking a job meant Emma was thinking of staying in Storybrooke for at least a little while. It was a little surprising to her how much her heart sang at the thought. "Oh, Emma, that's wonderful!"

Emma nodded, a pensive expression clouding her features.

Uh oh, Mary Margaret thought, her grin dropping to a frown. Why didn't Emma seem happy? "Are you having second thoughts?"

"No," Emma insisted, shifting uncomfortably in her chair. "Not about the job. It's just ... well, Regina said something to me today about things not being able to grow if they didn't get a chance to put down roots."

Once again, she didn't understand why her heart swelled with joy and pride at the implication of her roommate's words. "You think Storybrooke is where you want to put down roots?"

Emma lifted one shoulder in an uncertain shrug. "I don't know but ... I think it might be time to try. I've just never had a connection to a person or place to keep me anywhere before."

For some reason, the thought of Emma drifting through her life with no place to belong made Mary Margaret's heart clench deep in her chest. All of a sudden, she wanted nothing more than to give Emma the hugest hug in existence. "Never?" she asked, emotion she couldn't explain choking her voice.

Thankfully, Emma was too preoccupied with her own emotion to pick up on Mary Margaret's. "Not really. There was someone once. A couple of someones, actually, but I guess I just wasn't enough. One of them ended up being crazy and the other ..." She trailed off, staring down into her mug, getting lost in the pain of her past.

The urge to wrap Emma in a tight, comforting hug still overwhelmed Mary Margaret but she managed to restrain herself. She simply reached across the table for Emma's hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. "The other is a story for another time?"

Emma nodded, giving her roommate a little smile of gratitude. "But now I'm here and so is Henry and I can't just leave him."

"Because you know how that feels."

"Better than most, yeah." Emma took a deep breath and shook off the rest of her emotion. "Anyway, I thought if I'm going to be staying here for at least the next little while, why not get on someone's payroll? All the better that it's ultimately Regina's." She arched an eyebrow and gave her roommate a conspiratorial smirk. "That's what she gets for running her mouth."

Mary Margaret muffled her snort with a sip of cocoa. "Well, congratulations, Deputy Swan. Tomorrow, I'm make a cake to celebrate."

"You don't have to do that."

"I know. I want to."

A touched smile lit Emma's face. "Thank you."

Mary Margaret smiled back. That little instinct she didn't understand had made her offer to bake a cake but she was glad it had. She couldn't shake the feeling that she'd be making up for lost time in doing so.

Only after a wave of rainbow light washed over her did Snow White understand. The Curse was broken now and she remembered. Her Emma - her sweet little girl, her precious baby - was no longer a newborn, so small Snow could hardly believe she was real. No, now her precious Emma was a grown woman and for the past few months, she had been living under Snow's roof.

All those feelings, those little snatches of deep emotion, all those times that she could sense Emma's troubled mind had a name now. For the past few months as Mary Margaret, Snow had been heeding her maternal instinct.

She'd felt her baby from the moment she'd laid eyes on her in Mary Margaret's classroom on Emma's first day in Storybrooke. Her heart had recognized her daughter even when her magic-muddled brain couldn't. That maternal instinct had been the driving force behind all of their interactions: Mary Margaret inviting Emma to stay with her, getting to know her, burrowing underneath those tall walls of hers, giving her gentle love and companionship and support and advice.

She'd been mothering Emma this whole time, simply by being her friend.

Snow's family had been whole for a brief shining moment but almost as quickly as they were reunited, they were separated again. Unwilling to lose her daughter a second time, Snow had leaped after her into a magic hat and now they wandered a war-torn Enchanted Forest with a princess and warrior in tow while searching for a way to get back home to their family.

Snow missed Charming more than words could express. Emma missed Henry just as much. But Snow had no doubt in her mind that Charming was taking good care of Henry and so she tried to take care of Emma as much as her stubborn baby girl would allow.

In that way, then, the breakthrough this evening in Emma's destroyed nursery had been just what the two of them had needed. The broken remnants of Snow's dreams for her family was a punch in the gut for her but it had been good for Emma. After spending her entire life believing she'd be found along the side of the road, the loving preparations her parents had made for her arrival were something she'd sorely needed to see. It had helped her believe that she was wanted, that she was loved before she was even born, and that, but for the Curse, she would have been cherished.

Despite how good it was for her, it had also hurt more than either of them could express. Once again, Snow's maternal instinct was tingling. Just like back in Storybrooke, she knew that Emma needed her.

Snow opened her eyes and pushed herself up on her elbow. Flickering firelight cast dancing shadows across their little camp. Beside Snow, Emma lay wide awake on her back, her hands clasped behind her head, staring up at the night sky.

A quick glance around the camp told Snow that everything was quiet. Aurora seemed to be asleep on the other side of the fire. Mulan, who sat on a log at the edge of camp on watch, gave Snow a nod of greeting. Snow nodded in return and settled back down, turning on her side to face her little girl. "Is everything all right?" she asked softly.

Emma jumped as her mother's voice drew her out of her reverie. "It's fine," she replied with a dismissive shrug.

"It's clearly not fine if you're still awake."

"No, really, it's fine. I just can't get comfortable. I hate sleeping outside."

Snow drew in a soft breath and let it out through her nose. Should she push or should she let things stand? Emma had already revealed many more of her feelings than Snow had ever expected of her. She'd clearly needed the release, though, and arising from that conversation was a shift in their dynamic, a lifting of the tension between them, and perhaps the start of the healing of some of their deepest wounds.

Hesitant to upset this delicate progress, Snow decided not to push. She simply turned onto her back and copied her daughter's positioning. The stars winked in the sky, familiar constellations Snow hadn't seen in almost thirty years.

Just like when Snow was Mary Margaret, waiting Emma out was the correct choice. After a long beat of silence, Emma murmured, "The sky's different."

"Yes," Snow replied. "I didn't remember how different it was until I looked up just now."

Emma shifted uncomfortably under her makeshift blanket. "Everything's different here. You, me ... we're different."

For the space of a heartbeat, Snow froze. Knowing that she had to handle this delicately so as not to shut Emma down again, she asked softly, "How so?"

"Back in Storybrooke, I kind of took care of you. I mean, you took care of me, too, but I felt very protective of you. And now you don't need me to look out for you and you're being really protective of me, too, and it's different."

Snow blinked in shock. A memory came to her, then, of Emma confiding in Mary Margaret that she wasn't sure what place she would have in Henry's life if he didn't need her to be the savior. Was she having the same kind of crisis of faith now? Did she think that she wouldn't have a place in Snow's life if she didn't need to take care of her? "Emma, I may not need you to protect me from the big bad world like before but I will always need you. You're my daughter and I love you."

Her gaze remaining fixed on the sky, Emma swallowed hard and nodded.

"Good. And as for being protective of you, do you want me to tone that down?" Not that she was entirely she could but if Emma wanted, she could try to restrain herself from acting on her overprotective-mom tendencies.

Emma was quiet a beat or two. "No. It's just different." Her voice was soft and Snow noted with amusement that her eyelids were starting to flutter. "Mary Margaret?"

"Yes?"

"We're going to make it back to Storybrooke, right?"

Don't blow this, Snow, she said to herself. "Of course we are. I don't care what we have to do or how long it takes us, we will find a way back to our family."

Emma smiled in the semi-darkness. "Good."

The two of them lapsed into silence again. When Emma spoke up next, she sounded like she was teetering on the edge of consciousness. "Mary Margaret?"

"Yes?"

"Was all of that really for me? In the castle, I mean."

"All of that and more," Snow whispered. "We wanted you to have everything."

Emma let out a soft hum and was asleep before she could fully respond. Snow blinked back fresh tears, pressed a soft kiss to her daughter's forehead, and lay down beside her little girl. She reached out and took Emma's hand and smiled when Emma's fingers tightened around hers, unconsciously acknowledging the comfort. "You would have been so loved," Snow whispered to her, "and I'm more sorry than you can ever imagine that you weren't."

Emma wasn't loved then but she could be now, and Snow vowed to give her all the love she'd missed out on.

Snow wasn't sure which was worse: the war-torn Enchanted Forest where the ogres roamed free or the overgrown humid jungles of Neverland. At least this time, Snow and Charming were together. Once again, however, her baby girl was without her son and fighting tooth and nail to get back to him.

And once again, Snow had had to face a heartbreaking revelation from her baby girl. Though she was a grown woman now with her family surrounding her, her poor sweet Emma still felt like the orphan she had been. Perhaps she didn't feel that way all the time (at the very least, Snow hoped not) but definitely here with the profound sadness thick in the air, with her own child missing, trying so desperately to get back to him so that he didn't feel abandoned like she once did.

Her years on the run had taught Snow a great many things and as such she was used to trying to hunker down for a night's sleep on the hard ground. She was used to keeping half an eye open even in sleep, watching for an ambush. Emma, however, had only those weeks in the Forest, not long enough to become accustomed to attempting sleep without the benefit of a mattress or pillows.

It was more than that, though. Just like when she was Mary Margaret and just like in the Forest, Snow could sense when her baby girl was troubled. If she opened her eyes, there was no doubt in Snow's mind that she would find her daughter wide awake and staring up at the sky as if the stars held the answers to her questions.

Sure enough, Emma was awake and staring up at the sky. In the flickering light of the dying campfire, Snow could see tears in her baby girl's eyes. After gently disentangling herself from her husband's unconscious hold, Snow crept over to Emma and settled beside her bedroll. "Is everything all right?" she murmured.

Emma heaved a sigh and pushed herself into a sitting position. Hook, who had been sitting watch, paced over to the other side of the campsite to give mother and daughter as much privacy as he could. Snow sent him a quick smile of gratitude and he gave her a reverent nod in return.

"Sleeping outside sucks," Emma said in response to Snow's question. Sleeping outside was only part of her problem, though, and Snow's gentle look must have said as much because Emma sighed again. "I can't sleep. It's too loud."

"What's too loud?"

Emma blinked confusedly at her mother before rolling her eyes and frowning. "Oh, right. You can't hear it."

"Hear what?"

"Never mind."

Part of Snow wondered whether she should just let this drop. Whether she should do what she'd done as Mary Margaret and let the silence spill out until Emma filled it when she was ready. A stronger instinct overrode her hesitance, reminded her that pushing had been the right thing earlier. Emma had required a push to admit her feelings, admit who she felt she was deep down, and instinct was once again telling Snow that pushing was needed now. She couldn't let this go because Emma would never let it out if she did.

And so she pushed. "I can't hear what?"

Emma looked surprised for a beat, then defiant. Within seconds, however, her resolve crumbled. "The crying of the Lost Boys," she murmured, rubbing a furious hand over her face to mask her tears. "I can hear them but you guys can't. I guess because the Lost Boys and I have something in common."

They were all orphans. Snow swallowed hard and rested a comforting hand on her daughter's knee. "I wish you couldn't hear them."

Emma gave her a sad smile. "Yeah, me too." She trailed off, listening to a sound that only she could hear. "Even though I don't want to, I keep trying to hear him in the cries."

The admission was so unexpected and so painful that Snow wrapped her arms around her little girl in a hug on pure instinct. "Oh, sweetheart, Henry's voice won't be in there," she murmured into her daughter's ear, the pet name slipping off her tongue unbidden. She let Emma out of the hug and looked into her eyes. "Henry isn't an orphan. He knows we're coming for him."

"I hope so," Emma sniffled.

"I know so. Look who his family is, Emma. We've never backed down from a fight. He knows that better than anyone."

Emma nodded as a little bit of the tension in her shoulders relaxed. Mother's instinct was pinging again and this time it told Snow that Emma didn't need more talking at the moment. She needed comfort and she needed support.

And she needed to sleep.

If the crying of the Lost Boys was bothering Emma enough to keep her awake, then Snow would just have to find a way to muffle the sound for her. After a quick glance around the campsite, the answer came to her. She tore a couple of tufts of fraying fabric off the tent covering her and Charming's bedroll and rolled them into small wads. "It's not much but it's the best we can do right now. Care to try some Neverland ear plugs?"

It was another little push but after a brief moment of waffling, the internal conflict between wanting to be cared for and railing against it clear on her face, Emma shrugged and tucked a fabric wad into each ear. "That's a little better. Thanks."

"You're welcome," Snow smiled. "Lie back down."

She did so, shutting her eyes and settling on her side with her hand under her makeshift pillow. Her eyes flew open when Snow shifted the blankets up to cover her. "Are you tucking me in?" she asked, sounding vaguely horrified.

"I told you it was my job to change your feeling like an orphan," Snow smiled gently.

Though she still didn't look all that comfortable with the idea, Emma allowed her to continue. Once she was settled, she closed her eyes.

After a brief internal war, Snow decided she'd pushed Emma enough for one night. She started to make her way back to her own bedroll and to Charming but Emma's hand clamped around her wrist. Though Emma hadn't opened her eyes, Snow could see a faint flush on her cheeks as if she were embarrassed.

Still, her baby girl had silently asked her to stay, so she was going to stay. Taking her cue from Emma, she didn't say a word. She simply settled down beside her daughter on the hard jungle floor with her head on her hand, propped up by her elbow. It took a while but she stayed until Emma's breathing deepened and evened out. "Good night, sweetheart," she murmured, once again using the cover of sleep to drop a light kiss on her daughter's cheek.

After what Snow had witnessed earlier that evening, it was a miracle she'd let her baby out of her sight long enough for either one of them to retire to her chamber. However, here Snow lay in a borrowed bedchamber in Camelot with her baby girl in her own borrowed bedchamber down the corridor. The thick, luxurious blanket on the bed was not quite enough to ward off the chill from the stone walls, though Snow did wonder if perhaps her chill wasn't entirely due to the cold stone.

Just the memory of Emma carrying on a conversation with thin air was enough to send shivers down Snow's spine. They were losing her. Slowly but surely, they were losing her to the darkness.

Snow could feel her precious girl slipping away little by little. She wanted desperately to hold onto her, to keep her here, to refuse to let the darkness overtake her. She wanted more than anything to keep her little girl in the light long enough to find Merlin but she had no idea how.

Her maternal instinct was being put to the test in a way it never had before but it hadn't yet given up. It was calling to her now, telling her to go to her baby. To do everything in her power to keep her here as long as she could. As always, she heeded her instinct, sat up, and threw the blanket off her legs.

"Where're you going?" Charming mumbled through a sleepy shiver at the loss of his wife's warmth.

"Checking on Emma," Snow whispered in return, stifling her own shiver when her bare feet touched the chilly stone floor. "I might be a while so you can keep an ear out for Neal?"

"Of course," Charming smiled. "I've got our baby boy. You go take care of our baby girl."

Snow gave him a grateful smile, lit one of the lanterns, and slipped from the room.

The door to Emma's bedchamber was closed when Snow arrived. Since Dark Ones apparently didn't require sleep, Snow had no fear of waking her daughter. Still, she knocked softly to announce her presence before pushing the door open. "Emma? Can I come in?"

Emma was seated at a table in front of the windows, her back to the door. She whirled around upon hearing Snow's voice, darkness glittering like ice in her eyes. The darkness receded when her gaze landed on Snow. "Yep."

Snow crept into the room and closed the door behind her. On the table in front of Emma lay all manner of twine, feathers, sticks, and pebbles. The various bits were grouped together by type, as if making up an assembly line. What on earth was Emma doing?

"How are you feeling?" Snow asked, easing down on the edge of the mattress.

Emma simply shrugged. "Okay."

The monosyllabic answers were troubling but even more troubling was the low monotone of Emma's voice. She sounded nothing like herself and Snow's heart sank into her stomach. Oh, sweetheart, she thought, wanting nothing more than to pull her little girl into a hug and hold her until the light of her love chased away the darkness. "Are you sure you're all right?"

That rated a nod but nothing else. Emma's gaze shifted to just past Snow's shoulder and Snow got the sense that she was losing her again. Partly to recapture her attention but mostly out of concern, Snow asked, "Emma? What happened earlier?"

Emma's eyes locked on her again. "I saved Robin."

Three words this time. Snow would take whatever improvement she could get. "No, before that. You were talking to an empty chair, sweetheart."

"It was nothing."

"That wasn't nothing."

A little more of the darkness fled Emma's gaze. "Okay, it wasn't nothing but it doesn't matter."

Though Snow wanted to keep pushing, her maternal instinct told her to stop. Instead, she reached up and cupped Emma's cheek in her palm. "Baby, I'm so worried about you."

"I know," Emma whispered and for a brief moment, the darkness was gone and she was just Emma. Just Snow's precious little girl. "I'm sorry."

"It's all right. We're going to free Merlin and he'll tell us what to do. You just have to hold on a little longer, all right?"

Emma nodded. "Yeah, I know. I will."

Snow smiled, removing her hand from Emma's cheek and grasping her hand instead. "Good. Now, get up from that chair and come lie down in bed."

"Mom, I can't sleep. I don't need to."

"I know but you can still relax. And I'm going to stay here with you."

"I can't ask you to stay with me all night."

"You're not asking, I'm offering."

Since it was clear Emma wasn't going to win this argument, she gave in. She got up from the chair and settled on the bed, curling up on her side. Snow pulled the covers up over her baby girl and climbed in beside her. "I love you, baby," Snow murmured.

And she smiled when once again the darkness fled and her little girl, her Emma, said, "I love you, too, Mom."

Snow's baby girl was living all the way across town now, with a husband and baby of her own. The days of villain-chasing and realm-hopping were behind them now that the realms had been united. Snow's maternal instinct hadn't faded, however. Oh, no, it had only gotten stronger as Neal grew and as she watched Emma settle in with her own family.

Now when she woke from a sound sleep in the middle of the night with the feeling of being needed, she didn't even have to question why. One of her babies needed her, either her baby boy down the hall or her baby girl across town.

Tonight the deep silence in the farmhouse when she dragged her eyes open told her that it wasn't her baby boy who needed her. Taking care not to jostle Charming, Snow climbed out of bed and slipped her phone off the nightstand. She tiptoed from room and crept downstairs so her phone call wouldn't disturb either of her slumbering family members.

A concerned Wilby settled beside her as she plopped down on the couch. She pulled up her daughter's contact info and pressed send while running her hand over the dog's back to let him know that nothing was wrong. Nothing he would be able to handle, anyway.

A breathless Emma answered the phone after three rings. "Mom? Is everything okay?"

The clarity in her daughter's voice proved that Snow's call hadn't woken her even at this late hour. The shrill baby wails filtering through the phone explained why. "Everything's perfectly fine over here, baby," Snow replied, sympathy for the sleepless night in the Swan-Jones house clear in her tone. "I just had the strangest feeling that things might not be all right over there."

"Oh, it's so far from all right over here," Emma said, exhausted helplessness creeping into her tone. "Teething babies are not happy creatures, especially not in the middle of the night."

No, they certainly were not. Snow remembered quite well that harried days and long nights when Neal was teething and nothing seemed to soothe the ache in his mouth. Nothing except ... "Neal used to like gumming a cold wash cloth when he was teething."

"Yeah, I remembered," Emma sighed, "but Hope won't take it for more than a couple of minutes. She won't take teething rings at all. She was gnawing on Killian's finger for a little while earlier but now she won't let either of us near her mouth and she won't stop crying and we don't know what to do."

It had all come out in one helpless breath, making Snow wish she could run over there and fix the situation for them. She couldn't, though, not because it was the middle of the night or even because she knew beyond a doubt that Emma and Killian would figure it out eventually. She couldn't because she didn't know what else to do, either.

Neal had liked teething rings and he'd loved the washcloth. All she or Charming would have to do when he got fussy was pull one or both of them out of the fridge, give them to him, and let him chomp away. She'd never had to find alternates because he'd always ...

Wait. There was one more thing he'd liked. She hadn't had to use it very often, only as a last resort if the washcloth and teething rings thawed before completely soothing Neal's aching gums. "Try a cold baby spoon."

"What?" Emma sounded like she'd completely forgotten she was on the phone. Given her state of exhaustion and frustration at the moment, Snow wouldn't have been surprised if she really had forgotten.

"Put a baby spoon in ice water for a couple of minutes and then try to run it along her gums."

The baby wails grew louder as Emma relayed the message to Killian. She must have taken Hope while he prepared the glass of ice water in which to put the spoon.

For a few minutes, Snow simply listened to the sounds of her baby girl and her baby girl's husband trying to soothe their own cranky baby's pain. Eventually, Hope's cries dwindled to choked hiccups. "Thank the heavens," Snow heard Killian murmur. Then, in a louder voice so he could be heard on Snow's end, he said, "Thank you, milady."

"Oh, Mom," Emma said into the phone. "I don't know how you knew to call when you did but thank you so much. We never would have gotten her to quiet down without you."

"Yes, you would have," Snow assured her. "You both are doing wonderfully. It's just not always easy to think when you're dealing with a screaming baby at one in the morning."

"That's an understatement," Emma snorted. "Still, thank you. We love you."

"You're welcome, sweetheart," Snow replied, smiling. "I love you, too."

Oh yes, Snow's baby may have had a baby of her own now but maternal instinct was forever.