This is going to be a small ficlet (about five parts) to help me cope with the ending of the finale. I need to reunite them again.
Rated T for now because I'm not sure if there will be any smut. At least not until the last part. :-)
Disclaimer: The characters don't belong to me, just this story!
Four weeks later (on the Jolly Roger)
Maybe losing her was the penance for all the sins he'd committed in his long life. All the people he'd hurt, all the people who'd suffered from his hand. Darkness had enveloped him for far too long in his life, and now he'd lost the woman he loved to the darkness.
He told himself over and over again that she wasn't gone. That she could be saved. That they just needed to find her.
But in the long nights, when he was alone on the Jolly Roger, when his heart was heavy with the pain of losing her, when the silence surrounding him pressed down on him – this were the times he struggled with holding on to hope.
How much pain could a man endure before his heart and soul were lost forever?
-/-
He hardly slept anymore, nightmares keeping him awake. Nightmares of Liam dying in his arms, of Milah dying in his arms, of Emma disappearing. He'd lost everyone he loved, and some days the pain was so deep that he just wanted to crumble to the floor and give up.
But then her voice whispered into his ear – the words he waited so long to hear reverberating through his brain.
I love you.
Whenever he was close to given up, he remembered the good times with her. The laughs, the closeness, the light sparkling in her eyes when she looked at him.
He hadn't said the words back. He hadn't told her, and not telling her before she disappeared was one of his biggest regrets.
"I love you too, Swan," he whispered into the darkness, his hand gripping the railing until his knuckles turned white. "Gods, Emma. I love you."
-/-
Most of the days he was barely holding on, keeping up a facade for everyone around him. Trying to be strong. Trying to be a hero. For her family. For her.
But the moment he stepped on his ship the mask fell, and he was just tired. So exhausted of pushing forward, pushing on, without her by his side.
At first he'd been held up by sheer desperation. She'd just disappeared in front of his eyes, and he'd spent days searching for a way to find her, not sleeping at all. Hardly eating anything. His flask his only companion in the nights where he'd combed through book after book while the rest of her family had been sleeping to keep their strength.
Her father and mother had been trying to help him; even Regina had been trying to cheer him up in her own way. But he couldn't be helped. He lost Emma, and nothing else seemed to matter than finding her, and bringing her back from the darkness into the light.
But days turned into weeks and they still hadn't found a way. He didn't know where she was. Didn't know how she was. Didn't know if she remembered. Didn't know how much of the old Emma was left. If anything at all.
She was his happy ending. Without her he didn't know how to keep on living. It wasn't possible. He just couldn't survive if he lost her too. If she was really gone forever.
-/-
Killian startled awake when he heard a dull thumb as someone jumped down on the planks, followed by hurried steps over the deck, and he pushed himself up from the ground he'd been sitting on, gripping the wheel and pulling himself up to face whoever came on his ship.
He was hardly upright when Henry plowed around the corner, skittering to a halt in front of him, and the moment Killian looked at the lad's face his heart leaped into his throat.
The boy was beaming, his eyes glittering with excitement. He clearly came with good news.
"We found a way," Henry said urgently. "We found a way to find her. We can find Mum, Killian."
He wrapped his arms around the lad instinctively when Henry leaped forward and hugged him tightly, his throat closing up as Henry pressed his head into his chest and squeezed him.
"We'll find her," Henry said firmly, pushing back from him, and a grin split up the lad's face as he added. "We will rescue Mum."
He felt hope flickering up inside of him again, hope that had almost disappeared, and when he looked at Henry, seeing both his parents in his features, Killian suddenly knew that the lad was right.
They would find her. Of course they would.
She was his happy ending.
She would never give up on him, and he would not give up on her.
He would fight for their happy ending.
Until his last breath.