Five times Emma walked away from Hook...
1.
"I brought you here. I risked my own safety to help you! The compass is in your hand – why turn on me now?"
"I can't take a chance that I'm wrong about you. I'm sorry."
The first time the Swan girl walked away from him she left a manacle round his wrist. Its cold metal embrace matched the coppery taste of betrayal on his tongue.
He'd been so angry, so stunned that someone so seemingly pure, so full of light, could be so calculating; so ruthless.
The guttural roar as he screamed her name was fuelled in part by the shock of feeling betrayed in the first place. The shock of realising that for the first time in more than a century, he'd found an ally, an equal, and she had turned her back on him.
He'd thought he'd found a kindred spirit. Not just the mirror of Captain Hook: a reflection also of Killian Jones.
Watching that rippling silver-gold mane recede into the distance, the thought had come that there was far more Hook in her than he'd realised.
2.
"Keep smiling, buddy. You're chained down. He's on his feet, immortal, has magic, and you hurt his girl. If I were to pick dead guy of the year, I'd pick you."
The second time Swan walked away from him, he'd been lying in a hospital bed.
Even beneath the unflattering lighting that permeated this strange land, she'd been beautiful.
The Swan girl was always comely, but the guarded ruthless pirate who'd left him on the beanstalk had been interspersed with flashes of a warm, compassionate young woman whose voice seemed threaded with true concern, and who genuinely wished to shield him from the Crocodile.
Then the smile had turned beatifically sadistic as she jabbed him in his broken ribs to make him speak.
As she left the room, a thought rang clear in his mind: she was the most bloody confusing wench he'd ever met.
3.
"Why are you really doing this?"
"The kid just lost his father today. I'm not letting him lose a mother, too."
"His father? Who's Henry's father?"
"Neal."
The third time Emma Swan walked away from him was after she had disclosed the terrifyingly unwelcome information about Baelfire, and Henry.
A face materialised before him. An elfin face with Milah's chin and Milah's eyes; accusing eyes. He'd abandoned the boy, let him down. Handed him over to Pan.
Now the Swan girl called upon him to put that wrong right with her demanding eyes, her blazing purpose, her mother's determination. All of them tugging at him to be a part of something, to re-enter the world. To get it right this time where he and Milah had gotten it wrong.
It was too much.
Too much feeling all at once for a heart he'd thought long since dead, save its hunger for revenge.
Milah, Bae… Liam.
Too many wounds threatened to reopen.
Emma had walked away from him, but he sailed away from her.
When he found himself sailing back, that was when it dawned on him: it wasn't just his heart beating back to life within him – it was his honour.
4.
"I just wanted to let you know that I, too, know what it feels like to lose hope."
"I know what this is. This. You… You know, trying to bond with me. Save your breath. I'm not in the mood."
The time they spent on Neverland, all Emma seemed to do was walk away from him. His ability to read her had only grown since the beanstalk; seemingly so too had her dread of being fooled.
Hook had been a pirate for more than 200 years. In that time he'd pillaged, stolen, killed; taken women that weren't his to take.
A man whose heart is ash has no conscience. Lying had become as easy as breathing, playing games with his enemies a delight.
Swan didn't know that she'd changed that.
To be thought insincere, when he spoke the truth with every bone of his body, hurt. That it was Emma who thought it of him made the cut even deeper, like a blade cleaving through flesh.
5.
"That was…"
"A one-time thing. Don't follow me; wait five minutes. Go get some firewood or something."
"As you wish."
The next time Emma walked away from him followed the single most sensual moment he could recall in all his long life.
His lips seemed to hum with the memory of hers, his very being screaming to go after her and pull her close once more. But he'd learnt by then that if Emma walked away, the worst thing you could do was go after her. You had to wait for her to come to you.
As he watched her leave with wondering disbelief, he realised something: his heart, the one he'd once sworn cold and dead, not only beat once more, but had left him.
… and one time she came back
"Swan. At last!"
"Do I know you?
The final time Emma walked away from him, he wasn't sure he'd survive it.
Hand protectively cradling his most favoured body part, Hook gazed up at her.
His body had been brought low, but his heart – his heart was flying. His eyes drank her in like they hadn't seen water in a year. The Swan girl. The Saviour.
Emma.
No, the blow to his groin didn't hurt nearly as much as watching her walk away from him again did, as if all that had gone before had never been. As though the inroads he'd made into her heart had been wiped away.
Those two minutes staring at her door whilst he breathed through the pain were the longest he could ever remember living through. Longer even than being lashed to a mast and watching his lover die.
So when the door opened once more and Emma stood there in her sleeping garb, looking so like the lost little girl he'd once seen in her, it felt like living again.
The light-filled eyes were fogged with the curse's magic, but somewhere in their depths, in their confusion, a hint, an inkling, a connection stirred.
"What was that about my parents?"
fin
A/N Phew! I watched the mid-season finale around 24 hours ago, and had this buzzing round my head ever since. Needed to get it out to deal with the many, many feelings following! Hope you enjoyed :-)