They stand on either side of Emma as the hospital's men gently place Killian's body on the gurney. Emma's clutching his arm and hand and can't stop the tears running down her face, with little sobs that break Snow's heart.
Emma finally breaks when they pull the sheet over Killian's face and wordlessly begin to roll him away. "No!" she half-screams, half-sobs, still holding onto his arm but loosening her grip. Snow and Charming wordlessly pull her away from the body and she unwillingly turns to them.
She looks broken. Snow takes her daughter's face in her hands and whispers, "I'm so sorry, baby," before pulling her close. Charming keeps his arm around both of them, his empty gaze following the body of his best friend.
"He can't be dead, Mom," Emma whispers brokenly into Snow's shoulder before breaking down once more. Snow just pulls her closer and rocks her back and forth as Emma's tears soak into her coat.
She doesn't know what Emma's feeling right now—Snow's never lost someone like this. She thought she had lost Charming so many times, back when they first met, right before the curse, on Neverland, in the Enchanted Forest with Zelena, and countless other times. But they'd always managed to escape it, to find another way. She can imagine, though; Snow remembers the pain of feeling the torture and agony Charming went through.
And Emma's just lost the man she loves. And looking at her right now, knowing how she would feel if she lost Charming, if she lost him for good, like this—Snow doesn't really know how Emma's going to get through it.
David watches as Killian—he must be Killian again, he heard the man say "love" to Emma, and Dark Hook had never showed the potential for such phrases—begs with Emma. Finally, Emma takes the sword, and David knows what's going to happen.
He's making Emma kill him.
David wants to run up, pull Emma away, make them figure out something better, but he can't do anything. It's like he and Mary Margaret, Robin, Regina, and Henry are frozen, watching Emma and her pirate in front of them.
It's all a darkened blur, and suddenly Emma is herself again, lying on the ground, sobbing on Killian's dead body. All David can do is stare for a moment, but slowly he walks up to her.
He kneels next to them and whispers, "Emma."
She shifts her head on Killian's chest so that she's facing David. "Dad," she whispers, a sob catching the end. He rests his hand on her head and simply watches her.
Finally, when he can feel tears running down his own cheeks, he closes Killian's eyes and half-pulls Emma up as the paramedics hoist Killian's body onto the gurney.
It's not just the man Emma loves on that gurney. Not just the closest thing Henry had to a father. It's his best friend, dead. As much as David wants to cry himself, he has to keep it together. For Emma, who's inconsolably sobbing in Mary Margaret's arms. He watches the cart with his best mate's body roll away, and he doesn't really know what to do.
Finally, when she sinks to the ground, the shock catching up with her, David picks her up and carries her out of the field. At Mary Margaret's wordless suggestion, he carries her to the home that Killian and Henry had picked for her. She's unnaturally thin, and he tucks her into bed after Mary Margaret carefully removes her boots.
He looks down at his baby girl in the bed, curled up on her side, tearstains on her face, staring at nothing, clutching something on a chain around her neck. David kneels next to her and kisses her forehead, brushes her hair back, and as he leaves the room, he can hear her shuddering sob.
Mary Margaret hugs him tightly, so tightly, when he joins her in the kitchen of Emma's house, and he finally lets himself cry for Killian Jones.
Regina never really thought she liked Hook. Respected him, if just for his hook and previous willingness to kill without a thought. Nearly admired him, if just for the somewhat favorable influence he was on Henry, despite whatever she may say.
However, she realizes she likes him just as Killian pulls the darkness into Excalibur. There's the brief pull of the darkness she knows she'll probably always feel, but then she understands Captain Guyliner's plan.
Regina can't do anything about it except pull Henry close and watch as Emma thrusts the sword through Hook's body. She feels Robin's comforting hand tensing on her arm as she turns away just at the last second.
Zelena and Cora would say that she's gone soft; she can't even watch a simple stabbing without wincing in compassion.
Regina realizes as she watches Emma cry over Killian's body that she's going to miss the pirate. Not that she liked him—but they had always understood each other, just a little. Abandonment, the lure of the darkness, the willingness to do anything for revenge.
Maybe they were friends.
Regina finally steps away from Robin and Henry and calls the paramedics. And if her voice cracks and she has to briefly wipe her nose and brush away a tear as she says into the phone, "Send an ambulance to the lake. Killian Jones is dead"—it's no one's business.
Henry can only watch in shock. Because they're the heroes—they deserve happy endings—all of them. He's always believed that, ever since his grandma gave him the storybook.
Yet what he's watching from the circle of Regina and Robin's arms is not a happy ending. Not by any stretch of even an Author's imagination.
His mom is halfway lying on the body of Killian Jones, and she's sobbing, and he's almost crying, and everyone else is somber, tense, emotional—who said this was okay?
His mom backs away from him and Robin, and he sees her talking into her phone. Robin hugs him close for just a second and pats him on the shoulder. Henry pulls away from Robin after a moment and slowly walks over to his mom.
He kneels next to Killian's body, on the other side of David. The cut on Killian's neck is angry and red, but he can't help noticing that Killian's expression, despite the tightening from the pain, is peaceful. Almost—happy.
Because he died a hero, a hero that saved them all from the darkness, brought Emma back to the light.
And that's what breaks Henry. Operation Light Swan couldn't be fulfilled, Killian had to die, and Emma had lost her True Love—he's known for so long now, but he's positive now. Tears start running down his cheeks, and he stands and runs from Killian's body before Emma and David can notice.
He runs back to Storybrooke, finds the house he and Killian picked out for the three—eventually more, that was always clear yet resolutely unspoken—of them. Thankfully, the door is still unlocked, and he makes his way up to the room he'd mentally claimed as his when he read the newspaper advertisement.
Emma had fully decorated as the Dark Swan, and there's a bed in the corner, and he tosses himself on top of it. Then he finally lets himself cry properly.
Killian's cry as the sword went through him and his mom's crying is echoing in his mind and he doesn't know if he'll ever get the sounds out. And the closest thing he's really ever had to a father is dead.
He's managed to quiet down by the time his grandpa and grandma enter the house. Based on their quiet whispering, Grandpa's carrying Emma up the stairs, and Grandma's following them. They exit the house quickly, not lingering in the dark and still tainted rooms. When Henry's sure that they're gone, he gets out of his bed and makes his way to the master bedroom.
His mom's curled up in a ball in the middle of the bed, hand wrapped around something on a chain, not moving or making a sound. Henry pulls his shoes off and crawls up to her, gets under the covers next to his mom, silently begs her to let him in. Emma's face doesn't really change when she notices him, but she wraps her free arm around him and tugs him close, not letting go of the chain.
Henry lets himself pretend, for a little while, that everything's okay. That Killian's downstairs, maybe, cooking breakfast, and Henry's just come in to stay warm and hang out with his mom and whisper about the upcoming school day before Killian calls him down and teaches him how to flip a pancake with one hand without dropping it.
Emma takes a shuddering breath and buries her face in his hair. Then he can't pretend that Killian's downstairs watering the plants before cheerfully calling them to breakfast. The floodgates open again, and he cries into his mom's shoulder.
She whispers, "Kid…" before pulling him even closer. He feels her tears in his hair.
They fall asleep together, restlessly. But in the morning Henry can breathe again, and Emma puts on enough of an I'm okay façade that he can leave her lying on the couch and watching Netflix.
They're not okay, and Henry knows it. But they're going to get Killian back.
Robin doesn't really know what to think.
It seems like he just met Killian, and he still doesn't know him very well. But they were kindred spirits; he knew that much.
Robin stands in the Charmings' house, his thoughts on the pirate they lost. Killian wasn't just Emma's boyfriend, the closest thing Henry had to a father—he was Robin's friend.
"I'm getting him back," Emma says. "This isn't fair to Killian. Gold tricked him. Everything he gave up was based on a lie."
David quickly answers, "Emma, you know how this works. It's a one for one trade. To get him back, someone else will have to die."
"And you just got back from being the Dark One, you can't give into darkness again—" Snow's voice is panicked.
"I won't," Emma says calmly. Robin doesn't see anything behind her eyes, though. It's like she's waiting for Killian to walk into the room, like she can't accept that he's gone. "I'm giving into love. I'm doing this right, I learned my lesson. I'm taking a page out of your book. You two share a heart. So will we."
There's silence for a moment in which Robin can see everyone's brains working. He doesn't know anything about magic or splitting hearts or anything like that, but he knows about love. And if what he and Regina have, if what Hook and Emma have, isn't true love like Snow and Charming's love… he doesn't know what to think. Regina echoes his thoughts. "It could work."
"It will work," Emma quickly says, glancing at Regina but turning her gaze back to her parents, whose faces are still in disbelief.
There's another silence. Finally Robin speaks. Because they've established they're getting Killian back, so the next step is obvious. "Forgive me if I'm missing the obvious, but how does one get to the Underworld?"
Emma's been numb since the moment Killian fell, her arms trying to keep him standing, trying to pretend that she didn't just condemn him to death.
Every hour she relives those last moments countless times. His desperate "I love you too" and then he whispered "It's okay" and then the sharp cry as the sword went through his heart.
She knows that her family is trying to help her, but nothing they say can make her forget what's happened. Everything's been a blur, really. She remembers her parents pulling her from Killian's body, them bringing her home, Henry curling up next to her, and not much else.
Emma's lying on the couch in the living room now, the silence around her deafening and welcome. She's fiddling with the ring Killian gave her, the ring that belonged to Liam Jones.
It isn't an engagement ring, no matter how much she wishes it were, and she can't stop herself from slipping it onto the fourth finger of her left hand, just to see how it feels.
Somehow this ring feels like it belongs on her finger more than Neal's keychain around her neck ever did.
Then she hears whispering, whispers she recognizes. She pulls herself from her couch and runs to Gold's shop and opens the door with magic in a few minutes; she needs to know what's going on, she needs to know—
"Now, y'see, this isn't the library, or Granny's, or some bus station, Miss Swan. This is my shop. Unless the sign says open, you're not invited."
"I think I was invited," Emma half-whispers. "I hear whispers. It's the dagger. It's calling to me."
"You're upset, imagining things—"
"No, I'm not, it's here, you have it, don't you?" Emma's aware she sounds insane but Gold smiles, his face somehow hardening. And she knows she's right.
Then Gold reaches under the counter and pulls out a box and says, "Yes, I do." The dagger makes a thunk sound on the glass countertop. He slowly turns it so that Emma can read Rumplestiltskin engraved on its blade.
She can't help letting out a choked gasp. Killian sacrificed himself for nothing; Gold is the Dark One again; Emma killed the man she loves for no reason.
"You are the Dark One. Again."
"Yeah," he laughs. "I'd hoped to keep that secret. Wasn't expecting you to hear it. But then, most ex-Dark Ones are dead."
"How is this possible?"
"When you came to me asking for the sword, I'd seen an opportunity. A chance I'd never imagined would present itself again. As fate would have it, a small vial of magic was close at hand. One sprinkle and I knew I could get it all back. I turned the sword into a conduit, so that while Hook thought he was destroying the darkness, he was actually moving it. Channeling it someplace safe."
"Into you," Emma growls.
"He had no idea. And now… things are as they should be."
"Hook sacrificed himself and you took that from him—" She can't help reaching for his neck, to destroy Rumplestiltskin then and there, but he stops her.
"Do you honestly think that you can hurt me? I now have the combined power of every Dark One who ever lived. Including you."
Her voice cracks. "You found a loophole, betrayed us all again."
"It's what I do. It's the man I am," Gold smirks.
"Well then, Dark One. Now that you have your power back, you're going to do something for me." Emma can feel her voice hardening; right now, she's not asking Gold. She is commanding the Dark One to do exactly as she says.
"And why would I do anything for you?"
"Because I still have magic. And I'm willing to bet I could get to Belle and tell her everything before you can kill me." She's got nothing to lose anymore; she's going to do anything.
"Don't test me."
"Don't test me. You really want to take that chance that she will once again know the kind of man you really are?"
Gold pauses, glances down at the dagger, and decides. "What do you want, Miss Swan?"
She explains everything to her family, and they agree to go with her to the Underworld. They're not going to rescue Killian Jones, not really, they're going for Emma, to support her. But they're going with her.
Then they're standing on the shore of the dark lake. Henry stands with Regina, Robin next to them, and David and Mary Margaret are just behind Emma. Gold holds the dagger just over his hand.
"Do it," Emma says.
Gold exhales deeply, then scrapes the dagger deeply into his palm. Blood pools on his hand and he glances at Emma again. "Are you sure about this?"
"Do it," she commands softly.
Gold turns his hand over the lake and lets the blood drip into the water. They all stare out at the lake for several moments, the fog drifting and floating like a living thing. Then the boat emerges from the mist.
Emma can't help looking back at her family before stepping forward. Her parents nod encouragingly, and her hand darts to the ring on the chain around her neck. Finally, she can step into the water and walk to the boat.
Emma's going to go get the man she loves.
"Hook. I will find you. I will always find you."