Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there, I do not sleep
'He doesn't look dead,' is the first terrible thought that crosses Emma's mind when she finally sees him again.
The morticians did a good job. His hair is soft and clean again, combed neatly the way he always had it before. The make-up does a good job of hiding the bags under his eyes and a faint layer of blush conceals the pallor of his skin; they even reapplied the kohl around his eyes just right.
They dressed him in his old pirate coat. It's an unspoken agreement and a group apology, of sorts, for consigning his body to a prison of dirt instead of to the freedom of the sea. With the curse limiting how far out the fishing boats could sail, a traditional sailor's burial would only result in his corpse washing back up on the shore with the next high tide. So instead they've brought the sea to him – his spyglass and a piece of the Jolly Roger's riggings rest next to him, and he's dressed from head to toe like the dashing pirate captain he is.
Was.
Seeing him look so much like himself again – clean, well-groomed, hearty and hale – hits her like a punch in the gut. He looks more like himself than he has in weeks. Compared to how haggard and exhausted he had looked for the last few days of his life, he just looks so healthy now. Almost as if he could crack open an eye at any moment and give her a roguish wink.
But she strokes his cheek and knows he won't. He's cold under her touch. She touches his neck in morbid curiosity, because the wound's not there, but then she feels the mortician's wax smear under her fingertips. It's greasy and cold the way his skin never was.
She falters because she's not sure what she's supposed to do next.
Whisper goodbye? Shed a few tears? She feels like she ought to make some kind of grief-inspired final gesture, but all she feels is a hollow numbness. Instead, she just stands and stares at the familiar curves of his face, her thumb tracing idle strokes along the faint scar on his cheek.
Nothing.
Feeling empty, she leans down to kiss him because it seems like the right thing to do – and then the hysterical grief hits like a delayed train.
She can't kiss him - it. No, she can't kiss this…this thing, wearing his face, laying in his coffin. She can't bear to replace her last memory of his lips with a meaningless gesture. Their last kiss might have been poisoned by darkness and tears, but he had been there.
He's not here anymore.
All of the air whooshes out of her lungs as she backpedals away from the coffin. She has to clamp a hand against her mouth to fight down the urge to vomit. He's not here, it's not him, and she needs to go, to get as far away from here as she can.
She vaguely hears her mother's voice call out her name, sees her father reach for her. A fleeting glimpse of her son's soft brown eyes lingers at the periphery of her vision. But it's all overridden by the overwhelming need to get out.
She stumbles through town in a haze. Granny's is full of stragglers, as always, but there is no familiar man with head of dark hair and a leather jacket at the counter with a familiar flask of rum. He's not there. The library is closed, its lights dark and its doors locked. He's not there either. The docks are deserted, and the Jolly Roger bobs quietly in Storybrooke's harbor, her sails furled and her anchor weighed in the absence of her captain. He's not there.
She runs through town until she reaches the pond's edge. It looks different in the light of day. The water, once as dark and foreboding as a cursed mirror under the moonlight, looks like nothing more than a muddy puddle in the sun. There is no chilling fog. There are no cloaked shades of Dark Ones. There isn't even a hint of dark power in the air. All she sees is damp grass is strewn with weeds and fallen leaves, and –
Oh.
The blood is still there. The blood that had pooled under him when he fell. Most of it has seeped away into the dirt, but some had clung to the blades of grass and dried brown under the sun.
Her fingers tremble as she kneels and touches the place where he died.
He's not here either.
He's not anywhere.
Her happy ending is gone.
A/N: Because everyone knows that the cure for angst is EVEN MORE ANGST.
Cheers, shipmates, and ahoy into the h(ell)iatus.