He pulls me back onto the dock, onto the safe ground. My legs feel weak, we've been on that boat for too long. He wraps his arms around my waist and pulls me closer. I let my head sink down on his chest, feeling his nervous heartbeat and his halting breath. My fingers cling onto his shirt, I don't want to let go. I try not to break down in tears and bury my face deeper into his chest. And so we are standing here without saying a word to each other. At this very moment, no words are needed anyway. No words are needed to express what we went through in those last few weeks. This one moment means so much more than those three little Words every person who is in love wants to hear. Those three words that were abused too often. We promised each other to keep those words hidden. To keep them like a treasure that becomes even more precious from time to time if you leave it buried and wait for that one moment to dig it up. This is not that moment. To say it out loud means to say goodbye. It's the other three little words that pull you back to reality and tear you apart.

"I have to go now", he whispers. His voice is shaking, his trembling lips rest on my forehead.

I am glad it is already dark outside. I don't want him to see my face. I am trying to let go, clinging my fingers around his and then I nod. David always told me how much I remind him of my mother. Absently I shake my head. My mother is strong, way stronger than I could ever be. She would never lose herself into a man like that. Not even my father

"Emma, please." He is gasping for my name like he is gasping for air and he is dying to breathe. Like a drug filled with hope, memories and yet filled with a distance that I will never understand. It was the last time I hear him say my name. If he could only gasp a little longer so I can hear him say it one more time. The last time I am able to look into his eyes in the dark and see the blue waves of the ocean reflect in his eyes. The last time I can fall in love with those eyes all over again. Then he kisses me on the forehead, gently squeezes my hand and turns around. It feels like the time he left me. But now I know I am never going to see him again.

I should've said goodbye to you in the Underworld.

I am standing on this one dock where one memory after the other mounts up. It has been too long, since you died, Killian. I am coming here chasing a ghost, chasing something that will never return to me.

I wish I could be with you one last time. I want to break my promise and tell you those three little words.

But I smirk and rest my head in my hands.

I don't have to hell him. He already knows.