The Year Wanting, Part I

The moment his feet touch the ground, he knows he needs to go back. He is tired, and angry, and sad, and broken so he closes his eyes and breathes the clean, crisp air of the Enchanted Forest and instead sees her face, lit up in a tremulous smile, eyes intense as she says "Good." He knows that memory will play in a loop until she is back in his arms, and then they will say so much more. He knows this. Refuses to believe anything else, because he can't.

He wastes no time, turning to Regina, only for the words to die on his lips when he sees the crumpled look on her face, the tremble in her hands and the furious lip-biting that he knows is an attempt not to cry. He doesn't even hear Snow speaking, feels the procession moving but is rooted to the spot, until Regina meets his eyes, and he feels her pain like no one else there. Snow and Charming have done this before, they've given Emma up before, they believe she'll be happy in her own time because they still have each other. They have someone to live for, someone to continue with.

Before anything else can happen, Regina utters a sentence that sends shards of ice through him, "They're not going to remember us at all, Hook."

In Regina's eyes, he sees that same desolation, because Henry was all she had, and the mere hope of Emma, and his love for her (he tells himself she feels the same way, because Good, but he doesn't know, not for sure) is all that he has, andnow she isn't even going to remember him, and the fire that was burning is suddenly quenched. He loves her, he loves her, he is so in love with her, and gods, not even having someone try to rip out your heart is as painful and Killian knows that pain, knows this doesn't even compare.

They stand there, staring at each other, immobilized by their grief until the silence is broken by Charming's voice. "Hook. Regina."

Killian takes a deep breath before facing the prince, and feels the fire spark again, he knows the emotion, it's anger, righteous anger, and anger is an emotion he does well, and anger driven by unquenchable love is far more powerful, more deadly, and most importantly, most efficient. Because he'll die trying, or he'll just die, it's the same and it isn't, and even if he does die, she'll never be hurt by it, because she'll never know the battles he had to fight or the realms he'll have to cross to return to her.

Even as the words leave his lips, directed at Charming, at the whole fucking world, he doesn't see anyone, doesn't see the blonde prince who looks too much and too little like his daughter.

"I will find her."

There is so much anger in his words that Killian savors it, lets it energize him, lets it brand him with purpose.

Finally, he looks at Charming, whose gaze flickers between him and Regina, before landing back to meet his gaze and says two words that shatter Killian.

"I know."

It is almost a week later that Regina finds him, she appears into his room in a puff of purple smoke as though she has the right to, but there is something missing from this former queen. It's almost like she was a painting that had been left in the rain, and some color had flowed out, but you knew that it was beautiful and powerful but just, not the same.

"Regina," he says in greeting because in truth he doesn't mind her, she misses Henry, and he misses Emma, and even though they share the same pain, they don't share the same person and Killian just wants to selfishly grieve, just for a while.

"I heard you talking to Tink," she says, and Killian rolls his eyes because clearly some things don't change.

"And what did you glean from our titillating conversation, love?"

"The fairy dust may work in the land without magic, but it may also fail."

"Pardon?"

Regina rolled her eyes at him as if she thought he was being purposely obtuse.

"The fairy dust," she repeats. "Supposed to lead you to your true love, and all that."

It's her body language and the look in her eyes, faraway, staring out the window; makes the gears click in his head, information and observation interlocking seamlessly, derailing him from the conversation entirely.

"It was you! You're the one she lost her wings for."

And then brain catching up to his revelation, "She used her fairy dust to help youfind your true love?"

Regina bristles, and glares, opening her mouth and then closing it abruptly.

"I didn't come here to talk about my past," she snaps.

Killian gapes at her, because well, Regina apparently used fairy magic to find her true love, and he wonders how long ago that was and how much of a different person she must have been.

He shrugs. "I'm not using the dust to find her. I'm using the dust to fly the Jolly there."

"Is that even possible?"

"Neverland was the second star to the right from that land. Which would mean the inverse direction if I wanted to fly back there."

Regina stares at him incredulously. "I'm desperate to get Henry back, but you're crazy to even consider going back to Neverland!"

"Pan is dead," he begins, but she cuts him off.

"You don't know Pan is dead. Or who took over. Or if it even still exists!"

"There's something you need to know about Neverland. It wasn't always the hellhole we were subjected to. Once, before Pan, it was just a place children visited in their dreams, and no one actually lived there. You could come and go as you please, dreamshade wasn't a deadly poison, and magic of its purest filtered through the land. A fairytale, I suppose you could say."

"That changed when Pan decided to stay?"

"Aye. You weren't supposed to stay, but he did, and it changed the rules. But most importantly, with Pan gone, Neverland reverts to what it once was. Neverland existed before Peter Pan came into existence, and it will exist longer now that he is gone."

"That's a lot to gamble on, pirate."

Killian gives her the smuggest grin he can manage, because he knows she knows these words, knows whom it will remind her off. "Have a little faith, love."

She narrows her eyes at him, but pulls out something from her cloak. It's gold and dangling on a chain, and he realizes it's the compass. She tosses it at him, and he catches it on instinct.

It's Regina's turn to be smug. "You'll need that, pirate."

And then, with a cloud of purple smoke, she's gone.