AN: Just a very quick drabble set during the goodbye kiss. (I'm still a wreck over that episode, and apologize for how jumbled this is).
She never expected to feel so much for him.
Yet here she is, kissing Hook goodbye-with everything she's got, tears and all-and her parents are mere feet away, but Emma couldn't have cared less about the eyes watching them.
The kiss threatens to consume her, and for a moment she wishes it would. She wishes she could be washed away by Killian's kiss, that something about it might stop the curse before it starts.
Killian hugs her to him, and for a second it's everything. Emma tries to memorize every line of him right then and there, hands clutching at his jaw, desperate for an opportunity she may not get again. He says her name nearly inaudibly, the word like a prayer on his lips, and she's trying with all she has to choke down those words that build in her throat. It's hardly the right moment for that, but she hates it, wishes things were different, and hopes beyond hope that Killian will understand what she can't bring herself to say.
She squeezes her eyes tightly and sees his expression burned behind her eyelids, anyway. The goodbye falls from his mouth and Emma has to brace herself against its weight. There's more finality in the word than there should be, Hook's sudden lack of faith startling her. They cling to each other for the briefest time, then he's gone.
She watches him retreat and all Emma can do is touch her fingers to her lips, thinking of how his kiss felt wrong. It wasn't something she could have explained, but-while there was that familiar fire-there was something fundamentally Not Killian about his lips. She knew how he kissed, and that wasn't it. That was something twisted and hollow, like her pirate was missing a piece of himself.
She's worried, her panic over everything else taking a backseat to her concern for Killian. Emma almost stops him, almost calls out, but then she remembers the curse and the fate of the town resting in her hands and it's time to be the Savior once more.