i can take so much [until i've had enough]
The mirror cracked in her fury, the air suddenly sizzling with an energy she had only recently attempted to control, but he knew even before that the force of Emma was not one to be reckoned with. The glass shattered and fell to the floor in splintering clicks and shot broken fragments of light across the dim loft, destroying the affirmation of his previous duplicity.
Not only had Zelena lied about Ariel and Eric finding their happy endings – indeed, the two were still separated by distant realms – the mirror magic Emma experimented with exposed his involvement, leaving him powerless to telling her the full story in a very small, very dead voice.
How strange, that he stood there and watched as his life – his future – fell from his grasp, crumbling against the ground like the mirror. He could only stand, transfixed, as her lips twitched, fists clenched, her beauty otherworldly.
How strange, that he still found her beautiful when he could hardly identify the emptiness filling his gut. Until her words mangled his numbing reverie conceived by the rattled conscience that knew what was to follow.
"You – how dare you?" she screamed fervently, taking a step back – away from him and his ugliness, his untruths, his be-damned selfishness that would leave him alone once more. "You lied to me – to all of us – and damn it, Hook, I believed you because I thought you had actually changed. That you actually wanted to help. That your stupid quest for revenge was over. God, I wanted to believe that you were different from the man in all the stories."
Her head was shaking, and beneath her anger was a disappointment that defied true description, and his heart was in tatters.
Tears from earlier that evening, from his encounter with Ariel – no, Zelena – returned, unbidden, to a pair of eyes that could no longer handle the bloodcurdling rage now simmering behind her blistering green ones. A burning throb began low in his throat, tugging its fingers up and around his jaw until it was all he could do to remain upright. "I'm so sorry," he was whispering, over and over, hardly louder than an outtake of breath because his tongue was raw and aching and he couldn't swallow back the pain of his heart tearing from its moors in his chest and his rings were clinking together in the trembling fingers of his fisted hand. "I'm so sorry. So sorry, Emma. I'm so sorry."
"It's all your fault," she was saying, her hair flaring wildly with the movements of her head – either ignoring or unhearing of his attempted statements, he couldn't discern. "You did this to yourself and you know what? Count me out. I've made enough excuses for you, trying to reconcile that everything you did was to survive, to take away your pain, but no, I'm done. Do you hear me? You're your own worst enemy – you don't need Gold to tear you apart. You've done that just fabulous by yourself, and you have only your own selfishness to blame, and I couldn't possibly give another flying –"
A door was falling open behind him, cutting off her words though her anger remained growling between them, and he found himself seemingly lost at sea. The loneliness was so all-consuming his knees were quaking, threatening to leave him smeared on the floor, begging at her feet. He couldn't help but muse groggily how strange it was that in the course of a single evening his entire world could fall apart at the hands of the only woman he found in his heart to love again.
How strange that he was so easily shattered, when he boasted such a false bravado and strength that had long ago seeped from his bones, stolen away into nights of too much pain, too much rum, too much time, too many memories and godforsaken lies.
"Emma! What the hell is going on? We could hear you from downstairs," David was nearly yelling while Mary Margaret was frantically running around him and towards her daughter, hands fluttering. They sounded completely at a loss, unsure of what had transpired between pirate and Savior in the tension of the room, but he knew it was only a matter of time before they learned to hate him too.
Her parents were trying to soothe her, to 'keep the breaker from flipping' as he'd heard Regina say once or twice, but then she was shouting at them as well.
He stood there, breathing raggedly, for another infinite moment. Even in his wrecked state, he managed to quiet the pleas tripping from his brain right onto the floor in front of his Swan long enough to realize his stomach was aching and clenching and that he had no choice left to him but to abandon ship.
Leave now, his mind screamed.
He took a single shaky step for the door, but it was too late. He was already hearing what she was uttering, these new words so much worse than the ones that came before.
"Nothing more than a pirate. That's all you've ever been. All you'll ever be."
He barely made it to the end of the dock before the sobs broke from his chest.
It was all too much, everything was overflowing and he couldn't bloody see anything anymore because the dark skies and somber sea were blurring together – pain and regret and shame and agony washing over him again and again until tears spilled from his eyes and bile rose in his throat. The force of his cries sucked away his breath and left him retching over the edge from his nearly prostrate position on the hard, cold planks. His coat did nothing to protect him from the chilling drizzle that drifted through the nighttime air, pooling in his hair and wracking his body with shivers and heaves.
I'm so sorry. Emma. Forgive me. Please.
He deserved it.
He deserved it all and far, far worse. An empty husk of a man was all that was left of who he once was, and he deserved being tossed away like the wet, useless garbage it seemed everyone knew him to be. She was right. She'd been right about everything – every word that fell from her beautiful mouth was truth that he'd been denying himself all along. There was nothing salvageable. Just like his precious ship, there was nothing left to save and nothing worth finding. Not anymore. It was all for naught. There were no pieces left to put back together.
He struggled to catch his breath once his stomach was finished ridding itself of any and all sustenance, and a deep, painful shuddering began in his middle, taking a hold of the twitching void of nothingness. The wind coming in off the tide stung his wet cheeks – the side of his face where Zelena had lain a harsh palm smarted mightily – and it was nearly enough to set him weeping again. Instead, he shut his eyes tightly, breathing in and out, counting, running the tips of his fingers over the smooth metal of his rings.
"My, my, Captain. I never thought you a sentimental man."
At the sound of her voice, he was up and tumbling away, nearly tripping into the oily water in his haste to create space between them. "Zelena. What more could you want?" His voice was rough, and there was that vain part of him that hoped she couldn't see the evidence of his turmoil that remained on his face so far away from the floodlights of the boathouses.
She cackled for a moment before her laughter fizzled out in a smooth scoff. "I heard your beloved Emma's soliloquy all the way over in the clock tower, knew it was aimed at you, and couldn't help seeking you out. Quite the sharp tongue she has, wouldn't you agree?"
Her shoes thumped dully against the deck as she came closer, and he tried not to flinch away as her finger dragged down the apple of his cheek, over the scar beside his nose. "It's such a shame that she is not as blinded by love as you, darling. It would make for a much easier time for me, as I simply hate having to resort to threats."
Her hand was inching down, down, down until it rested at the base of his neck. Her eyes glittered dangerously, and a throaty hum echoed through the air, grating to his ears.
"Let a man parse his thoughts in peace, would you?"
She laughed again. "Oh, is that what you were doing? Thinking? Could have fooled me, pirate." A finger from her other hand tapped gently underneath his eye, catching a stray drip of moisture that had gathered there.
His jaw tightened at the word and he tried to disentangle himself from her cold presence. Remembrance flooded his thoughts, and his eyes filled against his will yet again. He hated his own weakness, how his lip trembled hard enough that he had to bite down on it, that this witch was the one to see him barely able to stand under his own power.
Zelena clucked her tongue against her teeth, mouth tipping upwards mockingly. "Touchy subject, my sweet? I'm so sorry."
"Leave him alone, Zelena," an agonizingly familiar voice said, the sound of several pairs of boots thudding down the dock.
The witch stilled her ministrations on his face to turn toward the voice, and he took the opportunity to pull wholly away from her so that his back was to the sea.
His heart gave an uneven hiccup when he finally saw Emma flanked by her father and Regina, serious expressions marring their dear faces.
"Sorry, love, but I just cannot resist fondling a broken heart."
Emma's eyes flashed to him, and he swallowed heavily before he found himself once more unable to maintain her gaze. The same shame from earlier welled up inside him, burning in his throat and writhing in his stomach, and he feared he would fall ill again.
You did all of this to yourself, you bloody git.
"I'll give you one more shot. Leave him alone." Emma's voice was solid, certain, and he watched as her hands raised and started to tingle and spark with white light, illuminating her face and bright red jacket in an innocent glow that he knew for Zelena was anything but.
Regina, who had remained emotionless save for the flash of icy rage in her eyes whenever the wicked witch spoke, stepped forward. "If I didn't know any better, sis, I'd say you are out of your depth."
Confused recognition settled on his face only momentarily before the witch gave an evil smirk, chirped another cackle, and sighed almost bitterly, "I know when I'm no longer wanted, so I'll take my leave from your absolutely adorable little rescue party."
She turned to him, sliding her hand over his arm, eyes bright and steely. "This is ta-ta for now, I'm afraid. Be well, love."
There was a poof of sickly green smoke and then Regina was saying something about making sure the witch was off curling her hair and then Emma and David were rushing toward him. The older sheriff gripped his arm in an almost brotherly affection and offered him a smile that knocked him through to his core, while Emma stopped a few feet away, arms crossed and with a very pleased grin to her face.
David broke the silence first. "What is it you always say? Bloody brilliant?" His poor attempt at mocking Killian's accent would have made him glare in annoyance any other day, but tonight – with his heart tenderly clinging to some semblance of newfound, brittle hope – he grinned, nodding. The prince gave a relieved guffaw before waddling off, leaving Emma and him alone near the edge of the dock.
Guilt and sorrow sprang inside him for what seemed the millionth time that evening, and the wretched tingling in his eyes forced his focus away from hers. She fidgeted slightly, opening and closing her mouth several times before finally settling on stepping closer and tugging him against her warm frame. The leather of their respective jackets creaked together in the cool, damp air, and it took him only a moment before he wound his arms around her in return.
A quivering breath he didn't know he'd been holding stole from his lungs, but the throbbing returned to his throat as he felt her tense in his hold.
"Killian... I'm so sorry. About what I said. All of that was completely uncalled for and you have every right to be angry too, but just please know that I'm sorry and that I was angry and I didn't mean it – well, I did, but then Dad told me what he heard Zelena say to you, and –" She was nearly babbling into his shoulder, but with every word he felt his heart swish a little more onto the shore again.
"Hush, Emma, love. It's all right. You've nothing to apologize for. Everything you said was true."
"No, it's not, but I'm still mad as hell at you, but not really anymore, so come back with us so Mom can make some hot chocolate because, Jesus, Killian, you're freezing." She pulled away enough to look at him, a hand reaching for his face. The pad of her thumb flitted lightly over the curve of his eyebrow, and the look in her eyes – so soft, adoring, not even a little frightened – was what made him step once more into her warmth.
"I'm so sorry, Emma," he said quietly. "I wanted to make it right, but I didn't know how and I'm just so –"
She shushed him, swaying with him, arms around his waist. "I know, Killian. I know. It's gonna be okay."
She was quiet for a long while before speaking again, stepping out of his grasp only to find his hand and ease him from the water's edge. "C'mon, let's get home. Dry clothes, hot cocoa, Henry's movie-of-the-night. It'll be great. You can sleep on the couch."
He brought her hand to his lips, pressing a kiss there. "I'll be forever indebted to you, Swan."
"And I'll never let you forget it," she said with a knowing smile.
He never did. And never regretted it either.