Author's Note: Bonjour, friends! I know, I'm a bitch who never, ever, ever updates and I apologize. For the record, and just to put it out there, I am looking for a beta for JGMAR, PTMB, YAIL, if anyone is interested. Perhaps you'll be able to fix my grammatical errors and get on my ass with updates. If you're interested, please PM me on here, or DM me on Instagram (my name is theladyswan). I'd love a beta! Please. I'm begging, here. *grins at you all beseechingly* Since the year from hell is almost over, I should have a bit more time on my hands, so hopefully, my lazy ass will get a freaking update on here-don't mind me, just babbling on and reprimanding my own self. I wish I was a cool person who could write a one-shot and not spend half of it babbling on about things you guys don't care about, but I guess I really am Felicity Smoak. Haha. So, I don't really know where this came from, but its speculation for tonight's finale along with last night's rewatching of Grey's Anatomy's season three finale and hearing Ingrid Michaelson's Keep Breathing and getting it stuck in my head. Also, I literally heard Payphone EVERYWHERE this week. At a restaurant while having dinner with my friends, at the mall while seeing Avengers: Age of Ultron (which was fucking awesome, by the way), and in Chinatown. So I put a lyric in that I thought fit with the idea of this little ditty. I hope you like it. CaptainCharming bonding warning.

Disclaimer: I own naught but a thing.

All We Can Do Is Keep Breathing

(If Happy Ever Afters Did Exist...I Would Still Be Holding You Like This)

Gone.

She was gone.

She just...disappeared. Vanished. Into thin air.

He couldn't breathe.

Emma, she was-is, she is, he can't think in the past tense, not with her-everything to him. She's everything, and he can't...he can't breathe without her. And one minute she's standing here and she's telling him that he's her happy ending, too and that she bloody loves him, and before he even has any time at all to respond, to tell her that yes, yes, he loves her, too, he's always loved her, she's pushing him away from her and sacrificing herself to the darkness that was riddled within Rumpelstiltskin's dagger and vanishing from sight in a flash of bright, white light.

And now, she's just...she's just gone.

And he doesn't know what to do with himself.

He's tried to live without her before and everyone knows just how well that had worked out. But then, then he'd known that she was alive and well and with her son and living a life that she had always deserved because she's Emma Swan and she's good and-now he doesn't know where she is. He doesn't know if she's safe or if she's okay. He doesn't know if she's alive of if she's...he just doesn't know.

And all he wants is to hold her and for her to tell him that everything's going to be alright, that they will be fine, that she loves him, but he can't have that. Because she is gone and everything is most certainly not alright.

Everything is wrong.

He can't live without her and he doesn't want to. He doesn't ever want to.

So he has to find her. He has to do something, and just standing here, knees on the verge of buckling and just giving out completely, staring at the spot where she just was, moments ago, isn't going to do anything to help. It won't fix the situation. And it won't help to find Emma, and that's what he needs to be doing.

He ignores the anguished cries coming from Snow White and the silent tears making their way down David's face as he tries to comfort his wife, while at the same time mourning the (temporary-it's temporary) loss of his daughter. He ignores the horrified look on Regina's face as she stares down the spot that he had just been staring at. He ignores all of it and, with a determined set to his footing, makes his way towards the library, intending to find Belle and sort out just what exactly had happened a few moments ago. Surely she would know...with all of her books and the magic boxes and the like, surely she could figure something-

"Hey!"

The yell interrupts his thoughts, and, is apparently directed towards him, which just bothers him because can they not see that he is brooding and planning out his strategy to attempt to find Emma? He turns around with a dark look gracing his features and sees the Prince striding towards him quite purposefully.

A dark smirk tilts his lips upwards and he cannot stop it anymore than he can stop the cruel words that leave his lips next. "And what do you want now, Dave? To tell me that you'd like to go on with your life and I should too, now that Emma is gone? Just like you did before? You've cried a few tears and now that's it? It's over?"

The cruel words make him feel quite like that fellow in that book Emma had asked him to read, the one she'd liked so much because she claimed that she "saw more in him than everyone else had. He's good, just broken. The cruelty in just a façade that he puts on, to hide the fact that inside...he's just lonely and unloved." Yes, he was exactly like that Heathcliff fellow, alone and unloved. And the cruelty of Captain Hook always decided to come out to see the light of day whenever he had lost someone he cared for. Losing Emma? He was surprised he hadn't yet killed everyone and everything in sight. But he knows why he hadn't. She wouldn't want him to. And he can't hurt her with the aftermath of his pain. He just couldn't. But he's getting ahead of himself and lost in the ever-welcoming abyss that is the thought of Emma Swan, the woman he loves.

David steels himself and appears to be visibly shaking. Whether he's holding himself back from knocking him to the ground or he's just so damn upset due to the loss of his only daughter that he physically cannot stop himself from shaking, Killian doesn't know.

"I know that you are upset. And I cannot imagine what you must be feeling right now, as I've never been through what you are going through at this moment." David tells him, eyes brimming with unshod tears. "But I do know how I feel right now. And I've just lost my daughter. The pain is unbearable. But you can't just revert back to a cold-hearted pirate. Not when we need you, when Emma needs you, to find her." He pleads with him, one eyebrow raised in supplication.

A cold, dark chuckle escapes him against his will-defense mechanisms, old habits are hard to kill-and he narrows his eyes at the father of his beloved. "Unbearable?" He scoffs at him. "If it's so unbearable for you that Emma is gone, then why didn't you try to stop her? Why didn't you do anything? Why didn't you just believe in her from the start, and not make some asinine deal with the bloody devil and cause all this mess in the first place!?" He roars at him. Somewhere in the corner of his vision, he can see Regina pulling Mary Margaret away from the scene, likely somewhere to tell Henry what had happened-Gods-and Robin striding towards himself and the Prince and the completely inessential scene he is causing at the moment. David holds a hand up toward Robin in silent beseech and he backs off.

"I know that you are hurting right now, but there is no need to lash out. Even though you're entirely right. This is all mine and Snow's fault. If we'd only just believed in her..." he exhales shakily and swallows hard, then continues on. "But this is no time to lay blame, however sound it may be. We have to keep our heads on. We have to work together, or we'll never see her again." He tells him calmly and rationally.

But, in this moment, Killian Jones is neither calm nor rational and he is unable to see the reason behind the Prince's argument. He only sees doubt. Doubt in Emma, doubt in himself, and doubt in whether or not they'll ever see her again.

"Do you doubt it?" He asks darkly, eyes wild, as if a fire were raging behind them.

"What?"

"Do you doubt that we'll find her, that we'll ever see her again?" His voice cracks on the last word, and that appears to be the straw that broke the cow's back, or whatever the hell the damn term is, as he finally breaks down. He falls to his knees in front of David, sobbing uncontrollably. He has no more fight left in him, and so he cries.

"Hey, hey." David says softly in a way that reminds Killian of Emma and her softness and the way that she would comfort him when he was hurt or worried, and lays his hand on his shoulder, crouching down beside him. "It's alright. Okay? It's going to be alright."

"How can you know that?" He croaks, staring up into Emma's father's eyes.

"Because I don't doubt that we'll ever see her again. Because I have hope. Because I have to. I have to have hope that we will see her again. That everything will work out in the end, because that's how the story is supposed to end. The heroes are supposed to come out on top. We're supposed to win this war and get our happy ever afters. That's the way it's supposed to be. And no one deserves a happy ending more than Emma. Her story can't end this way." David tells him determinedly, and in this instant he sees how this man had led a kingdom full of subjects, how this man is able to call himself Prince Charming.

And despite his pain, Killian lets a laugh escape him. "Now that I can agree with." He responds. "But what can we do? How can we find her?"

"We don't give up that hope. We don't stop searching until we find her. We leave no stone unturned, no book unopened. We exhaust every resource at our hands and call in every favor we have with anyone that could possibly know anything about where she went. And first, we find the Apprentice. If anyone knows anything about what just happened, he will. So we go look for him." David finishes, and gives him a small smile.

"Who would've ever thought we'd be working together? A hero and a pirate?" Killian jokes.

"You're not a pirate, not anymore. You're a hero, too." David tells him, utter truth in his eyes.

"Now who would've eve thought you would admit to that, mate?"

The Prince chuckles. "Certainly not me." He gets to his feet and reaches a hand towards Killian, which he accepts and gets to his feet as well.

He swallows and looks at David. "I don't know how to get by without her." He admits, defeat written all over his face.

"Honestly, I don't either. That year it was...torture. Trying to pretend that she never existed, to try and move on like she never was...it was awful. But there's only one thing left to do now, so that we are able to stand any chance at finding Emma."

"And what's that?" He asks, hope and confusion mixed together in his eyes.

"Now...all we can do is keep breathing." David says. "That's all we can ever do. Keep breathing now, and we'll find her. And everything will be okay."

"I do so hope you're right." He tells him seriously.

Keep breathing. He can do that.

He can try.