Everything is happening so quickly. That is what he blames it on later. Emma and the Snow Queen are at each others throats, throwing curse upon curse at each other. Emma's blonde hair is flying gracefully as she throws and dodges every which way, green eyes focused, face a mask of angry concentration. Elsa is on her one side, Regina at the other, equally concentrated and equally pissed (and Killian still finds it strange, really, seeing the women get on and fight side by side, rather than against each other. But they are a force to be reckoned with as a team and he for one would never dare cross either woman alone, much less as a pair).
Killian and Robin are at their respective love's backs, sparring the beast the Ice Queen had risen.
("If you wanted a toy for your dogs to play with, you only had to ask," she'd said with that sickly sweet smile, a thin cloak between her and her rage. She was angry, so angry with Emma, when she'd been repulsed by the woman's idea of a little 'family'. Of building her into her perfect sculpture, as she did. And Emma, of course, only had subduing the woman on her mind. Getting some truth from her, the bloody stubborn lass. He knew better than to argue, only taking his position at her back when the magic had started flying).
They've developed a system that is holding it back well enough, switching between Robin's piercing arrows and his own talented cutting sword. But it is becoming quite apparent to them that they are capable of only that—defeating it simply is out of their reach of talents. They are tiring quickly (he can tell by the way Robin's movements have slowed, far more sluggish than sharp, now.) His own sword is growing heavy in his grasp. He has fought endless monsters and beasts, but none with such remarkable strength and stamina. Judging by the banter behind them, the women did not feel the same.
"Is that all you've got, Dairy Queen?" Emma snaps, and he hears the magic sizzle from her fingers as he charges the giant ice beast with his sword. It meets its target, but skids across its surface like it is nothing more than a pebble, but the creature moves back, sending Killian hard to his knees, hard asphalt digging past his leather and burning like hell.
He groans—it is not the first time he has fallen and his resolve to get up again and again is lowering and lowering.
"Killian," Emma's voice is sharp and concerned and he clings to it and uses its force to drag himself back upright, if slowly. He glances back at her, flashing a halfhearted smirk. She smiles ever so slightly, relief deep in her eyes.
"Swan, quite flirting and focus," Regina snaps and Emma obeys, turning abruptly back to the fight at hand, following a flash of Elsa's ice with a blast of her own.
Killian heaves his sword and begins to turn back to his own beast— catching the Snow Queen's dangerously sparkling gaze along the way.
"It'd be a shame," he hears her soft and poisonous voice as he prepares his weapon, as Robin fires his bow again and again, searching for a weak point and doing nothing more than royally enraging the beast. It lets out a mighty roar, but somehow the Queen's voice still comes out sharp and clear. "If anything ever happened to your dear pirate."
She screams his name, frantic, and time stops as he whirls around, sword still at the ready, ready to fight, to take down the threat—it takes him a precious moment to see the bolt of white in midair, halfway to his chest, and one longer to see her. Blonde curls glistening, bouncing up as she moves on what seems to be instinct, in a moment too sudden to even conjure up her magic.
It hits her square in the chest just as the facts are coming together in his mind and his heart gives one heaving thud before seeming to stop.
"Swan!"
He moves towards her, eyes blind to everything but her. Her hands have come to her chest, just above her heart, clutching where the magic has hit. Falling limply but still staring dazed at her fingers, woven tightly in her shirt.
He throws himself to his knees and catches her limp body just before it hits (bloody road tearing into him but he doesn't even notice, cannot notice, not with her eyes so wide and green and looking at him now). She is cold, but makes no move to curl nearer to his warmth, nearly motionless in his arms. Her eyes, gods, her eyes are wide and though dazed she focuses on him and he finds her hand, gripping it tightly, brushing her hair out of her face gently with his hook.
"Emma," his voice is soft, pleading. Her fingers twitch ever so slightly in his, and she blinks, slowly. And again.
Her eyes do not reopen and his blood suddenly feels as cold as the frigid air.
"Emma!" he is frantic, squeezing her hand tighter in his grasp. When she still doesn't respond he drops his head to her chest, presses his cheek above her heart. He can hear his own heartbeat pounding in his head, drowning out the other noises of the fighting and the magic and the monster… his heartbeat is the only heartbeat he hears.
His breath catches and heat rises in his throat, choking him.
It cannot be real. It cannot be bloody real.
He tries to say her name again, but it comes out a strangled sob as he untangles his fingers from hers, reaches for her face. Her lips are dry and just parted, and he strokes shakily across her cheek, running his thumb down to the dimple of her chin and then resting it over her lips, tuning all his senses to the shivering digit, feeling for any movement, any air even if he knows because accepting it, accepting the truth, is simply too bloody unfathomable. A world without her in it… he feels his body quake and drags her hand from her face, down through her hair before slipping beneath her to grasp her opposite shoulder, pulling her body nearer to him, clinging to her, playing her last cry, her last yell of his name over and over in his mind.
A drop of moisture falls to her cheek, rolling down as if it could be a tear. In his spinning daze it takes him a moment to realize it is his.
"David got the hat and Granny told us you five had located the Queen and we came as quickly as we could! Where is she?"
"Gone."
"What happened? Where's—"
"Emma?" the shrill voice feels distant, even when a hand clutches his shoulder and Snow is falling to her knees beside him. Her small hands reach out, touching her heart, her face, searching as frantically as he had. Then David is there and he knows he should let her go, should give her up to the grasp of her father but he cannot move his muscles, cannot stop holding her.
Cannot let her go.
A moment later David is grasping Mary Margaret's shaking form, pulling her up and away from the body and Killian still can only hold her and stare.
Her face is white, so white he can nearly see the green of her eyes through the translucency of her eyelids. Her expression is dull and utterly lifeless and every moment he expects a smile to tug at the corner of her lips, or her eyes to flutter open is another icy jolt through his system.
It is only another moment before he feels strong hands on his shoulders.
"She's gone, mate," Robin tugs gently at him but he only shrugs him off, sharply, "Killian…"
He tries again to pull him off of her but he shoves him off more frantically, clings to her tighter, and he lets him be.
She is gone.
He weakly lowers his head, allowing it to rest against the soft cotton of her shirt (the one just that morning he'd curled his fingers into to drag her closer in a kiss). His head drops weakly above her heart and his heavy lids sink closed.
"Emma," her name is soft on his tongue, barely passing his lips, but still the pain stabs deep in his heart. He plays his fingers down her arm, still so cold, pressing the palm of his hand to the back of hers and tangling his fingers around. Hers are growing stiff and the pain shoots through him again, choking lump rising further in his throat.
He does not want a world without her. He cannot imagine a day passing that he doesn't tangle his fingers through her sun kissed curls, where he never sees her bright eyes light up around her son, where she never smirks at him again. She is light and happiness and second chances and life without her… every attempt to fathom it leaves his body heavier and emptier until he never wants to move again.
"Killian."
At first he is sure he is hearing things. The wind playing tricks with him. The voice is hers and it is impossible and the thought kills him as he presses nearer to her.
"Killian, you're suffocating me."
The voice is dry and soft but this time he knows it is there and it sits him bolt upright, eyes trained warily on her. She stirs slightly, head turning in to him, fingers closing weakly around his.
And her eyes flutter open, squinting tiredly up at him.
His heart seems to start beating again, and relief floods him from head to toe, starting his fingers shaking all over again as he pulls them from hers, running them up her arm and across her chest to feel the steady pounding of her heart, before cradling her cheek in stumbling fingers, stroking through her hair and then grasping the back of her head. He tries to hold her gently but she is alive and she is noticing his tears with wide concern in her eyes and is reaching to brush them away with her fingers, leaving his skin tingling.
"What happened?" her eyes are clouded with confusion but they are open and on him and he can hardly breath.
"Darling…" the strangled word passes his lips as he lifts her slightly, bending to capture her lips roughly in his own. She slips her fingers down his neck, clutching at his collar, then back up to cradle his cheek. Every touch leaves him aching and nearly stiff with relief, each something he was certain he was never to feel again.
Snow lets out a strangled cry and the rest are catching on now. He never wants to let her go again, never wishes to stop kissing her but she means something to everyone and he reluctantly drags back from her, presses a kiss to her cheek, and her nose and her forehead and it takes all his control to stop. Her mother is there now, cradling her face, and he starts slightly when he feels her fingers tangle into his at her own accord (because it is so precious, every touch, especially now after it had been lost to him for good).
"How is she not dead?" Regina asks, far too bemused for his liking but he lets it brush off his back when Emma squeezes his fingers (she's smiling, if confused, at her mother as she explains, assuring her that "Yes, I'm alright, everything is alright" and he knows the words are meant for him as well).
"True love," the soft reply comes from Elsa, and suddenly all eyes are on her. She shifts slightly, uncomfortable under the pressure, but continues, "Only an act of true love can thaw a frozen heart. The queen attempted to hit Hook with her ice, and Emma moved to block him. To take the blow herself to save his life. An act of true love."
Her words clawed at his heart and though he thinks he might just break her if he clutches her any tighter, he does. Snow is saying something excitedly to David but he doesn't hear. She is folding into him again, smiling softly up at him.
"Don't you ever bloody do something like that again," he tells her, and his voice audibly quakes and it breaks her smile into something gentler as she reaches to touch his cheek again, still squeezing his fingers with her other hand, just as tight as he is holding her.
"You were supposed to be good at surviving, pirate," she answers, with the slightest tease in her voice, "You keep your bit and I'll keep mine."
"You are ridiculously stubborn, love," he tells her, and his voice is still shaking but he manages a barking laugh.
"True love," she corrects.
He kisses the smug smile right off her face.