Four Ways to Say Goodbye
Spoilers: Up to S3 ep 11.
First Way to Say Goodbye
Regina doesn't often look at Hook, but for a moment, when she's speaking to the group, her eyes are on him. "Everyone will go back to where they're from – prevented from ever returning."
The curse hadn't affected him first time round, and so when the first talk of it came up, he hadn't thought of it, being him. He's not in the group, really. He helps where he can, wiping at bits of his soul where his past touches the present, like helping Tinkerbell. But whenever someone says "us", he thinks "them", he isn't part of it all. Until Regina looks over at him. This everyone she's speaking of, it means him too. He'll go back to – not Neverland, at least, and not under Pan's domain, but back to their same world.
He'd been told about the first curse, how only Regina had known who she'd been, how everyone else had forgotten their past. The curse wasn't in the forgetting, it was in the leaving, but now he doesn't know what it means. Will he reappear on his ship, with no recollection of Storybrooke?
He imagines searching the Enchanted Forest, finding Rumpelstiltskin's castle, empty, perhaps his dead body is already there, perhaps his grave – in any case, the one flickering flame of life within him, vengeance, unable to be satisfied -
He imagines Belle reappearing in that castle and falling under his sword, because he won't listen to her, that Rumpelstiltskin isn't there -
And then not just Belle, but all those on the sea, all those in his way, and he remembers them, those who begged, those who cringed, those who fought, those who cried. Those who died.
The first goodbye is noticing he's said goodbye to who he was, completely. Not farewell, not see you again sometime. Good riddance. Go.
Second Way to Say Goodbye
No one's looking at Hook when Regina turns to Emma, explains the rest of it. That she and Henry have to stay, alone, and it has to be permanent, they won't remember a thing of it all, but he will.
He'll remember everything and it takes away the last tiny bit of excuse that he had, that if he went back, unremembering, then maybe his blackness wouldn't be so bad. Now it will be bad. It will be very, very bad because Regina said permanent. No hope of vengeance with Rumpelstiltskin gone, no hope of love with Emma -
She looks over at her mother and says, "But I just found you again."
There's no indignation, there's no anger, there's just the child's confusion. Is this supposed to make sense, because it doesn't? I found you, I did what I was supposed to do, and -
The adults stand around and explain it slowly to the child, and his jaw tightens, his hand tightens around the sword at his side. They've made the rules, again, Regina has made the rules again and the children have to follow. She has to lose Henry, so they all must lose him. The only family that matters to Regina is Henry, so that must be the only family to matter to Emma, too.
The fact that it's true isn't at all important. It still is desperately unfair, and he wants to fight it. For a moment he's happy to go back and strike down a few miscreants, because he wants to fight it, the order of it all. It isn't fair.
But he can't fight. There's no one in front of him wielding a sword, and there's no one in front of him who hasn't got a good argument. She will get a good life, she'll get what she's always wanted, to be the mother to her boy, safely in a safe world.
He feels like he's never been so still.
So that's the second goodbye. Goodbye to fighting for what he wants. That doesn't matter anymore. He has to stand aside, and let her leave.
Third Way to Say Goodbye
There isn't much time left before the curse is enacted and Emma and Henry have to cross the town line. But there's a little time. He doesn't approach her, knowing that she has more important things to do, like packing her car with their things, like grieving with her parents.
But she finds him. His back's turned, he's looking out to sea. She claps a hand on his shoulder, turns him around. His heart thumps, not like he's being attacked, but as though something awful has just been averted.
"You'll go back out to sea," she says, and he can do nothing but nod. "You'll be a pirate."
He shifts a bit, but that's who he is, he supposes.
"Do you remember," she begins, "before Neverland, before we went there, when we were in Granny's, do you remember -"
He nods again. "What you said. That you and I, that we were alike. That you knew me."
"Yes." Her eyes are searching his face, as though she's willing him to understand, and he can't see why she doesn't already know it.
"It will be hard not to go back. It will be hard for you and Regina, not to go back."
"Not to go back," he repeats, knowing there's no reprieve. "To being – a villain."
Her hand is on his arm. "I said, that I had to learn to rely on the others, not just me, and that you had to do that too, but I won't be there. If you can remember, if you can think -"
She's called away, looks back as she half runs to Henry, then turns right away and heads to Henry, Charming, Snow.
And there's the third goodbye. Not being able to say goodbye, and having the heart half-ripped from his body.
Last Way to Say Goodbye
So this is it.
They're all standing there, trying not to look at the horizon where the faintest glow of purple heralds the curse's arrival.
Regina promises Emma something that every one of them could only dream about – a good life, good memories of a good life. It's Regina's particular gift, something so beautiful because the past is her bane, his too of course.
When Hook approaches she's trying not to cry.
"There's not a day will go by I won't think of you."
It's the one gift he can give her, and it's the most temporary because she'll remember it for less than a minute. But it's his promise that he won't give up all his hard-won goodness for bitterness, and she embraces it with her smile, her beautiful smile.
"Good."
That's the last thing she says to him, and he'll remember it. Good. That is who she is, that is what is vital to her. It must be his.
The last goodbye. He lets the cloud cover him. He fixes his eyes on her until there's nothing left to see. But when he closes his eyes, there she is in front of him. Not a day will go by. Not even a day.