Disclaimer: not mine
A.N. Wrote this after the events of 2.08. i'm making it work in my own head. Ahoy angst!
"What do we do with him?" someone asked as the smoke cleared, but no one answered immediately. Emma Swan didn't spare him a glance as she clutched her son to her chest and that stung.
The Snow Queen turned from her husband long enough for her eyes to flit coldly over his form.
"Nothing," was her royal decree. That stung too.
He had no weapons, no men, no ship. Allies dead, unreachable. Gold refused to kill him. He could only stare at the water as it lashed against the rocks, but even the sea was cold, dense, unfamiliar. He could not even touch it, for fear of losing his memories.
And someone had taken his hook.
It was true. Nothing. He had, was, nothing.
He was given clothing and shoes, allowed to sleep on a cot in Archie Hopper's garage. It was not so different from the small cabin on his ship, except it smelled of oil and mold, no brine, no tar. The aroma burnt his nose. Burnt like bad rum, like their charity.
"Is there anything else you need?" the grasshopper asked once. His silence was heavy enough to crush even the thoughts in his head. do i need do i need do i want?
He saw her from afar one night, sitting on a bench, sipping from a half empty bottle of this world's weak, clear drink lifted from Hopper's kitchen.
She walked beside her protector (so slim without her armor and hair tied severely), wearing a black dress and stockings that must have been given, just like the jacket that kept the chill off his neck.
She looked paler, harder, in the dark color. He wondered if was of her choosing.
For mourning.
That night, with only the paint cans and lawn chairs to witness, he put his hand to his chest and searched for his heart beat.
He felt…something.
The days grew grayer and colder and shorter and when he finally slept it was always Neverland in his mind. Warm, bright, weightlessness and green and mermaid tails spilling across the Jolly Roger's deck. But every night it was as if he willingly walked the plank into morning, falling into Storybrooke's churning sea. And there she was, underwater, black dress drifting, the hole in her chest swallowing all the light that remained.
The dwarves mined for fairy dust all the time now, but someone still had to clean the floors of the hospital. Whale got him the job, looking disgusted with himself for the assistance.
He worked for almost three weeks before an orderly called, "Swab the poop deck!" at him while he mopped the hallway. The orderly was soon admitted into the hospital. He spent the night in the sheriff's station.
"Why don't you just go back?" Emma asked, squatting in front of the cell.
Too what? His silence answered.
It wasn't a plan, he just did it, watched it happen from somewhere behind his eyes. If it took three weeks to earn, it took much less to spend. He added empty bottles to the push mower and shovels that kept him company.
"You act like a man who hates himself," the grasshopper told him, perched on the edge of his cot while he was slumped against the garage door, wiping his mouth with Prince Charming's faded pullover. "Maybe something weighing on your conscience?"
He laughed so loud he swore the garden hose glared at him.
"You could start by apologizing."
He ran across town before the rum could burn through him like the sunset over Mermaid's Lagoon, grabbing an errant brick from Granny's front yard. He was hoisting it over his shoulder, poised to hurl it through Gold's shop window when the door swung open, revealing a short woman. Round face, light brown hair, sweet, and doe eyed.
She looks nothing like Milah. He dropped the brick, clutching his heart instead. He felt…something break.
"I want my bloody hand back," he choked out.
It wasn't a heart, but to him, it meant just as much.
It's gray pants and a black sweater that matches the sky over the harbor when he saw her next. She had a black coat shrugged high on her shoulders and her hands thrust deep into the pockets. Her face was white, and he quickly shoke metaphors like snow, like porcelain from his mind. She's pale like sickness, like the bodies that once washed ashore.
She was silent for a moment, tucking stray strands of hair loosened by the coastal wind behind her ear. He turned to get a better look at her, catching a glimpse of Mulan lurking behind the closest warehouse.
"There was a boy once, who worked in my father's stables. He kept my pony for me, brushed her and saddled her. He…I don't know… fancied himself in love with me for a time. He would leave flowers for me, in my pony's stall, my favorite seat in the library, in a bouquet outside my bedroom door."
She trailed off then, seemingly lost in thought, her forehead creasing as more hair escaped and whipped about her head like a dull halo. He simply stared at her black coat, imagining it, as it would be in his dream, submerged and heavy.
"So I suppose," she began again, "that I have some experience with men giving me unexpected gifts." She glanced at him skeptically, "Never a hand, though."
He shrugged, wishing momentarily for a pull of liquor, and fleetingly considered throwing himself over the railing, "Someone told me to try apologizing. I thought-"
She cut him off, "You don't need to apologize to me, Killian." The sound of his name fell hollow, jagged, ugly on his ears, "I'm not angry at you."
"Well, that's big of your princess, but-"
"No," she interrupted again, "You don't understand. I'm not angry. I'm not anything."
He turned to her then, grabbing her firmly under the chin and forcing her eyes to his, and felt his jaw clench. Out of his periphery he could see Mulan stalk towards him angrily, obviously touching had been soundlessly prohibited. Aurora saw her approach and began to back away, the conversation clearly over.
"I have no heart, Hook. I don't feel a thing."
I have, I am
"Nothing."