A/N: You may be wondering - what kind of masochistic asshole writes character death fic on Christmas Eve? And sets it there? Why? The answer is that it's Coldplay's fault and I'm sorry. Christmas Lights is a really fucking sad song and - okay - I'm weak. It has a happy ending?
Content warnings for character death, alcoholism, and referenced suicide...again, who the hell writes this on Christmas? HAPPY ENDING, I SWEAR.
-/-
Christmas in Storybrooke comes a few weeks after Emma's death.
On December 23rd, he collapses in bed (the bed that was supposed to be theirs, in the home that he picked out with her boy and the home that she showed him all hopeful and optimistic that he'd be able to best his demons and live happily after with her - he instead got her killed) and wills the nightcap to take effect. It's the same loop he's been living out since she's been gone.
It still isn't working out much at all for him.
Killian should be thankful that he's finally able to sleep again after what feels like an eternity without it. The funny part of it is, he can't sleep anyway.
He closes his eyes and all he can see is her. She's collapsing in his arms - he's desperately trying to catch her and cursing her for doing this to everyone who loves her and she's saying goodbye and the blood of her wound is stained on his hands as he desperately tried to cover it and staunch the flow of the bleeding. Emma put Excalibur through herself rather than through him. She didn't listen.
She tells him she loves him. That she's already said all that needs saying to everyone else. That she couldn't kill him.
He kisses her one last time with his tears staining her cheeks. When Killian parts from her, she's gone. Her hair is down, her red leather jacket is back, and her heart isn't beating.
And Killian goes back to the rum back in the bedroom back in present day. Even that doesn't do much in helping forget, but at least it's something.
-/-
He spots the Charmings out the next day, when he's forced to restock his rum supplies by stopping by the store. David and Mary Margaret are picking up groceries and muttering something about Christmas. A holiday they're being forced to celebrate without Emma. All because of him.
The visceral twisting in his gut that doesn't get dulled no matter how long he feels it. It only worsens as he looks at the family desperately trying to piece themselves back together. They can't do it, as much as they may be pretending. Mary Margaret's hands shake and David just looks lifeless.
He hasn't ever hated himself more. Which is saying something, given the depths of his self-loathing.
He isn't like Emma. He isn't strong in the face of loss, he can't keep holding on to determination or hope or whatever the hell that kept her going. Killian is weak and he's tired and he's weighed down by too many years that he shouldn't have lived. Seeing people he loves die doesn't make him any bloody better or stronger or anything else remotely positive. His brother's death made him a pirate, Milah's made him a villain, and his father's had him on the other side of the blade.
And Emma's, well, Emma's has taken away his will to do much of anything.
To his dismay, Mary Margaret and David both seem to spot him at the same time. There's nowhere for him to hide, as successfully as he's been evading them since being pried from Emma's body and watching them cover her with plastic. No one comes after him after he stalks off, warbling and cursing back to his ship and tearing his entire cabin apart.
(Well, Henry tries. That's when Killian moved to the mansion and took his masochism up another scale, making sure to lock all the damn doors.
He hasn't been getting by very well, it's fair to say.)
"Hook," David calls, walking up to him. "hang on a second."
Killian keeps his eyes downcast, carefully studying his boots. "How can I help you, your majesty?"
Mary Margaret is right on her husband's heels. "Join us, tomorrow. We can talk. You can eat. Maybe you'll finally get some sleep."
"You're family," David continues, a little gruffly. "Christmas is a time for family."
Killian looks at them in disbelief.
He could accept their invitation, could join them for dinner and look at pictures of Emma and think of what they could have had - their future - while her family tries and fails to act like they can move on without her.
(They can't. He can tell from firsthand experience.)
He'll save them the pity and himself the exertion. "No thanks, mate. I've other plans."
"I don't think the end of a flask counts," David notes grimly, judgement coloring his tone. "please. I'm sure Henry would want you there."
"His mother's murderer shouldn't have a place setting at the table, Dave," Killian replies acerbically, taking another swig of rum if just to spite him. "enjoy your holiday."
-/-
When he collapses back to the bed that could have been theirs on Christmas Eve, the rum must have worked. Killian finally manages to fall asleep without having a nightmare.
They're sitting in the same meadow of Middlemist and she's dressed in white. There's a thought that niggles in the back of his brain that considers the poetry of this, the symbolism of his dreams bringing him right back to where he died.
Killian doesn't give a damn about any of that, he just surges forward to kiss her. Emma leans back on her haunches, a little surprised, but reciprocates all the same.
"Emma," he pants, hand tangling in her hair greedily. "you're here. I love you so much. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. It should have been me, not you."
"It's not your fault," she replies, quickly, defensively. "you have to listen to me, Killian."
He just looks anguished.
"You know something isn't right," she points out, raising her chin in a gesture that's all too familiar. He aches. "you still feel it."
"Your absence?" he answers, bringing his hand up to cup her face reverently. "Every day, love. You have no idea."
Emma frowns, shaking her head. "No, beyond that. The darkness, you still...you can still feel it."
"All I feel," he rasps out. "is the space in the bloody bed where you aren't, Swan. Nothing else matters."
"It does, Killian," she insists plaintively, hand coming to rest on his chest. "it does. Now tell me, what do you feel?"
Killian pinches the bridge of his nose in exasperation. "I don't bloody know, Emma. You're gone. Your family is barely getting by without you and I keep hearing all these bloody whispers in my head and-"
Emma presses her forehead against his, a small, bittersweet smile coloring her face. "You got it."
The voices are apparently what she wanted to hear about. He breathes a sigh of relief if only if it means he gets to get to the more pressing matter at hand - just being in her company for once.
"Then my job here is done," she murmurs, pressing a kiss to his cheek.
"Emma, please," he begs, desperation coloring his voice. He clings to the fabric of her sleeves. "don't leave. Stay, if just for a little while."
"This isn't real, Killian."
"I know. I know that. But I need this," he mutters, moisture beginning to build in his eyes. "I need you, Emma. I can't do this without you. Please, Emma. Just stay."
His voice cracks and she - vision or dream or whatever the hell she is - starts crying in earnest.
She shakes her head as his hand comes up to wipe her tears away as he has so many times before, caring less about his own. "You have to let me go,"
"Can't you see, love? I can't."
"You can't keep living like this, Killian," she argues, hand coming up to rest on his face. "you have to move on."
"It should have been me," he averts instead, frustration building. Real or not, he's so angry with her. For leaving him like this, for not finishing him off like she was supposed to. Then it'd be him instead of her and she'd be sad for a little while but not like this, nothing like this. She'd celebrate Christmas with her family and he wouldn't catch her son crying or Mary Margaret barely holding herself together. The world would just be rid of another villain instead of the person whose saved the thankless bloody universe time and time again. "you should have killed me."
She swallows, hard. "I love you, Killian."
"You shouldn't."
And then he wakes up.
It's an unsatisfying end to an almost satisfying dream.
But it's Emma - dream or not - and he listens to her. Part of what she says, anyway.
-/-
Sure enough, he follows the bloody whispering in his head he's been attributing to guilt and ends up at the crocodile's. It shouldn't surprise him, after everything, that this miserable excuse for a man negated Emma's sacrifice and kept all the power for himself.
He tries to stab him with the closest available sharp object. Of course, it merely passes through him.
(Killian has some semblance of an upper hand when he threatens to tell Belle, once again, of the repulsiveness of her choice in romantic partner. It works well enough for his purposes.)
-/-
"You have to let me go," he hears the words in his head, repeating.
He's never been any bloody good at that.
-/-
His next stop is the Charmings'. Maybe it's rude to interrupt them in the midst of their festivities, but - like it or not - Killian was technically invited even if he's not planning on staying for long.
He doesn't even give them a chance to speak when they open the door.
"I'm going to the Underworld and getting Emma back," he informs the family hastily, the words not even feeling a little ridiculous in his mouth.
They look understandably shocked.
"How?" Mary Margaret asks, befuddled.
"You and the prince share a heart. Emma and I will do the same." he replies, as if it's the most natural answer in the world.
(He's only annoyed with himself for not thinking of it before.)
He sees something familiar in the faces of the Charmings. A trait of theirs that's been noticeably absent.
Hope.
Henry's voice filters over the doorway and a part of him pangs at how deep it's gotten over the short time he's known the lad. "We're coming with you."
That part, he expected.
-/-
Next Christmas, the only alcohol he consumes is something Swan refers to as eggnog.
The previously dark and empty apartment is now aglow with lights on a string and every manner of decorations. It seemed poor form of them to put a tree inside of their bloody house, but if she wants to honor her world's traditions, he won't stop her. Apparently they're hosting Christmas this year - the first real Christmas she's been able to have with her family - because the loft is too small and Regina's is too...Regina's. Her words, not his.
(Well, Mary Margaret's words. She's to fault for most of the decorations in their home, which Emma only somewhat begrudgingly accepts. Killian is happy with whatever keeps Emma happy. Unless it's the bloody tinsel David's attempting to hang in their living room. Those things would cause a mess and - Killian Jones may be many things - but messy isn't one of them.)
(Emma laughs and calls him a neat freak. Which may be fair.)
As bad as his limited experiences with the holiday have been, with Emma back from the Underworld there's something magical about it. Between Henry's excitement and Swan's valiant but poor attempts at hiding her own, making the both of them smile has become infectious.
There's a profound difference between experiencing Christmas drunk and in mourning and spending it with the people he loves most in the world.
On the night of Christmas Eve, that never feels more apparent.
Emma is kissing him in their bed (which is finally full - with her warm smiles and golden curls and, gods, he doesn't know how he ever lived without her waking up beside him) and Killian can't feel anything but so, so thankful.
"I'm so happy you're here with me," he murmurs with they part, his breath fanning across her face. His grip on her waist tightens.
"Me too," she replies softly, absentmindedly tucking a lock of his hair behind his ears. Emma understands what he means immediately. "I missed you, last year."
"And I you," he tells her, their noses bumping. "more than you can ever imagine."
"I think we've officially established that we'd go to hell and back for each other," she chuckles a little, thumb moving to drift across his cheek. "I don't know how I'm going to top that gift this year, but…"
"You being here with me is enough," Killian replies swiftly. "believe me. More than I could have ever hoped for."
She gives him a soft smile and her eyes flutter shut soon afterwards. The exhaustion of the day - between preparing like mad for having her family over and their earlier activities, seems to be catching up with her. "Merry Christmas, Killian."
Killian's own grin is a little brittle. By the time he replies, she's already fallen asleep. "Merry Christmas, love."
He keeps an eye on her, from the slight furrow of her jaw to the rising and falling of her breath, and swears to himself he'll never let her go again. Not to villains, not to curses, and not even to death.