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It wasn't supposed to happen like this. They had always known that sooner or later, they would part ways. They had even known that the way they parted may have been through death, but he had never expected it to be hers. He remembered when they were making the terms of their 'arrangement', as she so often liked to call it. What would happen if one of them didn't come out of it alive. He smiled as he remembered her laughing. "I say 'one of us' like it could possibly be me". She had been so confident. And why shouldn't she be?

Cora Mills was a survivor. He knew that she hadn't started as royalty, something that he had liked about her. Royals weren't to be trusted; they had done too much to hurt him. But her? She had risen from the one that the royals mocked to the one that they feared. He knew that she had done terrible things to get where she was. He knew that she would not be satisfied with the amount of power she had. She would always want more. And yet, despite all of that, he wanted her. He wanted to give her everything. And yet somehow it hadn't worked out how they planned it.

They had said that whomever survived would kill the Dark One. Without one another for protection, taking that power would be necessary. He had often worried that she would kill him just for the satisfaction of killing Rumplestiltskin, her lost lover. But instead he was here, stuck in a world where he saw the damn crocodile every single day, unable to kill the man. He could not fulfill that end of their deal. If he had died, she would have finished the task. Gladly, no doubt. But he could not fulfill her wishes. She had finally stopped doubting him, and this was how he fulfilled her trust.

He could not even visit her. Regina did not trust anyone in town to visit the grave after the reactions to her mother's death. There had been celebrations for the death of such a terrible villain, and no one gave a thought to how Regina might miss her mother. The heroes were good at that. They dehumanized their enemies until they felt that no one could possibly protest- and then they cut them down, gladly and with satisfaction. They were the true villains.

Hook just wanted to see her once more, but he knew that seeing such a strong woman so weak would only destroy his image of her. His mind supplied him with the image of her in her burial robe from when they had tricked Regina. He took hope from it, because then she had not truly died. Was it so much to hope that this too was a trick? He waited weeks for her, hoping that some day she would appear. But it didn't happen. He returned to doing what he was best at- only thinking of himself. To do otherwise was too painful.