It was Christmas Eve, Killian remembered. He had walked into Granny's, and promptly walked out once he saw the tree. Snowflakes falling one-by-one, floating peacefully onto his eyelashes. He could hear the merriment inside Granny's, wafting like cinnamon and chocolate and hope on the wind. Somehow he couldn't bring himself to step back inside, though. It was his first Christmas in Storybrooke without Emma.
The grief hit him at the strangest times, the strangest reminders. And he just couldn't get over the fact that even now, four weeks after her death, he would wake up and she wouldn't be lying beside him. He'd reach over to her pillow and smell the ever-present cinnamon that wafted around her like perfume, and it would just hurt to know that one day he wouldn't smell it.
He still couldn't walk past the Sheriff's office and not pause, wonder for a second if he should surprise her with lunch, then remember with crushing defeat that she wasn't there to surprise.
"Merry Christmas, Killian!" Ruby laughed, walking sloppily (and waving even more sloppily) away with a man. She was giggling and drunk and too damn happy for his liking. He sighed and let it go.
He didn't honestly have the energy to care.
He peeled himself away from the frosty wooden doorway supporting him and slogged through the remaining foot of snow covering the sidewalks.
When he tripped on a hidden crack in the pavement, he just rolled over and stared up at the fog-clouded sky.
The snowflakes kept drifting in the wind. The laughter continued inside the bar. He didn't feel the cold.
~*/~*/~*/~
"Do you need some help?" The voice of the Mayor startled Killian out of his depression. He blinked warily up at the shadow obscuring what little light leaked through the silver clouds.
"No." Killian closed his eyes again, clasping his hands comfortably above his solar plexus.
"No. But you do need to talk." Regina's shoes scratched against the asphalt.
"Why would I need to do that?" Killian asked wearily.
"I did, when my true love died." His eyes snapped open.
"Your-?" Regina nodded, hand outstretched.
"I need it as much as you do," She stated grimly. "And you need it a lot."
He took her hand.
~*/~*/~*/~
Later, over coffee and some weird breakfast Regina explained as being 'cereal', Killian discovered that he did, indeed feel a burning compulsion to talk to Regina, who felt a complete and utter need to respond in kind.
He felt energized, more alive than he had since Emma's death. He felt guilty for it.
He saw Rumplestiltskin walk into the diner and felt weariness and blank, gray weight crash down upon him again.
He should want revenge for Milah. He should want revenge for Emma, because he had no doubt that the Crocodile had had something to do with Cora's arrival in Storybrooke.
All he felt was pain and emptiness and a strange, familiar ache in his chest.
If his Crocodile walked right up to him right now and asked to be killed, Killian didn't know if he could muster the strength to lift a blade.
Well, he supposed he would find out, because Rumplestiltskin was indeed staring at him. The Crocodile made a move as though to walk towards him, but was pulled back by the petite redhead, the one Killian had backhanded in a jail cell. He still felt a bit guilty for that.
What was her name- Belle, he remembered, seemed to exert an extraordinary force upon Rumple. She held him back with a few words and a gentle hand. Killian found himself absently likening her to Emma in the way she stood between the two of them.
He hated her for a second, hated that Rumplestiltskin was able to have his True Love, while Killian was robbed twice over.
Then he lost the will to hate her and merely felt indifference.
Regina's curious stare fell like a shadow at his back as he asked for a drink.
The shot of whiskey burned down his throat like seawater and time.
He didn't get drunk.
He didn't feel anything.
He didn't leave their bed the next morning, just lay there smelling cinnamon and crying.
He missed Emma.
A/N: I'm so sorry if this made you sad and/or depressed, and that it's so short...
