Tumblr prompts:
Hook or Emma experience a fatal injury that even True Loves kiss can't heal.
and
Last kiss scenario.
Angst ahead!
"Killian."
She breathes his name softly, her legs nearly giving out on her as she stumbles and falls to the ground near the trees he had suddenly appeared at before collapsing in place. Kneeling beside him, she takes in his bruised and battered form, her vision blurring slightly as the threat of hot and angry tears prick at her eyes—the burning dampness a mocking reminder of her ever developing feelings for the man laying in a heap next to her.
He had saved him.
Henry.
After weeks of ups and downs, victories and losses she had finally begun to lose hope—Pan's games constantly changing, the rules consistently in his favor.
Until three days ago.
Hook had disappeared
Sneaking away from the group in the middle of the night, the pirate had left them. Had left her. And in his place, he had sent her son back to her. The boy had showed up suddenly and without warning, dirty and confused but unharmed—rambling about how Captain Hook had kidnapped him from Pan's camp, shoving a map and a vial of stolen pixie dust in his hands before hissing at him to run, telling him that his mother was waiting for him—the map leading Henry back to her, the pixie dust their key to going home.
Hook had stayed behind, distracting and fighting off Pan's rag-tag army.
He had saved Henry.
And the cost had only been his life.
The fool.
His face is barely recognizable, open cuts and deep scratches litter his skin, marring his features and shadowing his beauty. She can see the knife wound in his stomach—the blood seeping from his middle mingles with the dirt caked onto his clothes to form a muddied crimson pool on the ground beside him.
"Pan's dead."
She doesn't ask any questions, doesn't really register his murmured statement as he struggles for air in front of her; the lingering presence of her family at her back—Mary Margaret, David, Henry, Neal—stopping her from screaming out the inner anguish that is clawing its way inside of her, even as her mind is unable to truly wrap itself around the sight she is seeing.
And God she hates him at that moment.
"It was easy you know."
His voice, soft and raspy, pulls her from her hazy fog and raising her eyes to meet his, she watches his lips quirk up slightly as his eyes, glassy and unfocused, meet hers—the watery and dim blue replacing their usual vivid brightness.
"Killing Pan?" she asks, her teeth finding her lower lip as she unthinkingly grabs for his hand, the coolness of his skin shocking her as she holds it in her lap, the feel of tears continuing to well in her eyes barely noticeable as something heavy settles itself deep in her gut.
"No." he coughs once, the sputtering sound nearly drowned out by the wheezing rattle in his chest, his body convulsing slightly as a tremor ripples through him.
Her eyes drifting to his wound realization sinks in slowly—the poison there is working quicker than the dreamshade they had dealt with when David had been nicked with the potentially fatal toxin. And she knows, through whispers she had picked up on between Hook and Tinkberbell, that if this poison had come from Pan's dagger there is no cure…it's different from dreamshade or any other poison out there…no magic will heal it, no kiss will break its lethal curse.
It's final.
And it's moving fast.
He's fading quickly.
"Then what was easy?" she asks him needing the distraction as she shifts even closer—part of her wanting to yell at him, part of her wanting to comfort him, part of her wanting to run away fast.
"Choosing you."
She pauses at that, her heart stopping for a moment, her breath catching, her eyes widening. "I—"
"I'd do it again…in a heartbeat. Choose you, go with you, save Henry, I'd even—"
"Die?" the question is bitter, her tone soft and harsh.
His eyes narrow fractionally; a somewhat apologetic look crosses his features before he nods slightly—the small movement seemingly taking a massive amount of effort. "If it meant saving you." His voice is gentle—the truth in his words jarring and genuine.
And it's with that statement that the dam finally breaks.
She doesn't try to stop the tears as they trail down her face, hot and branding and damning. Giving into the urge that has been gnawing at her since she had first seen his injured form clearing the trees, she leans over and practically throws her body over his. Weeping quietly she pays no attention to his fatal wound, she disregards the fact that she could be hurting him, she ignores the blood that flows between them, she even forgets the audience at her back. Resting her forehead against his, she closes her eyes briefly, willing the world away, before opening them again, her heart breaking slowly as she looks into his searching gaze—his stare reflecting everything that she had spent a lifetime looking for.
And even seeing it, clear as day, she hesitates.
She won't whisper words of unwavering commitment, of undying devotion, of unbreakable love
Because she can't.
She doesn't love him.
But it's not lost on her that she was close.
That she could have.
That she would have.
Had she been given the chance.
And with the thought ringing in her ears, the realization coursing throughout her, the piercing awakening settling itself inside of her, she places her lips over his dry and chapped ones. Smiling sadly against him, her kiss, soft and barely there, lingers only for a moment as he struggles with his last breaths—the poison stealing him fast. Despair weighing heavily on her shoulders, she says the only thing that comes to her mind, the only honest words she can allow herself to speak as he fades away from her, leaving her just like everyone else.
"I would have chosen you too." she breathes, kissing him gently once more, before she allows grief to consume her and pushes away from him slowly.
With her kiss the last thing he registers, he dies with a smile on his lips and a peaceful expression on his face and as he slips away from her, she's fairly certain that he takes with him her ability to ever truly open herself up to love again.
End
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