This car had never been fast enough.

It was dark, the headlights barely keeping up with the road at the pace it was flashing by underneath the tires, but even though everything outside the window was a faint blur it still wasn't enough. It wasn't enough because it was 3am and because Killian had forgotten how empty the house got when he was the only one in it and because he couldn't lose himself in work anymore because the cavernous garage echoed with memories of her like everything did now. So he drove.

The GTO wasn't an ideal choice, but it was the best he had. When he had opened the door the car had smelled like her, and the seat was still adjusted to her height and not his, and when he had turned the key all he had heard was the growl of the engine the day she had taken this car to the store and the beautiful, breathless smile that she hadn't been able to keep off her face when she came back. But here, at least, he could push the gas pedal further and further towards the floor, let the car press him back into his seat with rushes of speed, and try to delude himself into thinking he could outrun his memories.

The speed came in fits and starts though, because as desperate as he was to forget her, he was twice as desperate to grasp at his memories like straws and keep her close even though he had no right to, even though she clearly didn't want it.

Even steeped in recklessness and desperation, even half mad with adrenaline, even trying to lose himself in the glowing speedometer ticking higher and higher on the dial, he remembered holding her close in the early hours of the morning. He remembered the shape of her body moulded perfectly to his, her chest rising and falling gently, and the house suddenly alive and warm and home for the first time in too many years. She doesn't love you, he had reminded himself so many times in those fragile hours. She is lonely and you are here and this is temporary. But it was so easy to forget with her pressed up against him, with her in his kitchen in the morning, with her voice drifting across the garage as they worked in tandem, with her hand anchored in his as he spoke words nobody in the world had ever heard.

He had thought that despite her ever-clear intentions to leave, what lived between them would be enough to make her stay - or at least enough for her to think about it. But no, the moment her car had been able to take her from him, she was ready to go. He punched the gas harder as he remembered because this memory he had no problem outrunning: her voice telling him that she was going to leave in the morning, and the image that was now seared in his mind of her driving away from him and never looking back.

How long had he spent standing in the driveway like a bloody fool, staring at the horizon and wishing that she would turn around?

He was about to press the car further even though he was already asking it for more than enough, but as he blew past a crossroad the white and brown Sheriff's car pulled out after him, lights already on. He kept going and for one long moment, he though that David would let it go. But then the unmistakable blare of the siren cut through the growl of the GTO's engine and, with a sigh, Killian pulled his foot off the gas and let the car coast to a stop.

"If I thought a ticket would do you any good, I'd have given you about twenty over the past few days." David said when he came up to Killian's open window, leaning his forearms against the roof of the car and sighing heavily. "You've got to stop this, Killian. There are only so many times I can turn a blind eye before I have to bring you in, and the garage would go to shit if you lost your license."

"I'll keep that in mind."

"Bullshit." David straightened and motioned for Killian to get out of the car. "This isn't anything you don't know already, but you need to start caring about the consequences."

"I'll slow down. I promise." Killian said and stayed in his seat a second longer, hoping that David would just let him go. The other man stared at him for a long moment but inclined his head towards the Sheriff's car again, and with a sigh Killian opened the door and hopped out. "Come on, Dave. Can we please not do this?"

"Hey, don't put this on me - you're the one who initiated this when you started ignoring the basic rules of the road."

Killian arched an eyebrow. "You going to take me in, then? Is that what this is?"

"We're going to go for a drive, you and I." David turned and headed back towards the car, calling over his shoulder, "Your car isn't going anywhere."

"The window's open!"

"There's nobody on these roads but you, Killian. Stop stalling." David sank into the cruiser's driver's seat and gave Killian a significant look through the windshield. Killian didn't know why he even bothered arguing - David was nothing if not persistent, when he wanted to be. So he followed, settling into the passenger seat and letting David pull onto the road, the silence between them too heavy for this to be a casual drive between friends.

David stayed quiet for a few blissful minutes, but there was no way it was going to last. Still, he drove them silently through town, following the country roads Killian had been driving all night, until they reached the harbour. He parked in a spot facing the water and the docks, all lit up and glowing faintly in the night, and then twisted until he was facing Killian.

"Did your wife put you up to this?" Killian asked.

"My wife didn't have to." David said. "I've seen you tearing around town in that car, and I can tell just by looking at you that you haven't been sleeping. And you're lucky I haven't told my wife because we both know she wouldn't leave you alone if I did."

"I don't need a minder, Dave."

David just nodded, and Killian turned away from him as he let silence stretch between them again. David was as bad as Mary Margaret when it came to being a mother hen, and between that and his duties as Sheriff, Killian could only imagine the lecture he was in for if David was telling the truth about how many times he had seen Killian pushing the limits of what could be considered a safe driving speed.

"I know you miss her." David said instead, and that was the worst thing he could have done. Killian could have handled anger, frustration, disappointment...he could have handled yelling or threats of jail time. But the sheer gentle understanding in David's voice cut straight through him so when Killian spoke, it was around a sudden lump in his throat.

"I always knew she planned to leave." He said roughly. "I don't-"

"Don't waste your breath lying to me. Just because you knew she was going to leave doesn't mean you can't miss her. And frankly, after seeing you two together, I thought she was going to stay. I can only imagine what it must have been like for you."

"Can you now?" Killian barked a laugh. "No, David, she was always very clear with me about how temporary her stay was going to be. I was the one who wasn't willing to hear her."

"There was something there, Killian. I know it, you know it, and she had to know it too. And losing that..."

"Can we not?"

David gave Killian a look that said he knew that this was pure denial, but still shifted in his seat so he was staring out the windshield. Killian could see his eyes skim over the faint shape of the waves in the dark and suddenly it became clear that he was very studiously not looking at Killian. "I just remember those weeks and months after Liam-"

"David..." Killian could hear the warning in his own voice as he cut David off because the man could talk about Emma all he wanted but he was not allowed to pull either of them back into the memory of what things had been like after Liam's death. David said weeks and months but what he meant was years - years of sleepless nights and restlessness and the house suddenly being too much and not enough, of hours spent in the garage and on the streets around town, of speeds that made his whole body buzz with adrenaline and his life seem so fragile, of early mornings sitting in booths at the diner with bitter black coffee and a heavy weight in the air between them because David had bailed him out too many times when he got caught by a Sheriff who was far less understanding than David was now.

"I just don't want to see you lose yourself again." David said gravely. "That's all."

Killian wanted to brush him off, but there was too much history there to tell David that he was overreacting, or to deny that losing himself was exactly what Killian was doing.

"Noted." He managed finally. "But may I also point out that I don't need a babysitter and that I can make my own choices?"

"As your friend, I can't let you do that. And as a law enforcement professional I'm duty-bound to tell you that your current choices are going to land you in a cell if you don't quit it, alright?"

"No more speeding." Killian bobbed a nod. "Are you going to take me back to my car now, or will I be walking?"

"That depends. Are you going to listen to me?"

"No more speeding. I promise."

"It's not just that. It's the driving, the late nights, you in the garage at all hours...it's you undermining your own happiness that I don't want to see."

That was laughable, almost, that David couldn't see how everything Killian did was an attempt to get to a place where he could be happy - where he could forget enough about his past to have a chance at some sort of future. But as much as Killian wanted to cover it up with a bitter laugh and a raised brow and a response that would hide more than it revealed, he couldn't think of happiness and not remember the acute sensation of waking up that first morning with Emma in his bed, knowing that he had spent a full night in a house that had been nothing but ghosts for so long, and thinking for the first time in a long time that maybe happy was something he could be again.

He closed his eyes against the memory because it hadn't been true, of course. "She's everywhere, David." He ground out. "How am I supposed to just...go back to things being normal when she is everywhere?"

"I don't know if I have the answer to that one." David said. He was silent for a moment after that and Killian let his head fall back against the headrest, eyes still closed. If David didn't have the answer, how the hell was he supposed to come up with it?

A few more long moments, then David spoke again. "How serious did things get between the two of you?" He asked. "Did you..."

"Not serious in the way you're thinking. But just..." Killian opened his eyes and looked helplessly at his friend because they had gotten somewhere but he didn't have the words.

"Serious in a way that matters more." David supplied with a nod. "Did you tell her?"

"I told her I wanted her to stay. I told her that things had changed with her here. I told her..." He paused a moment until regret wasn't such a bitter taste in his mouth, because he had told her a lot of things but he hadn't told her what David was getting at now. "She had to know how much I wanted her here, Dave. Over a month together and she had to."

"You sure about that?"

"I don't know what I'm sure of anymore." Killian pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "But the fact remains that she is the one who left after starting something and I don't have the right to change her mind. She was always honest with me about what she wanted and even if what I want doesn't line up, that's up to me to handle."

"And what do you want?" David asked quietly, and even though he wasn't looking at the other man Killian could feel David's careful stare.

A future he thought instantly, because he had known that first week how far he wanted things to go with Emma. But he meant what he said: yes she had started something with him, yes she had made him feel more than he had felt in years, yes she had made him hope that his wishes and hers were becoming the same, and yes she had left, but he had known right from the start that what was between them could only ever be temporary, and he wasn't going to let himself want anything more than what he had gotten because even that was more than he could ever have hoped for. So he locked a future away with the other things he had lost, and instead said, "I want to not be discussing my feelings in the early hours of the morning with my mate in a police car. And I'd very much like if you'd take me back to my car. Please."

David stared at him for another long moment, and Killian didn't dare so much as dart his gaze over to the other man because he knew David knew exactly what Killian was doing, and how little this dismissal meant that he was in any way over Emma or over any of it. But David had known Killian too long to think that pushing would get him anywhere, so he just started the car back up in silence and pulled back onto the road.

Killian was three cups deep in his pot of coffee the next morning but he still felt like he was working through a fog, the late night and several others before it weighing heavily as he walked into the front lot to a Volvo 760 that was supposed to have been finished two days ago. It wasn't just that Emma had left him one staff member short, but that it took him twice as long now to do the work that was slowly piling up around him because he kept finding himself turning around to catch words that weren't being spoken from across the garage, starting to make a comment on whatever it was he was doing before realizing that there was nobody there to hear it, and looking for an extra pair of hands to help him before realizing that they weren't there.

He had intended to move the car inside to start working on it, but instead he sank down into the driver's sear and pressed his forehead against the harsh line of the doorframe. He closed his eyes and tried to focus his mind, tried to make everything clear in a way it hadn't been in...if he was being honest, in a way it hadn't been since Emma left.

His days now were marked by the hours passing by in the empty garage, by days that flew by without him saying a word to another person, by the constant reminders that what he was living on now were memories. Most of all, it was the sensation that everything was off-balance and that he had no clue how to find a place where he could just be again - where his life felt like something he was building instead of like he was just passing time. He couldn't help but feel that this was all so deeply unfair because it had been one month together that had done this to him, and only weeks together together - all of it with someone who had never intended to stay, had never intended to build the kind of future he couldn't keep himself from imagining, and had never told him anything that should have led him to think any differently.

Still, here he was, feeling so acutely the hole in his life she was never meant to have made.

Did you tell her? David had asked. Killian thought that he had, and though that he hadn't needed to. But now he thought that maybe everything he was feeling was on him because if he had told her in as many words that she had somehow staked a claim to part of him - that somewhere in the midst of teasing him across the garage and eating breakfast across the table from him and listening without judgement or, worse, pity when he told her everything...that somewhere in the midst of all of that she had become something so much more to him - then maybe she would have stayed.

He dug in his pocket and palmed his cell phone, staring at it for a moment and wondering if somehow he could turn this all around. He still had her number saved, along with a goofy photo she had taken one day in the garage without him noticing, and it would take nothing for him to call her, say...something, and see if it would make any kind of difference. He ran a finger over the screen and it came to life, and was it so wrong for him to fight for this? He scrolled through his contacts until he found her, and he didn't know what he would say when - if - she picked up but could he go through another monotonous day with what if still heavy in the air?

But no. No, because what happened between them wasn't up to him. No, because she wanted to leave and it wasn't fair to question that. No, because it had always been her choice. Always would be.

He straightened and slammed the car door, tossed the phone on the seat beside him and waiting until the screen turned black before twisting the key harshly in the Volvo's ignition and backing it into the empty garage.