AN: An angsty fic based off of all the finale spoiler pics that have been floating around. Thanks for reading, as always!
"Emma-" he pleads, and she can barely look at him now, hearing the way his voice breaks on her name. "Swan, please-"
"I have to do this." she says, barely contained sobs making her own voice crack. "You have to let me go."
Killian shakes his head, once, his eyes the color of desperation. When Emma sees the tears that pool in them, she can't hold her own back any longer. Everything about this is unfair; that she's losing him, again, and the permanency that's wrapped around this goodbye, and that being the Savior means never being able to save yourself.
(No one had told her that being tasked with bringing back the Happy Endings meant losing her own).
Emma forces herself to speak around the lump in her throat, no matter how close to choking she feels. Every word wavers with the sobs she holds at bay. "This affects everyone, now. I'm the Savior, and I know I can fix this, you just have to let me g-"
"I know." Killian says, but his voice breaks again, because he doesn't know anything, not at all, nothing except for her. All he knows is the tug of a smile on her lips when she kisses him hello, and the setting sun turning her blonde hair into a halo, and the grasp of her fingers in his.
She is all he wants to know for the rest of his days, but instead he's losing her once more. He's left only with the knowledge that he loves her, and that he can't let her do this, even as he knows he must.
Killian rests his forehead against hers, and, unwarranted, a memory comes back to Emma. Another lifetime, when, somewhere in the midst of Neverland's jungle, he'd promised to win her heart without trickery, promised that he'd win her heart because she wanted him.
(And now that she wants him, he's being taken from her).
The memory brings with it a wave of pain, and Emma closes her eyes as it crashes over her. She takes the moment to gather her strength, not wanting to look away from Killian but needing to find the courage to let go.
But when she opens her eyes, Emma knows that she'll never be prepared to say goodbye to him. She takes his hand in both of hers and presses it to her chest. Together, they feel the beating of her aching heart. She looks at Killian and tries to memorize every last detail of him, the impossible blue in his eyes and the line of his jaw and the scar that she still never got the story behind, and now never will.
Emma thinks that that might be the most unfair thing about this- all the stories she'll never get to hear and all the things she'll never get to say, and all the quiet moments they'll never get to spend together. She wishes for more time with him, for hours and months and years they'll never have.
(If they'd had more time, she'd have found an apartment for her and Henry, and she'd have woken to a pirate's smile first thing in the morning, and they would have filled the days in between the danger with quiet moments abound).
With a little more time, Emma's certain she would find the courage to tell him she loves him.
But there's no more time, and she's losing him, so instead she squeezes the hand that still rests over her heart. "You won it." she says, and Killian chokes out a single, guttural sob. "It's yours- and it's you, and it'll always be you." she's blubbering but she can't stop now, everything she wants to say like acid on her tongue, and when he kisses her temple, she combusts. "You were my happy ending, too, and- and I'm sorry."
Emma does stop herself then, because it's the best she can do. She knows Killian understands.
"Henry will be safe." he vows, and her son's name weighs heavily on Emma's shoulders. "I'll watch over him, and-" he stops, looks at her, hard. "I'll find you." He squeezes her hand so tightly her fingers go numb. "I swear, I will find you."
Emma knows that he wants her to promise that she'll be safe, that she'll have hope. That they'll see each other again, soon. She wants to promise him these things and more, but the words would be empty, and she doesn't want their last moment to be one of dishonesty.
But of course she promises him anyway, because she can't deny him this final wish, even knowing it's a lost cause. Even knowing it's foolish to believe.
Except that when she looks at him, the words don't feel empty. When she looks at him, his eyes are red-rimmed and blue, always so blue, blazing a fire from somewhere inside him. There's no hint of a lie in those eyes, no doubt or hopelessness. There's only faith, only determination and ache and love, love that fills the hole that's begun to reopen in her chest.
When she looks at him, the promise feels like exactly what it is.