A/N: A while back, my best friend and I decided to write a multi-chapter together. This is both hers and mine. We'd absolutely love if you could leave your reviews, thoughts, predictions, etc. in the comments section below. We want to know what you think. Each chapter will start out with lyrics that inspired us for that specific chapter, if you want to know the songs, just message me. Also, if you wish to die of feels while listening to this, I highly recommend listening to "Tessa" from Transformers: Age of Extinction. Spoilers from the season 4 finale - canon divergence from there.

Nothing goes as planned.
Everything will break.
People say goodbye.
In their own special way.
All that you rely on
And all that you can fake
Will leave you in the morning
But find you in the day

He hears it on a loop, her voice desperate, eyes filled with tears as she pushes him away. Away from her. Away from darkness.

I love you

He's longed to hear those words, waiting for her walls to subside enough to mutter what they both knew. It was all too familiar, pain blossoming from the bottom of his heart: loss, helplessness, grief all mingling together.

He's not sure when he started running, or when he fell to his knees in front of the dagger, the engraved letters reflecting in the moonlight. Emma Swan. They pierce through his soul like nothing he has ever felt before.

(The irony isn't lost on him. He once spent 300 years trying to kill the dark one and now...)

"Hook," David calls from behind, placing a supportive hand on his shoulder. He can't speak, lungs protesting. He can barely breathe and...

I love you.

It drowns him as his finger reaches the point of the blade, twisting the object delicately over his flesh. He can hear David in the background, attempting to beckon him back to the present. But the air is stinging with each inhale and even if he wanted to reply he's not sure anything but sobs would come out.

I love you.

"Hook-" Killian's arm flings out, pushing the Prince back as he falls further to the ground, inscribing a mark on the road.

"Emma-" David's voice is a quiet whisper this time as he registers what's spelled out across the sharp metal. Hearing her name fall from her father's lips hurts more than it should. Her name was his salvation, it was like a prayer he'd recite over and over again. Now it causes nothing but panic and fear and devastation. Marking his newly healed heart with more wounds that he knows will never heal. Not without her here.

He's being pulled upwards, four strong hands - David and Robin he assumes - and he can't move. She has to be here. She can't be gone. She can't-

"Killian -" And now he's back in her room, the last time he heard his name, out of breath as her lips lock with his and it's wonderfully dizzying. He can still taste her, hear her laughter as they fall onto the bed, feel the steadying beat of her heart under his palm. It's too much and yet not enough.

"We should get back to the loft, try and piece everything together." He can hear the pain in her father's voice, barely concealed with the assurance only a prince would carry.

Killian nods, fully rising to his feet and suddenly it feels like a huge weight has been pressed against him. Making it hard to move, even harder to breathe, making everything dull and lifeless.

They make it to the loft in no time at all and it physically hurts him to be here. To know just hours before she was in his arms smiling and laughing and happy. She deserves to be happy, deserves it more than she knows. And as Killian makes it to the door, it dawns on him that Henry has yet to be informed. No one has told the boy that he has once again lost his mother to darkness.

As soon as they walk in, they all sit at the table, all but Killian. Who chooses instead to perch himself on the sofa, as far away from her family as he can get. He watches with solemn eyes as Regina tells the lad what happened. That the darkness spilled out of Gold's shop, tried to take her over and then Emma did the unthinkable. Sacrificed herself to save them.

"What do you mean she's gone?" He hears the young lad's voice crack, and it feels like another knife is being plunged into his chest.

"She vanished," Mary Margaret speaks softly, sniffling back tears that Killian has as well. "The darkness took her over and then…"

"So mom's the new dark one?" Killian can see the boy processing, much like he is doing now. He wants to move to him, reassure him, anything...but his feet feel like lead and his body sags down deeper into the couch. His eyes never leaving the blade. This isn't right, this isn't fair.

All is quiet for a moment, before Henry speaks again. "How do we get her back?"

"Henry, honey it's not that simple."

"Yes it is! She's still my mom. Deep down Mom is still the savior and she's out there, somewhere. I know it. She just risked her life, watched Killian die, to bring you all back. To save the day. We have to save her too!" Henry's insistence seems to give the rest of the family the spark they needed because they're up and planning faster than Hook expected. But he still doesn't move to join then, doesn't shift his gaze from the cursed blade, that's now the reason that the only two women he's loved were taken from him.

"Well why don't we just summon her?" the words roll off Robin's tongue and it lights a new spark into the group, who turn to look at the broken pirate. A moment passes before Regina speaks up, calling him back to the moment. Slowly, he comes out of his own world, processing what they said several seconds late.

"I . .I. . ." He squeezes the handle of the dagger. After the lifetimes I've spent searching for a way to destroy the dark one, I'm pretty certain I'd remember holding that dagger in my hand. He hadn't realized it earlier, that he had been holding what he once considered the purpose of living: the key to revenge on the Dark One. It was all so wrong. Emma had chased away the lust for revenge, and in turn, the control that the dagger had on his life. The dagger now hung in the balance between him and love once more. It was all so wrong.

"I summon-" Three hundred years of waiting. He should be waiting for the Crocodile to appear, not the woman who stole his heart.

"I summon thee" He feels the ache in his heart worsen as their eyes glare at him - into him. He'd never let people see him this vulnerable, in this much pain. He swore to himself after Milah that no one would ever see him weak again. But this was Emma.

"I summon thee, Dark One" he chokes out, gripping the object so tightly that it bruises his fingers. He waits. No one. Nothing. He repeats it, but she's gone. Unresponsive. Still not here.

"Why the bloody hell isn't it working?" He exclaims, holding the dagger higher in the air. It quivered with the anguish in his hold.

"I don't know. But I know someone who might." Charming says, his voice steadying out by the end of response. Killian raises an eyebrow. "The Apprentice."

He's there within five minutes but Killian isn't processing the situation again. He's zoning in and out; picking up fragments or words about light and dark magic. How it's overpowering. It had nowhere manifest itself. He thinks he hears the words "not" and "Storybrooke" somewhere meshed together but he's slumped back down into the cushions, reaching for his flask in his pocket after chucking the dagger towards the edge of the couch.

"Killian?" Snow cautiously approaches him, taking the empty spot to his left. "Are you okay?"

"How the hell do you think I am? Did you expect me to be frolicking through the bloody forest." He doesn't intend for his tone to sound so bitter, to be so hostile towards her, but the last thing he wants to hear is another "hope speech". He wants to drink, and sulk, and miss her.

"Before she left, Emma said something. What was it?"

It's like pouring rum on an open wound, just when Emma's words stopped ringing in his ears they come rushing back with a force so strong it nearly knocks him to his knees. "'I love you.' She said 'I love you.'"

"Good." He has to blink a few times, his face awash with unspoken questions and shocked. "And do you love her?"

"Aye."

"Then you'll find her."

"How is it that you and the prince can be so infuriatingly hopeful?" He wants to roll his eyes, to run upstairs away from the masses and be with something tangibly hers. Not the cursed dagger. It wasn't hers. It couldn't be.

"I'm gonna let you in a little secret, Hook. If you love someone and they love you…"

"They will always find you." Killian finished her sentence with a soft exhale. Closing his eyes, slowly, and picturing Emma's face. Her emerald eyes, her hair of gold, her smile that lights up his entire world.

I love you

He only opens his eyes again, when he feels Snow get up. Killian turns to the open window, his gaze lifting to the stars that seem to have lost their usual glimmer. I love you, too, Swan.

-/-/-

The ground is cold beneath her palms, her body buzzing with adrenaline and magic. She groans in pain as she shifts, coming to rest against what appears to be a stone wall. As her eyes adjust to the new darkness that surrounds her, the blonde quickly realizes she's not in Storybrooke anymore.

"Where the hell am I?"

A dark voice rises from behind her. It's laced with sin and power, "You're in my world now."