The rings weighs his pocket down like a stone, so heavy he's convinced it would drown him if he fell into the depths by the pier.

The idea is not as unappealing as Killian knows it should be.

His longer leather jacket is still no deterrence for the snow, but he merely embraces the cold: feels some level of righteous retribution as it rolls down his neck.

He deserves this, to be standing in the cold as opposed to warm by the fire with Emma. It is nothing compared to the wet shine of her eyes, the hesitant step back from him, the way her voice rose and broke when she discovered the dreamcatcher.

Sodding coward. He nearly made her cry.

His fingers fumble in his pocket, thumb circling between the ring and the note he wrote and rewrote, revised and trashed until its crinkled and bears wet spots from his tears.

I'm sorry. I love you. None of it seemed enough. The words seem superfluous but Killian needs her to know that no matter what has been exchanged between them:

I will return. It's the most important phrase. He may need to leave to find himself but he will not have Emma think he has left her liked everyone else. He needs her to know that he simply needs to find himself again before returning but that he will return.

Now, he's just not sure how to give it to her. Depositing it in the mailbox seems like another act of supreme cowl but he doesn't know if he has the right to enter their home again as he is, even to drop it at the table.

Shame drips through him, making him shiver as he crinkles the paper again.

Arsehole.

"Killian!" Her mother's voice wakes him from his pondering, her eyes full of joy and it makes his head spin, that kind of happiness existing when his sorrow seems boundless.

Snow's babbling on about Regina, asking after Emma. He can barely keep up with the conversation, everything muted and fuzzy but then he hears the paper wrinkle in his pocket again.

He can give it to her. In fact, he should give it to her. He should tell Snow what he's done to her family and send her and the note to Swan so at least she's not alone when she reads it. She'll hate him: for her husband and her daughter, but at least Emma will have someone.

Plan established, Killian has the note half-drawn out of his pocket when he registers exactly what he is being told.

"...finally got her happy ending-love-I'm so happy for you both."

The Queen. The evil, black-hearted queen found redemption. His hand pauses and he's still long enough for Snow to reach over and kiss his cheek in a gesture so welcoming it makes him blink against sudden moisture in his eyes. He is so desperately undeserving of it.

But the Queen-if the Queen could start anew…

He shoves the note back in his pocket, trying to smile at Emma's mother before she walks away from the chill of the note. Renewed determination fills his spine, making him stand tall.

No. He will not leave Emma. He does not need to go find himself, he needs to stay and follow her here, where she can find him. His feet turn, bag thrown over his shoulder and Killian makes two steps towards the house, their house before he faults.

Damnation. Nemo is waiting for him. The Captain has been too good a friend for him not to at least let him depart on time. He will go, say his piece, and return home.

The decision solidifies his muscles, warms his blood against the cold as his boots fall heavy on the pier. He pulls the ring out, clutching it in his hand before retrieving the note and throwing it into the water.

No more running. Come hell or highwater, he is staying with Emma.

His stomach sinks with the submarine, a thousand thoughts whirling together at one.

He's going to hurt her. That bloody bastard has sent him away so he can go after Emma. Fear turns his blood to slush, makes his chest hurt when it pulls even as rage falls over his eyes. Will he strike at their house? Is he going to pose as Killian to get close to her? Wait till she's asleep and slit her throat?

Belle's babe or no, he will kill Gideon the next time he sees him.

"Killian-" Nemo is calling him, trying to reach him and Killian looks down to see his hand is clenched so hard he's drawing his own blood.

"Turn it around," He barks, need to protect Swan clawing at his insides. "Get us back up, now!"

Gray-sweatered technicians are whirring around him, muttering things about busted control panels and unclosed portal doors.

The Captain gives him a soft look. "I'm sorry Killian. The Nautilus isn't under our control anymore."

"Well then get it under your damn control!" He's shouting and he knows it's unfair, that none of this is Nemo's fault but that man is going to try to kill Emma and he isn't there.

"Hey," Liam steps before Nemo, raising his voice in return. "It's not his fault!"

Killian barks, nearly foaming at the mouth as Nemo pulls Liam aside, calming the lad and sending him away. He wants to rip something, tear the belly of this vessel until he can swim back to Emma.

There's an explosion of steam. Shouts in a foreign tongue. Tools are clanking and they rock hard, sending Killian skidding to the side. A portal, he knows distantly. They are going through a portal and he won't be able to-

A sick, terrible thought wells up in him so suddenly that Killian staggers, bracing himself against the wall and breathing through his nose to keep his guts from spilling.

The note.

He threw away the note.

No. No. No. No. She doesn't know. He was going back. He was always coming back.

But now he's left in the middle of the night with no word. Killian feels his heart thundering through his ribs, an angry wasp beating. Swan must know. He died for her and she went to the Underworld for him, and she must know that he'd never abandon her, right? But he sees the fall of her face, the immense burden of the ring handed back to him.

He breathes against the panic closing his throat. She'll think something has happened, first. Swan is clever and there's a madman on the loose. She'll worry and search and-

And what, Hook's voice snarks in his mind. Turn up nothing but her mother saying he was last spotted on the docks with a satchel over his shoulder? Learn that his one friend in this town conveniently departed the night he disappeared? And his witness-his witness will spread any lie he can to weaken her, to make her feel alone.

"Killian," Nemo places a hand on his shoulder and it burns, straight through him, forcing him to his knees. The good captain follows, pressing so Killian doesn't fall over.

Bloody fuck. That house. That house that is so warm when it is theirs is too much alone. He remembers when Emma was gone, how he stayed one night there for Henry's sake. But the empty creaking of the floorboards and the faded smell of her scent in their sheets taunted him. The way the wind blew through the bay windows simply highlighted the lack of her form beside him, humming in her sleep.

He'd sent the lad to Regina's and returned to his ship, where at least he was familiar with the lack of company.

Seven hells, she'll be returning there. To that too-big, too-silent house and keep the damned porch light on for him the way she does. She'll stay up as long as she can waiting for him until a pathetic excuse for sleep comes over her. Emma will search and worry and find nothing and her eyes-those beautiful, storm green eyes of her when he left weren't the Saviour's or the Sheriff's, or the powerful woman's who has fleeced him with his own loaded die.

They were the lost girl's. The wide, heartbroken set of the little girl who was shuffled from homes, who was left by every man, who-

Nemo forces his head up and Killian meets his gaze as dread unfurls in his gut. "She doesn't know-"

It's all he gets out before he pitches to the side and upheaves the contents of his insides.

At first, she's terrified. She knows that Hook's upset with her but it's below freezing outside and he isn't answering his phone.

He always picks up. Unless he's cursed or sucked into another universe or dying in some ditch-

She makes it two hours before she locks the door and pulls the bug out. Trying to stem the panic, she checks his usual spots. The docks. His ship. Granny's. The Rabbit Hole. The sheriff's station. No one has seen him for hours.

By two a.m. she wakes her father, her tongue feeling heavy in her mouth as she explains that Killian has gone missing.

He drops her mother and baby brother off at Regina's and joins her in the squad car. They search the woods. Town line. Gold's shop. Archie's office.

By three, Emma's twitching every time the radio cracks and Regina calls, quietly saying that the locator spell failed.

Her heart studs. The implications are left unsaid.

But she refuses to believe that they've fought so hard for each other to lose now. Maybe Gideon has cast some cloaking spell. Maybe he's hurt, beaten and battered and just waiting, trusting in her to find him.

Regina says nothing to this but simply agrees to keep trying and asks for David again. Emma knows they're talking about her when her father gives her a sorrowful, side-eye as she stomps through the graveyard, brushing aside branches with frozen fingers.

It's 4:06 a.m. when her father's hand falls, warm and heavy on her shoulder. "Sweetheart-"

She bites her lip, refusing to look at his face which she knows will be drawn pale, blue eyes sagging. "No-" Her hands dig into the earth as if she can simply force the pirate into her grasp. "I'm not giving up on him. We have to-David, he's got to be here somewhere."

His sigh makes her pulse slow, her chin wobble. "Emma, it's freezing outside. We need to-"

She turns on him, heel sharp in the frozen dirt and hair whipping in dischord. "No! He's out there somewhere. Aren't you two 'mates' or some shit?! How can you give up on him? How can you-dad-daddy, he has to...he can't…"

Her tears fall, half-frozen and unbidden down her cheeks. She swipes at them furiously, her hands shaking, unable to form words pass the sob that rises out of her mouth.

Everything is suddenly very warm, a gentle pressure at the back of her head and the smell of pine and sugar cookies invades her senses. Her arms slide limp, tears spilling now into the soft green wool of her father's sweater.

"I know sweetheart. I know." And it's the sorrow in his voice, the smell of water from his eyes, that makes her slump against him until he herds her back home.

She falls into a restless doze on her parent's couch and wakes up to a pile of pancakes her father must have made, and real, straight-from-chocolate cocoa with double servings of whipped cream from her mother, with said woman kneeling before her with wide, crying eyes.

She wants to upend the table for a moment. Emma loves her parents but if they think sugar is going to make her forget that her True Love has seemingly vanished from thin air-

"Emma," Her mother says, her voice wobbling and wet. She sets a gentle hand on her knee and Emma has to resist the urge to toss it off. "There's something I need to tell you."

At first, it doesn't register.

Hook was by the docks, backpack thrown over his shoulder, new coat to withstand harsher temperatures. Nemo's sub departed last night.

Her soul rebels because Killian's done a lot of fucked up shit in his life but it literally took death for him to leave her. He somehow found in her New York fucking City of all places, he would never-

The ring. The gleam that once caught her eye making them burn and her toes tingle with fury. The way he tripped over the word 'bear', the trembling of his entire body as he stood before her, nearly swaying into her space, the open, silent mouth once she handed the ring back.

She'd been angry but she loves him and Emma has to swallow because suddenly she's not sure Hook knew that. She's not the only one with enough baggage to fill up an airport. She knows she's not an easy person to love, knows that even without the murder of David's father, he was nervous about proposing. She would have made him nervous, the prickly woman with a thousand walls and fear of commitment. Kilian carries his own doubts and what did she do after he worked up the courage to put his ass on the line?

Hand him the ring back.

She lies back as her mother keeps babbling, talking about toe nail polishes and red wine nights and-

"You're so afraid of losing the people that you love, that you push them away. That's why you'll always be an orphan."

Emma sits up from the couch, getting her feet solid on the ground and tossing a quick, "raincheck" back to her mother as she leaves. She can't be here, with a Fairy Tale Princess married to Prince Charming.

She needs-well not rum. Tequila, perhaps. And lots of it.

Because Emma Swan is almost certain she sent the best man she's ever met packing.

She remembers now why she always preferred cities to small towns: gossip.

By the time she reaches the Rabbit Hole, the whole town must be aware of the departure of her live-in pirate because the bartender doesn't ask for cash before pouring her shot after shot and Ruby shows up after the first hour with a murderous grin.

Emma lifts one eye. She was getting drunk, not stupid. "My mom send you?"

Red grins, sliding in beside her in a snug leather skirt and painfully low-cut top. Her long, painted fingernails drilled on her glass as the bartender handed her a cocktail without flinching. "Hmm? Well apparently Regina suggested to Snow that you might need a less...aggressive drinking buddy."

Her fingers freeze on the shot, now fulling turning to Ruby. "You were less aggressive?" She likes Ruby, she really does. But she's also had to threaten to arrest her for public indecency when she finds a conquest-or found. All of that was prior to Dorothy. Ruby's True Love.

Emma scowls and downs the shot, gesturing for another.

Red shrugs. "Snow was making new arrows when I got there. Charming looked scared. I'd suggest selling his beautiful man-whore body before tearing it apart and thus, less aggressive. Really, I think my rep is taking a hit with all this."

She snorts but doesn't shoo Ruby away. She is a good drinking buddy when you're in the mood to-well, when you're in the kind of mood Emma is in.

She orders a beer to mix up the tequila but even the alcohol doesn't make it go unnoticed to Emma that her parents sent not only a decent friend, but a rather fierce wolf to go drink with her.

Because, you know, death via infant-turned-homicidal-maniac doesn't wait for heartbreak.

Emma scowls again. She orders the rest of the bottle to go.

He sleeps for long hours but wakes up dizzy and gutted. In his waking hours, he goes from brooding and lethargic and vicious and pent-up so swift even the sickeningly sweet mermaid who once rescued his sorry arse is starting to get fed up with him.

But he's 20,000 leagues below the sea in the wrong realm with no hope of return in sight and at least when he's asleep, he can dream of her. He dreams of the way her hair shimmers, a messy pool of gold against his nose in the morning. The way her entire being lit up after he successfully mastered a modern kitchen and surprised her with dinner on the table when she came home. The faint smell of lilac and the delicious, honeysuckle taste between her thighs. He wakes up trembling with longing from those dreams.

He pulls his mouth from in between her legs, unable to resist one last, gentle suckle of her clit before he moves, causing her to shiver and groan with sensitivity until he grins against her belly. Killian pulls himself upward, draping himself across her form until he can rub his nose against hers, wait for her eyes to open again.

Her breasts cant up to his chest with her heavy pants and Emma opens her eyes lazily, dark with desire and satiation. She pats him weakly on the shoulder with one hand.

"Good show Cap'n."

He chuckles lightly, dipping down to nip at her lips and Emma bends her knees, causing his weeping cock to rub against her hip. He groans against her mouth, arms tense with unslaked need.

"Swan-"

She grins against his mouth, opening wide to devour him and shifting so he's held in the cradle of her thighs, thrusting weekly against her warmth. "Gods-bloody hell Swan, give a man a minute."

Her giggle tinkles in the air and Killian would bottle it if he could, light his lanterns with the sound like fay light. She reaches further to scratch at the base of his neck, smooth the sweaty hair off his forehead only for it to fall back again.

Warmth suffuses through his limbs at the pout she makes to the unruly locks and he's half-forgotten why he's slowed them. There was something he was to ask-

His hips move against her again and it clicks. Ah, yes, that was it.

"Love, I went to see Whale last week."

Emma arches her brows at him and Killian bites his lips because yes, he could have started that smoother. But how the bloody hell was he supposed to speak when she was so hot and wet, just inches from where he ached.

"I went to get that test-oh fuck Emma-" She choose that moment to roll her hips up against his and he has to grab her hip and pant hard into her neck to keep his thoughts from obliterating.

Swan looks innocently at him and he pinches her side lightly in retort because this was important to her. He breaths. "That rest you told me about. I have the results if you'd like to see but the doctor told me I had a bill of clean health."

Emma's cheshire grin fades slightly and she blinks as she realizes that he's talking about the STD panel she insisted he get before they forewent condoms. She leans back against the headrest to sit up and he whines at the loss of heat. She trusts Killian implicitly but her fingers shake slightly and she meets his concerned gaze. "Can I see it?"

He nods, sliding off her in a flash and treading around his rented room nude for the form, reaching into the drawers to snatch the confusing document up and race back to her.

She takes it from him and while he wants to bury himself back into her flesh, Killian leans by her side as her eyes skim the documents. She's much more serious than just a moment ago and he's already regretting bringing it up because the sheaths are hardly a steep price to pay to be inside her. The thought of nothing though-of just his bare flesh against hers-it made him dizzy with desire and now he's afraid he's made a muck of things.

Swan nods, setting the paper back on Granny's end table and focusing her gaze back to him. "Did you-do you want to see mine?"

He shakes his head easily. "I trust you Swan."

She swallows. "You know-you know asking you to do that isn't because I don't trust you."

He smiles at her, resting his bare wrist to her ribs in what he hopes is a reassuring gesture. "Aye love."

Emma nods again, almost to herself. "So you-you want to stop using condoms?"

There's a tensing in her voice that has his brow furrowing, the need to comfort rising over the need to ravish. "Swan, if you're not comfortable with this-"

She shakes her head so fast her hair flies, smacking him in the cheek. "No-No, I am."

She slides back down the bed, spreading her knees again in invitation but there's a stiffness to her that wasn't there before. "Just-you know, go for it."

Killian scoffs at the lackluster invitation and feels his erection wean slightly. "Emma,"

She rolls his eyes, grabbing his cock in a move that causes him to let out a harsh swear. "Jesus, Hook just-there."

Her hand guides him in, hips pressing against him until he can do nothing but push forward, bury himself in nothing but the mind-boggling clench that is Emma Swan in the altogether. A groan pulls from deep within his chest and he's lost, thrusting deep inside her wetness and bottoming out until nothing else exists. Nothing but the rippling contractions of her quim and the wet glistening of his cock as he pulls and pushes back in.

He's murmuring nonsense in her ear, totally lost above her until he thinks to turn his gaze from where they are joined and look into-

A carefully blank expression.

He can't resist the next two thrusts inside, the call of her body too strong. He manages to pull out the third though, reaching for the threads of his sanity, "Love, what?"

She's got him on his back and in her mouth before he can finish that sentence and Killian growls, neck straining as she takes him deep without respite.

"Swan-Swan-seven hells, bloody buggering fuck, Emma-I can't-" She hums around him, squeezing him into her throat and he comes, long and thick pulses between her lips until she releases him, spent across the bedsheets.

He has to take several long minutes to collect himself from the powerful orgasms but Emma has yet to move closer to him and the image of her constructed facade niggles at the back of his mind.

That was not what he wanted his lover to look like when he was inside her, thank you very much.

He removes his arm from across his face, scrubbing down before turning towards her half-curled form and reaching out a tentative hand.

Swan doesn't retract from the touch and so Killian pushes. "Darling, what was it?"

She turns red-faced for a moment and looks away, but follows his gentle nudges easily enough so he can wrap his bad arm around her and kiss her collar gently. She smiles at the gesture, but her eyes go far-off despite how close her body is.

"It was Neal last time that I-ah, yeah." She makes a broad gesture down her body still red-faced and Killian feels a gut-pulling mixture of jealousy, guilt, and sorrow ripple through him. "So, um-I just, there are just some bad memory associated, you know?"

He'd give his other arm to know because Emma looks fairly uncomfortable and he can feel the tension in her spine but he's trying to piece together what she means. He suspects she's referring to not using the sheaths in some conjecture, but he knows she takes some other form of contraceptive to keep from carrying a child and the sheaths hardly added anything to acts of intimacy, unless he hadn't discovered something.

She looks back down at him and sighs at his perplexed expression, shifting so her back is firm against his chest but she's facing away from him. "Look, Killian how...how much do you know about Henry and everything?"

Her shift surprises him somewhat but he does his best to mask it. "I'm aware that Bae-Neal was the lad's father. You believed he perished before Neverland...did perish in service to you and your boy after we returned to New York."

He forces his own body not to tense as the unpleasant memories surface. Swan's already wound up enough for the both of them and he needs to understand what went wrong in their lovemaking if only to ensure that such an error never occurs again. He feels Emma huff beside him, taking a long pause before continuing.

"Henry didn't...he didn't lose memories of Neal because of New York. They didn't know each other very long."

Killian blinked at that knowledge. He knew the lad spoke very little of his father, and Emma and Bae were reunited in New York, which seemed to imply a separation but-

"I was… I was young when I had Henry. Neal and I were living on the streets. Stealing to get by. We weren't always….condoms were expensive when we couldn't find a free clinic or a school drive or whatever but I figured that at least any kid we had would be...loved, you know?"

He pulls her tighter against him, trying to anchor her in the present as he feels the past drag her down, tugging at her very flesh as he fights to keep her safe. "Aye Swan, you're a great mother."

The laugh she gives is short and makes lead slide down his stomach.

"Yeah, mom of the fucking year. Neal pulled a job and I went to pick up so he wouldn't get caught. August got to him first and told him about my destiny and the curse, so instead of meeting Neal, I found cops waiting for me at the drop-off point."

Hate fills his body so rapidly he has to bite his nails into Emma's hip to keep from shouting because no. Baelfire would not-

"So, I went to prison. Found out I was pregnant in there. I couldn't… that it would be best if someone else took 'em. Never looked back. Henry found me a few years back but ah-don't think I'm winning a parenting award any time soon." She forces the words out through her teeth, as if she can bite down on the pain they cause.

Killian doesn't think she realizes it, but she has one hand protectively low on her abdomen, the other tensed against the sheet and he feels a murderous rage swell up in him for a dead man.

He knew that Bae and Swan had a falling about, but for him to leave her in the brig with his child…

Thank the gods he was already dead. Milah would be disappointed if he slaughtered her only son.

Emma shrugged, still keeping her face from view. "Anyways, that was the last time I went without like a zillion forms of contraceptive and it' just...shit, I just don't want you to think me being all fucked up has anything to do with you, okay?"

There are a million words biting to tumble from his mouth. Something wrong with her? For loving her child enough to want a better life for him? For returning when she feared for his safety? For loving a man who he has now deemed unworthy to lick her boots? But Emma is Emma and she can't even hear him say I love you yet so instead he inhales deeply, forcing the thoughts down until he can drown them out with rum and possibly go decimate a grave (and a puppet).

"Swan, being with you easily a most enjoyable activity and I have no problem with the sheaths, as I have mentioned to you. It might help my reputation, to be honest." She chuckles at that and he considers it a prize, the retrieval of her smile from the painful memories. "And I will never push and never ask but Emma there is one thing you need to know-"

He draws his hand down to encapsulate hers across her belly, catching her fingers before they could flit away and drawing soft designs on the faint marks her body bore to bring Henry life. "I will never willingly leave you. And if...if you did end with child-"

She jerks against him but he barrels forward because Swan needs to have this truth. He can't bare for even the slightest inkling of that fear to rest in her heart. "-Emma, I would never leave you or a babe. Though I'm not sure how handy a one-handed father may be, you would both always have me, understand?"

She's silent for a long time but Killian hears the faint sniffles and so he waits, lightly caressing her as she rectifies the history with her present. He presses his lips to the bath of her neck, simply resting warmly there until she reaches back with their joined hands and squeezes him in gratitude.

"Never," He lulls her to sleep. "I will never leave you."

The dream departs as suddenly as it came and Hook bolts upright with a vengeance, soaked in sweat and feeling as if he's taking in water instead of air. He brushes his hair out of his face roughly, swallowing as the memory fades. His clothes are soiled and loathing rolls into him so deeply that he wants to gut himself with his own hook.

"Hook-" Which is the precise moment Princess Jasmine walks in. Just marvelous.

The princess puts her hands on her hips, her doe-like eyes turning into slits as she kicks him. "Enough. Aladdin, Ariel, Nemo, and I have been working night and day trying to find a way for you to return to your True Love. If I didn't owe Emma so much, I wouldn't have bothered. Now get your sorry hide upstairs and come help us or so help me I'll return you to Storybrooke as a rug!"

The weight of the dream presses down on him and Killian stands, snarling. "You don't understand. She thinks I left her. Emma is-she is a bloody magical princess but you cannot leave her." He stresses the last words because the only thing worse than fearing what Gideon is doing to her is knowing what loneliness does to Swan.

However, Jasmine is neither as kind as Ariel or as patient as Nemo. She simply kicks him. Again. "Then. Get. Back. To. Her. Because no matter how bad it is now, it will be ten times worse if you go and die again. Or what, are you willing to mope until Gideon takes another swing at her and simply kills her first?"

He has the princess up against the wall with his hook before he can register the movement, his whole being protesting the idea of Emma Swan perishing. "No!"

Jasmine's eyes widened with fear but before they can move Liam comes running down the hatch, screaming.

"Kraken! Kraken attacking. All hands above ship. Kraken!"

Hissing, Killian releasing the princess and stalks after him, grabbing his cutlass and pistol on the way to the shaft.

The damned sea monster doesn't stand a chance. He is getting back to Emma.

She doesn't drink, not really, after that first night but the way it feels like half her heart has thawed is worse. She refuses her mother's offers (bribes, please) to come back to the loft out of sheer stubbornness (and because between her Snow's threats of violence and David's lost look it's unbearable to be around them) but she can't sleep in the house, the house that he picked out for them and where they made love on the couch and fucked in the kitchen.

(When Henry found the spilled pancake batter he had looked up, opened his mouth to asked, pointedly eyed both of their disheveled hair, shut his mouth, glared and walked out the door with an indignant cry of, "Sanitize.")

Emma doesn't start a fire despite how damn cold she is all the time. She doesn't want to touch his things, but she has to hide the leather jacket and a few familiar earrings in a box in the closet because her eyes sting whenever she sees them.

She works longer hours at the sheriff's station and drives the bug long into the night, simply circling around (looking for Gideon, she'll say).

It's not that her existence is empty. Despite the violence and the bromance break-up, she loves her parents. She actually enjoys the company of Ruby and Ashley and she likes her work to protect the town. Plus, there's you know, her first (and only perhaps) True Love still here.

Talking to Henry was the worst though.

He listened to Regina for two days before he overruled her and showed up at the house and simply sat beside Emma while she pretended to be interested in Netflix for about thirty-five minutes before speaking.

"Are you sure he left, mom?"

His voice sounded younger and Emma had to fight against the wobbling of her chin, staring at her laptop as she pat his head. "Yeah kid. I...we got into an argument. I think I ah-I think I really hurt him."

It's the first time she's said it out loud. The whole town is convinced that Hook's an asshole who left when Emma found out about his crimes against her grandfather but only she knows the truth.

She broke his heart.

His too good to be true, fragile heart.

Henry nodded slowly. "Because you know...he spent like hours picking out that ring and I had to drag him away from Happy when he suggested that anything was fine."

That got her to turn, switching the laptop closed. "Wait, what-"

Henry shrugged, staring into the empty cup of cocoa. "Yeah. He's had it for awhile."

"But he," She felt dizzy. "He-you went with him?"

Henry played with his spoon. "He ah-Hook said that he wanted David's blessing but he needed my permission to ask you. Something about me being your 'Truest' love or something. You know, dramatic Killian."

She can't talk for a moment. Can't open her mouth because not only has she destroyed her happy ending in a moment of anger, but she had taken the best father figure her son had ever had away too. Because of course Henry was the first to know. Killian loved him too.

"I just, I think he loves you a lot mom. That's all." He finished quietly.

Emma pulled her son, her beautiful almost grown-up boy in her arms and blinked at the ceiling to keep the tears at bay. "Yeah...sorry kid. Yeah."

Belle intervened. Ashley intervened. She's half tempted to post a poll pro vs. anti Jones up just to read the numbers so she can actualize what a shitty, shitty mistake she made.

Then she got the call.

It was David.

"Emma-" He sounds winded, elated and desperate. "It's-He's-the docks. Come to the docks."

And she would have. If, you know, she hadn't been fighting for her life just then.