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“I still don't know how you can still stand to look at me.”
He says this to fill up the silence, not quite comfortable in the expected quiet that's been drawn upon them like a blanket of darkness.
She stands across from him with tight fists and watery eyes - from what, he's not quite sure. Whether it's because she needs a layer of protection before looking at him after the tale he's just shared or if it's because it pains her to say goodbye, he doesn't know.
With all the permutations of possibilities that could happen over the next few minutes, altering what's left of his undeserving life, all he can think is that she's beautiful. Smooth golden hair and hard, green stare, with lines of red in her eyes and her jaw clenched tight - she has never looked so brilliant.
He guesses if this is the last time she is his to be called, it'd be worth it - for in all her glory, he can appreciate beauty of Emma Swan one more time.
“Swan, if you leave I understand - I shan't hold your words against you, it's not—”
“Enough, ”her voice is piercing and it echoes through the room, bouncing off every bit of empty space in this new place of hers.
He'd like to argue, to make her hear him through, but he knows her enough to follow as she says.
He bites down, gulping hard in preparation of her final blow.
“I've said it once, I've said it twice - I don't care about your past,” she echoes the words she'd said from before. He loves her dearly with all his heart, but with a past like his, words like that eventually are taken back.
She doesn't understand, he thinks - there's so much she doesn't know, 300 years of buried history waiting to be dug up to haunt him.
“One day, you're going to have to stop hating yourself,” she steps towards him and he forces himself not to take a step back in return. The space between them, it feels wrong. He doesn't deserve to be this close to her, for she is art and masterpieces aren't to be touched with hands as stained as his. “But if you can't do that now, fine.”
He tries to open his mouth, hoping his once trustworthy eloquence would help tell her that he doesn't think he can ever stop cringing at his past.
He isn't quite sure what he feels - if it's a sense of relief that washes over him as her words aren't those he'd thought they were or if it's guilt that aches tight at his chest, knowing she's giving him the second chance he's unworthy of. Either way, he can't look at her now, the feelings that are bubbling up far too overwhelming for him to handle.
There's a slight coolness that he feels at the corner of his eyes, and it's then when he realises that he's mirroring her with tears that are welling up.
"If you can't love yourself," her hand moves to his face that's turned away, pulling his eyes back into her stare, as her thumb wipes away the moisture with that soft touch of hers, "then I'll love you enough for the both of us."
It's the first time she's used the word, both parties preferring other terms to show that level affection, and he's not going to lie about how his heart had paused for a second, only to beat the vicious drumming he can feel in his chest.
She's held tight in his arms, the hold she returns like a vice unwilling to let go – he's undeserving of her, he knows that now more than ever.
But while he wishes her words were easy to believe, he knows he is right - his past will always be there to haunt him, always be ready to be used against him - and while a pirate's life may not be for him anymore, some traits can't be disposed of as easy.
So for just a while longer, he lets himself be selfish as he finds that he too is not ready to let go.