Will These Two Finally Get Together?

The time for this couple may have finally arrived: Now that Once Upon A Time's second big bad of Season 3, The Wicked Witch, has been more or less vanquished (for the time being) can OUAT focus on Emma Swan finally? Or can we at least talk about Emma sacrificing her powers to save Hook's life? Please? It's been painful enough watching Emma and Hook tiptoe around their kiss (the great elephant in the room) for this long. And now that we've got a two-hour season finale ahead of us, there should be at least a few minutes to spare for them to discuss where this 'ship is headed, right?

It's been a cruel season for Emma Swan in the romance department, which hopefully means one thing: The Savior and Captain Hook are going to hook up. ASAP. The first half of Season 3 laid the groundwork for their relationship and now that they've got nothing left to keep them apart or distract them, it's officially time for Captain Swan to flourish. Right, Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz? And where the first half of the season left off, the second half of Season 3 made an excellent case for these two to get the show on the road. Eventually.

Heading into Sunday night's two-hour season finale, it's impossible for us to not anticipate an Emma and Hook union. Why? Because beginning with Hook coming to find Emma and return her to Storybrooke in the Season 3 midseason premiere and ending with her declaration of emotions during last week's episode, OUAT has prepped us for this moment. So here's where we're at with these two.

When OUAT returned with its midseason finale, we saw Hook venture off to New York to bring Emma back to her family. And to, we'll assume, to win her heart in the process. He went out on a boldly romantic limb and kissed her, which made us all swoon. But still, even after getting her memories back, Emma didn't budge — because of Neal. Ugh. And so we waited because that was our first hint that they were going somewhere.

Since Emma's returned to Storybrooke, she's pretty much steered clear of Hook. So clear, in fact, that he's actually taken to watching her through his telescope because he's that nervous about trying to confront her about wanting to be with her. (Kind of creepy, but he looks so sad doing it that all I can think of is how bad I feel for him.) Following Neal's death, it seems like they both realized that there was no shot in hell that they were getting together anytime soon — both Emma and Hook had strong, emotional connections to Neal and that would've been so inappropriate. Oh, and also Henry.

And when The Wicked Witch cursed Hook's lips and Emma had her meltdown about him being a double agent, we thought for sure that it was Kitsis and Horowitz' way of making sure this relationship would never happen. Well, we were wrong there. Hook struck up a relationship with Henry — which I'm going to assume is how he'll convince her to stay in Storybrooke and not return to New York. But I really don't believe that he's just doing it to keep Emma around, in a more genuine sense, I really do believe that Hook actually likes Henry and wants to be close with him. And so, OUAT gave us our second hint that Captain Swan is a go.

The third hint came on last Sunday's "Kansas" episode when Emma, knowing full well that kissing Hook would suck her powers right out of her, did it anyway. Okay, fine, she didn't kiss him — she performed CPR to prevent him from drowning to death. But still, her lips touched his when she knew he was cursed. And she just didn't care — sure, The Wicked Witch was going to absorb all of her super-powerful magic, but she wasn't going to let Hook die. When he asked her why she'd done it, that was exactly the reason she gave — she wasn't going to just let him die even if it meant losing the battle.

So what does that mean for us OUAT fans? Probably that Emma's going to threaten about her New York departure during Sunday night's finale and Hook is going to pull her aside and really tell her how he feels. And he'll plant one of those now-famous pirate kisses on her and she'll be forced to stay — no questions asked. This entire season has been building up towards Emma and Hook finally take the plunge and now, with Season 4 on the horizon and the town evil dead, there's no better time than the present.

Images: ABC, Rebloggy, screwballninja/Tumblr, lovecaptainswan/Tumblr