It hard started with a 911 call. They were all sitting in the sheriff's office discussing what the hell they were going to do about Cora. They didn't have a round table like her dad said they had back in the Enchanted Forest, but they had a bit of a stranger group of people. Emma was perched on a desk with Killian sitting in the chair behind her, his feet on the desk keeping a bit of pressure on her back, his own way of reminding her he had her back. Snow was worrying her thumb in a chair of her own, Charming was next to her with a hand stroking the back of her neck. Ruby and Victor were sitting on top of another desk, Jefferson was leaning up against the wall twirling a pair of scissors, Leeroy paced back and forth in front of the cells. Archie had the chair from Ruby's desk and was rubbing his hands over his knees repetitively, and the Blue Fairy was standing the in the middle of the four desks slowly swiveling back and forth to observe them all. Well, that wasn't the whole crew, Regina was sitting at the fourth desk. Her hands steepled and was gazing imperiously over at all of them. No one had said a word since Killian had brought up the last big point that they'd all somehow managed to miss out, how were they going to lure out Cora now that she knew Regina was against her? All that ceased to matter when Emma's phone rung, it was Granny, she and Anton had seen Cora by Emma's apartment, Grace and Henry were there watching a movie. Alone.
The only thing she could remember of the next fifteen seconds was everyone jumping up and shouting, then Victor's voice cut across everyone else as he pushed the Blue Fairy towards Regina and simply said, "Get us there." And they did. The two women grabbed hands and suddenly the room had vanished into a swirl of indigo smoke and they were in front of the stairs leading up to the apartment. Emma recovered the fastest and tore up the steps two or three at a time, Killian right on her heels and everyone else making such a racket as they followed that for half a heartbeat Emma worried if the stairs were going to give out. They were at the door in seconds, they didn't even have to wait to open it, it was lying splintered apart inside the apartment. As Emma ran in screaming Henry's name her brain was registering the smell of burnt flesh, by the time she figured out what the smell was she had already turned her head and seen the macabre display Cora had left them.
Henry was lying face down at the base of the stairs that led up to the top of the loft.
She couldn't breathe, it was like all the air had gone out of the room. She couldn't move, it was like the world was collapsing. She couldn't see, it was like the sun had been stolen. And maybe it had. There were only a few sounds around her, one was Snow's keening wail, how long had that been going on? She didn't know. There was choked sobbing. There were so many people saying so many things of denial, not a single one mattering. The was the strangled gasping noise coming out of her own throat, the only sound her body could seem to make to express her grief, that she couldn't stop. One step forward and she collapsed, her knees and hands striking the wooden floor with a pathetic slap. Her hand inches from the fingers that were splayed in front of her, surely cold. She tried to reach for those little fingers that loved to turn the pages of books, but her arm just shook in some cruel joke as she stared at his small body lying in front of her. If she died now it would be a mercy.
She was dimly aware of arms helping her forward, closer to her son. Then she supposed those arms moved her so she was sitting, then they moved Henry into her arms. And then they were around her shoulders, she could feel the cold metal of the hook there. Then all she could feel was cold. Henry's cold body, the cold air of the room, the cold cruelty of the world, the cold comfort of Regina coming over with tears streaming down her face, taking part of Henry's weight as she and Emma somehow shifted him to be lying over Emma's left arm and Regina's right. Both of them clutching one of his little hands in their own free ones. Emma could see Anton getting up from a corner of the room, his face and clothes burned, he choked out something about trying to protect the kids. She could hear Grace sobbing into Jefferson's shoulder. Snow sobbing into Charming's. Red sobbing into Victor's. Granny and Archie sobbing into each other's. Then she started too, finally, and no one could help her. Not Killian who refused to stop having an arm around her whenever was possible for the next three weeks, not Regina or Snow or Charming or anyone else who cried with her, not Gold when he and Belle came with condolences and Cora's crushed heart in a box.
Everyone lost that day. The whole town had come for Henry's funeral. August had been the only one able to eulogize Henry. He told them all about the brave, inquisitive, ferociously curious boy with his book of stories. The boy who wanted to stop the Evil Queen just as much as he wanted to save her. The boy who decided he'd help make sure he saved an entire town of people. The boy who'd believed. The boy they had lost.