Every day they sat together on the bench beside the sea. It had been that way from the first time the boy had seen them. The old man would lead his wife there, her hand tucked into the crook of his elbow, and he would make sure she was seated and comfortable before he took his place beside her, always to her left and always holding her hand. On mild, sunny days, like those in the late Spring or early Fall, they would sit for hours, and in the other, less comfortable seasons, their visits were shorter, and often they contented themselves with a short stroll around the docks and piers, but, still, they were there every day.
The boy had first noticed them two years before, when he had turned ten. He'd mentioned them to his mother, who told him that they'd been around for as long as she had lived in the little town. The couple lived in a small cottage that sat nearby, and though years passed and they slowly got older, nothing else changed.
Curiosity being what it was, the boy would wander closer to them each time he saw them there, wondering what they could be discussing after all their time together. They didn't seem to mind his presence and one day, feeling particularly bold, he sat down on the ground beside the bench to listen in. The man was telling fantastic stories of sailing the oceans and of the adventures of a one-handed pirate who searched for an evil wizard for hundreds of years. The woman would laugh and tease him and rest her head against his shoulder as she asked him to tell her more.
She had favorite stories. The one she liked best was about the pirate climbing a beanstalk with a princess who trapped him there before escaping with the treasure. The man seemed to favor the story about the pirate winning back his ship from another, evil pirate, only to turn around and trade it away for passage back to his princess. The boy longed to know if the pirate was Jack, since he'd climbed the beanstalk, and that when his grandparents were young there were movies about a pirate named Jack. But then, there were other tales, that made him think the stories were about other characters he'd learned about in school and in movies.
There were stories about royal balls and dungeons, dragons and flying monkeys, evil witches and friendly werewolves. The stories were about magic and courage and love, and the boy found that his heart raced on the days he was able to go down to the docks and sit with the pair and hear more.
And then, one day, the man arrived alone. There was deep sorrow in his eyes and he looked out at the water, as though searching. The boy gathered up his courage and sat next to the man, still lean and handsome, even in his old age.
"Hello, lad," the man said. The boy liked his accent. Not many people in Maine spoke like he did.
"I've been thinking," he began tentatively. "Your stories - you were the pirate, weren't you?"
"Aye, that I was."
"And your wife was your princess." The man didn't answer, but the boy knew anyway. "And those stories really happened, didn't they?"
The man nodded. "Once upon a time."
The boy thought for a long time, and then asked, "If you really went to all those different places and did all of those things, why did you stay here, in this boring little town?" For the boy realized that his hometown had once been the Storybrooke from the stories, and knew that somehow, in the passing of the years, the magic had faded from this place and the world had intruded, turning it into just another place.
"Because, my boy, trite as the old saying might be, home truly is where the heart is, and that princess owned my heart from the second we climbed that bloody beanstalk." The man's voice caught, but he continued. "This world was her home,and after all the years of traveling the realms together, this was where she wanted to be."
And saying those words, the man rose, and walked away.
The boy never saw him again after that, but through the years, as he grew older and made a family of his own, he would sometimes look out at that little inlet in his town and swear that he could see the outline of a ship on the horizon. And when he did spot that vessel, with the white sails billowing in the distance, he knew that the life by the sea hadn't been for the princess, but rather for that man, and that her home had been with him.
And so the young father would tuck his children into bed at night and tell them the stories he'd learned. Sometimes they would try to correct him, but they always wanted to hear more. And he would kiss them goodnight and let them dream of magic.