Companion to Architect, how Henry got his body back.
A/N: For people who were wondering about the cat that Emma keeps cursing.
Disclaimer: I don't own Once Upon a Time or its characters; I only borrow.
After their pow-wow in the crypt (sorry, vault), they got to work on getting Henry his body back.
Regina had already determined that there was nothing in her vault that could help, so they regrouped at Gold's shop.
"If you had something that could switch them back, why didn't you say something?" Regina demanded of Gold.
"Sorry, dearie, we've been a bit preoccupied. What with Pan having the curse and all." He began rummaging through the cabinets throughout his shop.
Everyone else could only watch as he searched.
"You know, if you told us what you were looking for, we might be able to help," Neal told his father.
"Aha!" Gold exclaimed as he pulled a xylophone from under several blankets in one cupboard. "If you want to help, go find a cat." He was looking inside teapots and sugar dishes now.
Regina looked at him as though he was insane.
"I'm sorry, a-"
"A cat, yes. Best get a mouse or rat, as well."
The members of the group looked at each other before Regina rolled her eyes and stomped (in a graceful and dignified manner, of course) out of the shop. "I'll take care of it."
Gold pulled a teaspoon from a box of buttons. "What were you doing in there?" He asked it, as if it could explain.
Everyone was thoroughly confused at this point, and more than a few had escalated to slightly alarmed.
Gold didn't have to search for the next item. He walked over to a stand of wands and, after a moment of deliberation, selected one made of a yellow crystal.
He addressed Emma as he chose a small bowl from a shelf of old dishes. "Miss Swan, would you be so kind as to fill this with water?"
"Uhh… yeah… I guess…" With a puzzled look on her face she took the bowl to the bathroom and filled it from the sink faucet. When she returned to the main room, Gold was lining the three objects up on the counter.
"Now, as soon as Regina returns with our animals, we can get started."
"I'm sorry, just what are you going to do?" David asked.
"We will attach Henry's spirit to the cat, spell the mouse to seek out Henry's body and the cat to chase the mouse. The cat will then brush up against Pan, transferring Henry's spirit back to his body, and bringing Pan's spirit back here." Gold seemed rather pleased with himself.
"I'm sorry, you want to attach my son's spirit to a cat?" Emma asked with not a small amount of incredulity.
"Well, we don't have a chimera, and a cat chasing a mouse is far less suspicious than sending a horse after Pan." As if that made perfect sense.
Regina chose that moment to enter the shop, a cat carrier in one hand and a caged mouse in the other. After seeing the items that Gold had laid out, she looked at him.
"Please tell me you're not planning on performing a spirit hex on my son!" She put both the carrier and the cage on the floor.
"Regina, where did you get those?" Mary Margaret asked carefully.
"I bought the mouse at the pet shop. They were all out of cats, so I got this one from the pound."
"It has a collar, it belongs to somebody."
"It's been unclaimed for weeks, obviously they don't care." Regina brushed aside Mary Margaret's concern with a wave of her hand.
"So, this spirit hex thing, will it work?" Neal asked Regina.
"It could, if we don't mind Henry taking on the traits of a cat!"
"You mean I'll start licking myself and coughing up hairballs?" Henry looked less than thrilled at the prospect.
"Don't be dramatic. It's far more likely that you'll just sleep a lot for a few days," Gold told the boy.
"Define 'a lot' and 'a few'." Emma told him with a warning tone in her voice.
"Oh, probably twenty hours a day at first. He'll return to normal after a week or so." Gold was unconcerned.
Hook and Tinker Bell were standing back, as far away from the discussion as possible. "Care to wager on who starts yelling first?" Hook asked Tink.
If either had bet on Neal, they would have won. "You want to rip my son's spirit from his body and attach it to a cat! Are you insane?!"
"I'll do it," Henry cut in before the arguing could continue.
"Henry," Regina went to her son. "This is dangerous, and it might not work."
"But if it does, I'll be back in my body and you'll have Pan trapped here."
"There you have it. The boy should be able to choose, it's his body after all." Emma was about ready to punch Gold.
"What do I have to do?" Henry asked him.
"I'll enchant the teaspoon and the water in the bowl to act as a binding agent. You'll drink water from the teaspoon, then the cat will drink from the bowl, and I'll enchant the cat and mouse and they'll be on their way!"
David and Neal both had their hands to their foreheads at this point. Emma and Mary Margaret wore nearly identical faces of disbelief, extreme concern, and a little bit of horror. Regina was annoyed, and Hook and Tink were still staying well out of it.
"We can watch the cat and mouse from the bowl," Gold added, as though that made everything better and not at all crazy.
Henry sighed. "Alright, let's do it then." While nearly everyone argued with Henry that this was an incredibly bad idea, Gold slowly waved the wand over the bowl of water and the teaspoon. He presented Henry, who had succeeded in convincing everyone else that this was his choice, with the teaspoon.
Henry scooped up some water, took a breath, and drank it. Gold took the cat out of the carrier and got it to drink out of the bowl as well. Henry promptly collapsed.
"Not to worry, dearies! That just means his spirit has attached itself to the cat."
Gold took the mouse out of its cage and set it next to the cat. Neither so much as twitched at the other.
"Regina, if you would be so kind as to open the door," Gold requested as he began to play a tune on the xylophone, using the wand in place of the mallet. At the last note, the mouse ran out the door and the cat followed with a screeching howl.
"Excellent," Gold said, and he herded everyone around the bowl to watch.
The cat chased the mouse as it ran through the streets and a few alleys before it went into the woods. The cat managed to knock over two garbage cans and a mailbox in its pursuit. They found Pan maybe fifteen minutes after they had left the shop; he was standing on a ridge overlooking the town and talking to Felix. The mouse ran between them and up a low-hanging branch. The cat jumped on Pan, paused for a split second (those watching could see a small shiver in both the cat and Henry's body), and then jumped on Felix's head, digging its claws in deep before jumping onto the branch. The group got the satisfaction of seeing Felix swear and grab at his head in obvious pain (and Henry telling him that they'd had a long day and it was time to turn in for the night) before the cat and mouse were out of their range.
Gold used the time from when Henry's spirit was returned to his body to when the cat returned to secure Pan's body. Regina opened the door again when the bowl showed the cat was close. The mouse ran right back into its cage, and the cat brushed up against Pan's body quickly before returning to its carrier and collapsing.
Pan looked drowsily up at Gold. "Did you have to use a damn cat?" He asked his son before falling asleep.