Henry Mills kept thinking, over and over again, that his mother had done a bad thing.
No surprise there. She had done many, terrible things. She had killed people, tortured them, and, when all else failed, cursed them in the most terrible way she could imagine. She was evil. It was as simple as that.
But, as he tapped the numbers into the keypad, he thought of Bluebeard's wife turning the key on the last, forbidden door of the house, finding the corpses of everyone who had come before her inside (not a story in his book, but the fear inside him made him wonder if it might not be true all the same and if he wasn't the one caught in it).
The number worked. He swallowed. So, that was one question answered. That was his mother's password, the one she used for everything, Henry's birthday.
It was Emma's birthday, too. Another thing they shared, born on the day the town had been founded.
The door opened. A stairway, lit only by a weak, flickering light, stretched down into the darkness. Before going down, Henry took off his shoes. It was a trick he'd learned at home for sneaking past his mother. Shoes made noise. Socks didn't.
Keeping low, ready to run, he peered out when he got to the bottom. There was a woman in a nurse's uniform, her head bent over a folder of papers. Every now and then, she made a note or turned over to a new sheet.
Henry barely dared to breathe. He might be able to crawl past her while she worked. He was small, his school uniform was dark, and the nurse probably wasn't expecting to see anyone. Keeping low, he might—might—be able to get past the nurse to the corridor beyond.
But, Henry knew how his mom did things, and thought there was a better way. The important thing, he told himself, was to wait. Scary as it was crouching here in the stairway—and scared as he was of what he might find, he had to be patient, waiting for the right moment.
The nurse continued checking over her papers, stopping now and then to take a sip of tea. Then, she made one more note on a paper, closed the folder, and went to put it back in a filing cabinet, getting out another to work on. Henry slipped past her while her back was turned. Then, he was in the hallway and out of her line of sight.
Safe, he told himself.
That was when he saw the man with the long, black hair standing in front of him. They stared silently at each other, while Henry's mind raced, wondering what the man had been in the old world—monster? Human? The Queen's friend or her enemy? And what was he doing here?
The man didn't speak, only crooking his finger, gesturing for Henry to follow him. Not sure what else to do, Henry followed him into the darkness.
X
Emma barreled through the hospital doors, her leather jacket pushed back so her deputy's badge was clearly displayed, just in case anyone didn't know who she was or tried to get in her way. No one did. But, a familiar voice with just the slightest edge of mockery called out as she passed.
"Miss Swan, wherever are you going?"
"Not now, Gold," Emma snarled as she stalked by him.
Gold, who was standing at the hospital check-in desk, accepted an envelope from the nurse on duty, and followed after Emma, a look of mild curiosity on his face. Emma went directly to the emergency exit door.
Dr. Whale had now entered the room. "Deputy? Is something wrong?"
What was it about this town? Emma thought as she angrily pounded numbers into the keypad. In Boston, she could go months without running into people without even trying. In Storybrooke, there might as well be a hidden alarm letting people know she was coming.
The door unlocked. Emma yanked it open.
"That's authorized personnel only!" Whale said. Emma ignored him and went down.
There was a nurse at the bottom of the stairs wearing the kind of starched hat Emma didn't think anyone still wore outside of the movies. "What is this place?" Emma demanded.
The nurse raised a disapproving eyebrow. "I don't know that that's any of your business."
Emma flashed her badge. "I'm the new deputy and I just received an emergency call. So, let me ask again. What is this place?"
The nurse looked behind Emma where Dr. Whale must be standing. She pursed her lips. Choosing her words carefully, she said. "We keep old records down here. Private records. So, unless you have a search warrant—"
"Whale," Emma snapped. "Give me a straight answer. What is this place?"
"Records and old storage, I think," Whale said. "I don't get down here too often. Now, if that's all, Deputy, you can—"
"Emma?" a small, frail voice interrupted.
Henry. Emma felt a wave of relief. He was here and he was all right. Or that's what she thought till she saw the look on his face. She knew that look. It was the one new kids in the system got when it finally sunk in that no one was coming back for them.
Voice shaking, he said, "Emma, you need to come see this."
They walked down the corridor. Whale, confused, followed after. The nurse began edging towards the stairs.
"Don't," Gold said.
"It's procedure," the nurse said, trying not to look afraid. "I need to—"
"Inform someone of what's going on? No, you don't. Or were you just going to run away?" Gold looked at her coldly. "This has not been a good day, dearie. If young Mr. Mills has found what I think he has, it's going to be very bad indeed. The one thing that could make it worse is if I have to waste time hunting you down. And I will. If they find what I think they will, there will be no place you can run, no place you can hide where I won't find you.
"So, why don't you start making yourself useful and try to get on what's left of my good side? Get the keys and help Miss Swan rescue your prisoner. Now."
There was fear in the nurse's eyes, but there was also calculation. She knew when to cut her losses. Gold watched as she brought the keys out of a drawer and walked down the corridor. Gold, making sure she had nowhere to run, followed behind her.
When they caught up with Emma and the others, the deputy was having a heated debate with poor Whale. Henry might not be in danger, but someone else was. All that primal fear Henry had unleashed when he sent a none-too-clear text begging for help had found a new focus.
"I don't understand," Whale was saying. "These rooms haven't been used for years. There's not supposed to be anyone down here."
"Well, clearly, there is someone. How do you explain that?"
"I can't. I don't understand—"
"Dr. Whale," Gold said smoothly. "If there isn't supposed to be anyone in there, then, clearly, you're responsibility is to get them out." He glanced at the nurse, who swallowed and unlocked the door. It s swung open.
She was there. She was alive.
He hadn't believed it. It was a dream, he'd told himself, just a dream, not a foretelling.
But, he hadn't been able to put it out of his mind. So, he'd seen to it young Henry had his attention drawn to an emergency exit requiring a code to open. The boy was too young to think of all the rationalizations an adult could make. Opening the door might set off an alarm and the code was used to turn it off. Like many emergency doors, the lock might let people out but not let them back in, not unless it was unlocked.
So many excuses. Gold had used them all.
She was here. She'd been here the whole time.
Emma and Whale rushed into the cell (not as bad as some Gold could remember, but bad enough. The bed was little more than a stone shelf. The single bulb was too weak to light up the small room). The doctor and the deputy, naturally, were flooding her with questions, talking over each other and not giving her a chance to respond.
"That's enough," Gold snapped. "Can't you see you're frightening her?"
Belle turned and looked at him. She was afraid and confused. Of course, she was. If she'd spent every day for the last twenty-eight years locked in this cell, this might be the first moment in a lifetime people had even tried to talk to her.
But, she looked at him as if he were the one thing in this world that could make sense of what was happening to her. "Who are you? What's happening?" she asked. "Do I know you?"
Yes. No. They had never met. She was the one person who could make him waiver in his quest for his son.
He couldn't say any of that, not with Emma and Whale listening in.
"You will," he promised her gently. "It's going to be all right. You will."