"I reach to the sky
And call out your name
And if I could trade
I would."
Even if Graham hadn't had his own heart, he'd had hers. Now it was gone. And for once she actually wishes that everything that Henry believes was real, and somewhere there was a fairy-tale land and just maybe even the possibility of bringing him back. Because it can't be over. Her walls have crumbled and how does she build them again when the bricks are shattered like broken glass? She had never fallen in love before, except maybe the day a squealing baby was put in her arms, all red and wrinkly and deserving of something so much better than her. Henry's father hadn't broken down her walls; he'd built them. She doesn't know how to live without those walls, but he had brought them all tumbling down. And now she doesn't know how to live without him, how to understand a world that he's not in when her world had been spinning on his axis. It was always Graham or the walls; she could never have both and even now she doesn't want to give him up and admit he's gone. Gone. She hates that the heavy feeling in her chest is the opposite of everything they would have been. Would have – past tense. It was over.
She never even said 'I love you'. She can taste the words on her tongue. They taste bitter, stale. And the absence of words doesn't mean the absence of feelings as she always thought it did. She'd never said 'love' to anyone, but she loves her son, loves him. If there was any way of bringing him back, she'd do it. No matter how dangerous and no matter how hard. If Henry was right and the curse was real and it was all down to her to break it, she would – whatever it took. Because he was her happy ending, and even though she'd never believed in them, she mourns hers and him. But he's not coming back. The beautiful man without a heart is dead.
It was that beautiful man without a heart who taught her how to feel. He'd taught her how to feel and then left her. And now all she feels is a gaping hole in her chest and hurt. She never knew it was possible to hurt like this. She clings to the threads of whatever's left but it isn't enough when all there is is his absence. She can't contemplate the cruelty that in his last moments he had been so alive; she had been so alive. All her life she had been waiting for this man and now she was alone again. But this time it was worse because she had been touched and now she'll never be the same. She wants to find the person who first said 'better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all' and shake them so hard because they are wrong. This isn't better than anything. How could it be? How could she ever be okay again? Even if she could piece together the fragments of her walls and make them strong again, the cracks would still remain. They're ruined. She's ruined.
Mary Margaret was wrong; her walls didn't keep out pain. And if her walls had actually kept love out maybe she wouldn't be so broken.
I know it's kind of choppy but that's how I wanted it to be. I don't own Once Upon A Time. The lyrics at the beginning are from Offspring's Gone Away.