They'd been home from Neverland for a month, and still, none of them dared to mention his name. His death loomed over the five heroes with the weight of the entire island that they'd fought so desperately to escape from. Returning home was nothing more than a cruel tease of what they had lost and who they missed.
Alone in the large mansion, Regina roamed the halls in grief as she mourned Henry's death. She spent her days cooped up in her son's room, asleep on his bed. On the one occasion that she got up, she collected all of the photographs from the walls, every one that showed Henry, and hugged them to her pained chest. She never let anyone in or out of her home, and she never stepped foot into the outside world. She didn't need to, nor did she want to.
Emma, desolate and bereaved, had made plans to leave Storybrooke. Aside from the parents she hardly knew, there was nothing keeping her in that God-forsaken town; nothing that tied her down. Although Snow and David had begged Emma to stay, she never budged on her decision. She had to get out and get away from everything, because every place reminded her of Henry. Every building she passed, every street corner she stopped at brought an onslaught of memories of her short-lived relationship with her son. Emma had lost her first love, her first-born, and the woman she'd believed to be her true love in the course of five days. She shut herself off from everyone she'd met and retreated back to the Emma she had been when she first arrived.
Snow and David wanted to take their daughter's pain away, but they knew the hole in her heart could never be filled. They watched helplessly as Emma began walking through life without care; her complete disregard for everything she'd gained. The image of their pale grandson haunted them with every day that passed, but they knew there was nothing they could do to bring him back. As much as they wanted Henry to knock on their door with that smile on his face, they had resolved themselves to the fact that it would never happen again. Their respective plans to teach him archery and horseback riding had been crushed in the blink of an eye.
Gold returned to his Dark One ways and it came with a price: Belle left the wizard. For weeks, she tried to talk to him, to help him, to be there for him, and for weeks, he pushed her further and further away. His thirst for blood- blood from the Lost Boys- consumed his entire being and he spent his time trying to reopen a portal to extract his revenge. Not only had he lost his grandson, but he lost his son and he never even found the body for a proper burial. Like Henry's mothers, Gold created a hard, thick wall around him as he struggled with the guilt that Neverland left him with.
All five heroes who had banded together were lost. The one person who connected each individual, who gave them a reason to believe, was gone. They were all in mourning of the young life, and no matter how hard they tried, they could not outrun the prices they each had to pay. The one thing they had in common was their love for Henry. But, the one thing none of them thought of, was how Henry would want them to live.