The next morning, he ended up back with Ruby – and Archie too – this time in the makeshift crisis center. There was a board of flyers like the one he and Grace had made, but for a moment he thought about not posting it. He thought about just taking the flyer directly to Jefferson and telling him where to find Grace, but in the end, he didn't. He posted the paper and purposed to watch and see if anyone took it. Right now, if one thing could go according to the plan meant for it that sounded good to him, so he followed the plan for the flyer… and then followed David when he left the square and returned to Mary Margaret and Emma's apartment.
He'd learned over the past twenty-four hours to expect the unexpected, and he certainly hadn't expected to find that Gramps had Jefferson's hat. But telling Gramps what he knew – but not the parts he only suspected – merely got him abandoned in the apartment. He pattered uselessly around, debated going somewhere or checking on Grace's flyer, but ultimately didn't do anything until it was time for the meeting at city hall.
Seeing the Evil Queen's threatening display of magical powers made him wish that he hadn't come, but it was only because he had that he was able to keep people safe by placating her and returning to her house with her like she wanted.
However, his attempt at escaping from the house that currently didn't feel like the home that he'd spent his whole life in didn't go as planned. As a matter of fact, it left him thoroughly shaken and disheartened as he was struck in the face again with just how horrible the Evil Queen really was… until she called him downstairs only for him to find his Gramps, and her declaration that Henry was going to go live with him.
After that, despite the absences of Emma and Mary Margaret, as time passed the townspeople began to adjust to life with two sets of memories, living lives that merged both who they were here and in what they called "their world."
Yet, it was only the day after he'd moved in with David that, when he went to check on the board of flyers, that Henry noticed one in particular and took initiative of his own to set straight a thing he knew he could be helpful in. Poor Marco's flyer for Pinocchio depicted a young boy, and he wasn't going to find him that way.
So Henry marched into Granny's with David at a time he knew the carpenter would be there and whispered in his ear, "Check the room that Granny's rented to August."
A few minutes later, sitting on a barstool beside his gramps and taking a deep, somehow synchronized, drink of tea, he decided that maybe, just maybe, life was going to turn out okay.
However, that was before the next morning, when Gramps told him that he'd already talked to Jefferson – who apparently couldn't help them – without Henry there and tried ordering him to go to school. But it wasn't like he was a stranger to skipping class when he wanted to – and he wanted to, so he did. The first place he went was to the board set up to locate family members, to check on Grace's flyer. It was gone this time, and that was a huge thing; now he just had to figure out who had taken it.
Hours of searching and asking around had led him to the best case scenario – Jefferson had it, and somebody had seen him heading towards the docks. So that's where Henry went.
Sharp eyes were quick to spot the man he was looking for – and the flyer that he held in his hands. Approaching slowly so he didn't startle the distracted man, Henry lowered himself onto the bench beside him, asking, "Jefferson, right? The Mad Hatter?"
He was here to ask him for help about Emma and Mary Margaret – primarily – but he couldn't just ignore the fact that Jefferson was holding Grace's flyer, despite the tidbit about his mom's vault that had just been dropped into his lap. He had just told Henry he couldn't help him, and honestly, he looked like someone who didn't even know how to help himself at the moment. So maybe Henry could try to nudge him in the right direction… That's what a real friend would do, especially since he knew how much Grace was missing her Papa, and the worst that Jefferson could do was ignore what he said.
So he dove right in, asking innocently, "What's that?"
After all, all he could do was try, right? For Grace's sake.
Once he had given Jefferson his opinion – more like a piece of his mind – on how he should handle Grace, he turned to another job at hand: getting into his mom's vault. However, as largely seemed to be the case since the curse's breaking, grownups were quick to get in the way of his plans. He'd barely been in the vault two minutes before Gramps found him… apparently with the Evil Queen's help.
And all he really wanted right now was to get Snow White and Emma back!
But Gramps wasn't as convinced that he could be of use towards that end as Henry was himself, and in the end he was shuffled off to school until it let out and Gramps returned to pick him up.
Sitting in his mom's bug and waiting for Gramps to come out of the convenience store across the street, he was treated to a perfect view of the consequence of his talk with Jefferson earlier. The Mad Hatter stepped from into view, and he must've called for Grace, because she stopped in her tracks, freezing for a second with her back to him before she whipped around and ran to him. Jefferson pulled his thrilled daughter into his arms, falling to one knee before he lifted her into his arms and carried her away.
Probably to live with him, Henry thought despondently, not prepared for the way that seeing Grace reunite with her father… hurt.
But before he could think about it too much, Gramps was there, knocking on the car window, presenting him with a set of wooden swords, informing him that he did need him to help find Emma and Mary Margaret… and Henry climbed out of the car with a smile on his face.
