"And then Neal…and…and then Neal went up the slide and made it to the top without falling down! But I didn't get to because…because Ms. Garber caught us and said…Mama, Mama, she said...she said that the slide wasn't a toy. But Mama, we play on slides and we play with toys so then the slide is a toy just a big one!" Gideon giggled breathlessly at her side.

She didn't know whether to laugh or scold him for his story. The trouble he and Neal had gotten into today was minor; so minor it didn't even warrant a call home. It was only when she and Snow White arrived at the school to pick their boys up that the teacher had wanted to talk to the two of them about what they'd been doing that they ever found out there had been an incident. Apparently, Gideon and Neal had been taking turns seeing how could run up the school slide farthest. Obviously, the teacher had not thought that was an appropriate way to play with the slide, and she very much agreed, but even she had to admit that the amount of anger the teacher had shown for something so silly seemed a bit out of hand. They were just being children, and with the end of the term being next week, it seemed as though they'd just been letting off steam. And she'd heard about nothing but the slide since she'd brought Gideon back to the library after school. That was probably her fault, she'd laughed at the wrong place in the story, and Gideon had taken it as approval. Now, intelligent as he was, he was using logic to justify his actions. With only a week or so left until school would be out, it was time to use a little logic of her own on her boy.

"Gideon…sit here so we can talk," she patted her desk, and Gideon came over to her so she could help him jump up onto it. With him on the desk and her in her chair, they were nearly eye level, though she had noticed that more and more she was looking up at him. "You are right, the slide is a toy, but it's also a very big toy that you can get hurt on, especially if you don't play with it right. Would you take your flashlight into the bathtub?"

His smile vanished and he shook his head. "No, if I drop it in the water, then it won't work."

"Exactly," she smiled. He'd learned that the hard way with the first flashlight he'd had. "And would you play with your frisbee inside the house."

"No," he giggled. "Papa wouldn't like it if I broke something."

"And neither would I," she pointed out. "Toys are meant to be played with but if you don't play with them the right way then they might not work anymore, or you might get in trouble if something bad happens. I know the playground is fun and there are lots of toys there but the toys on the playground are bigger than you and I don't want you to get hurt. You have to play with those toys the way they were meant to be played with. Do you understand?"

Gideon nodded. "Yes, Mother."

"Good, hop down, give me a hug." She smiled when his arms came around her and she the warm feeling in her chest that told her she'd just done a good job at parenting. She was meant to be Gideon's mother, at times like these there was little doubt about that in her mind.

"Mama, are you going to tell Father?" Gideon asked suddenly pulling away from her. His eyes were sad as he looked at her and she saw the pout but recognized it for what it was. They were not strict parents, but their house was not rule-free either. Gideon had been yelled at his fair share of times for doing things he shouldn't have done, like taking his flashlight into the bathroom and jumping on the bed after he'd been told not to. Rumple was usually far more vocal than she was, but they were fortunate in that he didn't like being yelled at, and it was enough to teach him his lesson the first time around. Still, when Rumple yelled, sometimes it felt like the house shook, that was the only conclusion she could reach as to why he was worried she would tell her husband, but she wasn't about to give into his pout.

"Yes, I am. And do you know why I am."

Gideon sighed. "Because families don't keep secrets," he chanted emotionlessly.

"That's right. Your father and I don't keep secrets from each other, not even about you."

"But this wouldn't be a big secret! Only a little one!"

"But it would still be a secret," she pointed out.

"Do you think he'll be mad at me?"

She shook her head. "No, Gideon. Because I'm going to tell him after you're in bed and I'll tell him we talked about it and that you promised not to do it anymore and to be more careful."

"I do, Mama. I will."

"Good boy. Get your things; it's time to go home."

Gideon collected his backpack and the homework he'd been working on, he put the books that had been checked out of the library inside, and she grabbed her own bag. Since it was Rapunzel's day off she turned the lights out, locked the door behind her, then grabbed Gideon's hand and the pair of them set out across the street to Rumple's only for Gideon to start jumping up and down.

"Henry! Mama, Henry is there!"

The motorcycle Henry had been given as an early birthday present only a week or so ago was parked outside of the shop by their car, and she felt her stomach turn over at the oddity. Usually, Henry let them know when he was coming over.

"Uncle Henry!" Gideon exclaimed running into the shop and wrapping his arms around his legs. "Uncle Henry" had become something of a family joke. Though he was, in fact, their nephew, all of the younger kids called Henry "Uncle" even if they were the actual uncles and aunts. They had tried to explain it to them, and one day she was certain they would succeed and it would make a lovely family joke, but for now, it was simply the easiest way to go about it.

"Hey Gideon," Henry smiled, leaning down to hug him to his legs. It wasn't long ago that Henry would have picked him up and swung him in the air, but though it seemed like yesterday to her, it was years ago. And though Gideon was the youngest in his class, he was also the tallest and seemed to have the understanding that he was getting much too big to run into people's arms.

"Uncle Henry, why are you here."

"He just wanted to talk with your mother and I, Gideon," Rumple answered. "We'll only be a few minutes, why don't you go into the back and do your homework."

"I already did it," he responded.

"You have new books you can read," she suggested instead. "We'll be back in a few minutes."

Gideon looked up at Henry. "Will you say good-bye before you go?"

Henry promised he would then Gideon dashed into the back of the shop and the appropriate squeaks and groans told her he was setting up shop on the cot.

"We need to have you over for dinner soon," she laughed as she joined her husband around the counter. "Or have you babysit, Gideon loves seeing you."

"Actually that's what I'm here to talk to you about," Henry commented.

"Dinner or babysitting? Or both?"

"Actually it's kind of the lack of both in the future…" he corrected sheepishly.

She stared back at him in confusion, unsure what he was talking about or what he could be trying to say. Was this about college? Had he decided to go somewhere outside of Storybrooke for school?

"Look…I'm going to be eighteen soon-"

"Less than three months."

"Right…and I've been doing a lot of thinking about my future, what I want to do when I graduate high school…"

"College," she recalled. Not because she was insisting, only they'd just been to his graduation party! She thought all of this was sorted by now.

"Mmm…something a bit more adventurous than that," he corrected. Suddenly Henry reached into his pocket and pulled out a small box. "I found this in my bedroom the night of my graduation party…" Rumple took the box in his hand, and she stood close as he opened it. Inside there was a single small magic bean.

"Henry!" she gasped. They'd yet to use their own private stash of magic beans, simply because they didn't want to draw attention to the fact that they had them. Regina and Emma had fashioned a system of getting people who wanted to go back to their realm home, Anton had been among the last of them, the one who had been harvesting them in the first place, had gone through last only a few days ago. He'd never grown anymore beans and the ones he had he'd taken back to the Enchanted Forest with him so that this world might one day be cut off from magic again and all set right. There were no more beans publicly available anymore leaving only the hundred that had been stolen, a portion of which belonged to them though Emma and Regina didn't know it. Now she wondered…Rumple hadn't given this one to him, had he?

"How-"

"Anton…" Henry answered quickly, loosening a knot in her chest. "We'd been talking a lot before he left and he must have left it for me to find. It was like a sign, well, that and a very strange call from a stranger but...I've decided what I want to do, what I really want to do. I want to leave Storybrooke and…I want to leave the Land Without Magic."

At the declaration, she glanced from Henry to her husband who seemed so unsurprised she knew that he'd told him before they came to the shop.

"You want to go back to the Enchanted Forest."

"No, not there either, people have been going there from our world ever since the first harvest, and I think I know too many people there. I want a fresh start, a chance to write my own adventure, be a character in my own story. Isn't that what college would have been about?"

"Where?"

"Anywhere!" he shrugged. "Ever since I found all those stories and you told me they were everywhere…I just want to go someplace new and have my own adventure. I'm not saying I won't go to college someday, but college will always be here. This is what I want to do first."

She stared blankly head, looking more through Henry than right at him. It was hard to believe he wanted to do such a thing! That this was the conclusion he'd come to?! He just planned to go somewhere unknown?! And then obviously he planned on coming back one day…but he had no idea where he was going. He had no idea what their world was like or what the world he might find himself in would be like either. He was talented, there was no doubt about that, she knew he was smart and that Killian had been working on teaching him to fight with a sword while Snow had taught him how to track and shoot a bow and arrow, but going somewhere and using those skills out of necessity was different than using them over family bonding! He wanted adventure, and it sounded adventurous, but it also sounded only halfway thought through.

"How did your mother take this news?"

Henry shrugged again as he took the bean back and slipped it into his pocket. "About as well as you can expect. She supports me, she always has even if she thinks what I'm about to do is a bit crazy."

Crazy?! As far as she was concerned, this was beyond crazy! This was…

She felt Rumple's arm snake around her waist and draw her closer to his side. It was as if he had sensed the panic in her and was doing his best to contain it. One look at his face and she knew that he clearly thought the same thing about all this as she did. But he wasn't fighting Henry on it. He seemed to be accepting it.

"And how did your other mother handle this news?" Rumple asked. Henry's cheeks went suddenly red, and he smirked as he looked down into the glass case. No answer came from him. "Ah…so you haven't told Emma yet."

"Not yet," he answered. "Right now the pair of you and my mom are the only ones who know. I figured I'd break it to everyone slowly. With my mom…she'll support me too, I just need the right time to let her know."

So they were the rehearsal. She knew Henry was right about Emma, but she also had a tendency to overreact, though she didn't think there was a way to overreact to this news. In a way, it was almost like Gideon who was afraid of being yelled at by his father. He chose the safe ones to tell first, then he'd tell the difficult ones.

"And when, exactly, do you plan to go through with this?"

"Not until the summer is over and I'm eighteen. I want a few more months to prepare and spend some time with everyone since I don't know how long I'll be away. Killian's been teaching me to fight with swords, and Grandpa's been teaching me to ride…they just don't know why yet."

How long he'd be away…suddenly a bigger realization dawned on her. He only had one bean. One bean meant he had a one-way ticket! When he planned to come back, without a second bean…

"How are you planning on getting home?"

Henry smiled. "I guess that's what's gonna make it an adventure."

She had to turn her head into Rumple's shoulder to keep from saying anything. She'd always considered Henry a very intelligent and even-tempered young man, sensible. This contradicted everything that she believed about him.

"Grandma..." she looked up at him from under her eyelashes. He didn't often call her "Grandma", what she'd told him so long ago had held and he usually refered to her as "Belle", but on some special occasions...he knew how to make it feel like he was twisting a knife into her heart. "I know it seems crazy and stupid but…I'm tired of writing everyone else's stories and watching from the sidelines. I want to experience what all of you have experienced."

"It's not always been as fun or fantastical as you make it sound, you know," she commented as Rumple moved his hand up and down her back. "Some of those adventures included a lot of pain and sadness, a lot of fear and loss.

She was very aware that this life she loved so much had not come without a fight that had nearly torn their family apart and cost their son his life. She prayed every night when she tucked him in that he'd never have to experience anything like what she'd gone through to get back to them and would never know the heartache that his parents had pressed upon each other before getting back to one another.

"I know," Henry stated. "But I'm ready."

She didn't think he was, but she knew that tone. It was the same tone Neal had always had when his mind was made up and his decision unwavering. Henry only had an inkling of what awaited him in this other world, but she knew that nothing she could ever say would convince him otherwise. He was going whether they liked it or not. And she could sense that Rumple liked it about as much as she did.

"Well in that case…" Rumple left her side for a moment and used his keys to unlock the far case and slide something out of it. A small black box with beads attached to it that had been sitting in the shop since Rumple had died and she'd run it. A broken compass. "Take this with you," he insisted handing it to the boy.

Henry took it from his hands, opened it and looked it over. "A compass? Not sure that it'll be much help in another realm grandpa. I can't even guarantee that there will be a north where I'm going."

"Well, that's why it's the perfect thing to take with you in your travels. This compass will only point North if you are trying to find North."

"Okay…"

"This compass points to the thing you want most. I'll be useful, especially for someone who doesn't quite know what they are looking for."

She felt relief spread through her as a smile grew on Henry's face. It was perfect. He didn't have a way to get home, but if and when the time came that he wanted to be home he'd have the means to find that way home now. She was suddenly very grateful for her husband's cleverness.

"Thanks, Grandpa."

"Make contact when you can," he ordered. "For your mothers' sakes. You know how they'll worry for you."

Henry nodded as he pocketed the compass. "I do, and I don't mean to cause anyone heartache I just…I have to find myself."

She had to swallow her tears along with her opinions. Supportive. He needed her to be supportive right now.

"Adventure is a good way to do that," she commented instead. Her own had been filled with peril and heartbreak and gut-wrenching choices, but there was little doubt that at the end of it she'd found herself. And more along the way.

She left Rumple's side to move around the counter and take his head in her hands and stare up at him. "Your father would be proud."

Henry nodded sadly. "I know. I want to keep making him proud."

"You will. We love you," she hugged him tightly, letting her tears fall onto the jacket he was wearing as he hugged her back, hard.

"I'm not leaving yet, Grandma," he chuckled. "Not until after my birthday. But I do need to go, and I'd promised I'd say good-bye to Gideon so…"

"Go on. We'll sit down before you leave and have you explain it to him later."

Henry moved around the counter to the back room, and they heard Gideon's excited scream to see him again. What were they going to tell him? How were they going to explain it to Gideon?

Beside her, Rumple who had once stood so tall and confident suddenly slouched against the counter, looking down into the glass countertop with a look she recognized as worry. It was understandable, acceptable even, in her mind. She was worried too. This was a hair-brained idea. Compulsive, even! But, she'd known ever since Henry had come back from a misadventure in New York City and broken up with his girlfriend Violet he hadn't been the same. He'd been restless this year. Compulsive. But as much as she disliked this plan, Henry had a confidence about it he had not possessed for a long while. It appeared had something to believe in. He wasn't drifting, he was determined. Crazy as it was to her, it might actually be good for him.

"He'll be fine," she promised Rumple as they got into bed that night. All through the day, she'd seen the conversation about Henry's decision weigh heavy on his shoulders. He didn't like it any more than she did. But it was going to happen. She felt it in her bones, and Henry needed them to be supportive of him in these next few months. Not angry. "He'll make something out of himself, and you'll see him again."

"Are you sure?" he whispered back after a couple of seconds.

Her feeling was unexplainable but certain. "I am very sure we will see him again someday."

Step One in filling in the plot hole: accept right off the bat that everything that happened still has to happen. I don't know how many of you watched season seven. I know before we went into it there were a fair number of people saying they weren't going to or, at that point, were only going to watch the Rumbelle episodes. That's fine. Personally, I saw all of season seven but I binge watched it in chunks to make it a bit easier. I did see it all so for those of you who chose not to watch season seven let me fill you in on the plot hole that we keep talking about. In season seven, an 18-year-old Henry takes a motorcycle, wishes Regina the best, and disappears through a portal to another world. Fine. Cool. We all good. In later episodes, it is revealed that Henry grew up in that other world and became a hero. Henry met a girl, then got a visit from Emma, Hook, and Regina where it was revealed that Emma was pregnant because time moves faster in Henry's new world. Great. Awesome. Still all good. Emma and Hook go back, Regina decides to stay. When Henry's kid is 10 a curse is cast that brings them all back to the Land Without Magic (Seattle this time) and it's also revealed that they were sent back in time. Like, back before Henry ever left. This is where we start to get muddled. That call Henry talks about in this episode. He got it from himself. His adult self called his younger self and that's when he realizes exactly what's going on. Okay. Sure. A little muddled, but nothing I can't handle. Then we get to the big one. One thing leads to another and in the last episode Regina decides to cast a curse that leads to all the realms being united and that, ladies and gentlemen, is where our plot hole is born, or at least part of it. You see, while Henry and the rest of the gang are away (and by the way, one of this number does eventually include Rumple) time is going on, we see they are using portals to get from one world to another. But if Regina joined them all, then why do they need portals? And if they've gone back in time aren't their doubles? And if these people came back in time weren't they there to warn others of their fate? And if they don't finish out that storyline then doesn't it mean that certain characters who died at the end of that storyline wouldn't be dead? What the hell ever happened to "time travel is dangerous don't change anything in the past!"? Yes, it would mean all of that, but rest assured...I got this. It took me a bit of finessing with the timeline and I had to take a couple of liberties, but that being said, trust me! It's all going to match up just fine in the end. The first rule was accepting all that had to happen and then we focus on how Henry "gets out the door". After that...well, I hope you'll be alright with my interpretation.

Thank you, thank you, thank you Jennifer Baratta, Grace5231973, Paintbrush123, Rumbellefan, and Enomisje for your reviews on the last chapter. I'm glad that you liked the talk and even though we all wish the show had incorporated more children I'm happy to see that it seems like I made the right choice where adding more children into this story was concerned. It is my sincere hope you'll enjoy this chapter. Does anyone recognize the compass that Rumple gave Henry? It's based on Captain Jack's in Pirates. Yeah, I know, we never saw him with anything like that on the show but I wanted Rumple to give him something special before he left and I wanted it to be something that might conceivably help Henry along his journey. It seemed like a good choice. And the fact that we don't see it in the show you could take as a hint of all the good times that Henry had. Where did it go? I like to think he lost it somewhere along his journey and that it probably taught him something special before it was gone. But, if you prefer, maybe it's still in his pocket. Your choice. Join me on the next chapter for part II of "how the hell is she going to make this work?" Peace and Happy Reading!