A/N: Let's welcome Henry back.

Disclaimer: Do you think I'd be writing fanfiction if I owned them? The characters are just going to be played around with a li'l bit. Let's hope that Adam Horowitz and Eddy Kitsis don't kill me if I do drastic things. If my updates aren't on time, you'll know.

Chapter Twenty-One:
Your Game

I'm taking it slow

Feeding my flame

Shuffling the cards of your game

And just in time

In the right place

Suddenly I will play my ace

Henry flicks through his storybook, his fingers deftly turning the pages until they find the part of the story he's looking for. The steady drip-drip of water running off the walls of the cave he's locked in pitter-patters in the back of his mind as his eyes scan the page…

…and as Snow White entered the dungeon and saw her Prince Charming in the cell, her heart burst with joy and happiness to see her love again. Without further thought for her safety, she ran forward. "Charming… Charming!"

Prince Charming turned around. "Snow…"

She grabbed the keys and opened his cell. It was only then that she realized that it was not her prince himself, but a mirror displaying his image.

"You're… no… no… oh, no!" Snow White cried, her pure heart breaking with sorrow.

Her prince spoke. "The Queen took me to her palace," he said.

"But I'm rescuing you," Snow White replied, her voice full of sadness.

"Snow..." Charming's face expressed his regret and fear for his love.

Snow White sighed, her voice soft. "Is this always going to be our life? Taking turns finding each other?"

Her prince smiled softly. "We'll be together, I know it. Have faith."

Just then, his image disappeared, to be replaced by the Evil Queen. "I just had to stop you," She cackled. "I have no interest in cleaning tongue marks off my mirror!"

Snow White stepped forward, defiant. "Let him go. Your fight is with me."

Regina smiled. "My thoughts exactly. Have you ever heard of a parley?" she asked. "We break off all this messy fighting and have a little talk, just you and me. Come unarmed."

"Where do I meet you?" Snow White asked, resigned to her fate.

"Where it all began," The queen replied, grinning wickedly.

Henry looks at the beautifully painted image accompanying this portion of Snow White and Prince Charming's story; that of Snow in front of a mirror, her face broken and sad as she looks at the reflection of the Evil Queen. He goes to turn the page when there's a creaking sound. His head whips up to see two people stumble into the cave cell, the door slamming shut behind them.

"Mary Margaret?" Henry cries, dropping his book to the floor beside him and getting up. "David?"

The woman spins around, her drenched hair clinging to her forehead, but her eyes alight with both joy and surprise as she gazes upon her grandson. "Henry!" she cries, rushing over to him and capturing him in a hug. Henry wraps his arms around her, breathing in the warm, comforting scent of his 'grandmother'. David comes up behind them, encasing the two in his own arms, and they stay like that for who-knows-how-long, relaxing slightly in the comfort of family.

Finally Mary Margaret leans back, releasing him, although her hand lingers on Henry's shoulder. The young boy tilts his head to the side. "What are you guys doing here?" he asks, his voice both worried and curious.

"We were taken by mermaids," David says, rubbing a gradually-forming bruise on his temple. "After we saved the dwarves from them."

"What?"

Mary Margaret slid down onto the bench Henry had been sitting on before, and Henry quickly sat beside her, soon followed by David. "We should probably explain," she says.

Henry nods.

"When you went missing," Mary Margaret begins, "Emma went out to look for you. She…uh… she ended up on Hook's ship, and something happened, causing it to fall through a portal, landing here. We followed her to search for the both of you, and we were taken by mermaids during our search."

Henry nods again, but his brow furrows. "Uh…where is here, exactly? I've been stuck in this cell the entire time."

"Davy Jones' Locker," David says.

Henry's eyes light up. "Like from Pirates of the Caribbean!" he says.

David's face is unreadable. "Hook's past, actually."

"What?" Henry grabs his storybook from where he'd dropped it and flips through the pages, scanning desperately. When he comes to the end, he frowns. "His story isn't in the book. Not that part."

Mary Margaret puts a hand on her grandson's shoulder. "Before we get into explaining everything about Hook," she chuckles a little, even in the grimness of the situation, "Can you tell us how you got here?"

Henry looks surprised, but immediately agrees. "Okay," he says. "That's probably a good idea."

Henry rolled over in his bed in the loft of Mary Margaret, Emma and David's apartment, unable to sleep. His ears buzzed, and the usual drone of crickets outside was missing. He pulled his pillow over his head, attempting to block out whatever the strange buzzing noise was, but that only made whatever it was clearer. It was a melody, almost – a song.

As the song became more and more clear to the ten-year-old, he found himself listening intently, and his feet somehow made their way to the ground beside his bed. He stood up, not entirely in control of his own actions, but heading towards the door – feet strangely silent on the hardwood. Along the way, Henry grabbed his backpack, although his fingers almost missed the strap as he was tugged by some unseen force towards the door.

He crept silently down the stairs. His mind was blank, white, a haze of nothing, his body moving without any way of controlling it.
Henry's strange trance took him out of the apartment and down to the docks. As he neared, he was able to see a figure standing partially in the water. Her legs were obscured by the waves – wait, no, Henry thought, those aren't legs!

Sure enough, from waist downwards, the woman had long, dark black tentacles studded with tiny, iridescent blue jewels. The rest of her was a pale ivory, which was austere against the violet mane of hair held up in a mass above her head, kept up by a blue comb. Her face was ageless, although Henry got the niggling thought that she was probably very old.

Of course, he also knew who she was.

"You're Ursula!" Henry stated as he finally came to a stop at the edge of the docks. "What are you doing to me?"

Ursula did not reply, but as Henry stood there, six pairs of webbed hands slid out of the gently moving waves, reaching for Henry's feet.

They grabbed him by his ankles, and Henry stumbled, falling down into the water, which transformed into a spinning green vortex that crackled with energy as his feet hit it. Henry closed his eyes tight and hoped that his family is okay, that it's just him.

He hoped he can still be a hero.

When Henry opened his eyes again, he was standing knee-deep in a pool that is situated in a dimly lit cave. He looked up; saw Ursula standing there with a satisfied and somewhat grim look on her face. She pushed him down a tunnel and shoved him into a cell, which turned out to be a fairly large cave.

"Why are you doing this?" Henry asked, struggling out of her grip.

Ursula turned and locked the door to the cave, leaving him there, but just before she left, she looked at him and spoke. "For Calypso, of course," she said.

"After that, no one came to visit. I got food sometimes, though," Henry finishes. He shrugs. "I haven't learned anything else."

Mary Margaret stares at her grandson, a look of shock flooding over her face that's no match for the one when he first began. "Ursula is working for Calypso?" she asks, eyes widening.

David nods, resting his hand on Mary Margaret's back, Henry sandwiched between the two. "It does make sense," he admits. "Ursula is a sea witch; it's only fitting that she'd work for a sea goddess like Calypso. We heard of her work from neighbouring kingdoms."

"Hook never said anything about that part of the story, though," Mary Margaret comments.

David looks at his wife. "Hook didn't say anything to us about his story at all."

Henry twists his head to see his grandfather looking fairly confused. "I think I get it," he says. "Davy Jones' is Captain Hook's dad, and now he's supposed to take his father's job because Calypso is telling him to, but he doesn't want to. So she has to get help from other people."

"But why?" Mary Margaret wonders aloud. "Why would she take you and Emma? It doesn't make any sense."

Henry shakes his head. "I dunno . Mayb –"

Just then, the door to the cell swings open, and a woman walks in. She's tall and lithe, with scarlet locks tumbling over her shoulders and dulled green eyes. She does not speak, but walks over to Henry and yanks him out of his seat with surprising strength, snapping a pair of shackles around his wrist.

"Henry!" Mary Margaret cries, but the shackles attached to the wall behind her find her wrist and magically attach, keeping both her and David immobile. "Henry!" she shouts again.

Henry looks over his shoulder as he's dragged away,

The woman takes Henry down a series of winding tunnels until they finally reach an open cave. A large pit of water sunk into the ground is situated in one corner, not too far away from a towering throne that appears to be made of marble and aquamarine. Calypso sits on it, her dress flowing over her legs and pooling around her feet, and her eyes are unreadable as she watches the two come in. The woman drops Henry at the foot of the throne, leaving him there, and steps back.

Henry can only watch, unable to get up the effort to move – it's as if the shackles have some sort of magic weight to them. Calypso nods to the woman. "You are dismissed," she says. "Thank you, Ariel."

A/N: Reviews are my preciousessssss.