"Mom!" Henry went running to Emma when she stepped aboard the ship. He almost knocked her over from crashing into her. He wrapped his arms around her neck and felt her squeeze him. When she pulled away, she was smiling, but had tears in her eyes.

"I'm so glad you're okay," she breathed. "Are you?" Even as she puled away from him, she held his hands in hers. She looked at the scrapes and scratches covering his body.

"I'm alright," he nodded.

"Em," Neal cleared his throat from behind Henry. "We do have a problem."

She looked to her son, then to his father, worried. "What? What's wrong?" She felt a sinking feeling in her stomach. Her son was here safe. Her family was here. What could be wrong?

"David's downstairs. He's pretty beat up," he stopped, not wanting to tell her any more. "Em, Hook wasn't with him when he returned."

"What do you mean?" She stared at him, feeling the panic rise to her chest. "What happened?"

"Your father's downstairs. Maybe you should talk to him," he looked at her sympathetically.

She stared at him for a moment before rushing down the stairs and into the room she knew so well. She saw David on the bed, leaning against the headboard as Mary Margaret nursed his wounds with a wet cloth. He didn't look good. He was covered in scratches. He had a busted lip and his eye was starting to swell. She saw him wince as Mary Margaret attended to his cheek. When he saw her, he put his hand on Mary Margaret's hand to stop her. "Emma," he looked at her sadly.

"Where is he?" She burst out, not sure she wanted to hear the answer. "What happened?" She was sure her voice was quivering.

He tried to sit up further, and she saw the pain in his face as he did. "Emma, I didn't want to leave him."

"You left him?" She whispered, feeling the tears coming to her eyes. She was not going to cry. She couldn't. She needed to be strong right now, no matter what had happened. She had to get Henry home and save Aurora and Phillip.

"We were at Lake Nostos, looking for you. We were hoping you may have come in around that area and may have been taking shelter in Regina's castle, or at least around it. Everything was fine until we got close to the castle. All of the sudden, these things came out of the sky. They ambushed us. There were so many of them. I don't know how we didn't even see them. They started attacking us, scratching with their claws and throwing rocks. Some of them had what looked like staffs and they started hitting us with those too," he closed his eyes painfully as he tried to remember everything clearly. "We tried to run and we made it past the lake, but they just kept coming. One of them grabbed me and tried to pull me away but Hook pulled me back down and we started running again. We didn't make it much further before they started attacking again. We kept trying to run but it wasn't doing any good."

"At what point did you decide to leave him?" She pursed her lips.

He exhaled deeply. "We were almost back to Ella and Thomas' castle. We thought we could take shelter there and tend to our wounds. He was in bad shape by that point. He was having trouble running. When they attacked again, they surrounded him. I tried to fight my way through but there was so many of them. By the time I had slain 5 of them, 10 more had appeared. We fought back to back for a while, but we knew it was hopeless. There were too many. We agreed we needed to get back to the ship and wait for the other to return so we could warn them. Then we could hopefully use Regina's magic to find you. We thought we'd all have a better chance with her magic and Snow's bow on our side. But I think we both knew at that point that both of us weren't going to make it back here. When they started closing in again, he pushed me forward and told me to run. I thought he was right behind me, but then when I turned around, I saw him surrounded again. I tried to go back, but he kept yelling for me to go. I knew we had to warn everyone. I wanted to go back and help him, Emma, I did. But then I saw them hit him over the head and he went limp," he could see the pain in her eyes.

"So you don't even know if he's alive?" her voice came out in a whisper and she felt hot tears on her cheeks. This was not happening.

He shook his head. "I don't know, Emma. If I would have gone back and he wasn't, it would have been for nothing. He knew those things would go after him. He wanted me to get back so we could save you. So I ran back here. And when Mary Margaret told me that Regina had gone to find you, I knew we could go back as soon as we had you safe. That's all her cared about. He wanted you to be safe," he tried to assure her. He knew it wasn't going to do any good. She was in pain now, and he felt so guilty. He saw Mary Margaret get up to comfort her daughter, who was trying not to cry. He saw the tears falling down her cheeks and when Mary Margaret wrapped her arms around her, he could see Emma's body shaking as she buried her head in Mary Margaret's shoulder.

"Emma, honey, we don't know that he's gone. We can find him," she pulled away and kept her hands on her daughter's shoulders, looking her in the eye. "We will find them, one way or another. Whatever way this turns out, we'll find him."

Emma nodded, wiping her cheeks. She hadn't wanted to completely break down, but it had been a long time coming. "We have to get Henry home," she sniffed.

"Neal will go with him," she heard Regina's voice behind her. She turned and saw the woman standing in the doorway. "We're going to send the two of them back to Storybrooke. I'll go with the three of you to save your pirate."

"Why do you want to help me?" She looked at the woman. She knew she still sounded awful.

"Because this is my fault," she replied. She sounded like the words hurt her to say. "I want to show Henry I can be the person he wants me to be," she stopped and thought for a moment. "And I want to know who the hell is in my castle."