New York is a magical city. One of frost, one of holiday lights, one thrumming with energy.
Rumplestiltskin runs his gloved thumb along the gravestone. Making a trail in the snow at the top.
Henry Mills. Six feet underground. Thanks to his insane ambition to destroy magic—forever.
It had been lame at best. Irksome and annoying. Rumple wasn't the only one who found Henry's ambition tiresome. Henry had wanted magic to exist before Emma broke the curse. After she broke it, whenever someone tried to do something Henry wanted to stop, his answer was to destroy all magic rather than talk sense into the person or neutralize their magic.
He saw all magic as bad. Clearly, he had never watched Sabrina. It never seemed to come to him that magic could be fun. It always had to be evil. Poor kid. Like his father, he lacked a sense of humor. Thankfully, Hook's daughter, Hope, does not. Hook, never mind that he is Rumple's rival, knows how to laugh. He doesn't take life seriously like Neal and Henry did.
Henry only accepted magic when he was being spoiled.
In conclusion, it wasn't shocking that at the age of twenty-four, Henry discovered an ancient book in Neal's NYC apartment. This book promised to destroy magic once and for all—with a spell, of all ironies. The fool killed himself in the attempt.
Neal's son is dead.
Nothing left of Neal remains for the future. Henry sired no babies. The self-righteous line of Rumple's seed is vanquished.
Ironically, Neal's NYC apartment's neighbors knew Henry's predecessor, Regina's original adoptee. In fact, one was his sister.
Ross had run away when he was old enough to seek his biological parents. He found them and his obese sister, Monica.
They had been glad to have him back. They'd only given Ross up because they hadn't been financially stable when Ross was born. Jack Geller's boss had fired him for "mishandling a case", and he'd been unemployed for months. They'd had to sell their home and move in with his parents.
It was an open adoption. Ross had always known his birth parents through photographs and letters. Letters that contained their address on the top left corner of the envelope.
The address he showed a concerned woman on the train asking where the six-year-old boy lived.
Regina had let him go, thinking she didn't need kids. Then Owen had convinced her to try adoption again.
Well, Archie had.
Rumple turns to the man standing beside him. The one who had found Henry's limp body and called Rumple. Because Henry had been carrying a laminated card for years that said, "If anything should happen to me, call my grandpa." Below those words sits Rumple's Pawn Shop phone number (Rumple does not own any other phones).
Ruthlessly, childishly, overthinkingly, Henry did not want his mother to be the first to learn of his death because "I don't want to hurt her". Rumple knows when Regina finds out, she will feel betrayed. She loves Henry the most, so she has the most right to know of his death first.
Just like the man beside him will need to be first to learn of Monica's death.
"Are you ready?"
Chandler rubs his bare hands together and chuckles gleefully. His breath makes white puffs in the frosty air. "Boy am I ever!"
Rumple hands him the dagger. Chandler closes his eyes. Monica stands in the window of her apartment, watching with her arms folded as their babies—Erica and Jack—sleep peacefully. She can look down upon the graveyard from their home, can see the figures and pick Chandler out.
She isn't approving of this arrangement, but Chandler wants to do it. She feels she has to support him and have faith in the man she married.
Rumple begins weaving the magic. Black strings shoot out of him toward Chandler. Circling Chandler. Swallowing him.
When Rumple finishes, he sags to his knees in the snow, dampening his dress pants. Freezing his knees as he watches his name evaporate from his dagger.
Chandler Bing replaces Rumplestiltskin.
He feels fifty pounds lighter without his dark magic. But he can still weave.
"There you are," he says to Chandler.
Chandler vanishes. To go to the training camp of the Dark Ones. Rumple teleports to their apartment door and knocks.
Monica is still frowning. Her arms are still folded when she opens the door.
He holds out the dagger. "This is yours."
Then he teleports into Neal's apartment to be alone and mourn his son and grandson in solitude.