The one good thing about Regina abandoning him to run her mysterious errand for Henry was that it gave him the walk down the street from Granny's to his shop to pull out his phone and make a call to Dove.
"You've got a cousin that works in the hospital if I recall, isn't that right, Mr. Dove?"
"You already know that I do. What do you want?"
"For him to look into those in the hospital who have been in comas since the Curse hit."
"I'm assuming you are looking for someone specific."
"That's a fair assumption. You remember Princess Aurora. I believe your courts were close."
"Sleeping Beauty?" he balked with confusion he could hear clearly through the phone. "She was under a Sleeping Curse when the Curse hit us. Stefan died a broken man."
"I'm looking to confirm she's in Storybrooke still under that Curse. I don't suppose you have any evidence to the contrary."
"You mean have I ever seen her in Storybrooke, up and walking around? No, I haven't. Prince Philip either."
"Then it's up to your cousin to locate her. I would assume a girl in a dead sleep like David was would be in the hospital. Start there. Find her, Mr. Dove. I want to know where that girl is."
He didn't say goodbye, just hung up as he approached David and Henry in front of his shop. He fished around in his pocket for his keys and his fingers landed instead over the cell phone he'd meant to give to Belle; a phone that might be exceptionally important in a crisis. Could this be any worse than it was?
"Sleeping any better, Henry?" he asked in a cordial tone as he noted the pendant still around Henry's neck. Lad probably hadn't taken it off since he'd given it to him. In this case, that was a good thing.
"Well…yeah…sorta…I guess," he stuttered as he unlocked the shop and ushered the pair in. "I'm…I'm not afraid anymore when I go into the room, but now…I'm going to have to go back in there, aren't I?"
"No, absolutely not," David assured the boy in a stern but soothing voice.
"It's very likely Henry, yes," he argued, watching David's eyes darken and Henry wince.
"No," his grandfather stated firmly. "It scares him. It's too dangerous. There has to be another way."
"That remains to be seen. So…let's not worry about that for now. Why don't we talk for a bit about what you've seen, what's been said...let's make a plan."
He led Henry and David both into the back room and pulled a chair up by the cot, urging the boy to use the cot, to sit or lay however he felt comfortable.
"Now…your mother says that you've met someone in the Red Room."
"Yes, Aurora, she says she knows my mom and Mary Margaret, that she's with them in the Enchanted Forest."
"I see. Can you describe the woman? Aurora?"
"Yes? It's sort of hard with all the fire. And she's scared. I don't think she has the same control there that I do," he explained, motioning to the vial he wore around his neck.
"I would reckon she doesn't. But try for me. Hair color? Eyes? Height?"
"Brown hair…I didn't really see her eyes and…I don't know, taller than me, maybe…maybe as tall as my grandma." Mary Margaret. It was a description that matched Aurora but also half a million other women.
"And what exactly did you two talk about."
"Not a lot…the flames…" he shrugged.
He nodded in understanding. "Any little thing might help."
"She said that they have a way home."
"Did she tell you what that way was?"
"No, only that it was blocked by my mom's mom."
"Cora." They both uttered together. He took a breath. That was all very disturbing.
"She said that Mary Margaret said you could defeat her, that you'd done it before. They sent me here to get an answer. She'll be waiting for me when I go back under so I can tell them."
Fuck.
He was hoping that in talking to Henry, he might get some more information and make some plans for himself. But the information was nothing. It painted the exact same picture that Regina had. Mary Margaret and Emma were with Aurora in their realm, they had a way back, but no one knew what it was, and Cora was "standing in their way." Whether that meant that Cora wanted to use the way to get to here or was just trying to stop them because she felt like it, he didn't know, but he knew one thing, he wanted her out of the picture. Because if he was honest, he couldn't see Cora working this hard just because she felt like it, which left only one reason as to why she would be doing this. And he didn't like it.
A portal. It had to be a portal. That had to be their plan. How they were planning on waking it up, he wasn't sure, but the boy sounded confident that they had a plan for getting back. The plan for getting back wasn't the problem. It was Cora.
"Standing in their way"…if they had magic, then the Savior might put up a suitable fight for Cora, but as it was, she'd never shown an ounce of the powers she might have had, which meant he couldn't rely on them. But there was one thing he could rely on, one piece of magic he knew was left in the other world that they might have access to and would hold Cora; if it held him, it would hold Cora. If they used it at the right time, when they opened the portal to this world, then it could work. But first, he had to get the message to him. Did he trust Aurora? He wasn't sure. But right now, she seemed to be the only way to get any kind of message to the other side.
"If you are up for it, if you feel like you can, Henry, I think the best thing to do is to deliver a message to Aurora."
"What kind of message?" David questioned.
"Well, if Cora is indeed in between them and their way back, I know of a way to stop her, to keep her from stopping them. There is something left in our world that will do the trick. If we could tell them what it is and where to find it, then it will work on Cora. It'll hold her long enough that they can get through."
"I don't like it." How did he know David was going to make this difficult?
"Which part? The part where you get your wife and daughter back or the part where they don't, and instead Cora comes through because let me tell you, Mr. Nolan, I have dealt with Cora before, and if you think defeating Regina was difficult, Cora makes her look like a walk through a field of roses."
"I don't like using Henry as the messenger boy, not when we're sending him to that place."
"Do you have any better ideas for getting in touch with that realm? Because I've searched for ways to communicate between realms all my life, and I'm here to tell you none exist. This is luck. An anomaly. This is two people in two worlds who, I'm guessing, have awoken at nearly the same time from a powerful Sleeping Curse, granting them both access to the same room in the Netherworld. Once this opportunity passes, it's passed. We can take advantage of it, get them back, and assure ourselves Cora is stuck on the other side, or we can do nothing and wonder if you ever see your wife or daughter again. Those are your options."
"I can do this!" Henry cried from his seat on the cot.
"Henry…" David chided.
"No, see!" Henry suddenly flung his legs over the side of the cot and lay back against the pillow, hands resting on his belly so his fingers could fiddle with the charm he wore. "I'm ready, I can do this…it's no big deal. I'm getting used to it. I've been there before. And Aurora knows me now. We've talked, she'll be looking for me, waiting. I can't let them down. I just have to go back to sleep, and…where…where's my mom?" he asked suddenly as if he'd just now noticed that Regina was missing.
"She went to do something for you," he explained, getting to his feet. "She'll be back, maybe by the time you wake up."
"We'll wait for her," David insisted. "We'll see what she thinks about all of this."
"She already knows…" he assured him.
"And she approves of it?"
"She knows the risk of her mother coming into this world. And she understands that there's a cost to stopping her. I, on the other hand, never thought I'd live to see the day that David Nolan needed the Evil Queen's permission to do anything."
"I don't need her permission. It's just that I'd rather-"
But before things could get more heated, he heard the bell in his front shop ring and felt Regina's magic enter his property. There was no use in arguing anymore. The Evil Queen had arrived.
Yeah, I broke these chapters up. They were just two separate entities, and I wanted to be sure they each got their time.
Thank you, MerlockVonBaron and Grace5231973, for your reviews on the last chapter. I'm very appreciative of those. I know this is a short chapter, but I'm hoping that you'll enjoy Henry's interaction with Rumple and David's parenting. I appreciate them both in this scene and appreciate that they are both trying to do what they think is right. I even sort of appreciate David's insistence on waiting for Regina. You can certainly see family ties in this chapter, even if the characters themselves can't. Or at least that's the hope. Peace and Happy Reading!