Regina didn't know it, but she'd just walked into a war zone. Henry was down, laying on the cot, accepting their plan to put him back in the Red Room. David, on the other hand, was across the room, hands on his hips, pacing nervously in anger at the conclusion that he was realizing he had very little control over. David was torn; he understood that. His options were acceptable at best; let his grandson walk through hell to get his wife and daughter back, or risk protecting him and never seeing them again. That was why it was a choice he and Regina and even Henry were making for him.
Still, if Regina noticed the tension in the room when she came back and found her son laying on the cot, she didn't say anything, just marched over to him with what she'd brought, he presumed, for Henry. A blanket, it seemed.
"I brought your blanket…from your bedroom back home," Regina commented quietly, in a gentle mothering tone as she unfolded it and splayed it over the boy. The necklace was in his hands, the chain links straining against one another as he pulled on it, obviously nervous. He would understand an adult being nervous, but as a child…he was in awe of Henry's bravery. He, too, would have gotten along with Baelfire, he suspected.
"Thanks," he muttered as Regina tucked him in, then glanced up at them. "So, Cora…she's pretty powerful?" he asked with a nervous swallow.
"Yes, but, uh, not as powerful as I am," he assured him as Regina slipped out of her coat.
"Debatable," his pupil responded.
"Actually, no, it's not," he snapped back, glaring at her. Aside from being entirely untrue, the comment was also entirely discomforting to a boy who needed a little bit of hope. He had no idea what it had been like or was like for Henry growing up in Regina's house, but if that was a small taste of it, he understood completely what sent the boy after Emma.
Regina didn't reply to his correction, just glared back at him as David sat himself down on the bed next to Henry. "You sure you're okay to do this, kid?" David asked again for what seemed like the millionth time.
"I was born to do this," Henry assured him. He sounded certain, but he noted that his heartbeat told a different story entirely. "I'm done reading about heroes. I want to be one."
"Well, sometimes being one is knowing when not to run into the fire," David suggested as if he were still trying to decide if he was the one okay with all of this.
"I'll be okay," Henry stated again.
"Look, whatever he faces in there, will be far less dangerous than what he'll face if we fail," he suggested, turning to David, hoping he could sway him a little more comfortably back onto their side.
"I can do this," Henry insisted again. Heartbeat or not, he had at least made up his mind.
"Get on with it," David muttered, rising to his feet and meeting his eyes. "Fast." Before David changed his mind or interfered again? He was happy to oblige.
"Alright, Henry," he muttered, hobbling over and taking a seat on the stool he'd left just by the bed. "Just relax. And soon, you're going to drift off."
"What do I tell them?" the boy asked with a nervous whine in his voice.
"Just listen to my bedtime story, and all will be clear," he whispered in a hushed voice. Henry obeyed and laid his head back against the pillow as he closed his eyes. Good, that was good. He was going to use magic and try and implant the information that Henry needed in his mind so that he could be sure he had access to it even when he was asleep. For that reason alone, if he could, he'd much prefer Henry drift off on his own, but, if need be, he could use a calming spell on him. He placed his hand upon Henry's head and began to work his magic, began to gather it up and into himself, and then began the work of the implantation.
"Once upon a time, Snow White and Prince Charming needed to stun a very powerful magician, long enough to lock him up in a dark dungeon…"
"That was you…" he sighed as Henry's eyes popped open and his heart began to race all over again. "They used Cinderella to trap you with a magic quill…"
He moved his hand down over his eyes, allowed calming magic to settled into the body to assist him in getting asleep. He should have known it wouldn't have been as easy for him to get there on his own. But it was now. The boy was so tired, the calming spell worked its magic, and he instantly heard his heart rate drop. The beginning of deep sleep, the shallowest part of it, where his mind was still capable of hearing and understanding as it descended into the lowest levels of consciousness and then, finally, for Henry…the Red Room.
"Yes, indeed a quill. And yet, it wasn't the quill itself, but the ink that captured the Dark One – harvested from the rarest species of squid, from the bottom of a bottomless ocean. Impossible to find, unless you're a mermaid…or me. I happen to have a private supply," he whispered, moving his hand back over the boy to implant the story, implant the message for Emma and Mary Margaret. "In my jail cell…that is where they will find it."
He settled his hand back over Henry's head, pushed his magic message into the boy's mind.
"You knew about that?" David muttered quietly, suspiciously behind him.
"Did I know you were going to trap me in a cell with limited magic? Of course, I did. I know everything. Planted the squid ink there myself before you could take me."
"And Thomas…"
"A Grand Finale. Just because I knew didn't mean I was going to let you get away with it," he whispered, finally removing his hand from Henry's forehead and watching his chest rise and fall in slumber. He was out, wholly and completely. That was good. "How long does he usually sleep when he goes to the Red Room?"
"It depends," David answered. "If he's really tired, no time at all. If he's not or trying to drink coffee to stay awake, then a few hours."
"So now we just wait."
He nodded as he watched the boy. "Now we wait."
And wait, they did. For the next forty-five minutes, the three of them were shockingly quiet as they watched Henry. The only time silence was ever broken was when his phone buzzed in his pocket, and a message came through from Dove. Aurora was not in the hospital. He would ask around, try to locate her, but he was baffled. Collecting rent for him all these years meant that Dove knew damn near everyone in town. He had no idea where Aurora was. That was certainly something that added plausibility to Henry's dreams. How anyone had escaped the power of the Curse in their land was beyond him. Perhaps because she'd been under a Sleeping Curse, she'd been caught in the middle, and the Curse hadn't known what to do with her? But how Cora had also managed to be left behind…something didn't smell right.
Just before the hour was up, Henry finally awoke with a start, and David was on him nearly as soon as he gasped.
"Henry!" he exclaimed, rushing over to him. "Are you all right?"
"Did you see her? Did you tell her?" he inquired over David.
"No. I…I didn't get the chance. Something…Something happened. She…she got sucked out of there. Argh!"
Henry let out a groan and winced, reaching for his hand. His heart was racing even as his face screwed up in pain. They all saw it, but Regina reached him first.
"Henry?"
"Some-something's wrong."
His mother pulled his sleeve back for him, and they all saw the reason for the pain he was in. A harsh bubbled burn of skin stretched from Henry's wrist to his elbow.
"Henry…" Regina breathed.
It was far worse than the little one he'd seen when he went to give Henry the pendant. From what the boy had said, he had a feeling he knew why it was there, but his stomach twisted all the same. Convincing Regina and David to let him go under again was going to be difficult.
Ack! I'll amend the statement made in the previous chapter. Many of these chapters are short, and because of it, many of them are divided out weird. This one was really always meant to be two chapters (and those of you who have been reading with me for some time are likely to see where that break would have occurred), but doing that would have made two ridiculously short chapters, so I just combined and separated and...I did what I could. I'm sorry, it's all very odd.
Thank you, Grace5231973, for your review of the last chapter. Again, sorry for the short chapters but these episodes sort of demanded that. It's always funny to me how that happens. Episodes that Rumple stars in tend to get a lot of very short chapters, where episodes he's either absent from or present only for a scene or two get long chapters. Oh well, Peace and Happy Reading!