Henry poked his head into the diner, glancing around. His vision was immediately assaulted by the the excess of fur and purple snakeskin, crowded into a corner table: Cruella and Ursula, with Lily beside them, looking both bland and aggressively hostile as usual. Rumple sat across from all three, his Russian hat on the seat next to him (reserving it for Henry, no doubt), and was jabbering away about something that was clearly boring his audience to death.

"…don't understand why he didn't just call her," he was saying as Henry approached from behind. "There were definitely phones around, you know, he didn't have to write all those goddamn letters—especially with how unreliable the mail service is. I feel like Noah just wanted to be a passive-aggressive little bitch because Allie was always yelling at him and—"

"Henry!" Lily said, eyes widening as she noticed him. "Oh, thank God, you're here!"

"Hey," Henry said, nodding around at the other table members. Rumple immediately moved his hat, patting the seat next to him with an enthusiastic smile.

"Sit! Sit, my boy, sit! I was wondering where you'd got to!"

"Sorry I'm late," Henry shrugged, sliding his backpack off his shoulder. "Sister Astrid wanted to talk to me about my history paper."

Cruella exchanged a sideways glance with Ursula, probably reflecting on how sad it was that their last hope had things like history papers and gym class to worry about. Well, that was fine, that was fine…at the end of it, they needed him more than he them, so they had to maintain respect.

"Okay, so—" he clapped his hands together, looking around expectantly—"shall we just jump into it?"

"Yes," Ursula said before Rumple could insist that they order something, make it social. "Yes, let's just get on with it."

"Great." Henry rubbed his hands together, and exhaled, preparing to deliver his brief lecture. "Okay. So, there's a few things we need before we actually resurrect Maleficent. First things first: payment."

"Which will be waived," Cruella interrupted, arching a regal eyebrow. "Your grandfather made it abundantly clear that you would do this, free of charge. In exchange for us not wreaking havoc on Storybrooke." She glanced at Rumple, a self-satisfied smirk curling her lips. "We had a verbal contract in New York."

"Is that so?" Henry said, slitting his eyes at an innocently humming Rumple.

"It's so," Ursula affirmed, placing her hand on Cruella's leg and stroking it appreciatively. "And I dare you to try and weasel out of it. "

"That was a quip, Henry," Rumple clarified, still avoiding his gaze. "In my professional opinion, taking that dare would be a mistake."

"We're going to have a chat about you and your meddling later," Henry muttered back.

"Ooh, I look forward to that."

If he lacked the ability to prioritize and/or repress feelings (i.e., anger, indignation, homicidal urges), he might have had it out with Rumple then and there because frankly, he was getting tired of this bullshit: adults assuming they could speak for him and make decisions on his behalf simply because they were over the arbitrary eighteen years of age and he was not. However, he did have the ability to prioritize and and/or repress feelings (i.e., anger, indignation, homicidal urges), so he turned back to the others with a forced smile on his face.

"Well!" he said brightly. "Since everyone's decided that this one's on the house— a discussion I was not a part of, thank you—I guess we'll skip ahead to what else I need from you. As in, what I require for the actual process." He coughed importantly into his fist. "Most of the work is done by the portal, but I need something to feed it. I've done this twice now, and both times, I've had the actual, physical ashes of the person in question. Now, if you don't have the ashes…"

"It's fine," Rumple piped up, ignoring the exasperated look Henry shot him. "It's the D.N.A. principle. We can use Lily's blood or something, so long as we have something personal of Maleficent's as well."

"Grandpa," Henry hissed through his teeth. "This is my thing."

"I figured it out," Rumple muttered back.

"I don't care! Who was the last person you brought back from the dead? No one. Now, shut up!" He turned back to his clients, flexing a tight smile at them. "Sorry about that—ignore him. What was I saying?"

"Something about ashes," Lily frowned. "But then Rumple mentioned how we don't need them if we've got something that belongs to her—"

"—and some kind of D.N.A.," Henry nodded; and added, gesturing at her, "Which we have."

"But I don't have anything of hers," Lily said blankly. She looked at her other mothers, raising her eyebrows. "Do you guys have anything? An heirloom or keepsake or something?"

"Mmm…." Cruella looked at Ursula, squinting her eyes. "I don't know. Did we keep anything of Mal's?"

Ursula sucked in a breath. "I was hoping you did."

"No," Cruella said, flummoxed. "Darling, why would I keep anything of Mal's? I have much better taste!"

"So—wait, you guys don't have anything?" Lily switched her gaze between them, panic growing in her eyes. "You're…you're kidding me, right?"

Ursula and Cruella shifted uncomfortably, avoiding her gaze; Lily's jaw dropped in disbelief.

"Are you fucking serious?" she cried, slamming her hands on the table (the old man at the table next to them looked 'round with a disapproving frown). "How can you not have anything of hers? If you were all such great friends and you loved her so much—!"

"Well, it's not like she gave us souvenirs!" Ursula snapped back. "She shot us through a portal without so much as a, 'Good luck!', you think we had time to ask her if we could have something for the scrapbook?"

Rumple coughed into his fist, and muttered something, prompting the others to swivel their heads around to look at him. He pretended not to noticed, examining his fingernails with an infuriating indifference.

"Oh, dear," he exhaled. "My cuticles are a mess."

"He wants us to beg him," Henry explained with a wry smile. "He's pissed because I told him to back off, and now if we want to know what he came up with, he needs exaltation and praise. Ursula, you want to move your chair back, so we have room to get down on our knees?"

"Well, that won't be necessary," Rumple smirked, looking up from his nails. "Just an apology from Henry will suffice."

"Tch," Henry muttered in disgust, turning away.

"No time for your adolescent scorn!" Cruella said impatiently, hammering her ring-studded fist on the time. "Apologize to your grandfather, so we can get a move on!"

Henry twisted his head to glower at Rumple. "Sorry."

"Like you mean it," Rumple sang softly.

"Motherfu—!" Henry clenched his teeth and exhaled as he sacrificed his pride and dignity. "I'm sorry, Grandpa."

"That's all right, m'boy," Rumple beamed, chucking him under the chin. "You remind me a lot of your father, when he was a boy—I almost don't mind the attitude, it makes me quite nostalgic…" A faraway look came over his eyes, and for a minute, he was lost in the little hovel in the Enchanted Forest—no doubt where countless villagers had died of plague or malnourishment, if not ogres.

"Grandpa," Henry frowned.

"Right! Maleficent…ashes…resurrection…" Rumple gave his head a little shake to clear it. "Turns out, ladies, that we don't need anything of Maleficent's to pair with Lily's blood, because we actually have the ashes. Well," he added with a chuckle, "I do."

Lily immediately held out her hand, as though she expected him to whip them out of his pocket and give them to her. Rumple snorted.

"I don't mean, on me," he said. "I know I'm a bit eccentric, but I don't just go around with decomposed dragons in my waistcoat. No, no—the ashes are safely hidden," he continued, picking up what had to have been ice-cold coffee . "And by hidden, I mean, under the library, in a little pile on the ground from when Emma slew Maleficent. Or maybe from when Hook' s much more talented friends slew the zombified version, after Regina threw him off the cliff—I don't know. Point being, her ashes are there, and we can use those to bring back the dragon queen at your earliest convenience. Speaking of resurrected queens—" Rumple turned, oblivious to the wide-eyed looks the three women were exchanging and their feverish whispers—"Henry, I think you should spend some time with Cora. She's only just gotten back, she's hardly had a chance to meet you…I really want her to leave me the fuck alone, so how about dinner tonight? Just the two of you?"

Henry raised his eyebrows. "How about being drawn and quartered and left for dead?"

"Or you could have dinner with your mum, who's very upset about the loss of her most treasured possession," Rumple shrugged. "Or your grandparents, who are highly disturbed by the darkness emerging in their little golden boy. Or Belle, who's likely to scratch Cora's eyes out or take her fury out on the boy who brought her back." He paused, tilting his head in mock consideration. "Or…dinner with Cora."

"Nah," Henry said, shaking his head as he got up from his chair. "I'm going to hang out at Dr. Whale's and Graham's. You can have dinner with Cora, and choke on it."

"Henry—!"

"This is what you get for meddling!" he hissed back; without missing a beat, he turned to the three whispering women, and said, "Text me when you've got the ashes. I've got a history paper to bullshit, and that's going to take me a good three hours, so I gotta get going."

"You want us to wait for you to finish your homework?" Lily said, craning her neck incredulously. Henry raised his eyebrows.

"Yeah. I do, actually." He shifted his backpack strap, glancing around at the adults, all of whom were regarding him with furrowed brows and questioning looks. "Look, guys, just because you have some kind of magic-related agenda, that doesn't mean that non-magic life stops. I still have normal stuff to do. That means, homework—"

"Nonsense," Cruella scoffed.

"—hanging out with my friends—"

"What friends?" Rumple muttered.

"—ignoring my parents and rolling my eyes at everything," he went on, pulling his headphones out. "I agreed to bring back your dragon lady, but I'm not going to spend my afternoon dustbusting the library for her ashes." He clapped the headphones over his ears, and flicked a mock salute. "Later…"

It was fun, being a moody teenager, he decided, leaving them to glare after him as he sauntered out. Not as fun dealing with moody-teenager-problems, though: like half-assed arguments with his vagueish-girlfriend who he wasn't actually dating, but sort of talking to in a vague way that…? Eh, this was exhausting.

Girls were hardly important right now: magic was the exciting thing, and if Violet wanted to be a diva, she was going to have to find a new audience. He had more important things to focus on than her quinceneañera dress or whatever she was mad about. It was random and unhelpful, and it wasn't like he was officially her boyfriend, anyway, so he technically wasn't required to care. Magic required so much energy…he couldn't really afford to waste it on stupid little mundane things, like summoning feelings or being conscientious.

No… Too much to do, to worry about things like that.