A/N: Sorry about the delay. Arranging the next chapters as well, so I can post more duringthe weekend. Enjoy! (or not, coz this is angst, but you know what I mean). And review!

Chapter 5:

Henry was scared.

Really, really, terribly scared.

Not the type of fear that makes your heart race and your legs run and your hands come up to fight. No. This fear inside him was dread. It made him question every interaction he had with his mother, every decision he had made since finding the book of fairytales. His fear was a void growing in his chest, swallowing him whole. And all he wanted in the whole wide world was his mother there, telling him everything would be alright - even if it was a blatant lie -, and wrapping her arms around him, keeping him safe. It was not the same with his mother's ghost.

It would never be the same.

When you are scared, dear. When you want to run and hide…

Henry swallowed hard, let go of his mother's created twin and straightened his spine as he had seen Regina do when she was preparing to face something unpleasant. Like King George.

That is the moment you know you are brave.

Her voice was whispering in his ear and if he closed his eyes, he would be able to see her face as she had been all those years ago, when she told him that crying was okay. And so was staying strong.

Only foolish people are not afraid.

So, it was okay that he was scared for himself, for his mother. Scared meant brave. And brave meant that he could stay strong. For mom. Until he could find her and bring her home and let her be brave for him, while he cried into her arms.

"Take me to her."

Regina stared at him for a second and then took his hand. Henry thought she would lead him somewhere else and part of him was irritated that she hadn't done so in the first place. She didn't step away, though. Instead, she crouched down, sitting on her haunches and pulled him with her. Her hand guided his to the dirt at their feet and there, she placed his palm flat on the ground.

"What does that mean?", he pleaded.

One of her fingers dug into the earth and started to go round and round in a circular motion, leaving a widening circle on the dirt floor. She then placed Henry's palm in the center for a moment and stared at him again.

"I don't understand…"

"A portal…", his grandma whispered. "The whirlwind, going down the center. This is where she was last. Right where you are." A tear ran down her face and that made him angry. It was like she was already mourning his mom. But gone didn't mean dead.

"Is it a portal?", he asked Regina. She nodded. "Where did the portal take her?"

Regina pulled her hand away from his and rose up in a graceful move. She stepped away from him and wrapped her arms around herself. Tears started running down her cheeks and her mouth opened in a silent scream none of them could hear.

"Where? Where is she?!" Henry yelled and pleaded and then breathed in deeply and tried asking more calmly. Nothing worked. Regina continued crying in silent despair.

In the end, Henry knew she had nothing more to tell him and that it was time to let the spell come to an end. Say her name, Mr. Gold had said. Only once…

"Regina…"

And just like that, she was gone, a circle drawn in the dirt the only proof she had been there at all. Henry wanted to scream and wanted to cry. That would mean he had given up, though, and he was far from being close to giving up on his mother.

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There were broken bones that throbbed. There were spots of pierced skin that burned. There were wounds and bruises - too many to count - that seemed to add lead to her very body in a way that Regina felt she might never move again. Because moving hurt and made breathing hard.

Where was she now?, the thought flittered through her mind.

There was wet dirt underneath her. The air smelled like burnt wood and rotting flesh. And the darkness was absolute. She wanted to cry and scream and call for help, but no sound could be heard around her, not even the sound of her own whimpered breathing. Wherever she was, wherever Jefferson had sent her to through the portal, there was only one thing that seemed sure…

She wasn't going anywhere.

Time moved differently there, too. She could feel it. Feel the way it was stopped and moving all at the same time. Eternal pain and despair. Maybe a realm worthy of Hell, no ending in sight to the torment.

She deserved it, in a way. It was hard to convince herself otherwise.

And in the silence - that was so much louder than any silence she had faced until that moment - Regina knew she was never going home again. This was home now.

No one saw the tears or heard the sobs or felt the trembling of her broken body. She did cry, though. For what seemed like an eternity.

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It was dark out and way past Henry's bed time. No one, however, had managed to circumvent his stubborn decision to participate in the active search for Regina, no matter the place or time and the adults involved were weary to keep him out of the general loop, lest he be inclined to search for himself and walk right into danger.

They didn't know, after all, if Jefferson had accomplices. Or if he had returned to Storybrooke at some point.

And that made Emma worried. There was so much they didn't know.

"Okay!", she cried out. The merry group assembled on their small loft had been noisily shouting over each other with suggestions helpful and not so helpful alike. Leroy's didn't even bare to be repeated out loud. "We are not getting anywhere with this. We need facts. And we need a plan."

"My mom is missing", Henry said matter of factly. "She was taken from our home and she was hurt."

Emma nodded and tried not to meet her parents eyes, the image of that house, of that room still deeply imprinted in her mind. "Probably taken by Jefferson, if he wasn't working with someone."

Henry's small smile at her acceptance and help was enough to lift, just a little, the heavy burden on her chest. But just a little.

"She has been missing six days at the most. We estimate, by the state of her office, that she probably disappeared around last Wednesday afternoon. Could have been after that, though, we are not sure", Snow chipped in.

"She was taken to Jefferson's house near the woods and kept there for time undetermined", David added, a nod to his grandson and a deep look of worry on his face as he turned to face his daughter. Everyone but Henry knew what that look meant.

And they would be foolish to believe Henry didn't have some inkling that something very bad had befallen his mother while inside that house.

"Then Jefferson and/or accomplice opened a portal and took her out of Storybrooke", Emma quickly continued, afraid of the time Henry decided to ask more than she could bring herself to say. "We don't know where."

"So, we find out". Red hadn't really spoken before this moment, her and Granny having taken the roles of listeners until then.

"How?" It was Emma who asked, a whispered word with too much meaning behind it.

"First, we track Jefferson…"

"And his daughter! Grace!" Henry pinched in. Red nodded in agreement.

"If he is not here in Storybrooke, we take the next step…"

"Gold…", David seemed none too happy about this course of action, but he made no move to disagree. He might not like it. Might not trust Rumpelstiltskin with anything - not even with opening a simple door. Desperate times, though, called for desperate measures; that is a lesson he had learned long ago.

"I was thinking of asking Blue first. But we'll probably need Gold's help with this."

Emma nodded, Snow lowered her head and hugged herself, before sighing and nodding as well. The dwarfs, most there reluctantly, all took their cue from Snow and nodded, too. Red and Granny exchanged a glance and Granny allowed a small dip of her head to show her acquiesce with her granddaughter's plan. Henry straightened his back and pursed his lips, a look of determination falling upon his face.

They had no idea what they would have to face and Henry admired their united front and their bravery. There was nothing, though, that could make him forget his mother's ghost, silently screaming.

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Jefferson's trail had led them to Grace, who was still staying with her curse parents and preferred to be called Paige. The girl had cried about her papa being the same and not the same all at once. He had refused to listen to reason, she told them. She had also reluctantly admitted to seeing him on tuesday last, with eyes dark and scary. He had wanted her to go with him and had been very angry when she had told him no.

Red's nose led them to different places in town. Most people, when asked, failed to recall actually seeing the strange man who had lived on the outskirts of town, but scents didn't lie and the smell of him led them, eventually, to Regina's house. It was worthy of note, though Red tried to keep it from Henry's ears, that Jefferson's presence occupied mainly two rooms: Regina's office and her bedroom.

The picture being painted seemed bleary at best.

They returned to the house in the woods and eventually found themselves standing at the same place the apparition of Regina had taken them to… The place where the portal had been opened. The very spot that still sported a whirlwind drawn on the earth. His scent died there and Red couldn't seem to pick it up again anew.

Wherever Jefferson had gone to, he hadn't come back.