Henry sat in a chair at Mary Margaret's kitchen table, swinging his legs back and forth. He absently ran his fingers over his mother's name engraved into the dagger in his hands. "I don't get why she had to leave. Wouldn't it be easier to take the Darkness out of her if she were actually here?" Henry exclaimed frustratedly.

Mary Margaret set a cup of hot chocolate, topped with whipped cream and cinnamon, in front of him and sat in the chair opposite. She sighed as he pushed the cup away. "I know. But Emma doesn't always think before she acts. It's what makes Emma… Emma."

Henry just stared at the floor. He concentrated on the organic patterns of the hardwood. Anything was better than thinking about why his mother had abandoned him again.

Mary Margaret seemed to sense Henry's thoughts. "Hey." She leaned forward in her chair, the worn seat creaking as she did so, and laid a gentle hand on his arm. "Do you remember why Emma gave you up the first time?"

"To give me my best chance," Henry muttered.

Mary Margaret lightly squeezed his arm. "Yeah. So you know Emma would never do something if she didn't think it was the best choice for you, right?" She closed her eyes and drew in a slow breath. "I know Emma doesn't really ever say how she feels, but you are the most important thing in her life. She dropped everything, everything to come here and be with you in Storybrooke. So don't ever think for a second that she left you, okay?"

"But she did. She just left, without an explanation, or a goodbye, or a second thought."

Mary Margaret looked pained. "Henry-"

"No!" he interrupted her. "I hate her!" His voice broke. "I hate her for always putting others before herself, and I hate her for becoming the Dark One, and I hate her for leaving me. Aaargh!" He flung the dagger at the wall. The blade, surprisingly, cut easily through the brick and stuck in the wall. Neither Henry nor Mary Margaret got up to retrieve the dagger.

Mary Margaret's hand retreated from Henry's arm. She leaned back in her chair and shook her head. "I miss her too, Henry. And sometimes I get mad at her for leaving us. But, then, I remember I can't hate someone for doing what they thought was the right thing." She laughed. When she spoke again, her feelings were evident in her voice. "After what David and I put her through, we deserve this. And Emma deserves somebody looking for her, after so many years of being unwanted and tossed away."

"But we don't even know where to look for her. Nobody in Storybrooke knows anything about the outside world. Hardly anyone's even ever left Storybrooke. Plus, Emma's job was to find people." Henry thumped his fist on the table to emphasize his point. "That means she knows things we don't about where to go when you don't want to be found."

Mary Margaret blew a puff of air out through her lips. "I know." Suddenly, she sat up a little straighter and smiled. "But we have the most powerful weapon on our side, yeah?" She squeezed Henry's leg. "We have hope. And as long as we still have hope, we still have a chance."

Henry lifted his eyes just long enough to meet his grandmother's, a loving expression on her face. He glanced back down quickly. "We'd never find her. Finding my mom in the middle of six billion people would be like finding a needle in a haystack." He kicked the foot of the table. "Except finding a needle in a haystack would be easier, because the hay and the needle are all together."

Mary Margaret refused to accept Henry's negativity. She smiled and thoughtfully tapped her chin. "Hmm… So, what should we call our new mission of finding Emma? Operation Ferret? Operation Alpaca?"

Henry wasn't confident in the mission itself, but he didn't want to miss out on naming it. "Operation Macaw."

"Why Macaw?"

Henry shrugged. "I don't know. It sounded good, and it throws people off track. I guess."

Mary Margaret beamed at him. "Operation Macaw it is, then."