Henry sat in his parked car outside the school leafing through the book Kayla had given him. The first page spread had on the right side a picture of his parents standing and kissing under a tree, his mother's hand holding the reins of a vaguely familiar horse, and in the corner was a faint image of a woman's angry face against the blue sky. On the left side were words.
Once Upon A Time, in a land known as the Enchanted Forest, there lived a Lord named Henry who was married to a heartless witch. And in this case, heartless doesn't merely mean cruel, thoughtless, and unkind (although she was all of those things as well). The witch really did have no heart. No one knew why or how, but her vindictive nature and her potential to destroy anyone who rubbed her wrong were what made her famous. Most people in the Enchanted Forest also knew that Lord Henry and the witch had a beautiful daughter named Regina. Regina didn't care that she was beautiful, or that she could have married any prince she wanted. She knew exactly what man she wanted to marry, and she couldn't have cared less that he had no crown, money, or title. Her mother, on the other hand, cared about absolutely nothing else. And that's where our story begins.
So Henry really was named after his grandfather. He hadn't imagined that, or the witch, or the Enchanted Forest. He hadn't imagined any of it. He was surprised at the feeling of a weight being lifted off his shoulders and at how relieved he was to find what to him was solid proof that it had all happened. Twenty-eight years in a land without magic had to have taken their toll. If it wasn't for the brief encounter with Neal fifteen years back, he himself might have thought he was losing it up until now.
He flipped the page to a picture of an impish little man opening a sideways gap in the air that faintly resembled a magic portal. A young couple on horseback cowered about twenty feet back from him. The page after that had a picture of the same couple in slightly finer attire in an old-fashioned inn. The woman was wearing a simple but lovely white dress and had a makeshift bouquet and wreath of flowers in her hair. The last line on the adjacent page read, "As Daniel and Regina shared their first kiss as man and wife, little did they know that the Dark One was watching them from the corner of the room, and that their happy ending was just one more finished piece of the puzzle he had been assembling for nearly two centuries."
Just as the thought crossed Henry's mind that this was the closest thing he would ever have to a wedding photo of his parents, he was startled by the sound of tapping on his window. He looked up, saw a uniformed sheriff standing next to him, and rolled down the window.
"Can I help you, officer?" asked Henry.
"Hi, aren't you that guy from Boston who showed up here last night with Mr. and Mrs. Gold's daughter?"
"Yes," said Henry. "She's back home with them now. Why?"
"I'm just curious as to how she got to Boston, what you were doing with her, and why you're right now parked outside the school reading a book of fairy tales."
"Oh, this is Kayla's book," said Henry quickly. "I just dropped her off a little while ago."
"Really?
"I had her parents' permission," said Henry. "She's my biological daughter. That's why she came and found me."
"And we can talk all about that at the station," said the sheriff.
"Are you kidding me?" asked Henry.
"Nope. Just get in the car. Look on the bright side. If you cooperate, I won't have to arrest you."
Henry sighed. "Great."
"And then I dropped Kayla off at school, and she'd asked me to leaf through this fairy tale book she's been carrying around," Henry concluded. "And that's when you showed up."
The sheriff nodded. "And you say you're a detective in Boston?"
"Yes." In response, Henry flashed his badge. Sheriff Graham glanced at it.
"Look, I'm gonna level with you here. The reason I called you in wasn't just because I saw you loitering outside the school."
"Oh yeah?"
"Mayor Mills saw you driving into town last night. She filed a report this morning saying that you were a dangerous man."
"That's crap," said Henry. "I told you, the only time I drove somewhere with Kayla without permission was to bring her home. Just ask her parents."
"I believe you," said Graham firmly. "That's why I've decided to let you go."
"Thanks." Henry stood up to shake the other man's hand. "By the way, do you know where I might be able to get a job around here?"
"I'm sorry?" said the sheriff. "I thought you were going back to Boston."
"Nope. I'm sticking around here for awhile," said Henry.
Sheriff Graham's face took on a disturbingly grave expression. "I wouldn't recommend that. For whatever reason, the mayor has it out for you. And she can be pretty intense."
"If she wants to ban me from moving into her town because I brought my daughter home to her parents, I'm more than happy to have that conversation with her," said Henry.
The sheriff smiled. "In that case, welcome to the neighborhood. You're officially the second person in town to not be afraid of the mayor. I hope that doesn't change once you meet her."
"Likewise," said Henry. He wondered for a moment if he should ask whether the other person was Mr. Gold. He didn't seem like someone who was easily fazed.
"I have an idea," said the sheriff after a moment of consideration. "Why don't you try working for me for the time being?"
"Really?" asked Henry, somewhat taken aback.
"It would just be office work to start," said Graham. "As you got to know the town better, you'd start taking on some of the more important tasks. I couldn't pay you much, but it's enough to live on comfortably."
"Deal," said Henry. That was all he needed. He had enough saved up for potential emergencies. On his walk back to the hotel, he called his boss and his landlord.
Much as Helena felt like a tag-along in this whole adventure, she was rather enjoying the morning off. Normally if she tried to just relax for a few hours, the thought that one of her kids might need her would make her feel so guilty that she would keep going through her case files unless Henry or one of her friends pulled her away. But today she didn't need to feel guilty, because she didn't have the files with her and the cases she was supposed to follow up on today were being taken care of by other workers in the office. No drama today. Just relaxing and reading in the hotel room.
That's the thought that was crossing Helena's mind as she turned the second page of the fourth chapter of the first Harry Potter book. About two seconds later, Henry walked into the room wearing a deputy badge.
"What's that for?" asked Helena.
"I've taken a job here," Henry answered simply. "I drive back to Boston on Tuesday to pick up my stuff from the apartment and work. You need anything?" Helena's mouth dropped open. "Guess I'll take that as a no."
"Whoa, whoa, wait a second," Helena got up, letting the book she'd been reading fall shut by itself. "You're moving here?"
"I have to," said Henry, avoiding eye contact with his sister. "It's not just because of Kayla."
"Then why the hell would you do this?" asked Helena.
"It's something I've got to do."
"Why, Henry?"
"Because. It just. Is," he answered.
"Okay, Henry…" Helena got up and grabbed his shoulder with her right hand. "You know I love you. You're my big brother. You're my rock. But would you just listen to me when I'm telling you that this is bar-none the absolute stupidest thing you have ever done in your entire life?"
Henry shrugged, still looking at a spot on the carpet two feet behind Helena. "I don't know about that. There was that waitress in Springfield."
Helena grit her teeth. "Not funny."
"I've got some work to do," said Henry. "You should take a walk around town. It would help you get your bearings."
"You seriously think I'm just going to uproot my life and stay here with you?" yelled Helena as she marched out the door. "Have a nice…whatever this is!"
"Good luck getting back to Boston!" yelled Henry. He didn't think to do anything to keep his sister from leaving. She would probably come back to visit him in a few days. Right now, he needed the room to himself anyway. Henry sat down at the vanity-the closest thing this hotel room had to a desk-and spread out Kayla's storybook and his sketchpad. For the next few hours, Henry read through the entire book and sketched a picture of each of the characters in it, starting with his parents and the dark one. After the chapter about how his parents met Ruth and James came three chapters about what else was going on in the Enchanted Forest at the time and a brief backstory about the evil witch. Then was a chapter about Henry's birth and his parents' stable, then a chapter about Robin Hood. It felt so strange seeing his parents' love story mixed in with the familiar fairy tales.
"What most of the Enchanted Forest did not know about the Dark One, is that like the evil witch, he was not always dark. There was a time when he was a good man like any other. He had a job. He had friends. He had a wife. But when he made the decision to run from the battlefield during the First Ogre War, he returned home in shame and lost those things one by one. When fourteen years had gone by, all Rumpelstiltskin had to his name was a small farm and his young son, the only person who still accepted him and loved him for who he was. Tragically, the very actions that Rumpelstiltskin took to protect and keep his boy led to them being separated forever."
Henry ran his hand over the illustrated side of the page spread, which had an image of a frightened adolescent boy that was presumably the Dark One's lost son. "Where have I seen that guy before?" he wondered out loud to himself.
Half of the pages Henry had left in his sketchpad were full of images from the book by the time he reached the chapter about James herding and slaying a dragon for King Midas. Henry couldn't help but grin through the whole chapter. He'd known James was cool, but not this cool. He then sketched an image of James in his armor next to an image of what James looked like in Storybrooke. His haircut and of course his clothes were different, but everything else was the same.
That was when Henry glanced at the clock and realized it was already 4:30 and he hadn't eaten lunch yet. He closed the book and left it in a dresser drawer, but he brought the sketch pad with him.
There were only a handful of customers at the diner at this hour. Granny and Ruby were both behind the counter serving them. It took Henry seconds to profile them, and a sneak look at his sketchpad under his coat confirmed it. Ruby was the girl who could turn into a wolf during a full moon and didn't realize it yet. Never looking at that girl the same way again, Henry thought.
"There you are, Henry." Ruby walked over and plunked a cup of espresso in front of him.
Henry smiled. "Thanks. But aren't you a little young to be buying drinks for strange men?"
"Young and taken," said Ruby dryly. "It's not from me."
"Oh?" Henry felt a tug on his sleeve and looked down. Kayla was standing there licking off a chocolate milk mustache. "Hey, you. Do your parents know you're here?"
"Yep," said Kayla. "And you're taking me for a walk."
Ruby shot Henry a questioning look. He shrugged and followed Kayla out the door.
"So, have you read the whole book yet?" she asked.
"Most of it," said Henry. "Right now I'm trying to figure out who's who."
Kayla beamed. "Operation Zebra is on!"
Henry chuckled. "What? That's got nothing to do with…"
"I know," said Kayla. "It's a code name. So nobody figures out what we're up to until the time is right."
"Gotcha," said Henry. "So...do you have any idea who your parents are?"
Kayla shrugged. "Probably just some random villagers. They don't really look like anybody in the book."
"The people who own half the town were just random villagers?" said Henry questioningly. "That seems rather unlikely."
"My parents do not own half the town!"
"Sorry."
"They own the whole town."
"Oh."
"Well, not town hall and the school and the sheriff station and stuff like that," Kayla admitted. "But all the houses and apartments and other buildings."
"Right," said Henry. "Oh, speaking of that…guess who just became the sheriff's deputy?"
Kayla's eyes widened when Henry flashed the deputy badge. "Brilliant! You can use it to gather intel for Operation Zebra."
Henry hadn't even been thinking of it in those terms. But yes, he supposed he could.
"I have to go find my mom at the library," said Kayla. "See you later."
"Take care of yourself!" Henry called after her.
Later that evening, while Henry was soaking up the last few chapters of Kayla's storybook, his sister was calling out for her second refill on her margarita.
"You sure you want another one already?" asked the middle-aged bartender.
"Who cares?" mumbled Helena. "It's not like I'm driving anywhere." It seemed no taxi service was willing to drive her out of Storybrooke, and it went without saying that Henry wasn't letting her take his car.
"Suit yourself," said the bartender. He poured her drink and walked away. Moments later, a stranger took the empty barstool next to Helena.
"You're not from around here, are you?" he asked.
Helena looked up. "No. What makes you ask that?"
"Just because you don't come to The Rabbit Hole very often," said the man. "And believe me, I'd know if you did. I'm here every Friday night."
"How the hell did it get to be Friday night?" Helena mumbled to herself. The good news was that if she could get a ride back with Henry on Tuesday she'd only miss two more days of work between now and then. Then the thought of Henry and everything he was doing here made her feel like punching something all over again.
"So, stranger?" Helena turned to the man sitting next to her, hoping for some sort of a distraction. "Why every Friday night?"
The man sighed deeply. "You're going to think I'm crazy."
"Not compared to the past twenty-four hours or so of my life," Helena assured him.
He sighed again and turned to face Helena. She suddenly noticed how young he was. His beard and weary expression made him look like he was in his mid-thirties, but he was probably really in his mid-twenties at most. "On a Friday night about a year ago, I met someone here. I'd never seen her before, but somehow meeting her felt like…fate. She was the most beautiful woman I had ever laid eyes on. Being with her felt so perfect, it was like a dream. We danced together for hours. Well, at about three in the morning, she decided she wanted to go home, and because she'd had a bit too much by then, I offered to drive her. We weren't going to do anything, of course, but I wanted to make sure she got home safely." The man paused and starred down at his drink.
"What happened?" Helena prodded gently.
"On the way home, we got into a car accident. I was sent home from the hospital with a simple dislocated shoulder the following morning, and she's been in a coma ever since. And every single Friday night, I come here, buy a drink, and tell myself that today's the day I'm going to the hospital to see her and tell her how sorry I am."
"But you've never actually done it?" Helena guessed.
"Nope."
After a few minutes and a few more sips of both their drinks, Helena turned back to the man. "Why don't we go now?"
He raised his eyebrows. "You mean it? You'd come with me?"
"Absolutely," said Helena. The social worker in her was making her feel for him, and plus, it wasn't like she had anything better to do.
"Thanks," the guy got up. "It means a lot."
She held out her hand. "I'm Helena Stable, by the way."
"I'm Kevin. Kevin Prince."
When Kevin and Helena's taxi arrived at the hospital, the lobby was vacant but for one middle-aged nurse.
"Can I help you?"
"We need to visit a coma patient."
"I'm sorry," said the nurse. "Visiting hours are over."
"But…" before Helena could protest farther, the nurse walked away to answer a phone. Kevin turned and glanced at Helena with a hopeless look in his eye. "Screw this," she whispered. She grabbed his hand and dragged him down the hallway that had a sign labeled, "overnight patients" with an arrow pointing straight ahead. No one was in the overnight patient's room but two people fast asleep in their beds and a young volunteer tidying up the room. When she saw Helena and Kevin, she simply put her finger to her lips and motioned for them to enter. There was a tiny closed-off room with glass walls towards the back. As soon as Kevin noticed it, he pointed.
"That's her," he whispered. "That's Eleanor."
Helena let Kevin squeeze her arm as she led them to the small room and opened the door. The young woman was lying on her bed looking pale as the white sheets. Kevin released Helena's hand, so she hung back in the doorway. Tears rolled down his cheeks as he whispered softly to Eleanor and stroked her limp arm with his fingertips. The scene was both beautiful and gut-wrenching.
"I'm so sorry, Eleanor," he whispered. "Please forgive me." He bent over and kissed her softly on the lips.
The moment he pulled away, she sucked in a sharp breath of air and her eyelids flew open.
"Phillip?"