For the next few hours, Henry stayed in his room wondering if there was anything he could have done differently that would have resulted in Helena and Kayla not spending another night in this town. Was there anything more convincing that he should have shown Helena? Was there a better way that he could have explained it, one that didn't involve actually talking about magic or their family? Eventually he finally convinced himself to stop going over all the things he should have done and start thinking about what to do next. The one thing that kept going through his mind was that this was the last night Kayla was spending in Rumpelstiltskin's house. That wasn't optional. And the only way Henry saw to get her out was to break the curse. Until then, as Helena had said, any attempts to remove her from his home would technically be kidnapping.

If Henry couldn't get the two people he cared about most in the world out of Storybrooke by tomorrow morning, he would try the next best thing: getting them as far out of the way as possible.

"Did you remember to pack your lunch, Kayla?" asked Mrs. Gold as pulled over outside the bus stop.

"Yeah," said Kayla. "I'll see you later." She hopped out of the car and ran to join the other kids. Mrs. Gold waved and then drove off to the library. As soon as her car was out of sight, Henry discreetly stepped out from behind a nearby building and pulled Kayla away from the cluster of schoolchildren, none of whom looked up.

"What's going on?" asked Kayla. "Is this an Operation Zebra emergency?"

Henry put his finger to his lips and motioned for his companion to walk over. "Something like that. Kayla, this is Princess Aurora."

Kayla's eyes widened. "Do you remember who you are?" Aurora nodded. "So, it's true then! All of it!"

"Yes," said Aurora. "And it's all thanks to you that I woke up from my sleeping curse. If you hadn't brought Henry and Helena into town, nothing ever would have changed."

Kayla's smile broadened. It was disheartening for Henry to see how thrilled she was to have confirmation that she'd always been right. She'd never seemed like she'd needed it before.

Henry bent down so he was eye level with the child. "Kayla, I need you and Aurora to do something for me." She gazed at him seriously. "I need you two to work together to distract Helena and take her as far away from the center of town as possible before ten o'clock."

Kayla frowned. "What happens at ten?"

Henry smiled. "You'll see."

"You're gonna break the curse, aren't you?"

"Hopefully. Can you distract my sister long enough for me to get it done? Please?"

"Okay," said Kayla seriously. "Be careful, okay Henry?"

"Of course." Henry pulled Kayla into his arms and fought to blink back the tears when she held on more tightly than he did. He may not have had the chance to be her father for the past eleven years, but he was her hero now. If he messed this up, if anything went wrong with his plan, then he would be letting her down in the only way left that he possibly could. Her and everyone else he'd ever cared about.

When Kayla and Henry let go of each other, Henry gave her one last smile and a polite nod in Aurora's direction. The two walked off. Henry went to the police station, making sure to greet several people along the way and wave to his sister through her hotel room window. Now no one would think to suspect him if they realized Kayla was missing. Hopefully, everyone at school would assume she was at home, and Mr. and Mrs. Gold would continue to assume she was at school.

Helena wasn't sure what to think when Eleanor stopped her on her way to Granny's and told her that Mr. and Mrs. Gold had invited her to a meeting that would take place at ten o'clock in an unspecified location. She hadn't been planning on going back to the animal shelter until noon anyway, so she agreed to get into Kevin's car with Eleanor. She was surprised to see Kayla in the backseat, but didn't question it since she'd heard they were going to a meeting that involved her parents.

"So, does either one of you know what kind of a meeting this is?" asked Helena as Eleanor ran a stop sign and breezed through the intersection, resulting in the honks of several surrounding cars. "And can you please not do that again?"

"I'll try not to," said Aurora. "And no, I don't really know what it's going to be about."

"Me, neither," said Kayla. "They just asked us to go get you."

"Is Henry going to be there?" asked Helena as they exited the town center and Eleanor sped the car up to forty-five miles per hour. "Hey! Slow down!"

Kayla shrugged. "I dunno."

Helena began to wonder if the Golds had discovered that Henry had a "fairytale problem" and were staging some sort of intervention, or planning one, and that's why they hadn't told anyone specific details of the meeting. After a minute, Eleanor swerved sloppily into the left lane to pass another car.

"Move over!" yelled Kayla. "Or somebody's gonna hit us!"

"Eleanor, stop the car!" Helena finally yelled.

Eleanor slammed on the brake so hard that they all slid to the edges of their seats. "Sorry," she said.

Helena turned and looked at her. "Do you even know how to drive?"

Eleanor shrugged innocently. "I was doing pretty well for a first time, right?"

Helena sighed. "Move over." Eleanor didn't argue. Kayla waited patiently for them to change seats. "So where are we going?"

"Follow this road until you see the purple flowers and then take a left at the pine tree." At least she seemed to know where they were going.

Kayla kept track of the time on her watch as Helena and Aurora haggled over the directions and they drove down the long, winding roads. Soon enough it struck 9:00, then 9:15, then 9:30.

"How much farther are we going?" Helena complained. "I'm pretty sure we've gone in circles at least three times. Can you please at least tell me the name of the place we're going to?"

Aurora shrugged. "They just said the farthest building from the center of town."

"Oh," said Helena. "That means we're going to the stables then."

"Why?" asked Kayla.

"I'm pretty sure there's nothing further out than that," said Helena. "I was over there just yesterday."

Kayla and Aurora exchanged worried glances. They both knew it would be better if they were even farther away from town, even if it was just in the woods. But Aurora realized that the mayor was probably unlikely to look for them in the stables, as was Rumpelstiltskin. Unless either of them had some way of tracking people down, in which case it wouldn't matter how far out they got.

At 9:30, Henry had explained to Graham that he had a maintenance check to do at City Hall and left. Graham had wished him luck and minimal interaction with the mayor.

Once he was in City Hall, Henry's mind was too full of thoughts and apprehensions about what he was about to do to notice much else about the place. He kept reminding himself of the reasons he was risking everything for this. Kayla. Helena. His parents. James and Ruth. An entire realm's worth of people who were depending on him and him alone.

Henry followed the signs to the mayor's office. It was only when he reached the hallway that led to it that he noticed how quiet the place was. Good. The fewer people in the building when this went down, the better.

"Can I help you?"

Henry turned and could have sworn his heart skipped a beat when he saw a small timid version of the woman he remembered as his mother. She was sitting at a desk. He wanted to go in there and hug her and tell her who he was and how much he missed her so badly, but instead he just leaned against the door frame and whispered, "Are you the mayor's daughter?"

"Yes," she said. "Did you need to talk to her about something?"

Henry forced himself to breathe normally and stepped closer to her. "The name's Deputy Stable. Listen, I'm about to have a very important conversation with your mother, and I think that it would be best if you aren't here when it happens."

Her brown eyes widened with concern. "Why?"

"I can't tell you yet," said Henry softly. "I'm sorry. You'll find out within the next couple of hours. Until then, just go find the safest place you know and stay there. Can you do that for me? Please?"

Virginia looked up into the blue-grey eyes of the stranger. They were full of nothing but apprehension and concern for her safety.

"What are you going to do to my mother?" she finally asked.

Henry took a moment to think about what he was going to say, then continued. "It's not what I'm going to do to her. It's what she's going to do to me. There's something I need to tell her about, and I need to know you'll be safe before I do it." Henry looked at the clock on the wall behind his mother's desk. 9:45. "Please just go now. Okay?"

Virginia got up. "Okay." She grabbed her purse and bolted down the hallway towards the stairs. Obviously Henry had made her feel more afraid of him than anything. But he had succeeded in getting her out of the building. Henry waited another five minutes before knocking on the door to the mayor's office.

"Come in," she called out in her stone-cold voice. Henry opened the door. "Can I help you?" Henry shut the door behind him and drew his gun.

"Put your hands where I can see them, Mayor Mills. Or should I say, witch?"

Mayor Mills raised her hands, but smiled as she did so. "Hello, Henry."

"How do you know who I am?"

"Before I cast the curse, everyone knew that you were the man who was destined to break it and that it was going to happen in twenty-eight years. I should have known that you were what's been causing so many problems in Storybrooke over the past week. Thank you for that. It's been very entertaining."

"Glad you already know who I am and what I'm here for," said Henry. "Break the curse or die."

Mayor Mills just stared at him for a full ten seconds.

"Don't think for a second that I won't be willing to use this on you after all the ways you've destroyed my family. Now break the curse."

Mayor Mills stared at him for another two seconds, then threw back her head and burst out laughing.

"Oh, my dear boy." Henry visibly cringed at the sentiment. "You really don't know anything about how this works, do you? Your mother should have explained it to you better if she expected you to be able to break it. Not that you would have succeeded even if she had."

"I know all curses can be broken," said Henry. "And I know all magic comes with a price. You're the one who cast it. Now break it if you want to live."

"Never," said Mayor Mills. Her smile twitched. "Why would I want to do that? This curse has given me everything I've ever wanted."

"No," said Henry. "Not everything." Keeping his gun aimed at the evil witch, he reached into his left pocket and pulled out a figurine of a porcelain angel. "Recognize this?"

The mayor finally stopped smiling and starred at the object curiously. "Yes, I do. I'm not sure where from."

"Do you remember the boy who gave it to you?" Henry asked. "Alan?" Her face deepened into a scowl. "Yes. I think you do. You loved him once."

"How do you even know about this?" she asked.

"And he loved you. And the two of you loved each other just about as much as any two people are capable of loving. He would have given up everything for you if he had to, just like my father gave up everything to run away with my mother after you tried to make her marry King Leopold."

"How do you know any of this?"

"You may not be able to feel love for anyone right now," said Henry. "But you remember what it was like loving him. Right? You must. That love you felt is the same love that you've been denying your own daughter for twenty-eight years. You may not be able to love your daughter, but you know that you're supposed to. If you care about her happiness at all…if there is one sliver of goodness left in your rotten soul, then break the curse."

The mayor sighed. This had stopped being fun for her the minute Henry had pulled out the angel figurine. "I'm afraid I can't do that, Henry. You're the savior. No one can break the curse but you."

"How?"

"Come here. I'll show you."

Henry hesitantly stepped over to the mayor's desk, still holding his gun.

"Open the bottom left drawer and pull out the gold box."

Henry did as she asked.

"I'll have to open it," said the witch calmly. Henry kept his gun on her as she lowered her right hand and in seconds, had flipped the lid of the box and was holding a human heart in the palm of her hand. Henry stepped back about three feet, causing her vindictive smile to return. And he knew he had been tricked. "You know what this is, Henry. Take a good look at it. Do you know why this heart is glowing bright red? Because it's pure. The person who it belongs to is a kind and honest woman, a nurse at the hospital. Wouldn't it be a shame if I had to crush it?"

Henry's eyes were locked on the beating organ in the witch's hand. It glowed vibrantly as it pounded with the life it was sustaining.

The witch's smile widened. "Drop your weapon, dear."

Henry hesitated, then let out a defeated sigh as he placed the gun on the ground at his feet.

"Good boy. I don't suppose there's any chance that you'd like for us to develop a normal grandmother-grandson relationship? You'd have to stay in my house with me and Virginia permanently, of course, and let me take your heart as a precaution once I can find the means to do it. But I think we could all be happy together."

"Not. A chance. In Hell."

"Well, then," said the mayor. "I guess you've given me no choice."

"Meeting?" said the stable owner to Helena. "I don't know anything about any meeting that was supposed to take place here."

Helena glanced at the clock. It was 10:30, and neither of the Golds had shown up. "We must have come to the wrong place," she said.

"Helena? What are you doing here?"

Helena turned and saw Virginia entering the barn. "The short version is, I got lost. This is my birth niece Kayla, and this is Eleanor."

"I'm Virginia," she said, refraining from saying her last name because it would reveal that she was the mayor's daughter. "Helena, you have a brother, right? Is he the deputy by any chance?"

"Yes. Why?"

"Because forty-five minutes ago he came into City Hall and told me to run to the safest place I know because my mother might do something horrible to him."

"Crap," said Helena. She wanted to kick herself for not having checked on Henry earlier that morning after the events of the previous night.

"I wonder if he's finished yet," Kayla mumbled.

Everyone turned and looked at her. "Kayla, what are you talking about?" asked Helena. Kayla covered her mouth with her hand. "Kayla, answer me!"

"Look. Remember how I told you that the mayor is really an evil witch? Henry's at City Hall talking to her right now."

Helena's mouth fell open in horror. "Did he…did he put the two of you up to this? Dragging me all the way out here just so that I wouldn't interfere?"

"Helena, it's not what it looks like…" Eleanor tried to explain.

"Oh right, you would go along with something this crazy, princess," snapped Helena.

"What's everyone talking about?" asked Virginia.

"Never mind," said Helena. "Everybody get in the car!"

Kayla grabbed Helena's arm. "But it's not sa-"

"You are supposed to be in school, young lady!" Helena snapped, taking Kayla's hand in hers and not giving the girl a chance to argue. "Do you want to come too, Virginia?"

"Sure."

"Helena, please don't make them go back there!" Eleanor pleaded. "If Henry and the evil witch are doing something, and there's dark magic involved…"

"I don't care whether you come with us or not," Helena interrupted her. "But you're going to have a hell of a lot to explain to Kayla's parents the next time you do show up in town."

"Of course I'll come with you. I have to. I'm the one who borrowed Kevin's car anyway." And because she had promised Henry she would do everything she could to keep Helena and Kayla safe, no matter what happened.

On the way back to town, Helena sat in the driver's seat with Virginia next to her. Eleanor and Kayla sat in the back. Kayla started crying after a few minutes. Eleanor put an arm around her to comfort her. No one spoke.

When they finally arrived in town, an inordinate number of Storybrooke's residents were gathered outside the hospital gossiping. Helena's heart dropped into her chest. She handed the car keys to Eleanor, extracted Kayla from the car, and led her over to the crowd. Virginia followed. The first person Helena saw whom she recognized among the crowd was Granny.

"Granny!" said Helena. "What's going on?"

Granny turned to the younger woman and placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. "It's your brother. The mayor says he had a nervous breakdown in her office. He's been taken to the psychiatric ward."

Helena shook her head, then released the child's hand. "Watch Kayla," she said. She broke through the crowd, shoving people out of the way when necessary, to get to the front of the hospital. She saw the mayor with a nurse, explaining the details of what had happened.

"-he kept going on about how I was some evil witch and I was going to hurt his family and curse the town," said the mayor. "When I finally picked up the phone to call you, he started freaking out and yelling that I was holding a human heart in my hand. He had a gun in his hand the whole time. I was afraid for my life."

Helena could feel her heart pounding. Her worst nightmare was coming to life. She watched a man with curly red hair break through the crowd and run up to the nurse.

"Wait!" he yelled. "My name is Dr. Archie Hopper, I have treated patients with Henry Stable's condition before, and I can assure you, institutionalizing them is not always beneficial and in fact in some cases has been proven to be-"

He stopped when Mayor Mills grabbed him roughly with one hand. "I can assure you that the condition that Henry has is something far more complicated than anything you have ever dealt with. Please back off, and if you ever try to interfere with this sick, sick man getting the accommodations he requires, so help me I will crush you like a bug." Dr. Hopper stepped back and ran off into the crowd as soon as she released him. That's when she turned and saw Virginia standing beside Helena.

"You!" she marched towards her daughter and grabbed her hand. "What are you doing here?"

"That man…before he came into your office, he warned me and tried to tell me that I would get hurt if I didn't leave the building…"

"That's no excuse," screamed the mayor with her face as close to her daughter's as possible without their noses touching. "Virginia, from now on, you do not ever step outside of your office during work hours unless I have specifically asked you to. Do you understand?"

Helena was torn between going into the hospital to try and see Henry and staying long enough to make sure Virginia was alright. Since it seemed like Virginia needed all the emotional support she could get right now, she didn't budge.

"Why should I, mother?" Virginia said.

The mayor narrowed her eyes into terrifying beady slits. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me. Why should I?"

"Because you work for me, dear," said the mayor. "You go to work with me every day, and you come home. It's what you do."

"Well, it's not what I want to do anymore," said Virginia. "I'm leaving you, Mother. You're a horrible person. You have no respect for anyone or anything, and you treat all these other people even worse than you usually treat me. You never should have been elected mayor."

"You can't leave!" shouted her mother. "As long as you live with me and work for me, you have power in this town. Out there, you have nothing!"

"I don't want power!" Virginia yelled back. "I want to be free!"

"Don't you dare take that tone with me, Regina!"

Virginia's face twisted into a confused expression. "What did you just call me?"

Startled by her own error, the mayor didn't say anything.

The nurse turned to Helena, who's facial expression suggested she'd just been punched in the stomach. "I'm afraid you won't be able to see your brother today," she said gently. "Hospital policy. If you stop by later this afternoon, we'll be able to give you an update on his condition."

"Thank you," said Helena. "I'll be back." Helena turned, motioned for Virginia to follow her, and headed in the direction of Granny's.

"Are you okay?" asked Virginia.

"Not really," Helena admitted. She wasn't sure what she was reeling over more-the fact that her brother had just been institutionalized or the fact that the mayor had just called Virginia by the name that Henry thought was their mother's name. Not that that meant anything. Regina was close enough a name to Virginia for that slip to happen, right?

"Do you want to talk about it?" asked Virginia.

"Not right now. I'm going back to my room at the hotel. Do you want to stay with me for a few days?"

Virginia smiled. "Sure." After a moment, her face fell. "Wait…I thought you lived here in town."

"You don't have to worry about me leaving anytime soon," Helena assured her. "Because I'm not going anywhere until I get my brother back."

Henry didn't bother protesting against the two large male nurse's aides who were leading him down the hall, partially because he was tranquilized and partially because it wouldn't do any good anyway. Even if he managed to get out of the hospital, the whole town now thought he was a more dangerous person than Mayor Mills. He had failed. He had let everyone down.

"Something tells me you're gonna be in here a long time, fairy tale boy," said one of the aides, who then turned to the other aide. "Where are we gonna put this one?"

"I'm not sure. All the rooms in the maximum-security hall are occupied."

"He definitely needs to be in maximum security. Looks like someone's getting a roommate. How about the guy in 5A? He's pretty docile."

"Good idea."

A few minutes later, they came to a door that Henry could tell led to a room that made the cells at the sheriff station look like a fun place to live. "Have fun getting to know each other." The aides released their grip on Henry, shoved him into the room, and locked the door. There was a man sitting on the only piece of furniture in the room, a long hard bench, hunched over and staring up at Henry with familiar blue-grey eyes. Henry blinked a few times to adjust to the darkness, then with the little presence of mind he had left took in the sight of the man he hadn't laid eyes on in twenty-eight years.

"Dad?"