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After finding out how Snow had become the Evil Queen, instead of his mom, he wanted to find out if in this world Regina and Daniel had a baby. A child that was put in a wardrobe and destined to be the savior. Unfortunately, although the pages of his beloved book had changed to reflect how he changed the past, the last few pages that he had torn out to protect Emma were still missing. For a second he found himself jealous of the idea of Regina having a child in this version of reality. He pushed it out of his head but he was unable to sleep. Curiosity prompted Henry to read a few more stories that did nothing to ease his mind, in fact it only caused him more anxiousness. Apparently the seven dwarves he knew had been killed by King George while trying to rescue Grumpy, Princess Abigail had never been reunited with her true love Fredrick, and perhaps the one that hurt him the most was the story where the Big Bad Wolf had been killed and by Snow of all people.
Eventually he fell into a restless sleep filled with nightmares of the deaths of his friends. When he awoke the next morning he knew he had to find Regina, or whatever she was going by now, and break the new curse. Even if this world did have another version of Emma and himself he didn't have time to wait. This time his other mother would have to be the savior.
He ran toward Mifflin Street. There stood the same white house with green shutters just like it always had. He still had his keys and was grateful that this new curse hadn't changed the locks. Upon walking inside however he realized, like everything else in the town, although it was the same on the outside the interior was different. Not completely different, though, just little things, like where previously sat a statue of a horse there now sat a ceramic bird and the bowls usually filled with apples now held pears.
"Mom!" He called out but received no answer. "Regina… er whatever your name is here, are you home?"
It took the kid a minute but then it hit him. His mom hadn't cast the curse, this time Snow White did which meant she was mayor here, and if she lived here that probably meant Regina lived in Snow's old apartment.
He hurried out of the mayoral mansion and began walking the familiar path to Mary Mar… or now his mom's apartment. When he looked at the mail slots at the bottom of the building his confirmed there was no Mary Margaret there so the name in its place must belong to his mom. Figuring it now was as good a time as any Henry climbed the stairs and knocked on the door.
"Can I help you? The woman asked.
"Are you Virginia Regan?"
"Yes." She looked at the boy with confusion "Who are you?"
"My name's Henry. I'm your son."
The woman stood silently not quite sure how to respond to his claim. Then after a minute figured it must be a joke and laughed. "Did one of my students put you up to this?"
"This is no joke," He replied causally and invited himself inside. "Hey, you have any juice? Never mind, found some."
Henry grabbed a jug of apple juice and poured himself a glass as the cursed version of his mother followed him cautiously trying to figure out what was happening.
"Look, you seem like…" Virginia bit her bottom lip. "Well truthfully you seem like a very strange little boy and I have to leave for work, I'm a teacher and–"
"Let me guess." Henry cut her off. "You're making birdhouses today?"
"No actually we're doing a project growing plants from seeds."
"Oh…" The answer surprised Henry but after thinking about it that made sense, Snow's thing had been birds, and his mom's was apples.
"So, really I must be going." She ushered the boy out the door.
"Ok, I'll just have to walk with you then." He shrugged and followed after her.
On the way down the street Henry talked the woman's ear off about the first curse and that he'd gone back in time to try to fix it but this time Snow had cast the curse and now it was their job to break it.
"You really have quite an imagination." Virginia tried to placate him. "Perhaps you could be a writer."
"It's not my imagination, its true you just can't remember who you are."
Virginia saw the town therapist, Mr. Hopper, walking his dog Pongo, "Alright, if everyone here is fairytale character who's he supposed to be?"
"Jiminy Cricket." Henry replied matter-of-factly.
"Right, because he helps people if they're having an issue with their conscience. Well, I guess I have to believe you otherwise your nose would be growing." She responded, her tone affectionate, yet clearly patronizing.
"I'm not Pinocchio!" Henry let out an exasperated sigh.
"Course you're not. Because that would be ridiculous." She tried not to laugh.
They continued walking but stopped suddenly when the patrol screeched to a halt in front of them.
"Leo!" Before he knew what was happening Henry found himself in a bone-crushing hug. "I was so worried about you."
When he was abled to see the face of the woman hugging him so fiercely he gasped. It wasn't exactly Mary Margaret but it wasn't Snow White either. Henry couldn't seem to find words and the two women began to speak as if he wasn't there.
"I'm so sorry Mayor White, if I'd known who he was I would have brought him straight over… I wasn't even aware you had a son."
"No, its alright. We just adopted him yesterday and then when he ran off and didn't come home I was so worried. When I read the case history it just kept saying how bright he was but he had a slightly overactive imagination…" The Mayor paused and laughed at herself seeming somewhat embarrassed "Why am I even telling you all this."
"Its quiet alright." Virginia smiled politely. "He was just telling me how everyone here is a character from fairytales."
"I'm sorry?" She tilted her head to the side.
"Its nothing forget I said it." Virginia apologized. "I should really be getting to school."
"Of course," The mayor nodded then turned to Henry. "Come on Leo."
"My name is Henry." He mumbled to himself with a furrowed brow.
He glanced once toward Regina walking away from him but other than that he made no objections to being escorted away. It hurt to have his mom just walk away from him, it was something he'd never experienced before, in the past it had always been he who had walked away from her and now he felt guilty for that. Henry wanted to run back to Regina and apologize for all the things she couldn't remember but he continued to follow this cursed version of Snow White.
As he sat in the back of the patrol car with the woman pretending to be his mother, who in another reality should be his grandmother, he began to get a headache. He'd always thought he had a confusing family tree but this was just too much. He was trying to figure out why Snow White was claiming that he was her son and why she was calling him Leo. If the pattern of events was mirroring the way things had actually happened it made since, he had in fact been adopted by the Mayor of Storybrooke and was named for his adoptive mother's father who in this world was Leopold. The problem with that theory however, was in this world he didn't exist. The pages in the book that would have mentioned the savior were missing and even if there was a savior, it wouldn't have been Emma since Snow White and Prince Charming never had a daughter because Snow had killed him. So with no Emma there was no him.
"Leo, I know the transition can be difficult from foster home to forever family, but that's how I want you to see this. You're going to be here with me, forever." It was said with a sweetness that did very little to lessen the threatening tone.
"I'm not afraid of you." Henry glared. "Good always defeats evil and in this world you're not good."
"It hurts me that you would say that," She replied sternly then just shook her head looking defeated. "Now why don't you unpack some of your things, you start school tomorrow."
He gave her one more suspicious look before walking up to the stairs. Out of habit Henry walked into his old room where he was surprised to find a bunch of stuff clearly intended for a boy his age. He thought about what the different possibilities were.
Option 1) Snow White really didn't know what was going on and the curse had given her some fake memories to explain his existence here.
Option 2) Snow White did know what was happening and knew that he could ruin it for her so she was trying to make him look crazy.
Option 3) He really was just crazy kid named Leo.
Henry strongly doubted it was option one since when Regina had cast the curse she'd been able to remember her real life, so option two was the more likely one but that didn't worried him nearly as much as option three.
The idea that he was crazy was not a new feeling to him. It was a fear that had haunted him everyday since his mother had first started sending him to Archie. If he was honest with himself it was the real reason he'd always been mad at his mom. Regina had made him feel crazy for believing something that turned out to be true. A small part of him had wished he was just crazy, because he thought if he could give up the idea of fairytales than his mom would love him like she had before he'd ever gotten that book and found out the truth.
Of course all that hope turned to anger when Emma came and began to prove that he was right all along, and so he held it against his mom for making him feel crazy. For making him feel different. For making feel ashamed.
So this time Henry wouldn't doubt himself, he would find a way to break this curse, he'd fix the mistake. To do that though, he'd need help, and without Emma his other mother would have to be the savior now.
Henry looked around the room and frowned missing the nearly twenty clocks he had in there. The clock on the tower said 8:15 just like it had until Emma had decided to stay. Much was different in this new cursed Storybrooke but still much was the same, and since his room had not changed he knew exactly how to escape.
Before he went to his final destination Henry had to do a little bit of recon around town now that he had a better idea of what was going on. He stopped at Granny's, and the hospital and did some spying on Gold as well so he'd have enough information to get started on Operation Cobra 2.0. The last place he went to was the school. It hadn't changed a bit and as the bell rung he walked down the halls trying to avoid the students rushing to get home.
Unsurprisingly the classroom that had once said Miss Blanchard now said Miss Regan and when he opened the door he saw his mom colleting her things getting ready to leave.
"Leo!" She gasped dropping her things when she realized she was being watched. "What are you doing here?"
"My name is Henry," He insisted. "And I want to apologize –"
"Its ok I'm sure adjusting to a new town can be difficult –"
"It's not that. When I went back in time it was because I thought you were evil," Henry admitted shamefully. "But then I met you and I realized I was wrong so I tried to make it better but things just got worse. Snow White became the Evil Queen so now its up to us to fix it."
Virginia ran her hand through Henry's hair smiling at him. "Did you know in Grimm's original story when Snow White became Queen she invited her stepmother to her wedding and when she arrived Snow had her guards put hot-iron shoes on the woman's feet and she danced until she died?" Henry shook his head no. "Well it's true, so I can understand you thinking that Snow White became the Evil Queen but it's not real. People can't travel in time and fairytale are just that, tales, legends, stories, things we tell children to teach them lessons and sometimes give them hope."
Henry sighed, Emma had been hard to convince too. "It's ok, you just need time."
"Come on, let's get you back to your mom."
Henry sighed again but followed, "Fine just promise me one thing. Promise you'll come to the hospital after school tomorrow. Please."
"I can't make that promise." She shook her head. Virginia Regan did not make promises lightly.
The two walked in silence the rest of the way to Mifflin Street. Virginia wasn't entirely sure why she had bothered to walk him the whole way back. Clearly he was capable of finding his way around town. She told herself it was because she wanted to make sure he didn't wander off again but the truth was she felt inexplicably drawn to this boy who had shown up at her door this morning.
When they reached the mayoral mansion its owner walked out with with a fierce look.
"Leo, this is enough, straight to your room and no more talk of curses." His faux mother directed him.
Henry scowled and marched up to he room, but then his scowl turned into a smirk. He hadn't mentioned a curse, true his mom had said he believed everyone in town was really a fairytale character so curses weren't a far leap, but still it was enough of a confirmation for him that Snow White remembered. Henry didn't know what Snow and Regina had been talking about but when he got to his room and looked out the window he saw the hands on the clock tower moving. He smiled, tomorrow when he went to the hospital after school his mom would be there, and they'd start fixing this.
A/N So yeah most of you figured out since Snow and Regina's fairytale lives had been switched then their Storybrooke lives would be as well. It wasn't like it supposed to be a big surprise but please forgive Henry for not picking up on it as fast. Its more complicated for him since he's living it. Anywho this was the last of what I'd had written I mean I know where the story is going but there are no words to paper so to speak. I'll still try to have timely update but unfortunately real life likes to interfere with writing.