Henry looked at the strange lady sitting in the river. She was wearing green hospital scrubs. They looked soaked, and there were goosebumps running all up her skin, and her lips were blue. Blue-ish, he amended. He hadn't seen her before. How had he not seen her before? He'd seen everyone in this town. But then things were changing all the time, now that Emma was here, and he wondered what kind of change she was.

He dropped his backpack on the ground, and she flinched like it had been a gunshot and tried to push herself up and away. It didn't work. It was like her legs didn't want to hold her up. Henry went still as he could, eventually the lady started crying. Not regular big-sobbing crying, but just tears streaming down her face, and her hands still dug into the wet mud of the riverbank, as if she could just pull herself along and away.

Slowly, Henry crouched down and unzipped his backpack. He had a water bottle in his bag. She was watching him, tears still streaking down her face, her eyes huge and blue and desperate. He got the bottle out and, after thinking about it for a second, rolled it over to her. It bumped into her knee, and then bobbled gently in the water. She was still watching him, but her hands closed carefully around the bottle. Then the strange lady drank it down, almost in one gulp.

When she was done he — slowly — rifled through his pack, coming up with the Snickers he bought this morning. He tried to roll it towards her, but it got stuck halfway. So he stood.

She went still at that, the super-stillness of a rabbit who'd spotted a wolf. Tharn, he thought. He was reading Watership Down at the moment. She was tharn, and it didn't sit right with him. He didn't like the idea of being tharned at, as if he was something scary. He'd seen enough of people being scared at other people, because it was impossible not to, living with his mother. It wasn't a good thing to see. He didn't like tharning someone.

Carefully (and he was really good at being careful), Henry walked over to where the candy bar was stuck in the mud. He picked it up, and took another step, and another, until he was at the water's edge. He held the Snickers out. She took it, and Henry tried to get a look at her nails, trying to see if the nail beds were blue, which he remembered was something to look out for from First Aid class, or something like it, only then he noticed her wrists. They looked…strange. Scarred, he realized, and she had a plastic bracelet around one. He could see half of a stamp — '…brooke Gener…" He couldn't see if there was a name. "Is that from the hospital?" he asked, nodding to the bracelet. "Were you in the hospital?"

She went tharn again, and he liked it even less this time. His mother loved tharning people, but he didn't know why. It felt awful.

"Are you sick?" he asked. "If you're sick, I can call them — "

She shook her head and struggled to get to her feet again. This time it worked.

Henry shot up after her and held out his hands. "I won't, I won't! I promise. Here." He picked up the candy bar and offered it to her again.

She was still watching him, poised to flee. But her fingers closed around it.

And the next second she inhaled it. Like she was really starving. It made him think about the food drive they'd done in school for the homeless, and how Miss Blanchard told them all about people who were living on the streets and didn't get enough to eat, and he'd felt bad, but not as bad as he felt now. Henry realized he hadn't understood, not really, what it meant to be hungry. He realized he'd never been hungry, not really, not ever, and the thought made his stomach ache.

Henry went back to his backpack, made sure it was all zipped up with all the zippers on the right side, and swung it onto his shoulders.

They heard the voices at the same time. He could tell from the way her head shot up, and the way she went completely still, and from the total and absolute terror on her face. Henry knew he should think about this, or even call to the voices to let them know where they were. After all — strange woman, with a hospital band, still sitting in the river — it wasn't too hard to figure things out. But Henry didn't let himself think about it. He looked at her face, and he heard himself say, "I know a place where you can hide out. If you want."

The strange lady looked at him. Then nodded. Henry held out a hand and she looked at that, too, but she took it. His stomach ached again, because he was ten and her hand felt thin and fragile, and not very much bigger than his.

She was shaky, and she didn't move very fast, but they moved fast enough to leave the voices behind them.

He took her to the cabin. It was set back a bit in the woods, though it was by a road, and it was in good shape, even though it had been abandoned for longer than Henry could remember. Maybe when the curse was broken somebody would remember who owned it, but for now it was just a place with a roof on it where the older kids liked to come to kiss and stuff after school, and where Mr. Gold liked to take the people he kidnapped, like when Mr. French had robbed Mr. Gold's house and Mr. Gold had wanted to talk to Mr. French about it. Henry thought it had been stupid of Mr. French to try to steal from Mr. Gold, but even at ten Henry knew that Mr. French wasn't (as Leroy liked to put it) the shiniest diamond in the mine. Henry also knew that his mom had asked Mr. French to rob Mr. Gold, and when Henry's mom asked people to do things they did them, stupid or not.

Henry was pretty sure the cabin was safe, though. No one was going to come today, because the cabin was old enough that it didn't have insulation and it was really cold outside. Plus after Mr. Gold had taken Mr. French there, Emma had bolted the windows and put a padlock on the door. It wasn't hard to pick, though; Henry was good with locks.

Inside it was cold and dark, but it was a step above being outside, although that was probably the best that could be said of it. The strange lady padded into the middle of the cabin, her bare feet streaking the layer of dust on the floor, and stood there, looking around. Her arms were wrapped around her so tight he could see the muscles standing out under her skin, and he could hear her teeth chattering. Henry dug through the closets and cabinets he found a couple of dusty blankets and some old clothes. They were huge, but they were dry. He set them on a table.

The strange lady didn't move. She just stood there, looking around.

"You should be okay here," Henry said. "Nobody comes here." He shifted his backpack higher on his shoulder. "I, uh, have to get to school."

The strange lady looked at him, then. Her face was so pale, and her blue eyes were so bright that she looked like a ghost, standing there in the dark cabin. She gave him a little nod, and then something that was almost a smile. Like she was trying to smile but she forgot how. It made her seem less strange and more just like somebody who was scared and cold and just trying to figure out what was going on. That made him feel worse, somehow.

Henry nodded back and headed for the door. Then stopped. He looked at her footprints in the dust; they were smeared with something that wasn't just dirt. "Are you okay? Are you hurt?"

The lady blinked and looked down at her feet, as if she was only realizing it for the first time. She lifted one foot, and Henry saw, underneath the layer of caked mud, the gash. It didn't look good.

"Stay right here. I'll be right back."

It took a bit to get back into town, but Henry figured that didn't matter. He had probably already passed the way-too-late-for-school mark. The principal had probably called his mother by now, and his mother had probably already called Emma to send out a search party. And Emma would find him — she was good at finding things — so Henry used the time to think up a story of why he wasn't at school. He was good with stories. He had heard the older kids talking about skipping school, and decided he should give it a try. That might work. He thought Emma was probably the type to have skipped a lot of school when she was a kid. But he probably should stick closer to the truth; Emma was also really good at True or False. So maybe it should be that he had taken a shortcut through the woods (which was true) and had gotten distracted and lost track of time. (Which was sort of true, even though Henry made it a point to never ever lose track of time. Not even now that the clock tower was working.)

He didn't run into anyone on his way into town, though — most people were probably at work — and the streets were more or less empty as he hurried to Leroy's. Ashley Boyd was there when Henry went in, her baby on her hip, but she was the only one and she and Leroy were gossiping up at the counter and didn't look up when the door chimed. Henry hurried into the First Aid aisle, and grabbed some gauze and bandages and Neosporin. Then he went an aisle over, where there was a whole shelf devoted to granola bars and those meal replacement things with pictures of bodybuilders on them.

" — as tired as I feel."

"Yeah, well, being up half the night looking for an escaped loony is probably almost as exhausting as dealing with a baby." But Leroy was smiling and letting the baby grab at his fingers. He looked over when Henry set his stash on the counter and smirked. "Hey, Henry. Hey, shouldn't you be in school?"

"Yes," Henry said. Leroy was nice, and besides Henry didn't like lying. He was good at it, but he didn't like it.

"Okay, then." Leroy looked down at the pile and smirked. "Trying to bulk up?"

"Yes," Henry said.

"You might as well stick to Snickers. These things have just as much sugar," Leroy said, ringing him up.

Henry didn't say anything, which was what he usually did when he didn't know what to say, and besides grown-ups never seemed to really listen anyway. But he thought about it, and added a couple Snickers to the pile. The lady seemed to like the one he gave her.

The door chimed again, and this time Leroy and Ashley did look up. And they stopped smiling.

"Good morning," Mr. Gold said.

Leroy tossed back a "'Morning," but Ashley didn't say anything. She hurried to stuff her purchases in the baby bag she was carrying and left. Mr. Gold smiled and held the door for her, then strolled over to the magazine rack. He began to flip through one.

"This ain't a library," Leroy said, bagging Henry's things.

"My apologies." Mr. Gold flipped the magazine closed and brought it over to the counter. "So. What is all this excitement I've been hearing about? Seems there was something of a to-do at the hospital."

"Like you don't know," Leroy said. "That'll be twenty-two fifty, kid."

"I heard something about…an escaped patient. Another one," Mr. Gold said.

Leroy sniffed, but everybody in town knew he loved to gossip. "That's a nice way of putting it. A freakin' nut is what she is. Ruby told me — apparently they're housing a bunch of nutjobs up at the hospital, right near town, where anybody could run if they got out. And they don't freakin' tell anyone."

"I can't imagine why not," Mr. Gold said.

"Cause Madame High Mayor knows everybody'd freak out if they knew some loonies were stored up here in Storybrooke, that's why," Leroy said, making change for Henry. "People are really upset. You better believe she's going to have to answer for this."

Mr. Gold smiled. "I believe it."

Henry glanced at Mr. Gold, but he was smiling benignly (Henry had learned that word from Dracula) (reading it, that was; he'd yet to meet the actual one) (actually, he really hoped there wasn't an actual one). It didn't feel benign, though.

"I gather," Mr. Gold continued, "they have yet to locate the…patient."

"Not since the last I heard, though Walter did radio in to say Ruby's found some tracks leading to the river. Maybe she decided to go for a dip," Leroy joked.

"You must have looked all over by now."

"Jesus, sure feels like it." Leroy shook his head. "Do you know how big those woods are? But sheriff's being real organized about it. Starting at the hospital, and branching out — least, that's what I heard before I had to head in — "

Henry grabbed his change and his bag and hurried to the door.

"Good morning, Henry." Mr. Gold finished paying for his magazine, and turned smoothly to smile at him. This one did not seem quite so benign. "A little late for school, aren't we?"

"Yes. Excuse me," Henry said, and rushed out.

And right into Emma.

"Woah, woah, woah, kid, where's the fire?" She pushed him back a bit and cocked an eyebrow. Her hair was messy and her clothes were rumpled and she looked exhausted, but she was smiling at him. "Aren't you supposed to be in school?"

"Yes," Henry tried, but the odds were slim that she would find it as adorably precocious as Leroy had. He probably wouldn't get away with it.

She didn't. She smirked, instead, and said, "Mind me asking what you have there?"

"Yes," Henry said.

Emma crossed her arms. "Whatdya have there?"

"Things." Not lying to Emma was sometimes as tricky as lying to Emma. You had to stick to one word answers, and after a while that gave you away as much as the lying.

"'Things.'" Emma cocked a grin at him. "Real wordsmith, aren't you? Okay, fess up, let's see what you've got, kid."

"Let's see your warrant first, Sheriff," Henry told her.

"I don't need a warrant to check my — " She stopped saying whatever it was she'd been about to say. Henry was fine with that. He hadn't really wanted to hear it. "Why aren't you in school?" she demanded, joking done.

Henry briefly debated the took-a-shortcut-through-the-woods-got-distracted story, but with the look Emma was giving him, he didn't think it would work. So Henry went with his gut. And the truth.