"What do you mean you don't have magic? Didn't you just use it recently?" Robin asked Regina still confused over what was happening.
"When that monster disappeared, Hades and I both lost our abilities, that can't be a coincidence," stated Regina. They descended the stairs through the fire escape of the building and made their way out onto the street towards Elsa's ice wall. As they got closer to the wall, Hercules could be seen climbing over it and down on the other side to greet them.
"Regina!" shouted Hercules towards Regina, "You're Henry's mother. I need to see Henry right away. It's important."
"Woah, woah, woah… slow down. What happened? Where's Hades?"
"Hades killed Elsa for her deity magic because he somehow lost his. He was able to open a portal to escape this world and I need Henry's traveling device to go after him."
"And then what?" Regina asked.
"I'm going to go after Elsa," Hercules replied with serious determination.
"How? You just said he killed her," Robin inquired, the confusion compounding exponentially.
"Hades deals with the dead… and I'm going to go get her back from him."
"A man on a suicide mission… great," Regina quipped, inserting her own opinion, "Well, wherever you go monsters seem to follow. So by all means, let me do the honor of kicking you out of Storybrooke."
… …
"Henry…" Gold called softly to his grandson. Henry opened his eyes and looked up at his grandfather. Both of their faces met with a mutual and solemn grief. Gold attempted to move closer to Henry, but when he did something felt different. There was something in the air that felt off, almost lackluster, and it gave him pause.
"Rumple?" Belle noticed his hesitation, looking at him with concern. She could tell from looking at him that something else was the matter; something beyond Neal's sudden absence. "Rumple, what is it?"
"Nothing," he lied. He turned looking back at Henry, turning the direction of focus from him to Henry, "Henry, are you alright?"
Without so much as a word, Henry got up from the couch and stormed out of the house. Emma, stunned by Henry's reaction, stood up more slowly and gestured her intent to follow after him. "I'll… go see if I can talk to him."
Emma wiped a few of her own tears away as she made her way to the front porch and saw Henry standing there leaning against a post. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see his mother approach him. She went ahead and leaned against the opposite post from him, mimicking his stance as they both stared off into the distance. When Henry couldn't stand the awkward silence anymore, he bluntly replied to his mother, "I don't want to talk."
"Good because I didn't want you to talk. I came out here so that I could talk to you."
Henry coolly glanced at his mother briefly, acknowledging her intentions with his reserved silence.
"I… just wanted to say that, what you did back there… was remarkable. I'm sorry Hades put you in a position to break your own heart. And I'm sorry, that as your mother and the savior, I failed to save and protect you from that pain. Your grandfather's right… I don't embrace the magic within me as I probably should. Perhaps… if you saw me demonstrate my gifts more, or if I was more receptive to magic, you would have felt comfortable enough to talk me about your abilities. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong about that too. All I know is that I failed you Henry and I am so sorry."
Emma looked up into the darkened sky, taking the time to inhale and exhale slowly. She glimpsed over at Henry and saw that he was unmoved by her apology. She could see on his face a mixture of complex emotions; sadness, shock, anger and apathy. She tried to flatter him again, "What you did back there… changing your beliefs like that, was maturity beyond your years. You did what most adults couldn't… what I couldn't."
"But you did," Henry retorted, "you grew up without believing in magic and you were saved from that pain because of what believing in magic causes. Magic is burdensome."
"Magic is a burden now?" asked Emma bewildered by his new point of view.
"Magic… makes things more complicated than they have to be. I know that now. You grew up without magic, and so can I."
"What are you saying, kid?"
"I'm saying that I should have never gone off to try and bring Dad back. I should have never pursued Magic. Magic makes things worse and has done nothing but brake up our family; my father with his, my grandfather with his father… Regina cursed my other grandparents, you were sent away by your parents through a magical tree…"
"Yes that's all true, but Henry… if it wasn't for magic, none of that would have happened and then I would have never had you. Our family isn't broken. We're all here, together in Storybrooke. Magic may have separated us, but it's also what brought us back together."
"Magic should have never separated us to begin with. I'm starting to believe that our family would be much better off without it."
A pair of lights from a car could be seen making its way quickly down the street towards them. It was Regina's car and with Regina sat Robin and Hercules. Regina quickly pulled into the driveway and parked it. Both Regina and Robin quickly got out of the car with ease, leaving Hercules to struggle with the foreign contraption.
"Henry…" Regina began to say when a loud noise of what sounded like metal crunching turned the focus of attention to Hercules.
"Oops. Uh… I'm uh, really sorry," Hercules stammered, holding on to the car door that was still in his hands. He had completely removed the passenger's car door from its hinges trying to get out of the back seat. Regina rolled her eyes out of exhausted frustration. Unsure as to what to do with the item in his hands, Hercules laid the door gently down on the ground and hurried over to Henry. As Hercules ran past Regina he could hear her murmur sarcastically under her breath, "…thanks."
"Henry," Hercules said ignoring Regina's comment, "where's that traveling device… uh… Cogsworth?"
Henry reached into his back pocket, pulled out the watch and handed it over to him without hesitation. "Here… I'm not going to need it anymore. Just tell Cogsworth where you want to go, tap the face three times with your finger and then turn the minute hand a quarter-turn to the left."
"Thank you Henry. I owe you," replied Hercules truly grateful for the gift.
"You don't owe me anything. You're relieving me of a burden."
Hercules nodded and did as instructed. He whispered a few words into the pocket-watch, tapped the face three times and moved the minute-hand. In a bright glow, Hercules was engulfed in sparkly red dust and disappeared.
Regina couldn't tear her eyes away from her son as Hercules departed. She couldn't help but notice that there was something different in Henry's demeanor, and so she asked as any concerned mother would, "Henry, what's the matter? Is everything alright?"
"I'm tired. Can we just go home, please?" he said walking past Regina and straight to her car.
"Sure… honey," replied Regina, looking questionably at her son.
"I'll wait in the car with Henry," said Robin as he followed Henry into Regina's car. Robin popped open the trunk to Regina's car and placed the severed door inside. Regina waited until they were both out of earshot when she turned to Emma and asked, "What happened?"
"Hades," said Emma as she stepped down from the porch to talk to Regina eye to eye, "made a deal with Henry and brought Neal back from the dead… his father in exchange for information on Hercules' weaknesses. If Henry didn't give Hades what he wanted then Neal's resurrection would only be for a day. Neal didn't want Henry to get hurt giving in to Hades' desires, so we stayed here to spend the little time we had together. Then you called saying that Hades brought another monster into Storybrooke, so we tried to think of how to stop Hades… and it was Gold who said that gods get their power from belief…"
"…and Hades' power came from Henry's belief in him…" Regina remarked, connecting the dots.
Emma looked confused, wondering how she came to the same conclusion, "How did you know?"
"Robin and I had a run-in with Hades. The crazy deity boasted and told us so," Regina said while shaking her head.
"Yeah," said Emma crossing her arms, "well it was Neal who convinced Henry to stop believing in his power. Hence… the reason why Neal isn't with us anymore."
"Oh, I'm… I'm sorry," Regina apologized genuinely, noticing Emma's hurt. She turned looking at Henry who was staring blankly off into the distance. She turned and faced Emma again, "I suppose that would explain how Hades lost his power causing his monster to disappear along with Neal. You don't suppose…"
Regina thought about asking Emma about her powers; about whether or not she still had them, but decided against it. She didn't want to appear weak in front of Emma.
"Do I suppose… what?" Emma asked.
"Nevermind. Good night, Swan."
Regina turned and started to walk toward her car when Emma called out, "Wait… let me fix your door!"
Emma lifted her hands and closed her eyes. When she opened her eyes again, she was surprised to see that nothing had happened and looked down at her hands in disbelief. "Wait… what the-?"
"Is your magic not working either?"
"No… I guess not. You don't have magic? Why didn't you say anything? When did this happen?"
"I didn't say anything because… I thought it was a fluke." Regina contemplated on the thought some more.
Emma's face lit up when she thought, "You don't think… Henry…"
"Maybe…"
"How?"
"I don't know…,"Regina thought, looking at Henry again. She heaved an exhausted sigh, "Look Swan, Henry... is devastated."
"… and heartbroken," Emma added.
"Yes, well there's no way we're going to discover the root cause to our magical hiccup tonight. We're all exhausted, so it will just have to wait for the morning. You have a good evening Swan."
"Yeah, you too. Sorry about your car door."
"I'll just ask one of Robin's handy-men to fix it tomorrow," Regina said exhausted as she entered the driver's side door and turned the car on. She carefully backed out of the driveway and drove slowly away.
Emma looked down at her watch and realized that it was getting late. No doubt, Killian and her parents would want to hear about her day's events in person. Emma turned to look at Gold's house. She couldn't believe that it was only a few hours ago that Neal was joking, eating, and smiling with them and that now… he was gone.
She knew she would have to tell Killian and her parents the truth eventually, but for now… all she wanted was to curl up into her bed and pretend that this was all a dream. She missed Neal incredibly and regretted not having said, 'I love you' to him more. When she opened the driver's side door to her V.W. Bug, she sat down in the driver's seat and closed the door. She readjusted the seats that once accommodated Neal's stature and realized that he was the last person to drive her car. She took out her keys and started the car. Everything about this evening and even this car reminded her of Neal. It was only then, in the privacy of her vehicle, that she was able to truly sob out the pain that she had held in all evening.
I miss Neal too. I really do wish the writers can find a way to bring him back. I wish I can find a way to legitimately bring him back and keep him in my story, but that would be too easy. It seems too much of Rumple's happy ending. While in Neverland, Rumple even said it to his son, "You're my happy ending, because you're my redemption."
And then there's this underlying theme in S4 so far… "Villains don't get happy endings."Not that I think Rumple's a villain and doesn't deserve a happy ending, but I do think he has made a lot of poor choices and went about using magic in cruel and unusual ways. It's in these choices that lead many (including myself sometimes) to believe that he's very much the antagonist rather than a protagonist in OUAT's overall story arc. But that's ok, because OUAT has a very unique way of making a villain relatable.
Rumbelle's love isn't easy (which is why I ship this pairing over Snowing) and I think Neal's death actually deepens and cements Rumple's connection with Belle further. I mean, Rumple really doesn't have too many people that he loves or loves him left alive. Part of what I think makes Rumplestiltskin's character so rich and vivid is his dark moments and how he chooses to react and handle those abysmal situations. Witnessing human struggles in fairy tale characters is what made me love this show so much. It's so fascinating.
Don't get me wrong, I want to see Rumple's happy ending. I do! And I think Henry's happy ending is his entire family sitting down eating Thanksgiving dinner together. But I think that makes for very convenient, very boring storytelling. I don't know… 'Happy Endings' just don't seem real to me. They feel distant. Perhaps I'm biased and feel that 'happy endings' are just too good to be true, or perhaps 'happy endings' are just the result of hope pursuing happiness and that we should accept the good that we have right now while we still have it.
Wow, sorry. I'm rereading this note and didn't intend to get philosophical or depressing. I'm just saying that I really do read your reviews and that while I write these author's notes at the end of each chapter, I reflect on your comments. The general consensus from these past few chapters were, "Keep Neal!" But… as I've stated before, that would be too easy, too unreal and too much like a happy ending.
Speaking of reviewing… thank you so much OUATgirl17, BreathingintheSun, Montreat11 and Grace5231973 for reviewing! You all are just awesome. See you next chapter.