Disclaimer: I own a penny from 1906, but not Once Upon a Time or any of these characters.

A/N: I realize it's legitimately been forever since I've updated (not exaggerating), but, in my defense, I was extremely busy being sick, while I worked so much overtime, before my trip to Belize, where my laptop broke, just after I had re-edited this chapter for the 6th time. Also, writing is hard. So really this is all Obama's fault.

Anyway, this chapter took me a while to figure out, but I'm pretty happy with it now. Also, take note! I've gone back and made some minor changes to the previous chapters (typos and such) and I've included a date at the start of each chapter to help orient you all to the time line I'm trying to establish. Lastly, I'd like to take this moment to show my great sorrow over the passing of the Oxford comma. It will be mourned, avenged and quickly forgotten. And now, a poem!

As vain to raise a voice as a sigh

In the tumult of free leaves on high.

What are you, in the shadow of trees

Engaged up there with the light and breeze?

Less than the coralroot, you know,

That is content with the daylight low,

And has no leaves at all of its own;

Whose spotted flowers hang meanly down.

You grasp the bark by rugged pleats,

And look up small from the forest's feet.

The only leaf it drops goes wide,

Your name not written on either side.

You linger your little house and are gone,

And still the woods sweep leafily on,

Not even missing the coral root flower

You took as trophy of the hour.

-Robert Frost

Henry

Sunday October 30th 12:47am

Someone was shaking him.

No.

Someone was shaking his bed.

Henry opened his eyes and sat up, nearly toppling onto the floor as his mattress lurched sideways. He grabbed a fist full of sheets and sunk low on the bed, fighting for balance, as he watched a row of encyclopedia's fly from their home on his bookshelf and land in a jumbled heap on the carpeted floor. Seconds later his record player joined the books, as it toppled off it's stand, landing with a loud crash.

"HENRY!"

His bedroom door burst open, hitting his desk's wooden chair with a loud crack. Henry squinted at the bright hallway light, making out a familiar silhouette.

"Mom?"

In a flash she was through the entrance and had pulled him forcefully him from the bed. Before he could think, he found himself pushed to the floor and shoved roughly against the hard frame of the door. Henry tried to get up, but his mother was there, kneeling over him and using her arms to pin him in place.

"What's going on?" he yelled over the cacophony of toppling furniture and shattering glass. He continued to struggle in her arms, as the house shook beneath them.

"It's going to be okay," she said into his ear, still gripping him tightly.

Henry stopped fighting her when the hall lights flickered off, leaving them in the pitch black. He shut his eyes against the darkness and waited, focusing on the sound of his mother's short and ragged breaths. He gripped her arm tightly, remembering a terrifying afternoon just after his fifth birthday that was spent hiding in cabinet beneath the kitchen sink, as a late summer thunderstorm raged outside, shaking the the whole house.

This was worse.

Eye's shut firmly against the darkness and noise, he waited. And waited. And waite-

"Henry," his mother said softly. She slowly began the process of easing out of his grasp. "Honey, it's over."

Her words confused him because he still felt like his body was shaking. When he finally opened his eyes, he blinked against the harsh, bright light of her cell phone. She quickly pointed it at the floor.

"Are you hurt?" she asked, her tone shifting to what he thought of as her 'mayor voice.'

"I'm fine," Henry said, hoping she didn't hear the tremor in his speech. He tried to stand.

"Wait," she commanded, bringing the light to his face for a second or two before passing it over the rest of his body.

"You're not fine!" Now she sounded angry. She grabbed his shirt roughly and pulled at his left arm. "You're bleeding."

He looked down to see a long red streak along the sleeve of his Hulk pajamas.

But it doesn't hurt.

She pulled at the material until his whole arm was visible, but there was no blood. His skin was still clean from his evening bath.

"Mom." His eyes were on her right knee where there was a rip in her blue pajamas. "I think it's you."

Her eyebrows narrowed in confusion, but followed his gaze to her leg. They both watched a crimson drop fall onto the floor.

"I can get the first aid kit," he offered, once again trying to stand.

"No," she answered quickly, pushing him back down. She looked away from him, her eye's zeroing in on something under his bed. He watched her reach to her left and then grunted when his sneakers landed in his lap. "Put these on. Then you may stand."

She stood and shined the light on the floor.

"You're not wearing any," he pointed at her bare feet.

"Henry, do as I say," she said glaring down at him. "Put your shoes on and don't move until I come back."

When he nodded, she stepped carefully into the hallway and stood near the banister, looking down at the lower landing. He heard a disappointed sigh before she moved out of view down the hall to her bedroom.

Henry used her momentary absence as an excuse to look into his room. It was hard to see since she had taken the light with her, but he could tell that the floor was a mess. It seemed as though every book, action figure, and collectable he owned had fallen from his book shelf. He frowned at the sight of his favorite antique mantel clock and the cracked glass that marred it's face.

Maybe Marco can fix it.

He got to work pulling on his sneakers and was just knotting the rabbit ears of his second shoe when he heard a phone ring. As he rose to his feet his mother returned. She was now dressed in a pair of black jeans, a blue sweater, and tennis shoes.

She stepped past him, a large flashlight in one hand and her cell phone held to her ear with the other.

"Did they say how many homes were out, Graham?" She looked down at Henry and motioned for him to follow, using the flashlight to guide their path down the stairs.

"What about the residential streets west of Maple?"

Henry could make out the muffled voice of the Sheriff on the other end of his mother's cellphone.

"What? No, they'll have a generator backup," she sighed. "Yes, I'll call."

While the stairs were easily visible from the moonlight that shown through the large bay window on the front of the house, Henry kept a tight grip on the bannister as they descended. He didn't want to fall should the shaking start again. When they reached the hard wood of the lower landing, he could see that the first floor had not fared much better than his bedroom. The pair of end tables that stood quard on either side of the dinning room had toppled over - the vases they held were smashed on the floor - and the picture frames that lined the wall had all fallen to the wood below, the glass shattered.

"Okay, just let me know when you have the exact numbers," she told her phone, as they moved past the mess on the floor and into her study. "Have you called in your volunteer deputies yet?" She pointed at the sofa and mouthed, 'sit down.'

He opened his mouth to argue, but the look she shot him made him changed his mind. He sat down and scanned the room.

It was dark, but the light from the flashlight provided enough illumination for him to see some of the damage. The floor was covered with his mother's thick legal books, most of which had toppled off the shelves that lined the walls. He recognized a large red volume that had always sat on her desk when he was little. The heavy book had landed awkwardly, the impact partially separating the spine from it's now crumpled pages.

The sight of it made Henry sad. That book always reminded him of one of his favorite memory's growing up. A foot of snow had blanketed Storybrooke, canceling preschool and pretty much shutting down the town. With both of them stuck at home, his mother had made him pancakes before retreating into the study to work from home.

Henry, not wanting to spend the day alone, had immediately abandoned his breakfast and run into the study ahead of her. Without preamble, he'd heaved the big red book off her desk and raced away to hide it under the bed in the quest bedroom.

When he'd returned downstairs, his terms were simple. No work for the day. Period. And, at the end of the day, if he deemed that they had had enough fun, then, and only then, would the book be returned to her.

After praising him for his keen negotiating skills, she had wisely acquiesced. At the time he had neglected to mention that those 'keen negotiating skills' mostly came from watching her during the town's monthly city council meetings, but he did share his pancakes with her. Then they'd spent the morning building a series of sentry snowman to defend the front walk (the back yard was protected by the impenetrable hedge wall). It was only time he could ever recall convincing her to help him with such a mission. Afterward they sat in the study, in front of a roaring fire, sipping homemade cocoa while she told him stories about her father, the man he had been named for.

Henry stood up to pick up the book, but stopped at the sound of snapping fingers. He turned to see his mother, a stern look on her face, pointing at the sofa while the Sheriff continued talking into her ear.

He frowned at her and sat back down.

"Okay Graham. Call me back in fifteen minute." Pause. "No, not until the morning." Another pause. "Yes. Okay. Goodbye."

She ended the call, but didn't place down the phone. Henry watched her as she shined her flashlight around the room. Spotting something, she moved to her desk and leaned over to pick up a large frame that was face down on the floor. It was one of her diplomas. Craning his head, Henry could see that there was now a large crack in the glass. His mother sighed as she leaned the frame against the wall.

She turned to face him. "I'm going to get your blanket from upstairs."She glanced around the room. "You can sleep down here tonight."

"But Mom!"

"No buts. Your room is a mess and probably covered in glass."

"So is down here," he countered, pointing at the broken frame she'd just picked up.

She sighed. "Henry I need to make some phone calls and I want you nearby. Just please, don't question everything I ask of you."

"I'm never going to fall asleep down here."

She handed him the flashlight. "Maybe so, but you're going to try." She headed for the door. "And don't even think about moving from that sofa."

When she was gone, Henry removed his sneakers and leaned back against the soft leather. He didn't want to sleep. He wanted to find out what had happened. The shaking must have been an earthquake, but those didn't happen in Maine. They had studied them in class earlier in the year and Ms. Blanchard had explained all about the tectonic plates and how most earthquakes happen in California.

An earthquake in Storybrooke just didn't make sense. Something else must have happened.

His heart skipped in his chest.

The curse.

It had to be. It was the only explanation that made sense. He already knew that the curse had been weakened by Emma's arrival in town. That much had been proven when the library clock tower had resumed chiming for the first time in the ten years he had lived in Storybrooke.

But, what he couldn't figure out, was why the curse would have caused an earthquake? He was pretty sure it hadn't broken because if it had, everyone would have been transported back to the Enchanted Forest. It was possible that the curse had weakened further, triggering the 'quake, but he wasn't sure what could have caused that. Not while Emma was still out of Storybrooke.

Henry gasped..

Is she back?

He needed to talk to her. He had her cell phone number upstairs, copied from Regina's own phone the day after Emma had left town. Henry's eye's darted to the house phone located on the old wooden desk, just six feet away.

"Here we go."

He jumped at his adoptive mother's sudden reappearance. Upon seeing his reaction, she set down his pillow and blanket on the sofa next to him, knelt down to his eye level, and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Everything is going to be fine Henry."

"I know," he replied, meeting her eye.

She squeezed his shoulder and then turned away, lighting a candle on the small end table in front of the sofa. "I'm going to be very busy for the next few days, and we may have to cancel a few of the town's Halloween festivities, but if you'd like, I can still take you trick-or-treating tomorrow afternoon."

"You don't have to," he said, not really wanting to spend an extended period of time with Regina.

She sat down next to him, "I don't mind Henry. It is our tradition. And I already made your costume." She smiled. "Peter Pan, just as you asked."

"I know," his gaze was on the flickering candle. "It's just that I'm getting kind of old for trick-or-treating." It wasn't really a lie, and anyway, he was a prince and he was pretty sure that prince's didn't go trick-or-treating. And if they did, they didn't do it with parental supervision.

When her silence started to make him feel bad, he added, "Plus I bet after the earthquake, no one even remembers to buy candy."

She was quiet for another long moment before finally saying, "Okay. How 'bout I save the costume for next year." After a moment, he felt the couch shift as she stood up. He didn't look at her. "I'll just be in the other room. Please try to get some sleep, sweetheart."

"I will."

After she was gone, he began the task of arranging his pillow and blanket into a comfortable alternative to his bed upstairs. Now that he was alone, he really wanted to call Emma and find out if she was back in town. His eye's once again found the phone resting on Regina's desk. For a brief moment, he considered sneaking upstairs to get Emma's phone number, but then thought better of it. It was best to wait until the morning when Regina wouldn't be keeping such a close watch over him.

Henry leaned into his pillow and watched the shadows cast by the candle. Regina had left the study door open a crack and, after a while, he could hear her talking on her phone from the kitchen. She made a lot of phone calls, speaking to different people about 'power outages' and 'cracked roadways.'

Henry listened for a while, but didn't find her conversations particularly interesting.

Pulling his blanket tight against his chest, he closed his eyes and let his adoptive mother's voice lull him off to sleep.

It didn't take long.

When Henry woke later in the morning, he was still in the study, curled up under his blanket on the soft leather sofa. The candle on the table next to him had burned down, leaving a puddle of congealed white wax on the small round dish Regina had placed it on.

Pushing off his blanket, he rolled onto the floor and found his sneakers. The morning light was pouring through the large window behind the desk and he could see that Regina had been back in the study since he'd fallen asleep. All the displaced books had been collected and placed in a neat pile on the floor by the book self. The heavy red one was gone.

Once his shoes were tied, he left the study and entered the front hall, passing a mound of glass that had been swept into a pile along the wall. The power was back on and he could hear the sound of someone talking. Following the noise, he cut through the living room and came to a stop at the entrance to the small breakfast nook that joined the kitchen. The room was empty, but the portable television on the corner table was on and tuned to the local news station that his mother hated so much.

"...at the United States Geological Service issued a statement just after four o'clock eastern time this morning, estimating last night's earthquake as a magnitude of 5.7 on the Richter scale, making it the fifth, and most powerful, felt in Maine this year," a female anchor reported as a graphic of Maine's coastline appeared on screen. A red bull's-eye materialized in the water near Storybrooke. "Seismologist's at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have marked the epicenter two miles east of Rockport, in West Penobscot Bay." The reported pauses as the graphic disappeared. "In a joint press conference delivered in Portland early this morning..."

"Oh Henry, you're up."

Turning at the sound of a familiar voice, Henry smiled at the sight of his favorite uncle standing in the kitchen, holding a steaming cup of coffee.

"David!" The boy rushed forward to issue their, now mandatory, super secret high five. "What are you doing here?" Henry asked after they concluded the greeting with an explosive fist bump.

After learning that David was both Prince Charming and his grandfather, he had been unsure how to act around the man. In fact, the first time he'd come to that shocking realization, he'd nearly fallen off of Comet while they were out on the practice yard. Now, though, he found it was easier to treat his uncle as he always had. It was much less awkward that way.

David stepped forward and placed his mug down on the small kitchen table, right next to a copy of the Storybrooke Mirror. "Your mom had some work to take care of at City Hall, so she asked me hang out with you today." He explained as he grabbed the television remote and lowered the volume.

"Cool," the boy replied, pleased at the prospect of a day spent with David.

His uncle smiled. "So, why don't I make you breakfast and then," he pushed the comics section of the newspaper toward Henry, "I thought we might head over to the stables. How does that sound?"

"Sure!" Henry took the offered newspaper section and asked, "Will I be able to ride?"

"We'll see," David said, before taking a sip of his coffee. "The horses were understandably upset by the earthquake."

"Is Lenny okay?" Henry asked, looking up sharply from the comics.

"None of the horses were hurt," David assured. "I just think they've earned a day off. " He stepped into the kitchen, calling back behind him, "Cereal okay?"

"Yeah," Henry replied as he pulled the rest of the newspaper toward himself. His eye's widened at the front page headline, which read: 'Record 'Quake Causes Collapse of Recently Repair Clock Tower.' Below the title was a grainy black and white photo of the Stoyrbrooke library, or at least what was left of it. The front entrance and windows had all been blown out from the tower's collapse, debris spilling into the street.

"That's such a shame," David said, as he set a bowl of Corn Flake's down in front of Henry. He sat back down and pulled the paper toward himself. "They had just gotten that thing working again."

"Can we drive by on the way to the stables?" Henry asked, no longer interested in a day at the stables.

"Uh, sure." David said as he flipped open the paper. "Finish up and we can go."

Henry's morning wasn't going well.

First, he'd nearly face planted coming out of the house. David hadn't gotten a chance to warn him about the huge white pillar that had broken away from the front stoop during the night and Henry had stumbled right over it in his haste to reach his uncle's truck. They'd dragged it onto the grass shortly afterward.

Then, the normally ten minute trip to the stables had taken over an hour due to their detour to the library. Much to Henry's displeasure, Main Street had been blocked off just past Granny's diner (which was still open, despite a shattered front window), creating a huge traffic jam, by Storybrooke standards, and preventing them from getting a good look at the collapsed clock tower. As they'd rolled by the barricade, David had waved over volunteer Deputy Zhu, who told them that no one had even gone inside the library yet. The building was just too unstable.

"What about that new librarian?" David had asked. "She wasn't here when it happened, was she?"

"Thankfully, no," Deputy Zhu had replied. "She was out for the night. She wasn't too happy with us, this morning, when we told her she couldn't go back up to her apartment."

"I'll bet." David had chuckled, "Alright, thanks for the info Maggie. Oh hey, if you want to earn a couple of extra bucks this afternoon, I'm going to need some help with a few repair jobs around the ranch."

"Was there a lot of damage?"

"Yeah, unfortunately. The horses are all fine, but the roof split on the east barn and the paddock fence took a beating. The quicker I get that mended the quicker I can get the horses back out."

"Okay, I'll run by when I finish up here."

"Thanks Maggie."

After Deputy Zhu had waved them off, the ride had been further complicated by a pair of fallen power lines and a crack through the middle of West Pine Avenue. Seeing how much damage had been done by the earthquake made Henry wonder just what would happen to the town when the curse did eventually break. He guessed that it would be completely destroyed, a thought that he quickly pushed out of his mind.

When they finally reached the stables, Henry had been disappointed to learn that he couldn't see any of the horses since they were still, in David's words, 'pretty spooked.'

Instead, his uncle had steered him to the tack room, which had come away from the earthquake about as well as his bedroom had. The usually tidy storage area was a mess of jumbled riding equipment, all of which had fallen from the wall hooks that normally kept it organized.

After that, Henry spent the dullest three hours of his life checking and restacking the saddles, and then separating the halters and bridles from a large tangled web on the floor. The work did nothing to distract his from his ever growing curiosity regarding the earthquake and the possibility of Emma's return to town.

Prior to leaving the mansion, he'd smartly collected Emma's cellphone number from it's hiding spot in his bedroom. He was now convinced that she was back in Storybrooke and he hoped that following the earthquake she would be more will to accept the reality of the curse, and her role in breaking it.

He really needed to talk to her.

"How goes it in here?"

The boy looked up quickly, eager for any potential distraction.

"Not bad," Henry answered, as his uncle stepped into the room.

"Oh, it's looking good. Nicely done," David praised. The knees of his pants were caked in mud, making Henry think that he had begun mending the paddock fence. "I was about to head into town and pick up some lunch."

Henry perked up at that. "Granny's?"

David chuckled, "Yeah I think so, seeing that she's the only place that's open today. What do you want?"

"Cheeseburger and chocolate milkshake," he said casually, hoping that David wouldn't realize that was the last thing Regina would allow him to order.

"You got it." He flashed Henry a knowing grin and added, "I won't tell your mom it you don't."

Henry mimed zippering his lips as he watched his uncle leave.

Once David was gone, Henry tossed down the bridle he was holding and hurried out of the tack room. He briefly thought about visiting the horses, but decided against it as he didn't know how long he had until his uncle returned. The trip to the stable managers office was quick and once inside, Henry closed the door and tossed his jacket onto the cot that David kept in the corner. He moved behind the room's lone desk, pulled the scrap of paper with Emma's cellphone number out of his jeans pocked, and slid the old rotary phone towards himself.

Ring.

Ring.

Ring.

Ring.

"You have reached voice mail box number 1-3-7-5-3-3-8-4. If you would like to leave a message pleas-"

Henry hung up and dialed again.

Ring.

Ring.

Ring.

Ring.

"You have reache-"

The handset crashed back down to end the call.

"Come on Emma."

He dialed once more.

Ring.

Ri-

"Who is this?"

"Emma?" She sounded angry. When she didn't reply, he added, "Emma, it's Henry."

More silence.

Then.

"Kid? How did you get this number?"

"Regina had it in her phone," he answered. Another long moment passed without either of them saying anything. He tugged on the long cord attached to the handset, not sure how to proceed. Now that he was actually speaking with her, he forgot everything that he had wanted to ask.

"Look Henry, it's nice to talk to you but I-"

"Are you in Storybrooke?" he blurted, worried that she was going to hang up.

"What? No, I'm back in Boston. I left last week"

"Oh." He really hadn't been expecting that. "I thought... We had an earthquake last night."

"I know. We felt it a little bit here in Boston." Pause. "Is everyone out there in Storybrooke, okay? Mary Margaret? Your mom?"

"Yeah, no one got hurt," he answered taking a seat behind the desk. "But the clock tower collapsed. There was a picture of it in the paper. I tried to go see it today, but the street was all blocked off."

He heard Emma laugh. "Yeah I bet. Just do me a favor and don't get to close to it. That's asking for trouble."

"I won't," he assured her, though really, investigating the library was something he did want to do. If Emma wasn't back in town, then something else must have triggered the earthquake and if he wanted to figure out what that might be, then the library was the most likely place he would find an explanation.

But, first things first; he had to get Emma back into town. "You should drive back tomorrow. It's Halloween." When he got no response, he added, "I'm going to be Peter Pan."

It took her a while to answer. "Nice kid. I bet you've got a busy day planned with school and trick-or-treating? Is your mom going to take you out tomorrow afternoon?"

"She can't," he replied quickly. "She's really busy with all the earthquake stuff."

He felt bad lying to Emma, but if it got her to come back then it was worth it.

"Well maybe Mary Margaret then?"

"You don't want to come with me?" He tried to sound as pathetically sad as possible. While his well practiced tactic of guilt tripping hadn't worked on Regina in several years, Emma had yet to experience it. He only wished she could see his sad puppy dog eyes.

"Ah. Kid, I'm really sorry, but I can't get away right now."

"What about later this week?" If he sounded desperate, it was because he was.

"I wish I could, Henry. I do. I really do. I just can't right now." He did believed her, for all the good it did. "But I promise, when I do head back, you'll be the first one to know, okay?"

"Okay." He frowned at the phone.

"Look Henry I have to go, but I'll talk to you soon. And hey, save some of that Halloween candy for me."

"I will." Sigh. "Bye Emma."

"I'll see you soon kid."

He held the receiver to his ear until that annoying buzzer kicked in, telling him that Emma had hung up. He dropped the handset back on the cradle and grabbed his jacket. Not really knowing what else to do, he wandered into the main stable to say hello to Lenny.

When he reached the stalls, the horse didn't seem particularly interested in seeing him. Henry held out an apple, but Lenny offered only a soft whinny before turning his nose at the treat. Dejected, Henry dropped the fruit back in the satchel he'd pulled it from and trudged back to the tack room to wait for David.

The rest of Henry's afternoon at the stable had been pretty uneventful. After lunch, David had helped him finish organizing the tack room and then they'd spent an hour feeding the horses before Henry had to leave for his therapy session with Archie.

He had just completed a session with the psychiatrist four days prior, but there was still plenty to talk about after the earthquake. Henry spent the hour playing tug of war with Pongo while peppering the dog's owner with questions like: 'If the earthquake started off the coast, how come there wasn't a Tsunami?,' 'Who thought up the Reichter Scale?,' and 'Was the library the only building that collapsed? Like what if the school was damaged? Shouldn't they cancel tomorrow, just in case?.'

A few times, the therapist had tried to steer the conversation to talk of the boy's fairy tale theory and how he was feeling, but Henry didn't really want to talk about that. He already knew that Regina had taken the book and he was pretty sure that Archie had been telling her everything that went on during their sessions. It was pretty disappointing to realize that Archie had betrayed him like that, particularly given the fact that he was Jiminy Cricket, but at the same time he knew that it wasn't really fair to ask him to stand up to the Evil Queen, especially when the man didn't even believe that he was cursed.

So, Henry spent their time avoiding Archie's questions by asking an endless stream of his own. When the hour was up, Regina picked him up and they returned home to a quiet (silent) dinner. Afterward, Henry retreated up to his room to clean up the mess left by the earthquake.

At some point during the day, Regina had been through to vacuum up all the broken glass, replace all the items on his bookshelf, and remove his ruined record player. While it was nice that he didn't have to do much cleaning, it annoyed him that his adoptive mother had been in his room when he wasn't present. He didn't tell her that though, not even when she opened his door, without knocking, just after 8 o'clock, because he was being, 'too quiet.' Whatever that meant.

He just ignored her and went about reorganizing his comic collection.

The next morning, much to his confusion, school had not been canceled. As a result, at 7:40am sharp, he found himself in the back seat of Regina's Mercedes, pulling up to the elementary school building. He would have preferred to ride his bike to school, but unfortunately, he had left it chained to a bike rack in Rockland. He didn't dare ask Regina to take him to retrieve it.

As soon as she put the car in park, his seat belt clicked open and he was opening the car door.

"Hold on." She turned her body so that she could meet his eye. "I know you said you didn't want to dress up, but I've got your costume here anyway." She reached onto the passenger seat and a few seconds later his riding duffel bag dropped onto the seat next to him.

"Fine." He took the bag and moved to leave again, but she placed her hand on his shoulder.

"Hold on a second Henry. I'd like to talk to you for a minute."

"I'm going to be late," he argued.

"The bell doesn't ring for fifteen minutes. We have some time."

"Not if I'm going to change."

She sighed, "Henry this is what I want to talk about. You were avoiding me all last night. You've been distant the past few weeks. I just want you to talk to me."

"Fine. Tonight we can talk." He moved to leave again, but Regina tightened her grip.

"Henry, you can't just walk away from me when we're in the middle of a conversation. It's rude." He could tell that she was getting annoyed, but he didn't really care.

"I have to go," he said, not hiding his own building anger. He didn't want to talk to her. Not now, or during meals, or ever. He attempted to pull his arm away, but her grip only tightened.

"No, you're going to stay here and explain yourself."

He pulled harder, using the seat for leverage to free himself. The move left her off balance, but she maintained her hold on him.

"Let go!" He might have yelled that.

"Henry!"

He felt her nails digging into the flesh of his arm, but he kept tugging anyway. "Stop!" he shouted at her. "You're hurting me."

Those seemed to be the magic words, because immediately she released him.

After that, he didn't look back.

He ran away from her car. Away from the school. Away from everything. He didn't stop running until he reached his castle.

The splintered old wood of his fortress creaked and swayed as he climbed to his favorite spot, but in the end it held his weight just fine. Once settled, he stared out into the ocean, watching as each wave came crashing onto shore.

Henry sat like that for a long time before he heard someone calling his name over the gusting wind of the chilly, late October morning.

He knew who it was long before he felt the Sheriff's hand on his shoulder.

"Henry, you can't keep doing this." Pause. "Come on lad, I'll take you to school."

He didn't want to follow, but he did, because really, what else could he do?

[to be continued]