A/N: With little chance of outside help, Henry has to use nothing but his own skills to try and escape a terrible situation.
A Gambit in Trust
Henry III
He woke to his mother's screams.
Adrenaline surged through his veins and Henry tried to leap from sleep into action, but only accomplished burning himself as he strained against the tightly wound rope that bound his hands behind his back and lashed his ankles together. He hissed in pain and let his body go limp when it was clear he wouldn't be escaping. Still jittery, he turned his head to and fro in an attempt to figure out where the heck he was.
His shoulders cried out with pins and needles as he rolled himself over, and Henry found that he was in an alcove of some sort. Three blank walls the color of ash surrounded him, but there was nothing blocking his path to a hallway that turned off to the right except for the ropes that burned his skin.
His mother's pained shouts echoed down the pathway again and fear gripped Henry's heart in its chilled grip so cold it burned. He redoubled his efforts to escape, grunting to ignore how much it hurt.
"You're just going to hurt yourself lad, I tied those myself." Henry's heart leapt to his throat as he instinctively rolled himself away from the new voice. Captain Hook had been sitting behind him, huddled in the back corner of the nook. He looked worse than when Henry had seen him in the hospital. His hair lay limp on his head, matted, and he seemed sunken in to himself.
With his dull eyes and skin the same color as the walls, Hook seemed sick and Henry wondered how such a scary man could look so… not.
He tried to pull free once more, only stopping when a trickle of warm, sticky liquid started running down his hands. Hook watched him through indifferent eyes.
Another bout of his mother's tortured cries sounded, her voice going so high it cracked. Tears sprang to the corner of Henry's eyes, born of frustration and a fear so deep he had never felt anything of its like before.
"I'm surprised she's lasted this long. Strong woman, the queen," Hook said, eyes going glassy.
"I have to help her." His voice wavered and he hated it. Henry slammed his eyes shut to try to bottle his emotions and think of a way out of this.
"You're not getting free," Hook said matter-of-factly.
"Why are you just letting this happen?" Henry asked, baring his teeth as some of his fears bled into anger. "How does this help you?"
Hook let out a rueful chuckle. "It really doesn't."
"Then untie me!"
"I can't, lad." Hook edged further into his corner, eyes drifting shut. "I have my orders. But don't worry, we'll all be dead soon…" Hook's breathing evened out into sleep as Henry realized what happened.
They had Hook's heart, somehow.
Henry wondered if his ominous warning had come from him or the people who controlled him.
He pushed the man from his mind and his thoughts whirled to form a plan of action. What would Emma do? The answer came to him in an instant and Henry folded in on himself and lunged himself forward. The motion gained him a few inches, and he repeated it, caterpillaring himself along the ground. Emma would do everything she could to save the day, and Henry knew that a hero did not always need to fight to save the day.
The hallway twisted, turned, and each wall seemed to have at least one door leading off to who knew where, but Henry kept his path by following the worst sound he had ever heard. It felt like hours later that he found the hallway letting out to a small room covered in spare boating supplies. Ropes, chains, nettings, and wood covered the floor and walls, but Henry focused in on his mother strapped to what looked like a dentist's chair.
Two pairs of wires dangled off of her and Henry traced their path to a metal rod lying next to a giant battery he knew was meant for use in a car. Jumper cables ran off the battery, and Greg Mendell stood by the setup, making it rain sparks as he touched the other end of the cables together.
"Now I think you'll answer some questions," he said, touching one of the two clamps to the metal rod. "Almost thirty years ago, a man disappeared from Storybrooke without a trace. Where is he?"
"I have no idea who you are talking about." Henry gulped. His mom's voice was hoarse like she had been in a yelling match, only ten times as bad. A shadow crossed over Greg's eyes.
"Wrong answer," he said and pressed the other jumper cable's clamp to the rod. His mother's scream was instantaneous and Henry's shouted protest joined less than a second later.
"Stop!" Tamara was there, pushing Greg out of the way and cutting the circuit's connection. The screams cut off into whining grunts and Henry felt a brief flare of hope. Maybe he had misunderstood what happened earlier and his dad's fiancé was actually on their side?
"What the hell Tamara?" Greg held his hands up to the woman, body trembling and fury lighting his eyes. "I need these answers." Tamara held up a hand to calm the man and pointed to Henry. The way the torturer smiled when he realized Henry was there twisted something in the boy's stomach that made him want to run.
"Stubborn brat," Greg said, nodding. "I can respect that." He glanced to Tamara. "Stand him up." Tamara looked at the man as if he'd grown an extra pair of heads.
"We're not hurting the kid," she said, incredulous.
His stare was chilling. "Only if we have to." Muffled protest came from the chair and Henry could see his mother straining against her restraints.
"We can't," Tamara said again, grabbing Greg by the shoulders. The man rolled his eyes, whispered in her ear, and Henry's hopes were dashed as Tamara relaxed, nodding.
Henry hid a gulp, found his courage, and spoke as Tamara strode across the room. "You don't have to do this," he said, cursing in his head as his voice broke again. Why did that keep happening at the worst times? "We can talk this out."
Tamara grabbed him by the shoulder and yanked him to his feet. With his ankles locked together Henry could not balance on his own and was forced to lean back on Tamara to stay on his feet, but he was able to actually see his mother.
And wished he hadn't.
He had never seen the women so disheveled before. Scrapes and small cuts were scattered over her face and arms, and Henry had a sick feeling at the sight of a bruise darkening on her neck. Her suit jacket was gone and her shirt was ripped open far enough for two of the wires to be attached to her collarbones by the same nodes the hospital had used on his father. The second pair were stuck to her forehead, and Henry noticed her hair stood at the roots like she was touching a static electricity ball.
"Henry." She spoke his name slowly, as if forming the sound was hard for her. She looked scared. Far more than he had ever seen her before, and he had to fight a sudden panic from rising in his chest. He tried to smile to reassure her that he would figure something out, but the expression felt weird on his lips.
Henry let it fall into a grimace and faced Greg. "What do you want?" Villains always loved to explain their motivations, and Henry hoped it stayed true with their captor.
"Her." He jerked a thumb to the former queen. "Dead." Henry's hopes took a blow at the succinct summary.
"Let him go, or I swear to—" His mother's words were cut off with another scream as Greg put the cables to the conductor without mercy.
"STOP IT!" Henry shouted at the top of his lungs, struggling against both the ropes and Tamara's grip. "Please!" Greg just smiled and kept the current going for ten more seconds.
"Since you asked so nicely," Greg said as he removed the clamps and dropped them on the table with a metallic thunk.
His mother groaned, muscles twitching, and she kept her eyes away from him. A stench of burned something filled the air and it was all Henry could do not to throw up. He tried to speak and gagged.
"Regina," Greg leaned over her and spoke in a whisper that carried in the quiet room. "I'm going to make your son watch as I break you. Piece by piece. Until nothing of the proud queen remains and your true self is laid bare for him to see. Nothing but selfish cowardice. What do you think?" Henry wanted to say something in his mother's defense, but the way she flinched at the man's words tied his tongue.
He had never seen her without her looking like she could take on the world and win. If she couldn't be strong, how could he?
Greg seemed content to wait for a reply and it took a long minute before the former queen gathered herself to muster a glare at her captor.
"If you think—" Greg sprang into motion the second Henry's mother spoke, and started the electricity again, laughing as he did so.
Henry never realized how deeply he could hate someone. He yelled himself hoarse begging the man to stop, but Greg kept going without even glancing his way.
"Kurt Flynn!" Greg would yell in the small moments he broke the current. "Where is he?" Henry's mother would bite out a strained response that she did not know, and Greg would start over. Each cycle her voice would grow weaker and Henry would fight harder to be free, but the situation seemed impossible to escape for both of them.
Henry grew desperate enough to even try magic from what he had picked up from listening in on Emma's lessons, but he felt nothing. No mystical power that could save them from this situation.
"Stop! Please, just stop." His mother's voice broke in a new way that took Henry's heart right along with it.
"Kurt Flynn." Greg repeated the name. "Is he alive?"
"No." Everything in the room froze at his mother's answer, and Greg's hands started to tremble. For a second it looked like Greg was going to shove the jumper cables directly against his captive and Henry's heart jumped to his throat.
Instead he spoke in a voice so low Henry barely heard it. "Did you kill him?" She whispered something that Henry couldn't make out and Greg dropped his torture tools and ran out of the room. The implication hit Henry and the wind left his sails. Oh.
He knew she had done really bad things back in the Enchanted Forest, but he had believed that the worst of it had not followed her to Earth. If she had killed someone in Storybrooke...
He shook his head and fought off a sudden sick feeling in his stomach. Even if she had, it was a long time ago. She wasn't that person anymore. She had changed.
He looked up to see his mother looking at him through a haze of pain and she looked so defeated. Henry grimaced and couldn't completely banish the knowledge that she had killed while here in Storybrooke. She must have seen something in his expression as tears welled up in her eyes and she turned to look away from him.
Shame joined everything else going on in Henry's head.
"Tamara," he said, ignoring everything from how much his throat hurt to how much his heart did as well. The woman did not respond and Henry looked up to find she had a faraway, glassy look in her eye. He repeated her name and pushed his shoulder further into her belly to grab her attention. She blinked and looked down at him, surprised.
"My dad says you've been together for almost a year." Whatever she was doing with Greg, Henry had to believe his dad wouldn't fall in love with someone who wasn't at least a little good. "You can help us."
She smiled, but it was sad. "Oh kid. You've got a lot to learn about the world." She looked to his mother for a long moment. "But you don't need to see this. Come on." Tamara's grip shifted and she dragged him back the way he came despite his protests.
"I'm sorry, Henry," his mother's weak voice called after them. "But remember I—" Tamara turned them around a corner and Henry could no longer make out what his mom was saying. He felt his hopes evaporate with every step the woman took. His only consolation was she placed him down gently rather than just dropping him when they returned to the alcove.
"Stay here and just don't try to do anything else," she said, and left him with nothing but the sickly pirate for company once more. Henry pressed his head into the rough wooden floor and tried to think.
"Did they kill her?" Hook asked, startling Henry. "The queen?" He contorted himself so he could glare at the man, but if he didn't know any better Henry would have sworn the pirate had a look of genuine concern.
But this man tried to kill his grandfather, and almost killed his dad in the process.
"Why do you care?" He did not flinch as his voice cracked this time. The man let out a small laugh and winced.
"Never knew my mother," he said. "But I wasn't much younger than you when I lost my father. It's… not an easy thing, lad." Henry just stared at Hook, hard, until the man fidgeted in place. "Can't a dying man be sentimental?"
"She's alive." Henry said, rolling over and trying to see if he missed something that could get him untied.
"Oh? I thought," Hook trailed off. "From the screams." He shook his head. "Impudent woman, your mother." Henry levied another glare the man's way. The pirate held up his hands in mock surrender and Henry blinked as he realized Hook had his hook.
"What exactly were your orders?" Henry's mind churned with hesitant optimism. Hook raised a curious eyebrow, but answered.
"Do not move from this spot, do not free the boy, kill the queen if she tries to free her son." He sighed. "So I am a dead man in any scenario here." Henry smirked as a loophole immediately.
"Especially because the only thing you'd be able to do to defend yourself is throw your hook."
The captain chuckled. "I suppose your right." He closed his eyes and leaned back as if to nap, and Henry just stared at the man, incredulous.
"Hook." Henry tried to imitate Emma's 'sheriff-tone,' to sound as commanding as possible. The pirate blinked back to awareness. "You would have to throw your hook." The captain furrowed his brow and Henry let out a grunt of irritation, scooting himself forward.
"What are you doing, lad?"
"I'm going to kill you," Henry said without a hint of humor. He tried not to picture how ridiculous that sounded when his hands were literally tied behind his back. "Unless you do something to defend yourself." Hook blinked, and reached for his weapon. It disconnected from the anchor on his wrist with an audible click, and he lobbed it at Henry.
It landed five feet to the right.
"Oh no," Henry said, deadpan. "My dastardly murder plan has been foiled." He redirected his scuttling toward the weapon while Hook defended himself.
"I have impeccable aim, lad." Hook grouched. "But I was just shot not that long ago. Even the best take time to heal."
"Right," Henry agreed, not entirely caring about the man's pride. He managed to grab the hook while on his side and finagle it to pick at the ropes. It was awkward, but Henry moved as quickly as he could.
"Careful lad. It may still be poisoned." Henry froze, spared Hook an annoyed glare that set the pirate to looking away, and continued to work the ropes at a safer pace.
"Where do they keep your heart?" Henry asked as his bindings started to fray. "I can get it back to you." It would only be fair, Henry believed.
"In one of the other rooms, I'm sure." Hook shrugged. "I hear a door open every time one of them has new requests of me."
"Hopefully not locked." Henry cut through the last of the ropes and whipped his hands around to his front, overjoyed at the simplefreedom to move them again. With a determined grin Henry set to work on the ropes around his ankles and ignored the pins and needles that raked across his hands. The ropes fell away in seconds.
"Don't you leave me here lad," Hook said as Henry hopped from foot to foot to get feeling back. There was a desperation around Hook and Henry had the realization that the man's fate lied solely in his hands.
"Of course not," he assured the pirate. He considered the hook he held. "I may need this though, be right back." Hook spoke an objection as Henry crept out into the hallway.
He tried every door in the path, finding most leading to barren storage room
But the one just around the corner from the main room was locked. Henry frowned, tried to force it with just his hand, but the handle only jiggled and didn't give way. With a quiet sigh, he leaned around the corner and found Tamara sitting at the top of the stairs that Henry believed led to the outside. He shifted his gaze to check on his mother, and found her staring right at him.
He jumped despite himself.
He offered her a small smile, ignoring the weird twist of disappointment in his gut. He could deal with that later. She gave the tiniest shake of her head in warning, but Henry had already made the call. He mouthed "I've got this," and retreated back toward the door. He grasped Hook's hook in both hands, raised it over his head, and hoped he was fast enough to find and grab the heart before Tamara reacted.
Worse comes to worst she didn't seem to want to hurt him, so he could use that.
Maybe.
He shook his head and slammed the rounded edge of the hook down with all his might at the point where the doorknob met the door itself. The clang of metal slamming into a metal sounded louder than a giant bell, but doorknob crashed to the ground and Henry pushed into the room.
The small space was cluttered with the same refuse that littered the main room, but Henry honed in on a black pouch laying on a coil of rope. A faint red glow made it through the fabric and He grabbed it just as heavy footfalls caught up to him.
"Henry!"
"How the hell did you get free?" He heard a metallic click and turned around with a growing sense of dread. Tamara stood at the end of the hallway, feet shoulder width apart and gun poised and aimed at his heart. Henry gulped.
Um. Help? He thought toward the heart, and hoped Emma's story was reliable. He darted into the small storage space, forcing Tamara to reposition herself in the doorway – her back to the hall.
"There's nowhere to go Henry." He noted a small tremble in the woman's voice, but her grip on the gun did not waver. "Just drop the heart and I won't be forced to hurt you."
"Don't you touch him!" His mother shouted through her broken voice. Henry thought he heard her struggling against his restraints.
"You won't hurt me," Henry said, trying to sound sure. Tamara grimaced and slowly shook her head with a grave sense of sadness.
"Don't make me do this." Henry took a step back, understanding that just because Tamara did not want to hurt him, didn't mean she wouldn't.
He was saved from having to make a choice as a handless arm snaked around Tamara's throat and yanked back. The gun went off, and Henry thought he was hit for one heart-stopping moment before he realized nothing hurt.
Sheetrock dust rained down from where the bullet had gone through the ceiling right above his head.
He shivered.
"The hook, lad!" Hook and Tamara had tumbled to the ground, the woman trying to bring her gun around to aim at Hook and the pirate keeping a desperate grip on his opponent's neck. Henry ran over to the grappling pair, reared the hook back, and slammed it into the woman's weapon. It went skittering away, but went off as it hit the ground.
Glass shattered somewhere in the building and Henry paled as he realized he could have just accidentally shot someone.
A leg caught him in the back of the knees and sent him tumbling to the ground, the hook flying from his loosened grasp, but he managed to keep ahold of the heart. Hook cursed and Tamara gasped, choking on fresh air. Henry scrambled away from the pair and got back on his feet in time to dodge the two as they rolled along the ground in a grapple, neither looking like they were winning.
Henry judged his choices and hopped over the two, sprinting toward his mother at top speed. Her struggled against the restraints stopped when she spotted him rounding the corner and relief washed over her face so heavily that Henry felt it fall square on his shoulders.
"You're okay." She fell back to rest her weight back on the chair, eyes closing. He started working on the straps that held her wrists tied. They came undone easily enough, but Henry felt a fresh sick feeling at the dark purple and bloody mess his mom's wrists and ankles had become.
"Come on." He helped her to her feet but she collapsed her entire weight onto him the moment he had her standing. He barely kept them both upright.
"Damn it." She grinded out the curse through gritted teeth. She braced an arm back on the chair and tried again, but a muscle in her arm twitched and it gave way as well. She plopped back onto the chair and hung her head.
"Are you okay?" He asked. He shuffled from foot to foot, unsure how to help. He had no idea what that much electricity would do to a body.
"I'm fine," she said, voice shaky. Her breaths came even shakier. Henry's heart sped up, knowing they needed a hospital, now.
"Get away from the queen, Henry." He spun around to stare down the barrel of Tamara's gun. She stood at the edge of the hallway, breathing heavy. She bled from a cut on her temple, forcing her to keep one eye squeezed shut. "And give me th—" Tamara was cut off as she was lifted off the ground and thrown back. Her head smashed against the doorframe with a sickening thud and she fell to the floor, unconscious.
Henry hoped she was just unconscious.
He swallowed the frog that leapt to his throat.
His mother stared at her outstretched hand, shaking. "That was supposed to be a bind," she said. "Henry, I didn't mean to…" She frowned, looking lost.
"We… we." He took a breath to steady himself. "We need to get out of here." Emma always said you could deal with how you felt after getting safe. At this rate Henry thought poor Archie was going to be overwhelmed at their next session. He helped his mom to her feet again, and this time she was able to mostly hold herself up.
From the way her face scrunched up in concentration, Henry thought it was not an easy thing.
"I can safely say," Hook said as he stumbled into the room. "That my hook isn't poisoned any longer." He spotted Tamara on the ground, scoffed, and stepped over her. "A bit of help, lad?" He turned his shoulder to show his hook buried in the meat of his lower back. "Can't quite reach it."
His mom snorted at the sight, once again leaning back on the torture chair. Henry took the hook in hand and yanked just as the captain opened his mouth to speak. Whatever he planned on saying was replaced by a high-pitched squeak, and Henry pointedly refused to acknowledge the fresh flow of blood that welled with the weapon free.
"Help my mom and let's go," Henry said, giving the pirate back his hook. The captain hastened to obey, his face screwed up in a look of distaste that was matched by the former queen's. They didn't argue, though, and Hook supported more of Henry's mother's weight than Henry could. Henry looked to Tamara and squashed the instinct to check on her.
Without knowing how much time they had, he couldn't risk it. And, he thought, she brought it on herself. The notion boosted his determination and he followed the injured pair's sedate pace, keeping an eye out for danger.
"You could give me my heart back at any point now, Henry." Hook said, adjusting the arm around his shoulders. He sent a sour look to the queen. "And you can do a bit more here."
"Go to hell Hook." The response lacked his mother's usual bite, and Henry's worry redoubled.
"I'll give it back once my mom is safe," Henry said. "So let's move." Hook grunted and picked up his pace, more dragging the woman than doing anything else as they climbed up stairs.
They emerged from the building to the orange-tinged light of the setting sun, and Henry was wearily relieved that they were still in Storybrooke. An isolated part of the docks well away from the rest of the town by what looked like a winding road through the woods, but still within its borders.
"We need to find a phone." They trudged forward and Henry kept a worried eye on both adults, who each grew paler with every step. With Hook losing a bunch of blood and him having no idea how his mom was even standing, Henry could only guess how long they would last.
His heart skipped a beat in hope as the unmistakable revving of an engine reached his ears. A black sedan with tinted windows came into view and Henry waved his arms in a frantic attempt to flag them down. They driver slammed on their brakes, stopping halfway between Henry and the injured pair.
"Henry Mills!" A deep voice called in surprise as the driver's side door opened and a man in a pristine suit, neat hair, shiny shoes, and spotless glasses stepped onto the street. Henry's warning bells sounded as he did not recognize the person even as the stranger clearly knew him. "You should be safely tucked away."
He gulped, glanced toward his mom and Hook, and determined that they were not likely going to be winning another fight even as Hook looked like he was psyching himself up for one.
The man stepped closer, holding his out wide in a placating gesture. "The folks at Home Office are eager to meet you," the stranger said. Henry shuffled back to keep his distance. To his terror, he spotted his mother collapse her entire bodyweight onto Hook.
Henry knew what he had to do.
Get her help as fast as you can. Run! He thought the words until Hook took the former mayor up in a fireman's carry and sprinted toward town. Henry made sure not to think about the trail of blood Hook left behind, and turned to run in the other direction the moment he was sure Hook was following orders.
"Michael!" The mystery man shouted, and a weight hit Henry in the side, lifting him off his feet. It took a moment to realize he had been hefted onto someone's shoulder. He kicked, punched, and tried to bite at his captor, but the new man held him firm.
"What about the other two?" The man who held him asked, grunting at Henry's blows. "Wasn't that Captain Hook?" The stranger with the glasses shrugged.
"Inconsequential. We'll get the kid secure and figure out what the hell Owen and Tamara have managed to screw up this time." There was a pause. "Toss him in the back."
Henry couldn't think of a way out and stopped struggling enough to throw Hook's heart off the side of the road into the woods as hard as he could. The black pouch concealed the red glow as it arced through the air, but Henry still traced it until it disappeared among the trees. If nothing else, Henry felt reassured they couldn't use Hook like Greg had.
"For your sake Henry," the first man said, deadpan. "I hope that wasn't important. Let's go Michael." Henry was stuffed into the backseat of the car and could register a wire cage between the front and back of the interior before a hood was shoved over his head and his hands were tied behind his back again.
"Who are you people?" He asked as a door was slammed shut. He received no answer as he felt the car pull away.
They rode in silence, and Henry could only spare the energy to hope that his mother would be okay, and that Emma would be able to find him.
He somehow doubted he'd have the chance to escape again.
E/N: That's all she wrote for this one, folks! The Darlings were called in quite a bit earlier here than in canon, but Greg's going-off-the-rails mentality, it was deemed necessary by the powers that be.
These two are much more competent than the original pair, and the stakes have just been raised. The only person who knows what happened to Henry now is Hook, who finds himself in a position of some leeway with our remaining heroes. That can only go well...
Meanwhile, Greg is off in the middle of nowhere digging up old secrets, Midas' bloc are through being patient, and ongoing machinations in the Enchanted Forest will soon start bleeding over into Storybrooke. And what of Tamara? Alive or dead, what do you think?
I hope you enjoyed a closer look into Henry's head as he deals with the craziness that is his life. He gets a lot of flack for how he acts in canon, but the kid does not have it easy. Still, I believe I showed reacting realistically here. Tell me what you think!