"Better! Much better!" he pronounced victoriously when Henry returned a couple of hours later. The jeans and sneakers were gone, and in their place was a gray suit with a red tie. Hell, it even had a matching silk pocket square. He could only describe the ensemble as handsome. For the first time, he felt himself beaming with pride at his grandson, even as he wiggled and used a couple of fingers to try and pull the perfectly starched collar away from his neck.
"It's a little itchy."
"Only because it's new."
"And uncomfortable."
"The kind of comfort it provides is one you'll grow into."
Henry huffed and shifted in his perfectly shined shoes. Fuck, Regina had no doubt picked the entire thing out, probably even tied the tie herself, and unfortunately for him, he could find no fault in her choices. Lacey probably could, but seeing how Belle had left and not come back, he was content with the change he saw.
"It'll be something like this every time you do work for this shop or there will be no working in this shop," he warned as Henry nodded. "Now, I'm working on something a bit questionable in the back room, so I'll leave you here to sweep the floors and do a bit of the dusting. And I'll trust you know better than to come into the back."
"Stay out of the back room, I remember. But Grandpa, when you said I'd be your Apprentice, I figured I might actually get to do a little magic."
Well, there was an interesting concept. One that had him doubting his original suspicion that Henry was there to snoop or spy.
Henry do magic?
He had the potential for it. All it took was a single True Love pairing within four generations to plant the seed and then the individual to grow it. With so many magic users in his family, not to mention the fact that Snow White and Prince Charming themselves were his grandparents, and the fact that he possessed the Heart of the Truest Believer...yes, Henry should almost certainly be able to do magic himself.
But when he opened his senses to do a magical scan of the boy, searching for that seed of magic that might be able to grow, he found…something.
Something...something odd. Something he'd never noticed before, but something there all the same. Something...he just wasn't sure what that "something" was.
It was magical, most definitely, but it wasn't magic like he felt in others who had the potential for magic, like he felt in Regina or Emma. No, this...this was different. Unique.
Most magic felt like a shimmer, it vibrated. How fast it moved and bright it glowed depended upon the strength and talent of the individual who possessed it, but what he sensed with Henry…it was steady. It didn't vibrate or shimmer, it just sort of pulsed. Like a light in a lighthouse. It was dim, very much like a seed planted but not grown yet.
Interesting. Very interesting. That was more than possessing the Heart of the Truest Believer. What on earth had his son brought into this world?
Better yet, how much did he want Henry to know about it, knowing he'd go rushing off first to Emma and Regina?
He eyed his grandson skeptically, feigning uncertainty about his declaration of practicing magic. "Well, have you ever manifested magic before?"
"Manifested magic?" Henry questioned.
"Sure. Ever made something happen when you were scared or nervous or angry, something that couldn't be explained?" He made his inquiry sound disbelieving and curious but not interested. All the while his heart pounded as Henry screwed his face as if trying to think hard about a time something like that may have happened.
"No?" he finally answered.
Just as he'd thought then. Whatever it was he sensed inside of Henry was certainly something to watch, but he wasn't convinced it was magic like Regina's or Emma's, magic he'd need to train him in. And there was certainly nothing to do about it today.
"Well then, until that day comes, and we learn what exactly it is you are capable of, besides making a lost little boy salivate at the prospect of your heart, it'll be the sweeping and dusting. At least to start."
Henry huffed again as he went into the back room and made sure the curtain was closed. His grandson most certainly was a mystery. Aside from possessing the Heart of the Truest Believer, there was something more to him, something he hadn't encountered before but would very much like to understand.
But not now. Not today.
Intrigued as he was at the prospect of bottling and studying the magic he sensed in Henry, today the memory of the last few days was pushing him forward with his research and experiments. The image of Belle rolling away from him instead of moving closer on instinct had him, admittedly, spooked. The faster he figured out how to cleave himself from the dagger, the sooner all the lies and deceit on his part could stop. An honest marriage, that was what he wanted. It was only achievable once his work was completed.
Unfortunately, in order to accomplish his goals, he needed some semblance of privacy, and with Henry in the front room sweeping, potentially putting his nose places it didn't belong, looking for something he wouldn't tell him about, it was beginning to feel as though there was no privacy left in the world!
The moment he put his nose back into the book he was studying, the bell to the shop chimed and he allowed himself to feel Belle on the premises once more.
"Oh, hi! Grandpa's in the back if you need him," he heard Henry explain as he quickly waved his hand over the desk to hide the hat and a couple of the more damning books he'd had out. The first thing he'd done when Belle and Henry had left that morning was create a false back to his safe, one that only he would be able to access with his magic. That was where he sent everything now, to a safe place he knew that nobody, not even Belle, would ever, even accidentally, stumble over his secrets.
Only once his things were hidden did he go to the curtain and pull it aside to find her standing there staring at Henry. She was paler than usual. Something had happened.
"Belle?" he questioned, making them both turn their heads in his direction. Henry opened his mouth as if to say something, but before he could, Belle moved around him, grabbed his hand, and pulled him into the back room with an urgency that immediately put him on edge.
"Can he hear us?" she questioned in a whisper.
"If he really wanted to, I'm sure…Belle, what's wrong? What's gotten into you?"
"She's there!" she exclaimed, glancing over her shoulder as if checking to make sure no one could hear her. "The Snow Queen, I think she's in the library."
"Your library…" It took a moment for what she'd been saying to sink in, for everything to suddenly make sense. If there was someone there with or without magic, he'd feel it and all he felt at this moment was-
Elsa.
He thought he'd felt Elsa there earlier. But given their power set and their incredibly close family relation…
"She's there now? You're sure?"
Sure, it wasn't Elsa and not Ingrid? Not that he was going to leave it to chance. No matter what she said, he was going to go over there.
"There was a trail of ice leading to the elevator. It was up in the clock tower…I couldn't get it to come back down for me."
Oh, of course, she would have stumbled upon something dangerous and instead of running away immediately she'd tried to investigate!
They were going to have a conversation about that later, but for now, he was going over there. Elsa wouldn't have gone up to the clock tower, not without Belle, not without Emma. There was no reason. But it did seem like villains in this town were pulled to that fucking clocktower. First him, then Pan, fuck, Zelena had even ended up there at least once, and now he was going to have to go teach the Snow Queen a lesson about what happened when she infringed upon the space of his family!
"Stay here, lock the door behind me, keep Henry with you in the back room!"
"Rumple, no!" she argued, grabbing his arm before he could leave the room. "No, I've already called David. He'll get Emma, she has the candle, she'll trap her."
"I don't need a candle to take care of this Belle!"
"But we need to let Emma take care of this!" she cried. "You said yourself you didn't want to get involved and now you don't need to. Emma can do it!"
"The moment she stepped into your library, everything changed, Belle. She made it personal! I won't let her risk your life or threaten you like that!"
"No, no, she doesn't know who I am, she never did!"
No, not as far as she knew. Who knew if Ingrid knew that Belle had been the one on the mountain the day she acquired his hat. But everyone in this godsdamn town knew who he was and knew who his wife was, and now it seemed that Ingrid needed that reminder!
"Then she will know when I get over there, and she will learn what happens when she steps over the line of-"
He felt David's presence on his property just as the bell rang out. Belle called out Henry's name in worry and practically sprinted to the front of the shop before realizing that there was no danger to their grandson other than his other grandfather.
This isn't exactly a chapter of something we've seen, but it isn't exactly new either as everything is taken direct from Moments. There is really only one little thing in this that we've never seen before which will be incredibly significant in fictions to come, but alas, not this one. I wonder what it is that Rumple is sensing on Henry?
Thank you, Grace5231973 and Rsbeall12, for your reviews on the last chapter, and in those reviews reassuring me that Rumple is in fact in character, at least in your eyes. I appreciate getting information like that. Helps me know I'm on the right track, not only for this fiction, but also the one I'm in the middle of writing. Back tomorrow with another chapter! Peace and Happy Reading!