Identity- Once Upon A Time

The Broken Chains

"Thank goodness we found you when we did, he could have killed you!" Mary Margaret held David's hand snugly. David was in the hospital recovering from the fractured skull that the fake Henry had caused. White cloth bandages with dots of blood encircled his head.

"Mary Margaret, I'm fine. I just didn't see it coming when Henry of all people would attacked me." David brought his fingers up to where the wound was and touched it tenderly. He winced once his fingers came into contact with the cloth that covered the majority of the injury. Mary Margaret stroked his face tenderly, with a gracious look in her eyes, grateful that she had her husband for another day. A wooden sounding knock turned both of their heads toward the open door to the hospital room. Emma stood in the doorway and walked into the hospital room. She had been listening in on her parents' conversation while she stood outside the entrance.

"David you know that it wasn't Henry who attacked you, it was Pan."

"Emma don't be silly, Henry is just having a...rough transition is all. Now Emma would you mind getting your father some coffee? It would be a big help," The look in Mary Margaret's eyes revealed a nervousness and distrustful. She knew that she was lying to herself.

"Mary Margaret, I'm serious. Henry is not well, he'd never act like this."

"What if he's just going through the normal angst of a teenager? Did you ever think of that Emma?" Mary Margaret twiddled her thumbs nervously as she leaned back into the tweed covered chair.

"Since when have you seen a normal teenager commit an attempted murder on one of their family members?"

"Everyone shows angst in a different way, Emma. When I was Henry's age I'd often sneak out of the castle."

"Yeah, but to give food to the poor, not to try to murder your grandfather." Emma paused for a moment then spoke slowly, "Suppose that Henry was acting normally. Why then would he have that weird malicious grin in his eye when talking to Lily?"

"Perhaps he is just bad at talking to girls," Mary Margaret lifted the apple juice on the counter and sipped it ignorantly while Emma rubbed her temples in frustration. She found that she could not keep her temper and found herself yelling her thoughts, "MARY MARGARET WILL YOU LISTEN TO ME?". Mary Margaret and David recoiled back a bit in shock. "I don't want to believe it either, but there is something wrong, very wrong with Henry. It might have something to do with Pan or another curse, but I can tell you for sure that my son has never acted so sinister!" Emma huffed exasperatedly.

Mary Margaret spoke slowly, "But... Pan is in the box, there's no way to escape."

"What if he was never in the box in the first place? What if it was someone else taking his spot?" Emma walked over and leaned on the windowsill which reflected back the stormy grey sky of the afternoon, "Someone like Henry," she muttered.

"Emma we can't just let Pan out of Pandora's box based on a guess you have. We don't know what he might do!" Said David. "What proof do you even have that would even point you in this direction? I mean, we can't go on a witch hunt after Henry based on nothing."

Emma recalled the meeting with Lily in the alleyway. She remembered that Lily had a terrified look in her eyes as if she was in serious danger. Lily had told her that Henry was trapped and then she ran off, trying to hid from whatever entity was chasing her.

"Lily told me that Henry was trapped; trapped in a place not easy to escape from and in a form not his own." Emma stood up off of the windowsill and turned toward Mary Margaret and David.