Trigger warnings; Missing children, kidnapping, child neglect, bad parenting, mentions of near miscarriages, unhealthy coping mechanisms, etc.
Let me know if I should add to the list.
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There is no greater pain than losing a child—whether they die or disappear, there is no greater pain than losing them.
The heroes and villains of a realm where every story starts with once upon a time know this very well—after all, each of them had lost a child and each of them had reacted in similar yet different manners.
After losing Harriet, Killian began to drink more and lost his temper more often leading him to distance himself from his remaining two children in fear of unintentionally scaring or harming them. He didn't want to be an abusive drunk— hell, he didn't want to be abusive, period. He downright refused to do anything that would put his remaining two children in danger—so he distanced himself from them.
Killian didn't plan on doing this forever—he just needed time to grieve and look for her.
Harrison and Calista understood that—at least, he was pretty sure they did.
Once the pain lessened, he'd get right back to taking care of both of them and make up for the lost time. He just couldn't be around them much after losing Harriet because he was drinking more and more, and knew how much it scared them; He didn't want to scare them.
Killian also found it hard to look at himself in the mirror and to look at Harrison & Calista because he would just be reminded of his eldest. He hated himself for the fact that he couldn't look at either of them, but there was nothing to do to fix it—all he felt when he looked at the two of them was pain. It wasn't like he blamed or hated them—he could never do either of those things where his children were concerned—he just couldn't look at or interact with them too much. But that didn't mean that he completely ignored or disregarded their presence—he was always checking up on them at night and asking for updates on what they did and their health from his crew. He still loved them, they were still precious to him and he would still do anything for them—he just couldn't look at them. Eventually, Killian would come to dearly regret these actions...
One day, he woke up and went to wake his children only to find them gone like Harriet and Smee's boys, and felt his heart completely shatter.
He woke up the entire crew and they spent weeks tearing apart the ship, other ships, and neighboring villages looking for the two only to find nothing. This is when he started to consume copious amounts of alcohol on a daily basis just to function. He ended up locking himself in his room and very nearly drank himself to death for a full week straight after Harry and CJ disappeared, and constantly berated himself for how poorly he dealt with Harriet's disappearance. He had been acting like a horrible father for months now and hadn't given them the love, affection, and attention they had deserved and desired.
One day, he had been a loving albeit slightly distant, functioning alcoholic of a father and the next he was a barely functioning, neglectful, distant father who couldn't even look or talk to his children.
Killian had always known that he didn't deserve his children—they were too wholesome and pure while he was simply the exact opposite in his mind. They were loving and affectionate, and he wasn't used to that even though he recuperated it. He had just been too selfish to give them up and hadn't wanted to abandon them like his father had done to him and Liam. Maybe this was God's way of punishing him for all the bad he had done—including underappreciating his children. They'd been the light of his life and now they were gone, and he had no one to blame other than himself for his own stupid negligence.
He was snappier and more short tempered with his crew—minus Smee—after this, and spent all of his free time planning his revenge, searching for them, and drinking to forget.
Killian had never hated himself more than he did the moment he lost his remaining two children.
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When Smee lost Sammy, a piece of him died.
Sammy was his first born and a shining beacon of light in his darkness.
He had loved his son dearly and had known about his loneliness but hadn't been able to do much about it while searching for Harriet. He had hoped that once they found her, that his son would be happy again but that never happened and then Sammy had disappeared in the exact same way as the captain's daughter had.
Heartbroken, he did his best to continue on with his duties and raising the twins—Skipper and Sterling—only for them to disappear as well. He searched desperately for all three of them as well as Harriet and later Harry and CJ when they disappeared, but eventually they had to give up the search for them and he became numb.
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After losing Uma, Ursula was distraught as she thought back on all the times she had ignored or yelled at her little girl.
She had wasted so much time chasing after her revenge against her father, Hook, and humanity that she had ignored and neglected her only child until she completely disappeared from her life. How could she have been so stupid?! Her sweet and innocent little girl had been the best thing that had ever happened to her, and all she had ever done since her run in with Hook was ignore her in favor of revenge. She was no better than her father was and it was too late to fix things with her little girl.
Oh God, her little Uma was gone and she had no one to blame other than herself.
In the months following Uma's disappearance, Ursula spent her days crying and tearing the land and Sea apart looking for her daughter. She even prayed to the gods and goddesses that she had forsaken years ago to keep her little girl safe and alive until she was able to do so herself—promising that when she found Uma that she'd put the past behind her and be the mother that her baby girl deserved if they did.
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After losing Zevon, Yzma changed for the worst.
She lost her temper more and more often, and blew up at those around her —including her children, Lil Yaz and Ylza.
Yzma tried her best to control her temper around her only remaining children, but it hardly worked—which only led to her locking herself away in her bedroom and her lab.
She threw herself into her work and hardly talked to her daughter in fear of hurting her.
Yzma refused to become an abusive parent—she refused to hurt her only remaining children or her niece and nephews. She wouldn't dare lay her hands on any of the children before Zevon disappeared and she wasn't about to start doing so with the remaining ones. So she stayed away from her little angels, which seemed to be the only thing that would be good for her children and just hoped that she wasn't doing more harm than good.
She became the laughingstock of the village because no one believed her or her family when they told everyone what happened to Zevon.
No one even helped them look for her little mad scientist—which only made her resent them all even more. How dare they say that she was delusional and that her little Zevon had run away despite her husband, their children, their nephews, their niece, and Kronk all backing her?!
Her children meant the world to her and she would do anything just to have her little boy back.
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People grieve in different ways—some healthy and some not so healthy. Most don't grieve the same way, so it's best not to judge the way some people grieve.
These villains know that better than anyone.
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After losing their daughter (Malvina), Hades and Maleficent split.
Hades hadn't been around much before they had lost their daughter because he had to run the underworld most of the time and he felt horribly guilty because of it. He might not have loved Maleficent as much as he had when they first got together, but he absolutely adored their daughter and the fact that he wasn't there when she needed him most destroyed him. Especially since Hades had found his little girl's journals and some of her more... disturbing.. drawings and toys.
Have you ever seen a literal God cry?
No?
Well, Hades definitely did cry that day.
Who wouldn't cry after finding out that their seven year old daughter already hated herself ? Who wouldn't cry after finding out that their only daughter felt like a burden? Who wouldn't cry after finding out that their little girl thought that she was never going to have any friends? Who wouldn't cry after finding their seven year old's mutilated dolls and finding out that that was how she saw herself?
She drew herself as a monster several times and each drawing was more disturbing than the last, and would have a note on it like "why doesn't anybody like me?"
He had never felt that guilty before in his immortal life.
He had also felt furious with his kind-of-wife after reading about how she had been ignoring and blowing up at their daughter the past few months, and confronted her about it.
Maleficent just broke down in tears and told him that she hadn't meant to make their little Mal feel that way. That she had just been angry at his long and frequent absences, and stressed because taking care of a temperamental little girl in the middle of nowhere wasn't easy. She also revealed that she was pregnant again and that she hadn't known until a couple of months beforehand.
She said that she had been angry and disgusted with herself because she hadn't known why she was having these weird cravings and mood swings, and that she had gotten annoyed because Mal had kept interrupting and messing up her work.
Maleficent cried and cried about how the last few months had been rough and confusing and that she had lashed out at Malvina in her frustration. Cried about how she hadn't meant to drive their daughter away.
Hades tore into her verbally—still furious with her—and told her that he would never forgive her for what happened and that he would damn well make sure that their baby wouldn't either, which only made the dragoness cry harder.
Hades made good on his promise—filling their son, Hadie's, head up with semi-truths about what had happened to his sister.
Luckily for Maleficent, their son didn't quite believe his father and asked his mother for her side of the story and hadn't blamed her for what had happened to Malvina. That didn't mean that Maleficent didn't feel guilty about the events leading up to her daughter's disappearance and Hades didn't feel better about it either. Both felt extremely guilty but for different reasons and would never forgive one another for what happened.
Hadie grew up being shuffled back and forth between his parents who never got back on speaking terms with one another.
Little Hadie constantly prayed to his aunts and uncles to bring his sister back so his parents wouldn't be so miserable anymore—but his prayers were never answered. He never gave up though and neither did his parents who were still searching for his older sister.
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After he lost Jakeem, all Jafar could do was think about how badly he had screwed up. He had put getting revenge against his father and half-brother over his only child and had lost his son in the process. He had ignored his little boy time and time again while planning his revenge and had yelled at Jakeem whenever the boy dared to interrupt him. He knew that he had completely ruined his relationship with his son and he began to despise himself for it.
Jafar and Jakeem had been very close before he had let his revenge consume him and he had ruined all of that in a last stitch effort to get back at his ex and to get power and revenge.
What the hell was wrong with him?
Not long after Jakeem's disappearance, Jafar started drinking and locked himself in his boy's room for awhile and didn't leave it until Nasira (his twin sister) showed up with her daughter and forcibly removed him herself. He ended up living with his sister and niece for a long while after that because Nasira was afraid he'd drink himself to death if she left him alone. They had searched for Jakeem for a while but after not being able to find him, Jafar began focusing on his revenge yet again but stirred clear of his niece in order to avoid treating her like he had treated Jakeem.
Jafar never forgave himself for how he treated Jakeem up until he lost him and didn't think he ever would.
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Losing Carlos nearly destroyed Cruella—would have destroyed her if she didn't have custody of Hunter (17), Ivy (11), and Diego (10).
Her niece and nephews were the only things that stopped her son's disappearance from completely destroying her.
She knew that if she gave into the depression that those 3 would go right back to the orphanage she had tracked them down to all those years ago after her younger brothers' deaths.
So, despite her heart shattering into pieces after her little Carlos disappeared just like his father had, she opted to stay strong just so her nieces and nephews didn't have to suffer anymore than they had. That didn't mean that she didn't grieve—she did and she did it hard.
Drinking and smoking more, crying in his (Carlos's) room at odd hours of the day, etc.
Losing her little boy hurt but she just had to carry on and pull on through for the other three kids in her care—they never stopped looking for him, though.
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After losing Evie, Regina dropped off the map for a while.
No one knew where the evil queen went or why she wasn't hunting Snow down in the months that she disappeared.
All anyone knew was that her men were looking for information on a little girl who had recently vanished without a trace. Nobody knew anything and the search for the little girl was eventually dropped when Regina showed up again, and everyone sort of forgot about it. Everyone but Regina and her father, Henry, who had been the only one to know about Evie.
Regina had spent those months drinking, crying, and thinking about lost time while searching for answers as to where her daughter went but she never did find the answers she was looking for.
Regina never forgave herself for not spending enough time with her little Evelyn and found it very hard to move on with her life, and ended throwing herself into her plans of vengeance as a way to get over it. It didn't work and even during the curse, she felt the heartbreak of not knowing where her little girl was.
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After losing the twins (Gaston Junior and Gaston the 3rd) and Gil, Laurette kind of lost it for a bit.
The 1st time she had left her children alone since her husband's disappearance and they disappear as well?
She spent days moping around in her room, bawling her eyes out like the rest of the family (her sisters, her in-laws, LeFou, and Stanley). The village didn't see much of the LeGume family after the three youngest members disappeared because they all sorta self isolated. Losing the eldest son (Gaston) had been hard enough on the large tight-knit family but losing 3 children—who also happened to be said missing eldest's kids as well?
It was a hard blow on the LeGume family.
None of them were taking it well and the remaining children (Claudette's daughter Claire—age 6—and LeFou, Paulette, and Stanley's many children) found themselves being somewhat forgotten in the aftermath.
All of the adults and their youngest uncle (who was 17) were always at each other's throats nowadays—when they were out of their rooms or not hunting, that is—and were usually drunk.
Most of their aunts and uncles—and even their grandfather —blamed their youngest Uncle for the disappearance of Gil and the twins since he was supposed to be keeping an eye on them when they disappeared. The remaining kids felt bad for their uncle—he got so much hate thrown at him for something that wasn't really his fault and most of their family seemed to hate him, and he was only 17. It wasn't fair—it was obvious that he felt guilty about their disappearances yet he was still treated awfully.
Their family was falling apart, and the kids didn't know how to fix it.
To make matters worse, the adults hardly let them outside anymore. They'd become paranoid that the rest of the kids would disappear if they allowed them out of their sights for even a second. And to make matters, the rumors that the village folks spread kept getting nastier and nastier. Which caused quite a few fights between the LeGume family and the villagers.
Life was so much simpler when Gaston and his kids were still around...
Gaston didn't find out that his sons were missing until one of his brothers accidentally resurrected him while in the town of Storybrooke.
The brother in question didn't go into too much detail about how he had known that he was dead or about how he had resurrected him in the first place. All his brother had really told him was that he had been gone for 29 years, that his kids were missing, their family was at odds with one another, and that a curse had been cast and then broken by this savior woman who had fallen through a portal not that long ago.
Of course, he was distraught when he found out. He and his boys were extremely close, and he had done his best to spend time with them and raise them to be good people.
Gaston had cried for a good hour after finding out that he missed a year in his boys' life and another after finding out that no one knew where they were.
It killed him to know that he might never be able to hold his little boys ever again.
That he might never be able to see or hear their laughter again.
That he might never receive a drawing or a flower crown that Gil had made, again.
That he might never see the twins shove each other as they raced down the path to the garden or be able to take them hunting again.
That knowledge hurt him beyond belief but he didn't let it destroy him—he had to fix his family and make things better for his nieces and nephews. He could at least do that—maybe it would relieve some of his pain.... (he drank a bit as well—not too much though, someone had to be an adult for these kids in the aftermath of the mass family tragedy).
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Belle and Rumple didn't even know that they had lost their son until after the curse was broken. Belle had assumed after being captured by Regina that Rumple still had their son—which he did until the Cinderella incident where he got captured by the Charmings. And Rumple had assumed that his son was being well-taken care of back in his castle and that once the curse was cast/broken that he'd have his boy back. But both were proven wrong when the curse broke and they found each other— and found that neither of them had Ben.
Belle was overwhelmed, distraught, and disappointed in her boyfriend when she found out what had happened after she disappeared and they had ended up getting into a few fights afterwards.
Belle had never been so angry before—not when her mother died, not when Gaston tortured that ogre, not even when her father tried to force her into an arranged marriage.
Rumple had left their child alone—several times—and now their little boy was gone.
She yelled and yelled at him, and he just stood there and took it. In fact, he didn't show any emotion at all, and it just pissed Belle off even more. It wasn't fair—she hadn't done anything wrong and neither had Ben, and now he was out there all alone and probably scared.
Rumple didn't even flinch when she voiced these thoughts, which led her to asking if he even cared. This led to him snapping at her—of course he cared, he just wasn't going to fight with her about it.
He knew it was his fault as it was when he left Baelfire and when he found Baelfire in New York, he didn't mention Ben at all—afraid that Baelfire would be angry that he had moved on.
Unfortunately for him, Belle mentioned Ben to Baelfire and he just gave her a blank look and said "who?"
....let's just say that the next couple of days were not pretty at all.
Belle was fucking furious at him for not telling Baelfire that he had a little brother and accused him of trying to erase Ben from their lives—which he immediately denied. And she wouldn't listen to a word he had to say afterward—she wouldn't even look or respond to him—and neither would Baelfire.
Neal/Baelfire, upon finding out that his dad had lost his little brother and hadn't told him that he had even one, lost it and got in a screaming match with him that A LOT of people heard. He chewed him out and swore at him, before storming off to the Rabbit Hole. After that, Rumple received nothing but Radio silence on both ends. Neither of them would even speak to him. He had screwed up— bad— and he didn't know if he could fix it.
Belle didn't talk to him until Baelfire "died" and only then did they start to rekindle their relationship—only for Henry to get kidnapped.
Now Rumple was off to Neverland and couldn't help but think of his lost sons.
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There is no feeling worse than going to wake your child up only to find their window open and their room empty. That someone had snatched your child up in the night and that no one had noticed—that you hadn't noticed.
Snow knows this feeling better than most and wouldn't wish that feeling upon anyone—not even on her worst enemy.
She had gone to wake Chad up after having sent him to bed the night before with no dessert because of his bad behavior—only to find his bed empty and his window.
At first, she didn't panic—Chad had left his window open before and she had found him sleeping in places other than his bed before.
So, at first, she stayed calm and searched his room for him.
She only began to panic when she didn't find him in the closet, under his bed, in his toy chest, on his balcony, or behind his curtains.
She eventually woke the whole castle up, screaming hysterically about how she couldn't find Chad and would've had a miscarriage if Charming hadn't calmed her down.
They had the whole kingdom out searching for their little boy before the day was over. They didn't stop searching for him—even when the curse was approaching; they had half their kingdom looking for him and the other half looking for a way to protect their little girl.
Now they were on The Jolly Roger, going to save their grandson from Tamara and Greg's clutches in Neverland, and couldn't stop thinking of their missing son. Strangely enough, they both had an odd feeling in their chest—something akin to hope—and they couldn't figure out why.
Unbeknownst to them, Their son had the same feeling in his chest over in Neverland.
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No one missed Audrey for years.
Her grandmother, Briar, didn't care that she was gone—just badmouthed her to the guards and told them not to bother looking because the ungrateful brat had probably run away. Unfortunately, the guards listened to her and there was never any search.
Little Audrey was only missed 28 years later—after her parents' curses were broken. They looked for her and her grandmother, and found nothing. They had no clue what happened to her and were desperate to find her—were still desperate to find her.
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Same went for Mulan, who returned to her home with Philip and Aurora to find her grandmother dead, her son alone and older, and her daughter gone.
Her son, Shaiming, explained that Lonnie had disappeared and that their grandmother in a rush to find her had fallen down the stairs and died. Which had caused him to have to take care of himself until they had shown up.
Of course, she was distraught—her grandmother was dead and her daughter was missing, why wouldn't she be?
It startled Aurora and Philip, who had never seen her express such emotions before.
Poor Mulan felt terribly guilty, remembering that the last words she had said to her daughter were when they were fighting. Did her daughter even know that she loved her? Mulan hoped she did.
The 3 of them went on to search for their children and were still searching to this day—unaware that their children were far out of their reach, facing the horrors of Neverland.
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Dopey ,his brothers, his elder son, and his nieces and nephews were all distraught when Doug disappeared. He missed his sweet and nerdy little boy, and so did the rest of his family.
Snow and Charming were as well and sent people out looking for Doug as soon as he disappeared. Things didn't get any better when they awoke in Storybrooke to find that little Jane was gone as well.
Grumpy got Grumpier and snappier toward everyone—even his 5 remaining children (Snappy, Maddie, Grouchy, Crabby, and Gordon—3 boys, 2 girls).
They were all hurting and the kids were all struggling (Bashful jr, Shy, sleepy jr, Nighty, Creeps—who changed his name to be edgy—, Joy, Smiley, Derek, Giggles, Jolly, Cheery, Sniffles, Snot, and the rest). Things weren't easy for any of them—they were all heartbroken.
Each and every one of the parents, aunts, uncles, siblings, and cousins were.
Losing a child isn't easy. Especially if you don't know what happened to them—it's maddening. You want to hope that you'll get them back but deep down, you know that there's a chance you won't.
That you won't find them.
That you'll never know what happened or worse—that you'll find them dead.
Losing a child is completely maddening—it can drive you insane.
Is that really any surprise?