Hey guys, it's Athena again! So sorry about the long wait, RL has been really hectic. Long story short, a friend of mine died, and I've been dealing, I've also been dealing with my first few weeks of college. As always, Once Upon A Time isn't mine, unfortunately, but Renee is.

Renee was in the room. This time was different though. Instead of making it out of the room and seeing the light, Renee was trapped. In the room, with all of her worst nightmares. As she thought, she screamed. Graham was there talking to her, whispering, so close that she could taste him, but it didn't matter. Whenever she got close enough to hear what he was saying, he would turn back into a corpse, so cold and lifeless, and she could not understand. Why had he died? She stayed in the room as blood ran down the walls and she screamed and cried until she was hoarse. Finally, she got up, covered in Graham's blood and went to the door. She could not cope with this, and until she could she locked the door, encasing herself in her nightmare and blocking the light.

"Renee…. Renee, you need to eat something." Emma was valiantly attempting to get Renee to eat anything. Before her was a full milkshake and some fries from Granny's. The fries had gotten cold and Renee hadn't shown any interest in anything since they had pried her from Graham's body.

"Denial isn't going to bring Graham back. Look, I miss him too. Please, Renee, just look at me. I feel like I'm losing you little sister, come on, please?" Emma resorted to begging, trying to get at least some semblance of her Renee back. Emma had seen Renee at her best and at her worst, but this was a level of heartbreak and emotional hurt that she hadn't even seen when Renee was recovering from her imprisonment. It scared her that this time Renee might not come back.

"When is- Don't you have to-" Renee broke off, bending over as she coughed harshly.

"Oh my gosh, are you okay, I thought you were healed. Do I have to call Whale?" Emma hovered over Renee, placed a hand on her forehead.

"You're a little warm, do you want to go back to bed, I'm going to call Whale." Emma steered Renee back towards the bed, and Renee went willingly, just wanting to go back to her dreams, in which Graham was alive, even if he was dying, or she was trapped in the Torture Room.

"Graham, NO! Stay with me, stay with me Graham! Graham open your eyes! Please! PLEASE!" Renee had her hands on Graham's chest doing compressions for CPR, crying as people started to arrive in the police station. First was Emma, who came into the station to begin her shift, and taking in the sight, dropped her box of doughnuts in shock.

Next was Ruby, who was delivering Graham's morning coffee as she usually did on Thursday morning who tried to get Renee away from Graham's body, as Renee had given up on CPR and was simply crying as she held Graham's lifeless body.

Renee didn't remember who came in after that, and anything that happened was a blur. That bit of Graham that had been on the Earth had left, just like that, without any warning, any way to stop it, and Renee just couldn't deal with it. All of a sudden, the memory changed again.

"Lieutenant August Booth, reporting for duty Ma'am." With those words, August Booth became a regular figure in Renee's life, albeit a bit strange. The man was fairly normal as far as Renee could tell, but what did she know? Out here in the desert it was hard to keep everyone alive, without worrying about whether people were normal. His brown hair and blue eyes certainly didn't stand out among her company, but there was something about him that called to her in a unique way. According to his file, he was an author who decided to join the Army for some reason or another, and was assigned to her to receive medical instruction and to help with Renee's administrative work. Over the months, she and August had become close, not only as coworkers but as friends. And then it had happened, the captivity, or The Dark Time, as she liked to call it. Of all the people under her command in that hospital, the only one that she didn't know the whereabouts of was probably the one that she wanted to know of the most, August Booth.

When Renee opened her eyes, she was only somewhat surprised to see Dr. Whale standing in front of her bed, talking to Emma. Renee tried to listen harder, wanting to know what he thought, "...look, Renee's been through a lot, of course I'm worried to, but part of this is psychosomatic. She has to work some of this out by herself."

Just then, Whale turned around."Well, look who's awake. How are you doing, Renee?" Whale's face turned caring, an expression she didn't usually associate with the womanizing doctor. It eased out his face a little, and made him seem more approachable.

"You should look like that more often. It's nice. Do you usually make house calls or am I just special?" Renee ended pityingly, her voice getting softer the more she spoke. All of a sudden, there was a knock on the door, and Renee got up, despite Victor telling her not to.

"I can answer the door just fine by myself. Wasn't the f… fun… thing today?" She couldn't even bring herself to say the words as she opened the door to see Mary Margaret.

"Renee, are you ready to go?" Mary Margaret looked her up and down. "Do you need help getting dressed?" As Mary Margaret guided her into the bathroom and shut the door.

"She probably shouldn't go." Whale told Mary Margaret, "she's already unstable, there's no telling how much worse going to this funeral could make it."

"Don't be an idiot, Dr. Whale, she needs to go for closure. I was the same when my father died. The funeral might make her see that other people care about her and cared about Graham just as much as she did. As long as Regina doesn't cause any problems, I don't see why she shouldn't. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to make sure that she's actually getting dressed. And Emma, don't forget you're speaking." With that, Mary Margaret went into the bathroom to help Renee.

"Well," Emma stated with half of a smile playing on her lips, "she sure told you." Emma looked into a corner of the apartment, and saw something on the wall that made her pause. "Is that a dartboard?" She went up closer and looked at it.

It was beautiful. The dartboard almost seemed like an ornate clock, hand carved around the edges with forest scenery. Emma didn't know that Renee could afford something like this. She picked the dartboard up off the wall and turned it around. On the back was a carving of a wolf's head, gorgeously rendered. And on the bottom of the picture was a simple inscription that Emma read out loud, mindful of Victor sitting on the couch, "For when you find that lucky lady, Graham, signed Marco."

"Put that back." Renee and Mary Margaret had come out of Renee's room, and Renee was unsteady on her feet as she rushed to grab the dartboard that Emma had taken off the wall.

"Woah, hold on, I'm not hurting it." Emma tried to be the voice of reason, but Renee had a look in her eyes that Emma didn't recognize, and didn't especially like.

"Just… don't touch my stuff."

When she had reassured herself that everything was back in its proper place, Renee grabbed her keys and walked out of the apartment, heading to Graham's… final meeting. Renee scoffed at herself. How pathetic, she couldn't even think the stupid word. It still felt like at any moment Graham would pop up and say that he was so sorry that he scared her, that everything would be okay.

Renee managed to drive all the way to the graveyard without crashing, which was a small miracle in her mental state. Maybe she shouldn't have left so suddenly, but she couldn't really care. If she died, then she would see Graham again, and even sooner than she anticipated. For the life of her, she could not think that that would be a bad thing.

As she got off of the bike, she felt any composure she might have felt leave her as she approached the was overcome with emotion as she walked closer. The last time she had been here was with Graham, and now it seemed like she would never go anywhere with him again. It was starting to hit her, and suddenly she felt someone put a hand on her shoulder.

Renee turned around slowly, her reflexes slowed, and she came face to face with a concerned Archie. "How are you feeling?" His face was soft, and caring, the way that most people looked at Renee these days. The only difference was that Archie had always looked at her like that. At least someone was treating her the same.

"Numb. Probably not all that great, considering. Will you stay with me? Through the service, I mean. I don't really want to be bothered and Emma's starting to bug me with her sympathy." Renee really needed someone with her, and she knew that. Maybe if she was with Archie, then people would leave her alone.

"Excuse me, Dr. Xantho, can I talk to you for a second?" Make that people except for Gold. Well, that would have to be good enough.

"Sure, what do you want to talk about?" Renee figured that she could use Gold as a measure of protection right now, avoidance from the real reason she was here. The longer that she could pretend, the better.

"I'm so sorry for your loss. The Sheriff was a good man. I was going through his things." At this point, Renee actually started listening. "Do you want something of his, I thought you might like his jacket, I brought it with me, actually. It's been rather hard to get ahold of you. I knew that you would be here, for sure. I also found this, I think he would have wanted you to have it, Dearie." After she had taken the jacket, moved almost to tears, Gold handed her a small box that had her name on the outside. The box was rough, but the handwriting was obviously Graham's and Renee could have sworn that her heart stopped for a second.

Renee spent the funeral in a grateful, stunned silence. The whole funeral seemed to be a giant blur, she knew what was happening, and could vaguely recall Regina casting mean looks in her direction, but she quite frankly couldn't care less. Whenever something like that happened, Archie would shift so that Renee couldn't see. When it was over, Renee stayed, and people gave their condolences as she stared at the closed coffin, and the world blurred out of focus.

"He was a fine man, Colonel. I'm so sorry for his loss. I wish I had gotten him sooner." This coffin was a bit different, in the fact that it wasn't a coffin per say. Instead, it was a body with a sheet over it, the only semblance of a funeral that they could give out here. It was always frustrating when a patient died, especially one like him.

Lieutenant Ranger, or Dustin, as he liked to be called, had been an absolutely wonderful patient. When he had first come in, he had to be rushed for an emergency amputation, and he wasn't well enough to make the trip home overseas for the longest time. He had a bright outlook on the whole thing, kept telling her that 'God hadn't had enough of him yet, that he had one more person to make a difference in, then he could go'. It was the most amazing thoughts on the matter that she had ever thought of.

He started making a miraculous recovery, it really was unprecedented. She had just been about to release him to another hospital's care when he had taken a turn for the worse, it seemed to come out of nowhere.

At least it had been quick, and relatively painless for him. He seized in the middle of the night, and the nurses were helping with more critical patients. Tragic, but it happens. She would never forget the words that he told her before she left him for the night, however. They completely caught her off guard. "Dr. Xantho, I have the strangest feeling. Bad things are coming for you, but you know something?" He paused for a moment, looking at her as she looked up from what she was doing. "I think you're going to be okay, no matter what. I think I can leave now. You will be fine."

Months later, Renee was captured, and his words were always in the back of her repeating, 'You're going to be okay, Renee'.

"Renee… Renee… Dr. Xantho… RENEE!" All Renee could see were dark shapes, but as her vision slowly cleared she saw David looking at her worriedly, as Victor was running over to the pair.

"Hey, you okay, back with us?" Renee was confused, and gazed dazily at David, before muttering something about Dustin being too loud. "I know that you're hurting, but that's no reason to be fainting all over the place." David started taking her pulse as Whale came up and took a glance at Renee before pulling out his phone.

Renee could vaguely register that Victor was calling for an ambulance, but that was not what was commanding her attention. Before her, she could see something fascinating. Dustin was sitting right in front of her, staring, it seemed, into her very soul. "You'll be okay, Renee." This was whispered into her ear, and Renee felt a wave of peace as she settled back into her torture room as everything behind her melted back into darkness as she lost herself to the depths of her own soul.

"How curious…" Gold had watched with fascination as Dr. Xantho, the mysterious woman, who by all accounts did not belong in this town, seemed to not be able to stay conscious. It seemed almost like a psychic vision, but no magic, much less psychic activity existed in this realm. He had wondered multiple times, since regaining his memories who exactly this Dr. Xantho was, since Miss Swan was obviously the Saviour of the Curse. Dr. Xantho just did not make sense at all. It was a few days after the funeral, and Renee had gone into some sort of coma, again, if Gold could say, it looked magic induced. Not that he would tell Regina that.

Since then, Miss Swan had become increasingly stressed. Between Renee and now the campaign for Sheriff heating up… "What a tasty idea… heating up. I'll have to use that, it would work perfectly."

"What would work perfectly?" Gold looked up and saw Sidney Glass in the doorway of his shop, holding his notepad and pen.

"Just working on finances for some properties. Nothing for you to concern yourself with." Rumple gave his best sneer at Sidney, before asking, "Why did you come by? Is there something I can help you with?"

Not one to stick around his shop for long, Glass got straight to the point, "Well, I thought you would appreciate some information before it goes into print. It could both solve and create quite a few problems for you were it to get out." He looked both nervous and courageous at the same time, an interesting combination for the usually timid reporter.

"I don't have any skeletons that are buried where you could find them, Dearie." The last word was snarled at the newsman, and Glass rightfully cowered, then straightened his back and spoke again.

"Fine, then, I guess all of Storybrooke will know about your daughter, then?" This honestly did catch Rumple off guard, and he walked out from behind the desk and stepped once more towards the reporter, and Glass started to move backwards as well.

"What do you mean daughter? Explain. Now." Rumple needed to know what exactly this man was prattling about. Instead of getting an answer, Sidney put his notepad and two pieces of paper on Rumple's desk and left, probably terrified, or at the very least very creeped out. Either worked.

Rumple spent a moment looking through the notebook, which had a lot of information except the girl's name. Finally, he looked at the two papers at the bottom, and muttered curses to himself. "Well, that answers several questions." There were two words at the bottom of the papers, "Renee Xantho".

With that in mind, Rumple immediately made a mental note that he would do whatever it took to make sure that Regina didn't have any more power over Renee's life than she already did.

Renee had woken up the first day she was at the hospital, she was just sleeping more than living. Emma had had enough. She got Renee discharged, and Renee was back in her apartment, and was learning how to cope.

It had been a week and Renee was slowly coming back out of her shell. She felt much better physically, to everyone's relief but hers. She had started talking with Archie more frequently, but she refused to tell anyone of her increasing flashbacks, although more people were noticing when she zoned out. It seemed that for all her physical progress, her psyche was completely breaking in two. Why couldn't she just have a normal relationship, just one that didn't lead to heartbreak?

Mary Margaret had told her about the upcoming election, it seemed like there was nothing really holdign Emma back from winning. She would obviously win, it wasn't even relally a question. She actually had experience, unlike Sidney, and she was who Graham would have picked.

She knew that Emma was going over to Regina's tonight, so Renee was surprised when all of a sudden, Emma appeared at the door, smeared in soot, and coughing up a storm. Renee's own problems didn't really seem worthy of complaint when she looked at her sister. This was Emma. Emma who had always been there for her, Emma who was alive. Graham was dead, he wasn't coming back, no matter what Renee personally wanted to believe. Renee took the lock out of her mental door, and sprung into action taking care of her sister, once again.

Authors Note: So sorry, again, that this took me so long. As always read and review, it really does motivate me to write. Anyways, now I will be answering reviews.

RevanIRL: Thank you, so much, as always, for the kind words. They really do motivate me to write and become a better writer. P.S. Other pairings might start becoming a focus soon, but I haven't decided yet.

Just A Lone Wolf: Thank you so much for your review! I don't know if your hope is irrational yet, it might be, I haven't decided yet. ;) I'm glad you like the story!