A\N: I had something else planned for my hundredth fic, but the last ep...sorta spurred this. (Also, if Graham is actually dead and not just having a heart attack, I will find the producers and kill them, because Graham is freakin' epic.) Anyway, enjoy.

Later, Emma would realize that not all heroes are free.

Graham hadn't been. He'd been stolen from his home and turned into the Queen's favored pet. 'Favored' was a vicious word there-she may have given him all the comforts he needed, but Emma doubted he really cared, given that he was completely enslaved to her.

But then she'd heard...

In Storybrooke, he was justice. People trusted him. In a world where the normal cop used tazers and pepper spray just for the hell of it, he helped children find lost puppies and preferred to mediate rather than arrest. He was capable of violence, and the few criminals who had assumed otherwise tended to learn better quickly, but he seemed to hate using it.

As a boss, he was kind, funny, and easygoing, and more capable than Emma would have thought. He'd shown her how to break up domestic disputes, bought doughnuts to bribe her...sure, it had been insanely awkward after she'd found out he was sleeping with Regina, but that was something they both could have dealt with.

But he hadn't had the chance to do that in the Enchanted Forest.

Emma would hear, from a group of Huntsmen that were little more than thugs, that he'd been a sex toy for the Queen. Her personal assassin, yes, but there weren't so much 'rumors' floating around as 'unfortunate implications that were probably true'. She'd had his heart, and anytime he disobeyed, she could torture him as she pleased.

But she would hear from those he saved that he'd never given in.

Henry would grin and babble, after meeting the first one, that of course he saved people, he let himself get caught because he was a spy, duh, and Emma would bite back laughter and let him think that, because the truth was much harsher. He'd never been able to snatch people from the Queen's sights directly.

But a house kept here. A life spared there.

She would hear that, even bound to the Queen, he had been noble. Heroic, in a very quiet way. It had doubtless cost him, too-he had willingly sacrificed himself, time and again, for others. And when Emma heard that, she cursed herself, cursed her own damn stupidity, because if she had just let go that night and not kissed him, if she had let Regina have the man, maybe...

And then, when she thought that, she would stop herself.

No. There was no way to save him. He was doomed as soon as the Queen tore his heart out. But she had found a man she could trust and even love, and that had been taken, and it was painful.

He'd been a hero. A prisoner, slave even, but a hero.

And when she realized that, she would realize that she could never find anyone else she truly loved.