A/N: So sorry for the month long delay, guys! College is no joke and I've been super busy. Also I've begun the dreaded planning for NaNo. Hopefully you all can bear with me and this story here for a bit longer. I'll try to update regularly again, but no promises! As always, the OUAT characters do not belong to me. Also, review, please, so I know what to work on or what you guys might want to see from this story. Please and thank you!

Emma was a quiet baby. She rarely cried—the noises that she made were typically giggles and coos, as equally delighted with everyone as they were with her. But the noises she made now weren't giggles. She wailed loudly, red-faced and squirming, her skin on fire when Snow scooped her up to comfort her.

Snow's heartbeat quickened with worry, whatever fatigue she'd been feeling evaporating at the sound of Emma's first cry. Katie and Lauren were up now, watching her and Emma with bleary eyes, but she only had eyes for the feverish infant in her arms, intent on finding some way to help her feel better.

"Emma's sick," She explained, wincing at the anxiety that colored her tone. When she spoke again, she made sure her voice held a calm that she didn't feel. "I need to get her to a doctor."

"Maybe there's a hospital." Lauren murmured sleepily, and Snow nodded. She looked at Lauren, the elder of the two girls. She didn't want to leave them alone in this small, strange hotel in this small town, especially if Regina was nearby. But Regina had no knowledge of the girls and they'd most likely be safer away from she and Emma than with them, at least for a few hours.

"I'm going to take Emma there now. Can you two stay here until we get back?"

She barely stayed to hear Lauren's sleepy reply and to warn her not to open the door for anyone but her before she was out the door with Emma, trying hard to keep her wits about her.

The huntsman, otherwise known as Sheriff Graham, escorted her to the hospital. With Red asleep, Granny had pointed her in his direction, even phoning him for her, and he had arrived quickly. Snow had suffered the short ride anxiously, Emma's wails still playing in her ears. Hours ago she'd been fine—happy and healthy and giggling—and now she was suffering, and Snow along with her.

"She'll be okay," Graham had assured her, noticing her hands clenched around the door handle and shooting a quick glance back at Emma through the rearview mirror. Snow had nodded mechanically, his words lost barely a buzz in the roaring that filled her ears. He parked in front of the tiny hospital meant for Storybrooke residents and led mother and daughter inside.

As she spoke quickly to the nurse at the front desk, he went off in search of Dr. Whale. He found the small blonde man leaving the John Doe's room, face lined with exhaustion. Graham opened his mouth to address the doctor from down the hall when Regina came out of nowhere, blocking the doctor's path. Graham slowed, keeping himself out of sight and his ears open.

"Well? How is he?" Her voice was sharp, strained, and she waited impatiently as Dr. Whale ran a hand tiredly over his face.

"Awake. Confused. Hungry. You name it. He's been in a coma for a long time." As Regina opened her mouth to reply, he spoke quickly over her, ignoring the scowl she shot him. "You can't question him right now, Regina. He's still getting his bearings together."

Graham could see Regina's jaw clench tightly even from the distance. "I am mayor of this town. Do not presume to tell me what I can and cannot do."

Whale's shoulders stiffened slightly and stood up straighter. "Be that as it may, Madame Mayor, this is my hospital and my patient. I won't have a coma patient interrogated as soon as he wakes up. He doesn't even remember who he is, I don't see how questioning him would—"

A change of expression in Regina's face halted his words and he stared at her warily. "What?"

She shook her head, brushing a lock of short black hair behind one ear. "Nothing. I only wanted to know what he remembered, is all, to see if we could begin to find his family. But as he remembers nothing, clearly that's useless." She sounded agreeable again, the venom gone from her voice, and he relaxed.

"Right." He agreed hesitantly.

Regina inclined her head briefly. "Goodnight, Whale."

"Goodnight, Mayor." He said to her back as she retreated down the hall, the stiletto click of her heels echoing down the white hall. Graham waited a few moments until he was sure that he had gone before approaching the doctor. He didn't' know why he was being so cautious—he figured it wouldn't do to upset Regina with another out-of-towner at the hospital, and this one awake and with a sick infant. The mayor didn't take too kindly to people she didn't know, if her conversation with Whale about the John Doe was any indication.

When Graham returned to Snow, Dr. Whale in tow, she was trying to soothe Emma in the waiting room, pacing the length of the small room repeatedly. She looked up when she saw him and rushed over to them, eyes on the doctor. She was too preoccupied with worry to try to decide if she recognized him from the Enchanted Forest or not.

"My…my daughter, she's sick." Snow explained in a rush. "It just came out of nowhere and she's so warm and she won't stop crying…" She felt her eyes sting with tears and she blinked them away quickly, taking a deep breath. "I need your help."

Looking Emma over in a quick, decisive manner that only doctors seem to possess, he nodded and led mother and daughter deeper into the hospital.

Snow paced the length of the hall outside, feeling as useless as she had ever felt. Emma's cries had quieted to mere whimpers but still each whimper tore at her heartstrings. The nurses had made her step outside while they performed tests on Emma. She had refused at first, noting all of the strange machines and devices that filled the room, but looking at Emma's flushed face and wide mouth open in a wail, she had relented. All she could do now was pace and wait and grow more and more anxious.

She had neared the end of the hall when she heard a door open. Her gaze flickered in that direction briefly, unconcerned, before she continued forward. Only on her trip back down the hall did she notice the tall figure that had come from the room and now stood at the end of the hall, resting against the wall. Even pale with closed eyes and clad in a hospital gown, she would have recognized him anywhere. Her mind and her body reacted simultaneously, so quickly that she froze in the middle of the hall, paralyzed with confusion and joy and other emotions that she couldn't put a name to. Her voice and her body shook as she slowly took a step in his direction.

"…Charming?"

His eyes flickered open, bright and warm as always, even filled now as they were with confusion. He looked at her blankly. "Who are you?"