Disclaimer: I do not any of the rights to Nancy Drew.

I Love You

Looking into the glass, she brushed her beautiful red blonde hair behind her ears. She had the most beautiful blue eyes and dazzling smile and now was the time it had finally come...

She was about to no longer be a child... For the past 15 years of her life she'd never done anything like this, but now she was 12 hours away from being 18, and then things would different, she'd be on her own soon... now was her last chance! No one would care if she cried, it was to be expected, yes, her final chance to see them without the responsibility of being a grown woman and not crying about things so long since past and forgotten... She had to take it, while she was still a teenager, while she could still be considered a "child..."

Nancy Drew knelt on the plush carpet, no one was home, Hannah was helping prepare a "surprise party" for Nancy, which Nancy was not supposed to know about, but, she did, she'd just have to fake her surprise at it... She crawled to her bed; Togo had died last week... he wasn't here. She peered under; her father was still at work... Yes, Nancy was certain that no one was home and that no one would see her, she reached underneath and pulled out a small container.

She held onto the little box, tightly, in her shaking hands, and with a glance around her room, she pulled the cover off... Tissue paper and a picture of a beautiful young woman with a tiny baby in her arms leaped out at her, tears came to the teen's eyes. She looked away to keep from crying, she looked around her comfortably small room... She saw a bed with blue covers printed in a floral pattern. Baby blue walls and curtains hanging over the only window in the room. A dresser and a full-length mirror on one wall, next to which, was a door, the closet door. On Nancy's dresser sat a picture of her and her father, and to the side, a picture of Nancy's mother. By now she was sure she wouldn't cry and returned her attention to the box in her hands.

She gingerly took the picture of her mother and the baby, Nancy, out of the box and laid it on the carpet beside her feet, she then removed the tissue paper. Under that lay a beautiful silver lined picture frame, in it was a picture of a beautiful young woman, no older than Nancy was now, hair blowing and shining in the spring sunlight and crystal clear blue eyes, she was wearing a long, calf length, light blue gown. Blue, Nancy's favorite color... tears filled her eyes, she quickly brushed them away. With the young woman was an older woman, wearing a light green dress and a proud smile on her pretty face... The two looked nearly identical, clearly they were mother and daughter. Nancy's eyes again filled with tears, making her momentarily blind. She held them back and turned the picture frame over so she could no longer see the picture. She looked back into the box and pulled out a small portrait of a young couple; a handsome young man, wearing a black suit, he had black hair and an arm around a beautiful young woman. She was wearing a red dress and holding a smell red rose. The two looked extremely happy together. Before Nancy could cry, she looked back into the box, there lay... the picture.

It wasn't just any picture; it was the picture, the only picture Nancy remembered being there for and taking, and the only picture of her entire family. Nancy, her father, and her mother, all three, there they were, sitting in front of a Christmas tree, all of them wearing beautiful smiles, all of them sitting together. Arms wrapped around each other, Nancy sat on her mother's lap, holding her cute little puppy, Togo. Her mother had picked him out at the shelter just for Nancy and given him to her on Christmas morning... Her mother sat gracefully on the floor, and her husband, Nancy's father, sat behind Mrs. Drew, his arms wrapped around both his wife and daughter. Their last Christmas together, their last photo together, their last day together.

Tears rushed to Nancy's eyes and down her cheeks before she could even think to stop them. She remembered that day, she remembered taking that picture, she remembered that Christmas, and she remembered her mom... She cried softly and the word "mama" escaped her trembling lips... She looked again at the picture and thought back to that day, she remembered it more clearly than her first day of school, more clearly than her elementary school graduation, more clearly than her middle school graduation, she remembered that day more clearly, even, than yesterday...

She loved her mother, she would never understand why anyone would kill her... she missed her mother more than anything... and now, now that Togo was gone, it felt like the last living piece of her mother had been taken away from her...

A soft knock on the door interrupted Nancy's tears. Composing herself and shoving the little box and the pictures back under the bed, she stood up. Nancy never looked at those pictures, she couldn't bear to, they reminded her too much of what she didn't have, they reminded her too much of what she had been too young to cherish more dearly... Nancy violently wiped the tears from her eyes and called out, "Who is it?"

From the other side of her bedroom door came Hannah Gruen's voice, "It only me dear, I just came to tell you that it's time to go now."

"I'll be right down!" Nancy heard Hannah's footsteps trail off down the hall, she sighed, she didn't want to do this, she didn't want to turn 18, she especially didn't want to no longer be a "child..." She felt that once she turned 18 she would have to 'protect' herself, and Nancy had always been strong and independent, but this would be different, she would have to be the strongest she'd ever had to be in her life! Yes, she was about to live out her mother's life at this age, she was about to have to take a picture, not just any picture, no, this picture would be exactly the picture her mother had been in so long before... She would have to be strong, it wouldn't be easy though... No, not easy at all... But the day had finally arrived, she would be 18 in 12 hours, and right now, she had to go down to her car, drive to her high school, get on the stage and walk across it, she was about to graduate. And after that, she would be inclined to take a picture, the ones where mothers and daughters usually stand together and like-wise fathers and sons... But Nancy would be alone in the picture, she would have no mother daughter picture to show her daughter one day, no, her mother... was dead.

Hours after the graduation, which she had gotten through with many tears, and her 'surprise' birthday party were over, Nancy sat in her room. She was 18, she was out of grade school for good; she had made many friends, and a few enemies, over the course of her school days, and she would never forget them. She had graduated with many honors, but still, she felt empty, she had taken the picture, and now the envelope full of graduation pictures was clutched tightly in her shaking hands... She'd have to look at them someday, so it might as well be now. She slowly opened it and looked at each picture, when she came to the picture she couldn't stop the tears; there she was, in her light blue, calf length, graduation gown, the same one her mother wore to her graduation... Nancy was smiling in the picture, she had made herself, but it didn't look forced it looked as though she were genuinely happy...

Nancy fought back the tears, and then she noticed something standing beside her... A shadowy figure wearing a light green dress and a proud smile on her pretty face, was... her mother...

Nancy heard her mother's sweet, clear voice softly singing over her... she knew the song for her mother had often sang it to her when she was a very young child...

As she started to drift into dreamland, she silently whispered, "I love you, Mama, I always will..."

Her eyes half shut she looked out the window up at the vast night sky twinkling with a million tiny lights... The full moon shone brightly into her room and across her bed, Nancy let her eyes stay fixed on the moon, and as she did, she saw the silhouetted figure of her mother pass in front of the moon and again, she heard the familiar tune her mother had always sung to her...

"Mama..." Nancy's eyes fell shut and a soft gentle breeze blew in through the window carrying the melody of the lullaby her mother had sung to her so many years ago...

Nancy heard her mother's voice silently whisper, "I love you, Nancy, I always will..."

Yep, that was it! Hope you liked it! If you would take just a second to drop me a review it would be greatly appreciated:-)

Thanks for reading,
SecondStarToTheRight15