Title: Once
Author: KellethMetheus
Spoilers: none
Category: Gen
Summary: A scene from Vala's childhood.
Disclaimer: Not mine and I'll put the back when the Muse runs out, maybe....
Warnings: violence toward a child.

Challenge: A Locked Drawer

Vala waited until she heard the door click shut behind Adria. Poking her head out into the hallway, she listened to make sure the woman hadn't come back because she had forgotten something.

Creeping out into the hallway, Vala could still feel the welt left by the woman's wooden spoon a few hours earlier when she asked for a second helping of the midday meal.

Now across the hall, she peeked out the window, watching the woman get swallowed up by the crowd headed for the market square in the center of town.

She knew if Adria caught her inside the master bedroom there would be more than a wrap on the knuckles in store for her. She'd seen her stepmother the other day at Munich the jeweler's stall in the market and she had to know what her stepmother had sold..

Using tools she'd taken from her father the last time he'd been home, Vala picked the lock on the door and slipped inside. On the far wall was a bureau with a drawer, the one that held all of her happy memories, and the one that might now be empty.

From downstairs there was a creak as though the front door had opened. Vala tensed, waiting for Adria's shriek, but there wasn't another noise to say that the woman had come home suddenly.

Not hesitating any longer, the girl crossed the room and opened the drawer the same way she had opened the door.

There was a click, and the drawer sprung open to reveal all the junk that Jacek had bought Adria since they had gotten married, and none of the beautiful pieces that had belonged to her mother. With a shaky hand, Vala reached inside and shifted all the glass beads and paste jewelry aside, hoping her stepmother had missed something.

She found what she was looking for tangled in a gaudy necklace - the brooch Jacek had given her mother when Vala was born. Inside a secret compartment was a drawing Jacek had made of Vala's mother holding her. Of all the pieces, this one was the most precious, and Vala was relieved to find it still there.

Quickly she freed the brooch and raced to her room with it clutched tightly in her fingers. Her hand trembled as she pried open a floor board that concealed all of the precious treasures she'd received from her father over the years.

She had just got the board back into place when she heard the heavy clomp of Adria's feet on the stairs. Vala looked through the open doors into the master bedroom. The drawer was still open and there was no way she could close it again in time.

"Vala, where are you little wench?" the heavy set woman shrieked when she saw the open door.

Reacting to Vala's stifled response, Adria stormed into Vala's bedroom, her eyes flashing anger.

"Yes, Adria?" Vala answered innocently in an almost sickeningly sweet voice.

With a cry of rage, Adria grabbed and hank of Vala's hair and forced the girl's head up to look at her. "Don't get sassy with me! What did you take from my room? I see that the drawer open, you little thief. You're just like your father, you are."

Squeezing her eyes closed, Vala fought back the tears. She hated that the woman could make her cry. "N-nothing," she stuttered out. "There was nothing left. You sold all my mother's beautiful things. They were mine, not yours!"

Adria let go of her hair so fast that Vala had trouble regaining her balance and she fell to her knees.

Daring to glance at her stepmother, she saw that her stepmother's face was beet-red, making her look even uglier. Spittle sprayed from the woman's lips as she yelled, "Those petty trinkets of your mother's have been putting food on the table these last few months since your father abandoned us."

Suddenly defiant, Vala shouted, "He'll come back for me, he promised. When I tell him how mean you are, he'll take me away from here!"

A harsh laugh came out, and as the woman stomped out of the room she pushed Vala over. "Your pathetic father isn't coming back for you, no matter what he told you. I'm stuck with you, you useless thing. Be grateful that I'm feeding ya at all! When the last of that money runs out I'm sending you out to work."

The woman kicked out at Vala as she left but she rolled away from the blow. After the door slammed there was silence in the room, as Vala fought back more tears.

Curling into a ball, she promised herself that she'd be gone long before that happened. There was no way she'd go off to work while Adria sat at home getting living off her blood and sweat.

A single tear trailed down Vala's cheek and splashed onto the floor, hitting the board that hid her treasures. Hesitantly, she laid her head down, her cheek touching the board.

She's saved that one piece, and no matter what happened in the future, she could remember that once she had been loved.

I should have one every Tuesday give or take.... Thanks for reading :0)