A.N.- I'm working on a Christmas Delena (TVD, for those who don't know) one-shot. Anyway, this is just a quick flashback and a little holiday fluffiness before I get into the action. Enjoy :) Happy Holidays. Please review
Song: Front Porch Step - I'll be home for Christmas
Ten-year-old Belle looked up at the pale sky, mesmerized by the tiny white flecks that trickled down, snowflakes. They clung to her long, untamed curls and thick lashes like stars scattered across the sky on a clear night. This wasn't the first time she had seen snow of course, but its beauty never ceased to amaze her. She couldn't believe that nature could create something so beautiful, so pure. As a breeze cut through the trees goose bumps rose on her exposed skin and she shivered.
She was pulled from her miniscule moment of peace when her mother's voice pierced the silence. "Belinda, come here!" Belle quickly whipped her head around. Her mother stood in the open doorway of their little wooden cottage with her hands on her hips and a displeased scowl. This was a look Belle had grown accustomed to years before - her mother was always unhappy.
With her head hanging slightly, trying to hide her fearful eyes, she approached her. "Yes, mother?" she asked in a quiet voice. She looked up into her mother's angry eyes. Their color was identical to Belle's, though she refused to think that she and her mother shared anything other than blood.
Before she could even blink, Belle felt a sharp sting on her left cheek as her mother struck her with enough force to make her head jerk to the right. Tears burned her eyes as she brought a hand up to her cheek. The blow left a faint red hand print behind. "You are supposed to be looking after your brothers and sisters." Belle could smell alcohol on her breath. "Stupid, disrespectful girl."
Belle instinctively began chewing her right thumbnail, a nervous habit she had formed when she was a toddler that she never managed to break. She nodded solemnly. "I'm sorry." She avoided her mother's eyes and walked into the house quickly, her thumbnail still held firmly between her teeth as she mindlessly chewed it.
The twins, Maxwell and Audrey, were seven. The next youngest was Colton - he was five. And the youngest, Sabrina, was only three. If she hadn't been distraught, she would have smiled at the sight before her - Max and Colton were roughhousing, as usual, and Audrey was trying to teach Sabrina how to braid hair. She loved seeing them like this, normal. It was times like this that made her happiest.
She quickly separated the boys from their infantile brawl and settled them down to the floor. Her father soon returned home from a hunt, a blade in one hand and a mangled animal in the other. Belle scrunched her nose in disgust as a few drops of blood fell to the floor.
When her siblings sat around the table waiting for dinner to be ready, she found herself wishing that her mother had died when disease struck their tiny village just weeks before - then it would just be Belle, her siblings, and their father. Her mother had in fact gotten sick, which had filled Belle with a shameful hope, but, to her dismay, she had recovered quickly. Years before, when the idea had first crossed her mind, Belle vowed to never tell another soul. It would her personal little secret that she would take to the grave.
"Belinda, Audrey, come help with the meal." Audrey and Belle shared a knowing look before going to help her; if they didn't listen they would surely be punished.
Christmas was rapidly approaching, just days away and yet the compound lacked any sign of Yuletide cheer. There wasn't a tree or a strand of garland in sight - Belle wasn't having it.
Most holidays bored her to tears, but she loved the atmosphere of Christmastime. It seemed like for just these few weeks out of the year people were smiling and kind to one another, even she found it hard to be gloomy. Besides, she had gotten her revenge, not to mention that she was now with the man of her dreams. For once in a very long time she was genuinely happy.
Well, for the most part anyway. There was still a hole in her heart where Max should be. Her only living family member seemed to have dropped off the face of the earth altogether. She knew Christmas wouldn't the same without him.
Nevertheless, she was determined to bring some holiday festivities to the compound, even if it was just a tree. She and Josh had picked it out from a tree lot on the outskirts of town, a ten-foot Douglas Fir that would be perfect to put in the courtyard. It was too big to mount on top of the SUV they had driven, so Josh compelled a worker to let him borrow one of the company's trucks. She returned to the compound with Josh on her heels and they unloaded the tree - for two vampires it wasn't very difficult. They placed it in the center of the courtyard. "A little to the right." She wanted nothing but perfection. "Okay, we're good." They took a few steps back to admire their work.
Josh smiled a little. "It looks good. Big, but good. How are you gonna decorate it?"
She scoffed, turning him with a look of both confusion and annoyance. "What the hell do you mean how am I going to decorate it? Aren't you going to stay and help?"
He shifted uncomfortably with his hands in his pockets. "I just...I have stuff to do. I mean, I like hanging out with you and all, but,"
"Don't worry about it. If you have plans, please, go. I'll just have the others help me." She forced a smile.
He nodded before leaving. She took a quick look at the tree before setting out on a hunt for Christmas decorations and ornaments for the tree. Surely Klaus had some stashed away somewhere, maybe the attic.
At the back of the house, near Klaus's room, was entrance to the attic. She climbed a rickety little ladder to the dark and cobweb-infested attic. After browsing through boxes upon boxes, she finally found what she was looking for. "What are you doing?" Klaus asked from behind her; she jumped when his deep voice broke the silence.
She spun around so quickly she almost gave herself whiplash. She wanted to laugh at the sight of Klaus, all six feet of him, crouched down on his knees in this claustrophobic nightmare of an attic. "Dammit," she exclaimed, running a hand through her hair. "You startled me."
"Sorry, love. What are you doing?" His eyes shifted from hers to the dusty box she had a hand on.
She pulled the box out from the pile to get a better look at it. It was colorfully labeled Useless holiday. She smirked when she recognized Klaus's handwriting. "Looking for this. Did you see the tree I bought?" She handed the first box to him before turning around to retrieve the second and third.
He sighed with amused uncertainty. "Yes. It's... Large." She knew he didn't like it, not that she had expected him to. When it came to Christmas, or any holiday really, he was a...Grinch.
She rolled her eyes. "It's over-the-top. I don't half-ass anything and neither do you. I figured I'd get the best tree there." After she pulled the other boxes out she handed one of them to Klaus, who reluctantly took it, and held the other one herself. "Come on. We have a gigantic tree to decorate, and yes, you are helping."
He scoffed, taking his boxes back downstairs. "Since when did you start barking orders?" His lips stretched into a smile that gave her butterflies. That was something that just wouldn't go away, no matter how many years passed. She smiled and followed him out of the attic.
On their way downstairs to the tree, Klaus announced that everyone else had to help, no exceptions. Within an hour the tree was nearing completion and the banisters were covered with sliver and gold garland and white Christmas lights. The tree was covered with red, silver, and gold ornaments of different shapes and sizes and Elijah and Marcel had wrapped a long red ribbon around the entire tree.
Belle was hanging a gold star ornament when she glanced over at the entryway that led outside to the street, a familiar figure before her eyes. "Max?" He stood looking directly at her, hands in the pockets of his coat. She started to approach him, but when she blinked he was gone.
She flashed to the spot he had stood just seconds before and went out to the street. If he had in fact been there, not just a figment of her lonely thoughts, there were no signs of him besides the faint aroma of his favorite cologne.
Disappointed and confused, she turned around and walked back inside. She could hear the familiar sound of Klaus and Rebekah bickering; something about what to put on top of the tree. She felt like the Christmas joy had been sucked out of her as loneliness crept in, no longer in the mood to decorate a tree or tell Rebekah that she needed to move the silver icicle ornament up a branch because it was too close to the red ball. She just wanted to see her little brother, to talk to him and apologize.
So Belle went upstairs and called Max for the fiftieth time and left him a message, saying that she was sorry and needed to talk to him. She hoped that he would listen to it - maybe then he would come back.