The one she thought was lost

Chapter 25: Mother-daughter talk

The moment the purple smoke vanished, Regina led her daughter to her bed and sat down, pulling Daniella with her. Robin followed and sat on the other side of Daniella, pulling one of her hands in his. Regina smiled unconciously as she saw the gesture, but schooled her features once Daniella sat straight.
"What was going on in there?", Regina asked her gently, her hand coming up to stroke Daniella's hair softly as she looked the girl in the eyes. But before her daughter could say anything, Robin kissed the girl's forehead, whispered something in her ear that had Daniella nodding at him and made his way out of the room.
Regina's gaze turned confused for a second, looking at his disappearing figure, before turning back to Daniella. They sat there for a few minutes just looking at eachother.
"Look, if you don't want to tell me that's fine, but I maybe I can help with whatever is on your mind." Daniella sighed and ran her hand down her face.
"I don't really know. One moment I was just listening to what Snow and Charming were telling me and the next I was just so angry at them. And I know it's not fair to blame everything on them, but there's nobody else I can blame."
"What were they telling you?", Regina asked. She had a pretty good idea, but she wanted Daniella to tell her, just to be sure.
"How they met Agatha." It came out as a whisper, but Regina heard it clearly and inwardly sighed, but wasn't surprised.
"I guess you weren't happy with what they told you?" Daniella scoffed and Regina slightly smiled.
"No I wasn't. It's just that the fact that because of them, I ended up living with Agatha for two years and I hated every second of those years. Whatever had happened before that, living in the orphanage, it wasn't nearly as bad as living with Agatha."
Regina's breath caught in her throat as Daniella started talking.

Flashback
It had been two weeks since Agatha had first hit her and things had only been getting worse. Daniella couldn't say anything right, do anything right and was punished every time Agatha thought she did something wrong, which was almost all the time.
Daniella never thought she'd miss living at the orphanage, but she was missing it right now. While she had lived there, she had freedom. Nobody cared about what she did or did not do and even though she only had had one piece of clothing, life was far better there.
She had started figuring out when she could escape. She spent as much time as she could finding out when Agatha would be gone, tried not to spent too much time with the woman herself and did everything she asked of her. The less she protested, the less she would be punished. It had worked out so far. Until one day, it didn't.

"Daniella, come here!", Agatha yelled from downstairs and Daniella sighed. She couldn't wait to get out of here. Agatha would me gone in a few weeks, visiting some welthy families. Why, Daniella had no idea, but she was fine with it.
"Yes mother, I'm coming!", she yelled back, already on her feet to walk downstairs. She opened the doors of her chambers and made her way to the stairs where she thought Agatha would be waiting like she always did. There was nobody there.
'Where is she?', Daniella thought as she took another step closer, not noticing the person creeping up behind her.

Agatha had a cruel smile on her face as she gained another few inches. Ever since Snow and Charming called of their deal, Agatha had wanted to get rid of Daniella. The girl was annoying, had a big mouth and was way to happy, especially last year. Though she had to admit, since she'd really started teaching the girl what she could or couldn't do, Daniella was a lot more obedient. Guess the things her mother did to her, also worked on the girl currently in front of her.
'God, I hope you're in hell, mother', Agatha thought as she took another step closer.
"Agatha?", Daniella's yelled and Agatha felt anger burning in her belly. The Charming's had paid her to take care of Daniella until they'd finally take her and use her to defeat the Evil Queen, but of course they hadn't thought that plan through when they had met Agatha. Though she had to admit, she hadn't really thoughts things through either. She was in desprate need of money, her father was ill and needed medicin, onces she was not able to affort. So she had taken their deal without thinking about it, which turned out to be a big mistake.
She had to spent all her time watching the girl, make sure she was fed etc. All of that time, she could've spent with her father and now he was dead anyway. She hadn't been able to spent time with her dear father because that damn girl had to be looked after.
Agatha almost let out a growl as she felt her anger built. She took those last few steps very quickly and pushed Daniella down the stairs, the girl's scream giving her a sence of satisfaction that she hadn't felt in a very long time.
End Flashback