The one she thought was lost

Chapter 21: The truth part 2

They arrived at the castle a few hours later.
Daniella purposefully ignored the people waiting for them and immediatly made her way to her room. The last thing she wanted right now, was being coddled by people she barely knew. Especially because they were the first ones to judge her and only cared for her when they needed her.
So Daniella headed straight for the large, brown doors of the castle and walked inside, not seeing the worried looks from Regina and Robin.

"What the hell did Agatha do to her", Regina mumbled to herself.
"So you're not the only one who has been wondering that then." Regina managed not to jump up when she heard Robin's voice, but pressed a hand to her racing heart.
She looked at him, worried. "Has this happened before?"
Robin sighed and looked away for a moment before turning his gaze back to her.
"As you might have noticed, Daniella's a very closed person. I never pushed her, but I suspected it had something to do with something from her past."
Regina nodded. "She hasn't told me much either, only that she had been an orphan and that she ran away when she was twelve."
Robin ran a hand through his hair and Regina found herself distracted by a strand that hung stubbornly in front of his eyes. Her fingers itched to move it out of the way and she clenched her hands into fists to stop herself from doing it.
She was snapped out of her thoughts when Robin started speaking again. "Someone has to go speak to her." "I know."
Regina wanted to talk to Daniella, but she also wanted to 'talk' to Agatha too. Robin apparently noticed because he told her he'd watch her until Regina was done interrogating Agatha.
She gave him a small, grateful smile before making her way towards the dungeons.
A stony expression replacing the smile that had been on her lips only a minute before.

Daniella had only been in her room for ten minutes before her door burst open and a little boy sped towards her.
"Danny", he yelled in her ear and Daniella cringed, though her grimace fastly turned into a full blown smile. She grinned as she whispered 'Roland'.
He settled onto her lap and burried his head in her chest.
"I missed you, Danny", he whispered quietly. Her heart swelled, tears gathered in her's eyes and she squeezed him more tightly against her.
"I missed you too, little brother", she whispered back.
Only a few minutes later did she notice Robin standing in the doorway, looking at them with a soft smile. She give him a little smile and mouthed a 'thank you' before closing her eyes.

Regina threw the heavy doors of the dungeons open with a wave of her hand and walked through the small corridors. She sighed. The place was still as dark and depressing as it was twenty-eight years ago. On either side of her where sells with convicted criminals in them. Thiefs, murderers and rapists, though there weren't much of the latter onces since she killed them the second she knew what they'd done. Probably a consequence of her marriage with the King.
Regina shivered, her memories of that time of her life still made her want to throw up.
But she wasn't here to remember her past life, she was here to save Daniella from hers.
She walked towards the end of the corridor. The guard at the entrance had told her they'd put her in a cell far away from the others, isolated from the other prisoners.
When she arrived there, Regina couldn't help but smile maliciously. The woman was sitting in a corner, her feet bare and dirty. The dress she had been wearing before, was replaced by an old rag. If she didn't know better, she would have thought that she'd been sitting there for a month.
And Regina couldn't help but be estatic about it.
"Is there something you wanted, Your Majesty?" Regina looked at Agatha, surprised the woman dared to talk to her that way, but quickly covered that by anger.
"You're looking good Agatha, did you cut your hair?", she asked, amused. Agatha let out something simular to a growl, but otherwise said nothing.
"No, that's not it, though I have got to say, whatever it is... it suits you", Regina teased. This time Agatha raised her head to look at her and Regina couldn't stop the thrill that went through her when she saw the hatred in the older woman's eyes.
A second later, Regina turned serious. "I'm here about Daniella."
The smirk that covered Agatha's face at the mention of Daniella, made Regina raise her hand to lift Agatha up from the floor.
"I'm going to ask you this once, and only once, if you don't answer I'll use your heart to get the answers that I'm seeking. I'm I clear?" Regina saw Agatha cower away in fear and she was the one smirking this time. It only lasted for a minute before it disappeared.
After the woman nodded, she continued.
"What have you done to Daniella", Regina growled in a low voice.
Agatha couldn't help but feel a small pang of victory at being able to get such a reaction from the Queen.
"You see, that girl has a lot of insecurities. And I'm guessing you know this, but using the right insecurities is an easy way to hurt... or even break a person", Agatha said with a small vicious giggle. And when she saw the Queen's face harden, she couldn't help but rub it in a little more.
"Oh, you should have seen her fighting the things that I said, but I saw the doubt in her eyes. Though she kept going against whatever voices that were in her head. I have to admit, the girl's determined, always had been."
Regina's face snapped up when she heard the last bit of Agatha's little rant.
"... always has been." The words kept bouncing around in her mind, creating even more questions she was determined to get the anwers to.
"How long have you known her?", Regina asked. Her voice steady, though inside, she was burning with curiousity.
Agatha looked straight into the Queen's eyes. "I have known Daniella from when she was ten. She lived with me for two years."
Regina shuddered at the look in the woman's eyes. Cold, calculating, waiting for a reaction.
"You're the woman she ran away from", Regina said in realisation. She was surprised that Daniella had been able to endure living with the woman for two years, though she shouldn't have been. The strengh the girl had know, had probably been build up during her time with Agatha. Somehow that made Regina even more weary of the woman dangling in front of her.
"Indeed. Here I thought that I had the little brat under control, but she's very stubborn. She'd probably been planning that little 'escape' for like a year before it happened." Agatha rolled her eyes. She didn't like admitting it, but the girl was clever.
"Where did you meet her?"
Agatha gave her a cold smile. "At the orphanage. But Daniella isn't the only reason why you're here, is it?"
Regina tightened the grip she had on Agatha as she answered. "No, she'd not the only reason I'm here." She took a step closer to Agatha. "I'm here because of my daughter."