name = Alexandra J.
email = KesAFloyd@aol.com
title = Key To My Heart
warnings = n/a
story = Key To My Heart



Ivanova wandered down the Zocalo during her off-duty time. She wasn't really looking to buy anything but she liked looking once in a while. She stopped at a jewelry vendor. There were pieces from many different worlds, and she didn't have to stretch her imagination very far to think that many of them were stolen.

"Looking for anything in particular?" the man asked.

"No, not really," Ivanova said.

He held up a large, silver and gold locket that he had picked up from behind the stand.

"Can I interest you in this? It's been verified as being at least 70 years old and in wonderful condition for its age. Belonged to someone who knew how to keep jewelry."

"No thanks... wait a second, let me see that!" Ivanova managed to restrain her hand enough but her mind leaped out to grab the locket. Something in her head had decided that it rightfully belonged to her.

"Hey, easy, I can't have you stealing this piece now can I?" He cautiously let her finger the locket.

Were her suspicions correct? She carefully undid the clasp with the tiny key that was also on the chain. Inside were two pictures of a girl and a boy. She tried hard not to cry.

"Don't ask me who those kids are."

"How much?" she demanded.

"Two hundred credits."

"One-fifty."

"I don't do bargaining. Two hundred or nothing."

Without hesitation she said, "I'll buy it."

Ivanova had never dreamed that she would ever spend that much money in the Zocalo, but she didn't think about that now. She stood there staring at the locket. How many owners had this piece of jewelry passed among? How many had owned it without knowing that they had stolen a bit of her history as it was handed along? Old fingerprints had been worn away by those of strangers. 

With her fingernail, Ivanova carefully pulled back the photo of the girl, so familiar. She pulled back the photo of the boy and her eyes locked with the ones in the picture. Back to back with those photos, stuck to them only with age were pictures of a man and a woman. There was an engravement on the inside, written in Russian: "To Sophie, with love from Andrei." 

Lost for so many years among strangers, her father's wedding gift to her mother still shone brightly. After all, she had recognized it in a second.
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