AN: To those of you who have read some of my other Bloodlines fics, namely "Impossible Girl Phenomenon,", "Stop Thinking," or "Scandalous," this is kind of a similar thing. I would include this in that little universe, except that this fic pretty much assumes that "Scandalous" didn't happen – which, now that more books have come out since Indigo Spell, we now know that Scandalous couldn't possibly have happened. But this one shot is very much the same genre I seem to keep sticking to, where two characters have an unlikely conversation about Sydrian. This one takes place pretty much about, oh, eight hours after Silver Shadows ended. On that note – HUGE HUGE HUGE MASSIVE SILVER SHADOWS SPOILERS. IF YOU HAVEN'T FINISHED SILVER SHADOWS, TURN BACK NOW.

He was buying tampons when she approached him. Other things, too, but he was in the aisle with the tampons, looking at all the options and wondering why anyone would possibly need so many different kinds.

They were for Sydney, of course, and because it was Sydney she had told him exactly what to get, down to the brand (and three alternate brands in case they didn't have hers), so he was spared the headache that would've been trying to choose. He had just put the pink box in the basket hooked over his arm when he heard the cough behind him – not a real cough, one of those attention-getting coughs. He turned and saw Rose leaning against a shelf, eyebrows raised.

"Gentlemanly," she said dryly, nodding toward his basket. "For your mom, right?" Adrian choked.

"Why did you just put that image in my head?" he finally managed to get out. Rose wrinkled her nose.

"Yeah, ew. Sorry." Adrian eyed the innocuous looking box in his basket, then looked back at Rose. She took a deep breath and flipped her long, dark hair over her shoulder with a practiced flick of her head. "So," she said, glancing down the aisle as if making sure they weren't being watched. "Sydney, huh?"

He should have expected it – he knew she'd been dying to get details since the day they showed up in Lissa's meeting room in their wedding clothes, but with Jill's disappearance, she hadn't ever had her chance.

Sydney was in their room on the phone with Marcus, getting his opinion on whether or not the Alchemists would pull something like this, and asking him to see what his contacts knew about it. On her to do list after calling Marcus was a location spell and calling Eddie and giving him any leads she got from that, as well as trying to convince him it wasn't his fault (fat chance – she hadn't seen him after she'd been taken to Re-education), so she'd be busy for a while. Even with the panic that felt like it was aways there, ready to crush him any moment, they needed groceries, and since Sydney actually had productive things she could do to help Jill, Adrian had volunteered.

Rose was watching him, one hand on her hip, waiting. He had hoped that she might prefer to have this conversation with Sydney – after all, he knew they were friends. Or at least with both of them. But no, she had decided to corner him alone, in the tampon aisle of all places.

"Yeah," he answered simply. "Sydney." She let out a frustrated huff.

"How on earth did that happen?" she asked. "What happened to us being unholy creatures of the night?" The words came spilling out of her like she'd been using all her willpower to keep them in since last night, as he knew she had been.

"Well she was scared of us for a long time," he said slowly, and Rose nodded her agreement. He knew that Rose had known her long before he had, so he imagined the Sydney she'd met had been an even more loyal Alchemist than the one he'd met that first day in Palm Springs. He wondered if that was part of her astonishment. "But I don't know that she ever actually believed that we were evil."

"Oh, she definitely did," Rose supplied knowingly.

"Then I think her adventures with you and Belikov may have broken her of that before she ever met me," Adrian said dryly.

Rose smirked a little at the memory. "Yeah," she said with a little laugh, "maybe."

They went quiet, and Adrian realized with a start that this was the first time he'd been alone with Rose since they'd broken up, the first real conversation he'd had with her. He remembered something she'd said when they'd broken up – about how she loved him even though they didn't work as a couple. It had sounded like such a bullshit cliché at the time, and by the time he'd moved on from her enough that he could've understood what she meant by that, everything in him had been focused on Sydney. But now he thought he understood. He had no desire to be with Rose the way he'd wanted before, the way he wanted Sydney now – but he missed her. They bantered easily, had fun together, and cared about each other.

He remembered something else she'd said to him, and he smiled a little to himself at the memory.

"What?" Rose asked.

"I just was remembering something you told me when we broke up," he said seriously. Rose crinkled her eyebrows suspiciously, not sure what was coming.

"What did I tell you?" she asked carefully.

"You said... you said that you felt – god, what word did you use? Balanced. You said you couldn't balance me, and when I asked what you meant by that, you said... you said I'd know when I found it." Adrian stopped, thinking. Balance was the perfect word for what he and Sydney were to each other.

"And so you're saying...?"

"I found it," Adrian said simply. "It kind of took me a while, because I still was hung up on you, and also it never crossed my mind to think of a human like that, but... one day I just looked at her and knew."

"What about her? Did she look at you and just know?" Adrian sighed.

"You'd have to ask her," he said. "She fought it for a long time though, a lot longer than I did."

Rose nodded. "Because of the Alchemists," she guessed. Adrian nodded.

"Yeah. I always thought she was worrying way too much, but..."

"But then the Alchemists basically threatened to declare war on us over her," Rose supplied. Adrian shook his head, and Rose raised her eyebrows questioningly. He caught her look.

"Well, I mean, yeah. But before that. Re-education. God. I – I just..."

Rose tilted her head curiously at the way his jaw tightened and his fists clenched.

"I know you were trying to find her," she said carefully, and he nodded. "And I guess you did. But you said they had her locked up – like in a prison?"

"More like a torture chamber," he said bitterly.

"Torture?"

"She hasn't told me much," he admitted. "But I know enough. When we found her she was shackled to this table, they'd been keeping her awake for – I don't even know. Too long. She won't tell me any more, but she has nightmares every night, and she has to sleep with the light on because apparently at some point they kept her in the dark." He stopped, wondering belatedly if maybe Sydney wouldn't want him to be sharing all of this with Rose.

"Oh my god," Rose whispered. "That's horrible." Adrian nodded.

"And I know there's more but she won't tell me. How do I help her if she won't let me?" He ran a hand through his hair frustratedly. Rose smoothed her shirt with the palms of the hands, thinking.

"I know what you mean," she said softly. At Adrian's questioning look, Rose sighed. "It's a little different," she conceded. "But Dimitri – well, at first, I kept thinking that if he just told me about everything he had done, and everything he was feeling, that he would feel better. But I think I really thought it would make me feel better. Occasionally he'll tell me something, but mostly he keeps it to himself. And that works for him, he's dealing with it."

"What are you saying?"

"I guess... I don't know. I guess I'm saying that some people would need to tell you about everything that happened to them, and some just want to move on. I guess I'm saying to just let her do whatever she needs to do to deal."

Adrian thought about Rose's words carefully. Did he want Sydney to talk about it to help her, or because he wanted to know?

The thing was that he didn't think he did want to know, he just didn't want her to have to carry the burden alone. He didn't think he'd mind not knowing if he thought she was dealing with it.

But he was pretty sure she was ignoring it and hoping it went away, and that, he knew, was never going to happen.

Adrian looked back at Rose, who was watching him almost apprehensively, waiting for a reaction.

"When did you get all wise?" he asked finally. She laughed.

"Life. Dying. Life again. Danger. Almost dying again. That's what you get, I guess. Wise Rose. Scary, huh?" Adrian laughed.

"No scarier than College Student Adrian or Rebellious Sydney." Rose smiled and nodded, tucking a piece of long dark hair behind her ear.

"I guess so," she said. "I guess people just change."

"Yeah," Adrian agreed.

Suddenly Rose let out a great whoop of laughter, and Adrian stared at her.

"What?"

"No!" She cried. "No, people don't change!"

"What're you –"

"I mean, obviously, of course they do, but – Sydney didn't! Ha!" She noticed Adrian's confused face and slowed herself down. "Last year when the Alchemist files about Lissa and Jill's dad went missing, Sydney was the one who contacted me, asking if I had anything to do with it. She had seen security footage of us in the Witching Hour. And – god, I can't believe I forgot this! We were talking about Eric Dragomir, but then she asked me about you."

"What?" Adrian drew himself up short. Why on earth had Sydney asked about him months before they'd even met?

"Because she saw the security footage of you. She asked if you were my boyfriend, I told her you were. And then she took this really long pause, like she was kind of debating with herself over something." Rose stopped.

"And?"

"And she said you were cute. Long before she ever met you, long before she'd turned on the Alchemists."

Adrian froze, and Rose laughed again at his expression.

"You are pulling my leg, Little Dhampir," he said finally, cracking a grin of his own. "That definitely did not happen." Rose's eyes filled with warmth at the old, familiar nickname.

"Oh, it definitely happened. Would I make that up?"

"Probably," Adrian answered, laughing. It felt good to laugh.

"Well, you'll just have to trust me." Adrian raised an eyebrow and Rose laughed again. "Or you can ask her."

"No," he said, still smiling. "I trust you, Little Dhampir."

"Good." They were quiet for a moment, and then Rose nodded toward the pink box in Adrian's basket.

"Well," she said, more serious but still a hint of a smile in her eyes, "I'd better let you finish your, uh, shopping," she said with a smirk.

"See you around," Adrian said. Rose smiled.

"Of course – and tell your wife I want to talk to her, too."

Adrian felt warmth spreading through his chest just hearing the word, but he nodded.

As she turned and walked away, dark hair bouncing around her shoulders, he thought he caught her murmur something under her breath.

"Man, it's weird to say that."

AN: I honestly had so much fun writing that, so I hope you enjoyed it. Whatever you thought of it, I always appreciate your reviews! And if you liked this, go check out some of my other Bloodlines one shots (there are quite a few now!).