Title: The Unlikely Warrior

Author: OpheliacAngel

Pairings: Sydney/Adrian, Rose/Dimitri, Eddie/Jill

Genres: Romance/Family

Rating: Teen

Summary: If there is one thing that Sydney Sage will never forget, one thing that not even the Alchemists can erase, it will be Adrian Ivashkov's sardonic grin... and his capacity for absolutely selfless love.

A/N: Written for Night on Fic Mountain for semele, who wanted some future!fic. My first foray into the Bloodlines fandom went much better than expected. I have always adored Sydney since she was first introduced through Rose's point of view in the Vampire Academy books, and part of why I'm drawn to her so much is because we have an incredible amount in common. Getting to read her own point of view and witness how much she's changed in the Bloodlines series has really been a dream come true. I've constantly freaked out over the strong possibility of Sydney having to go through re-education, so this was really fun to write and turned out a helluva lot longer than expected. Rose and Dimitri wrote themselves in, I swear. Oh, and I hope you enjoy!

Sydney Sage had never been much for fighting.

She had spent enough of her life following orders, doing what she was told how she was told and then rinse and repeat. She was taught to never trust and to hate Strigoi, Moroi and Dhampirs because they were all the same: evil creatures. She was human, better than them, except her actions didn't make her any better.

Such hate... hate that only brought about misunderstanding. Her whole world was hate and loyalty and duty, there wasn't any room for anything else. There wasn't space for true happiness, for friendships or love, for loving someone so much that your own life meant nothing to you if theirs was in danger.

Adrian Ivashkov had slowly but all too surely broken her apart piece by piece, had ruptured her barriers and captured her heart. He had seen inside her, had seen the true her, the person she had always wanted to be but lost along the way through trying to be perfect, trying to be everything the Alchemists and her father needed. It was all for nothing, but at least it got her where she was.

He was annoying and infuriating and so stubborn at times that she couldn't breathe, but she wouldn't trade his perpetually messy hair and smirk for anything else in the world. It wasn't just love... wasn't just obsession; she felt a bond with him that gave her strength and purpose. He was like a beacon inside of her, guiding her onto the path she had been destined for.

More and more she knew she didn't belong with the Alchemists, she belonged with them: the Dhampirs and the Moroi they protected with their lives. They had shown her what life could be like, had shown her what it was like to fight for someone you cared about, to fight for something that was bigger than you, a legacy, the future.

Looking at Rose Hathaway with clouded eyes led to nothing but ignorance, but along the treacherous road that the Dhampir had led her on throughout Russia and then into America, she had seen the truth. Rose loved her friends and her family so deeply that it made her reckless and stubborn and a force to be reckoned with. She wasn't evil, there wasn't a bone in her body that was evil.

She had taken Sydney into danger but also had brought her into her fold, had introduced her to the concept of true family: family that wasn't born of blood, but rather, forged in it.

She had never thanked Rose for the friendship she had shown her, but then again she hadn't needed to. Her actions spoke louder than words.

Even with Rose though, she hadn't reached the final step. She still worked for the Alchemists as far as she was concerned, up until she really got to connect with Jill Dragomir, the only sister of the queen of the Moroi world: Lissa Dragomir, who Rose and her lover Dimitri protected with their lives. In many ways, Jill was a typical teenage girl who merely wanted to have fun, get to know her long-lost sister, and feel like she belonged either in a world that was trying to kill her or a world that she knew she would never truly belong to due to what she was.

Jill was royalty, and she sure had the looks for it, but to Sydney she wasn't just an assignment or someone to merely protect, she had become a confidant and a friend, even maybe a sister. She couldn't distance herself from her, or pretend that she didn't care about her on a personal level. Jill had become her family, along with Eddie and Adrian, as much as she might have tried to push them away and keep a level head.

She was in deep, too deep to get out, but she knew that and she didn't regret a thing. When the people she had been raised to work for took her, she was terrified but she had a clear head regardless. She was ready for them to dish out their methods of torture and their tactics in order to turn her into a glorified robot.

Sydney had known it would happen sooner or later, despite Adrian's sense of duty to protect her.

She had been ready.

The human would allow no one else to break her. She was Adrian's, not a tool for the Alchemists anymore. There was so much good in him, good not even he could see, but her goal the past few months had been to bring that out of him. Their love only made them stronger, not weaker, and they could try to shatter her to her very core, but she would never break, not while she had Adrian's love, not while Eddie and Jill looked upon her as a friend.

Everything she had done had been for the three of them, every risk she took and every fall she survived. They looked upon her with hope and with trust, for support and for love. The human now with a purpose wouldn't let them down; if she had to take the final fall, then so be it.

They had told her she was going to forget everything and everyone, and Sydney had freaked out over the thought of forgetting Rose, who miraculously managed to make her sympathetic towards her plight as well as her kind, who Sydney felt proud and lucky to have known, and of forgetting Dimitri and Jill and Eddie and Adrian.

Sydney thought of him, and she drew strength from his memory kept coiled up tightly inside of her. They wouldn't get to it... wouldn't get to him.

If there was one thing that Sydney Sage would never forget, one thing that not even the Alchemists could erase, it would be Adrian Ivashkov's sardonic grin... and his capacity for absolutely selfless love.

No, Sydney Sage had never been much for fighting.

But from then on she was fighting for her life and the lives of those she cared about.

Minutes bled into hours and hours into days and days into weeks and into months and into years.

Years without hope... years without Adrian.

Re-education had once been a constant source of nightmares, especially when she began to slowly shift her loyalties without even fully realizing it, and now it was a bitter reality. Early days were spent in vacant classrooms, in order to assess just how much of her old self that was left, the self that was null and void as far as she was concerned. The concerns of the Alchemists weren't concerns of her own anymore, and she could care less about what they thought of her.

She was finally who she wanted to be, finally proud of herself, the decisions she had made and how far she had come.

They drilled into her head what she had tried to avoid for all that time: hate towards those not human and duty towards a cause she no longer understood anymore. The Alchemists were still important for the vital secrets they kept from humans, but their goals and view of the world around them was outdated. They would never change though, no matter how much Sydney may have hoped for it.

She had tried to turn away, tried to ignore them but they force fed it to her all over again. Being a child, being raised in that life meant she hadn't known better, hadn't known enough in order to fight back.

She was fighting for everything since they took her, fighting for her own life, for her own happiness, but more than that she was fighting to remember that the Dhampirs and Moroi were good, that they were her friends and her family, and that they loved her for who she was, without having to.

When eighteen hours a day of curriculum hadn't phased her, they started probing deeper, started to toy with the memories in her head and blurred the line between fantasy and reality, consciousness and unconsciousness, life and death. She woke up everyday feeling already dead, feeling as if there was nothing left in her. But when they strapped her to that table and stuck needles in her head, as the pain coursed unerringly throughout her, the warrior inside her rose up to overpower them.

She had expected them to get tired of trying to salvage her, but she should have known better.

Sydney Sage was destined to break first.

Years hadn't broken her yet, and she expected to last for many more. Every memory they tried to corrupt - tried to erase, she fought to hold onto, no matter how small or minuscule. The pain made her weaker but it also made her unexpectedly angrier and more determined. They would take nothing from her while she was still alive, no matter how dead she felt, no matter the remaining hope in her drifting further and further away everyday.

When they left her alone she wandered away and lived inside those memories again: memories of Rose's ferocity and Dimitri's hard heart softening and Abe, whose sly smile always gave her hell if she even so much as thought the wrong thing. Then there were brand new memories to wallow in: Jill's bright, hopeful eyes that pleaded her for things Sydney shouldn't give her; Eddie's overprotective glances towards Sydney and the Moroi, the latter of which were ripe with longing; and Adrian's arms wrapped lovingly around her neck, fingers tangled in her hair and warm, incredibly soft lips descending on her own.

That was always the last memory before they dragged her away again, and it was always the memory she fought to suppress, the one she would never let them find.

And then, one day, sirens went off in her head.

She jumped, overly fragile body grating painfully against the tile, sharp sparks exploding in her head and traveling fiercely through her body down to her toes, like electricity. Her memories shifted in her violently as she pulled her weakened, frozen body off the floor and huddled in one of the corners, against the gray concrete wall. The noise was too loud - a sharp contrast to the ever-present thick silence - and she could feel herself slipping away too quickly for her to do anything. Memories continued morphing into unrecognizable images until they evaporated as if being sucked through a tube, and her eyes opened with another jolt of pain.

She clasped her bleeding hands to her ears, fearing death and praying for it at the same time.

The door opened and the siren song went on, so sharp but so sweet, calling out to her, calling out for her to break, that it was time to go. Without looking upward she could sense a dark shadow looming over her. Would it be gone if she gave up? She looked up, hoping she was ready for one last fight, and saw...

Dimitri?

There was no question, the tall, dark and handsome Russian whose heart belonged to Rose was standing in the doorway, even more god-like than she had remembered. God... she hadn't seen him in ages. It felt like eons ago that she, Dimitri and Rose had been on the road, trying to keep the latter hidden while her friends at the Academy could clear her name of the murder charge she had been tainted with.

His imposing figure was angry and gentle and grief-stricken all at the same time as he left the doorway and approached her, that long, dark duster trailing along behind him. If she were in any other situation, she would have smiled at that alone.

It couldn't be him because there was no reason for him to be there. It couldn't be him because she shouldn't still be alive.

If that was the way to break her, then they were winning.

Dimitri walked up to her slowly, but his movements screamed of precious time. She drew closer to the wall, but there was really nowhere else to go. He held his hands up to show that he meant her no harm, crouching down so he could be eye-level with her, and when she lifted her head to take in his shoulder-length brown hair and warm, incredibly life-like eyes, he smiled at her gently, holding one hand out for her to no doubt accept.

He was treating her like a wounded animal, like he had all the time in the world to just be there with her.

"I can't...," she choked out, shaking her head back and forth despite feeling as if it would pop off her neck at any moment. Every limb felt so heavy, and every thought seemed too sudden and loud. "I can't break."

"You haven't broken, and you won't." Dimitri's thick Russian accent called to her in the most appealing of ways. He had always looked upon her with the deepest sort of understanding and empathy, had always viewed her as more than just a human, more than just some meddling Alchemist. She wanted more than anything to just pitch forward into his waiting arms, to let someone take care of her for once. "It's time to leave, Sydney." He held out his other hand and licked his lips, watching her no longer with hesitance, but with the urgency to protect. "Will you trust me?"

He held her gaze for the longest time, but when he turned around and looked up at someone else, Sydney followed his gaze. Tears were spilling out of her eyes, making her vision cloudy at best, but there was no mistaking Sydney's other unexpected visitor.

It was Rose.

And then, suddenly, she knew. They couldn't copy Rose, not in a million years, there wasn't a part of her that they could remake. Rose was uniquely... Rose, she was exotic and youthful and a warrior at heart, with a curvy body and plenty of snark and a wicked sense of humor in order to make her even more appealing. She had a fiery gaze and a tough girl attitude and she always had a plan.

"Hey, you." She crouched down next to Dimitri, her fingers brushing Sydney's hair back affectionately and a grin lighting up her features. It was Rose all right. They had been through too much together for either of them not to feel something. "You feel like getting out of this hellhole anytime soon?"

Sydney stared at her for a few long moments, barely believing what was happening, barely believing that she was looking upon the infamous Rose Hathaway and the god-like Dimitri Belikov again. If they were in there with her, then she was safe.

"Rose...?"

"Don't look so shocked, Syd." She glanced over at her boyfriend, who nodded once and pulled himself closer to Sydney. "No one messes with my family without my say-so."

She sobbed then, loudly and violently, pounding her mangled hands against Dimitri's chest, not able to stop, not able to get herself under control again. Dimitri let her, picking her up in his strong arms and holding her tightly to him, allowing her to take out all of her frustrations on her savior. She caught sight of Rose over his shoulder, the hurt, guilty look on her face helping to ground her.

With her in his arms and Rose closely following, they swept out of the room, and before Sydney could see sunlight, she lost consciousness in Dimitri's arms with a smile on her face.

Now she's here.

She stares out at the ocean, picking at the blanket draped over her legs, legs that don't feel like her own but which she pulls closer to her chest regardless. The sun is bright but it's not blinding her, merely warming her up from the cold that's settled deep down into her bones. She can feel that the sun is helping, causing her appetite to come back and her sight to become significantly less clouded. She also feels a lot less disoriented and a lot more alive.

'I'm worried about her, Dimitri. What if we didn't find her in time...?'

'Have faith, Roza. Sydney is a lot stronger than you give her credit for.'

'I did this. I put her in danger, brought her into a world she didn't belong in. If it wasn't for me then she'd be alright. She'll never forgive me.'

Sydney can pretty much see him smiling at her affectionately, and while she never expected for Rose to feel such guilt over what has happened to her, she's happy that Dimitri is there to comfort her and pull her head together. There may be many that don't quite understand what Rose and Dimitri have, but Sydney does. They truly do belong together because they just connect, in a lot of ways. They bring out the best in each other, and Sydney can finally say that she knows what that feels like.

She aches for Adrian.

'Don't be a fool, Rose. Your friendship means too much to her. Her decisions have been her own, regardless of your influence.'

Birds are squawking somewhere far off, allowing reality to settle down around her permanently, the puzzle pieces of her life coming together again to form a coherent picture. The ocean is so calm and so blue, and it stretches off into the distance, leading nowhere and everywhere all at once. For a while she thinks about standing up and wading into the water, but she's too tired to do much but sit on the towel - little by little uncurling herself emotionally while she hugs herself physically - and try not to think.

Sydney glances over at the dozing figures of Eddie and Jill and smiles.

She loves being with Dimitri and Rose again, but she can't help but long for the last time they were together. She isn't coherent enough to make this experience memorable, and she can't help but feel sorry for not being able to pull herself together quickly enough to erase the worried looks on her friends faces.

Dimitri is driving, occasionally catching a glimpse of her in the overhead mirror. He must know that she's awake, clinging onto consciousness by a thread, but he doesn't say anything, not wanting to press her or bring Rose's attention towards her. She is eternally grateful for his silence, because as much as she wants to talk to them she wants more to just feign sleep and yet not feel alone.

Rose seems to be lost inside her own head, and normally Sydney wouldn't worry about her but she knows the bond she shared with Lissa is now broken, which means a quiet Rose is a Rose to be worried about.

'Adrian won't pick up.'

Adrian... oh god, Adrian...

'I think he hates me after what I did to him.'

Dimitri doesn't answer her, only taps his fingers against the steering wheel and glances back at Sydney again. She closes her eyes and falls back into sleep.

"Hey." The boy of her dreams drops down beside her on the sand, reserving the towel she's sitting on for her solely. Sydney scoots over, her hand dropping and fingers clenching the sand for balance, and Adrian accepts the invitation, moving partially onto the towel but not touching her or staring at her too intently.

He stares out at the ocean as he pulls a knife out of his pocket and cuts an apple into thin slices, meticulous and slow in his movements. Sydney watches him out of the corner of her eye, soothed by his presence beside her. He hands her the first apple slice and she takes it out of his hand, her fingers brushing against his and tingling pleasantly. She smiles at him in thanks and eats, her appetite ferocious but her stomach queasy.

"Tell me if the heat gets to be too much for you." He's being so careful with her and she loves it, takes in his soft look and carefully considered words and holds them closely to her. She has never felt this loved and needed, and if she didn't know prior to being taken that he loves her, than she definitely knows it now.

"No," she breathes in the salt air deeply, "it feels good."

Adrian nods, catching her lingering gaze on him and throwing her a reassuring smile. "Good." He takes the next slice and then looks around her to watch Eddie and Jill, who lie curled up together - facing each other - a couple feet away from Sydney.

"Those two lovebirds finally hooked up while you were gone."

Sydney feels a surge of joy at the words; she has been rooting for the Moroi and Dhampir almost since day one. It's obvious that Eddie feels both overprotective and affectionate towards Jill, and even though she had to go through a bit of soul-searching and growing up, she has finally seen what has been in front of her face all along. She's happy for them but definitely doesn't want to disturb their sleep to congratulate them.

Three happy couples on the beach together: vacationing. Vacationing under grim circumstances.

'Why the hell didn't you pick up the phone earlier?'

'Did you find her?'

She must have put him on speaker phone, and while his voice is static at best, she'd recognize it from anywhere. It hasn't been years, she doesn't know how long it's been but Rose and Dimitri haven't aged a bit, and she clings to the hope that it's only been a few weeks.

'Yes, we're heading towards you now. I think we could all use a little vacation after this.'

'Don't I know it. Just... get here fast.'

'I'll send Dimitri your love.'

Sydney wants him to keep talking, wants to beg him to never stop talking again, but apparently he doesn't want to talk to Rose anymore, which she can't entirely fault him for. She breaks at the loss of connection, shatters inside at Rose hanging up the phone. Dimitri catches her gaze again in the mirror, but this time he smiles and speaks to her again, shifting between her and the road. It's the first time he's directly spoken to her since that awful room.

'How do you feel about going to the beach, Sydney?'

She opens her eyes and is startled by the sight of the ocean before her. The sun is sinking in the sky, waves lapping at the sand and a faint breeze brushing against her. She suddenly wants to be touched by Adrian, wants to feel his arms around her and his lips on her own again. She needs to know how much he loves her, needs to know how real this moment is despite how raw she feels.

Sydney might lose it again, fears herself losing control in a way that makes her shake all over. In one second she could just lose touch altogether and start sobbing and hyperventilating and maybe never make it to the surface again. She thought she had gone insane by the time Rose and Dimitri had found her, had thought she was lost forever when Adrian's first initial touch she couldn't feel, but even though she clearly hasn't yet, can still melt under Adrian's eyes, it doesn't mean that moment isn't coming.

They're all around a ticking time bomb, and while she will never betray them, she will no doubt cause them significant emotional pain.

They could just leave her here, on the beach, alone and helpless. Yet they won't. She's surprised by the five people who will do anything to help her, and while it should seem suffocating it is anything but.

She breathes out and in, wanting Adrian's hands to brush against her so badly that she knows she will break if they don't.

'Syd? Sydney...?'

His voice seems so far away, too far away for her to ever reach. She longs to comfort him, tell him that everything will be okay even if she'll never be again. She can't get words to come out, it's all she can do to look up at him. She feels dead and she has no doubt that her gaze reveals the same.

'What's wrong with her?'

'What do you expect, Adrian? She's been there for a week and a half. She broke down when we found her and to be honest, I'm thrilled she's even awake at this point.'

Rose starts biting her fingernails and Sydney gets an inkling of what it must be like for Lissa, having someone worry about you twenty-four seven. She looks up at her and Rose smiles, wrapping something warm around her. 'Don't you worry, Sydney. We're gonna hang out, just like old times.'

'She will need time,' Dimitri reminds Adrian, unpacking something from the back of the SUV and handing it to Rose. 'That is why we are here.'

Sydney can hear the ocean and feel heat at the back of her neck, working away at breaking down her disorientation. Rose bends down and rubs something cold on her arms and neck, her movements hurried but gentle all the same, her dark hair spilling out in front of her face.

Sydney tries to focus, but she's feeling incredibly tired all over again.

She'll let them take care of her for just a little while longer...

The human should have felt outnumbered in a small group of Moroi and Dhampirs, but all she feels is safe and protected and loved. She feels so lucky to be loved by them.

She swallows hard and glances over at Adrian hesitantly, "Will you...?"

He eyes her curiously, though his lips quirk up slightly into a smile. He's still the Adrian she knows and loves, he really hasn't changed a bit. She just can't imagine what he must have gone through while she was gone, the stress, the worry, the panic. "Will I what?"

She doesn't know how to say it, but she needs it. "Will you wrap your arms around me?"

Adrian grins then, standing up for a moment so as to shift his position, a hand on her back all the time until he drops back down and wraps his arms around her from behind, his breath warm and real against her neck. She sinks back into him, wondering how long it'll be like this for the two of them. "I've been waiting my entire life for you to say that."

She smiles at his grin, "You have not."

"I have too," he informs her smugly, his nose nuzzling the back of her neck and Sydney can feel him breathing her in. Years ago she would have been terrified if a Moroi did what he was doing currently, probably on the verge of a panic attack, and months ago she would have just been creeped out. Yet now... now she just feels giddy over all the attention he's giving her. She doesn't want him to stop hugging her closer for a second, she could live in this moment forever.

If anyone can take her mind away from things, it's Adrian.

Sydney is the most naked she has ever been in front of him, emotionally that is. Here she is: stripped bare and raw and without barriers and he must be able to smell the fear all over her. She couldn't be more vulnerable, both emotionally and physically, and there isn't a part of her that would trade that for anything.

"I love you. You know that, right?"

Suddenly, she needs to say it more than she needs to breathe. She somehow feels like this is all her fault, and after all she put Adrian through he has to know that she wouldn't accept or love anyone else but him. "I couldn't have...," she swallows thickly, leaning further back against him and smiling when he kisses her languidly and squeezes her tighter. "There's no way I would have survived in there if it wasn't for you. If it wasn't for loving you so much."

"We don't have to talk about it. I'll never push you into talking about it." His fingers are strong and soft at the same time as they brush against her cheek and stroke through her hair. She needs a hair cut and some shampoo so desperately that she doesn't know whether to laugh or cry about it. Adrian doesn't even seem to notice.

"Thank you," she whispers, her voice sounding and feeling like it's gone through a paper shredder.

She wallows in the silence for a while, focusing solely on Adrian's fingers running through her hair soothingly, his breath a constant presence against her neck. He abruptly clears his throat and her ears perk up. "Bringing Jailbait back to life was the second best decision I ever made. The first was you."

Sydney's heart flutters at his words, spoken with such truth and sincerity that tears spill down her cheeks and a relieved laugh bubbles up from within her. She is hopeful for the two of them and giddy and so so happy.

He wipes away her tears and then kisses the bridge of her nose. "Hey, Sage?"

"Yeah?"

"In case you didn't get that, it means I love you too."

'Adrian?'

Her fingers lift up and brush against his cheek, toying momentarily with his spiky, gloriously messed up hair. She has missed every part of him. Every part of him with every atom in her.

She has never fully realized just how far she has come.

'Hey.' His smile is relieved but careful too, infinitely careful, and she knows that he's trying to hide something. 'You get anymore sleep and I'm gonna seriously have to consider calling you sleeping beauty from now on.'

She melts at the sight of him lying down beside her, pressed so closely but yet not touching her. He seems surprisingly distant, even more so than she feels, and she wants more than anything to draw him out. 'Did you think I forgot about you?' She smiles, showing him how stupid of a concept it is, for her not to be able to remember Adrian.

His eyes turn sad then, and there's a flicker of something in them that she knows. She knows Adrian so well that she can read him better than anyone.

'I missed you,' he admits. 'It drove me crazy, how much I missed you.'

'It's okay, I...'

'No. I am so sorry, Sydney. I couldn't find you. How useless am I if I couldn't even...?' He breaks off and looks away, wiping his face with his sleeve. Adrian Ivashkov... such a bad boy yet such a romantic, emotional wreck too.

What is she going to do with him?

As Adrian uses her thin arm as a makeshift pillow, Sydney glances towards the right and catches sight of Rose and Dimitri walking back towards them, hand-in-hand, Rose barefoot and wading out into the ocean and Dimitri following her. She's jolted out of her reverie by a pair of small, skinny arms wrapping around her fiercely.

"Sydney! You're awake!"

"Hi to you too, Jill."

Adrian backs off and she pulls the small figure of Jill closer to her, giving the Moroi princess the biggest hug she's ever given anyone. It's strange and funny all at the same time, but Jill has become more of a sister to her these past few months than her own sister, Zoe, ever was. She feels guilty for a second, but when Eddie doesn't hesitate and wraps her arms around the both of them, the guilt evaporates and she feels like the luckiest person in the world.

"It's good to see you awake, Sydney."

Her hand grips his back tightly, "Thanks, Eddie. It's great to see you guys."

The hug goes on for an eternity, but Sydney eventually opens her eyes and looks over Jill's shoulder to make out that Rose and Dimitri have witnessed the reunion and are rushing towards them to join in. It's hard to determine who's faster, but Dimitri has the advantage when he shoves Rose playfully into the water and bolts off without her.

He slows down to let Rose catch up and they approach the group of four together, their smiles lighting up the space around them.

Dimitri smiles down at her, laughing at the sight of Rose simultaneously trying to wring the water out of her hair and give Sydney a one-armed hug. "How are you feeling today, Sydney?"

"Honestly?" She shrugs, giving Adrian a smile when he wraps his arms around her again and kisses her cheek. "I don't think I've ever felt better."

With her family by her side, Sydney knows that she can fight and win any and every battle. Adrian kisses her anyway though, a passionate and lingering kiss, if only for safe measure.

FIN