Love of a Mentor

By: Roza. Dimka. Reader

For: Christmas/New Year's Contest by LFMH-A VA Lovers Group

Penname: Roza. Dimka. Reader

Word Count: 989

Rating: T

Progress: In progress

World: VA

Beta: RozaHathaway17

Summary: Rose and Dimitri's first Christmas together. He's spending it in Palm Springs while she's at Court with Lissa. Can they find a way to be together?

Part 1

"Hey."

Her beautiful voice whispered through the phone once the dial tone had stopped.

"Hey," I answered her, equally quiet. It was late - later than usual for our calls, but she had had a late shift with Lissa and I had been up late working with Sonya and her experimenting.

"What 'cha doing?" she said cheerfully into the phone. I smiled to myself. I had moved down to Palm Springs with the others a few months ago. In all that time, Rose and I hadn't seen each other once. The hardest part of being away from Court should have been being away from my charge…but no, it wasn't. I knew it was wrong…but I was at the point where I didn't really care anymore.

I was in love with Rose Hathaway, a fellow dhampir and guardian, and I didn't care who knew.

"Just in bed," I told her.

"Me too," she answered. "I just got in. Lissa's getting very close to passing this law and then you can come home. She says it's just gonna be a matter of weeks now."

In all honesty, Lissa had said that before. But Rose sounded happy and there was no way I wanted to change that.

"I miss you," I told her, feeling the need to hold her to me even stronger tonight.

"I miss you too," I could hear the smile in her voice. "Is it still snowing there?"

Last week, the snow had begun to fall in Palm Springs. It hadn't snowed at Court, much to Rose's displeasure, and she asked about it constantly.

"Yup," I answered, catching a glimpse of the falling drops of frozen rain through the gap in the closed curtain.

She groaned loudly.

"Ugh. It's so not fair that the people of Palm Springs get snow and you for Christmas."

I chuckled. I decided to mention something that I had been thinking about for the last week or so.

"Rose," I started. "Why don't you come down here for Christmas?"

There was silence through the line for a moment.

"You know I can't do that Dimitri," she said, sighing audibly. "What about Lissa?"

"Bring her with you. You guys could do with a break."

"What about her safety? There are not enough guardians to protect her and all the other Moroi there with you."

"Then bring some extra – doesn't she have like twenty-four now?"

Rose was silent again as she thought everything through. There wasn't anything though that she could bring up as an excuse that I hadn't already thought of.

"Do you really think we could?" she asked me, her voice going quiet again; it wasn't out of fear of waking someone though – it was more like she didn't want to dare to hope.

"Of course Roza," I assured her. It was our first 'official' Christmas together considering last year we were still student and mentor, and I wasn't going to spend it a hundred miles apart.

"I'll ask in the morning," she told me, sounding happy. I felt happy too. The idea that I may actually see Rose in the flesh within the next week was enough to make my entire Christmas.

We talked for a little while after that. I could hear the drowsiness start to seep in to her voice after an hour until all I could hear was her deep breathing.

Even though it would cost all my minutes, it was worth every penny to just listen to the sound of her sleeping soundly. Eventually, however, I had to hang up, but I kept the phone close to me in the palm of my hand.

Knowing Rose was safe and sound in the comfort of her bed, I found it easier to fall asleep this night than any other. It only took a couple of minutes until I fell into my own slumber of dreamless sleep.

"They said yes!" Rose exclaimed, her voice rising in pitch with excitement the next evening.

"Really? That's amazing Roza," I told her, stamping the snow off my shoes before walking inside. I gave a little wave to Clarence who greeted me and made my way upstairs.

Rose filled me in on how the Court was sending four or five other guardians down with Lissa and Christian, including Mikhail Tanner, which Rose managed to pull off despite the fact that he was not a member of the royal guard. She made me promise not to say anything to Sonya as it was apparently a surprise.

We didn't talk for long that evening as Rose informed me they would be travelling down tomorrow afternoon before the roads got too bad. They also wanted to get the plan into action as soon as possible in case people heard whispers about where Lissa and Jill might be over Christmas.

Rose hung up after a few minutes, going to help Lissa pack and I went back downstairs to inform Clarence on what was going on.

He was ecstatic that there was going to people in the house at Christmas, saying that 'it had been years since he'd had a full house.' I smiled at his jolly attitude and then we started into planning where people would sleep.

There were only two other spare rooms in the house and since Eddie, Jill, Angeline, and Sydney would be staying here as well – there was very limited room.

It was decided that Rose and I, as well as our charges and a couple more guardians would stay in a hotel just down the road. I was more than happy at this arrangement and I knew Rose would be too.

Before we could get any further in the plans, there was a knock at the door. I offered to get it and made my way to the door.

When I opened it, the person standing in front of me was definitely not anyone I was expecting to see anytime soon.