Five years. I have lasted five years without seeing her face, hearing her voice, touching her skin, without even hearing about her. I knew that I had hurt her in a way that she never deserved, but I had truly believed that I was doing the right thing when I left her, even if I knew that me leaving her for Tasha would just be the cherry on top of a wonderful day.

But all of that control; all of the days that I had thirsted for knowledge of what she was doing, how far she had become in the guardian world, if she was happy were going to end. Because I was going to see it for myself.

Tasha had been kind enough to plan her trips to see her nephew when my breaks came up and I knew that she talked to Lissa regularly so she knew what Rose was up to as well. But she always kept everything away; I don't think she even said her name. But this time Tasha had had enough, insisting that it had been five years and that I needed to start getting some closure, apparently seeing Rose and the life that she created for herself without me was supposed to make me feel better. I was dreading it. I had started driving for Tasha but after seeing how badly my hands were shaking she insisted on taking the wheel. I didn't like to show weakness, but my job was to keep Tasha safe at all costs and I could exactly do that if I was hyperventilating so bad that we went off the road. Tasha hadn't told me much, only that we were going to Rose's house to meet her, Lissa, Christian and their little boy, Andre. And that they lived in a small town in Pennsylvania. I expected Rose to have an apartment but the drive way that we pulled into was long and wooded, far out of the way from the rest of the people who must have lived somewhere near buy. It was beautiful. The trees were all lush and green and they all seemed to bow over the rock driveway. I hadn't seen Rose in a long time but I doubted that her style had changed that much. Rose always needed to be in the middle of the action so this secluded quite area was definably a shock. Maybe Tasha had just made a mistake and meant that we were going to Lissa's and Christians.

When the house finally came in to view I knew that it had to be Lissa's. It was positively huge, a large log cabin with stone at the bottom. It had several large glass windows and an amazing rock patio. I even spotted a fire place at another small patio at the top of the stairs. It was huge and intimidating, but looked strangely cozy; I could imagine a little Andre playing around in the yard and roasting marshmallows in the beautiful fireplace. For a minute my happiness for Lissa and Christens successful life together smothered my worry. But just for a minute.

As we parked the car three kids came running out of the house. One was a little boy and there were two small girls. The one was ahead of the group and made an awful lot of noise coming down the stairs. The boy was next trying desperately to keep up with the girl he was loosing to, and then a small little thing that was lagging behind. Suddenly the girl in front stopped and ran back to get the girl who had to be her sister. They were identical aside from the fact that the one little girl was so much tinier. They both had dark curly hair and even from this far away I could see that they had big dark eyes. The one girl was tan but her quite twin looked more delicate, like her skin was made from porcelain. They were beautiful little girls.

Andre was taking advantage of the girls sticking together; he ran up and gave Tasha a huge hug. He was pale, like all Moroi and had Christian's black hair but Lissa's jade green eyes.

"Aunt Tasha!" He screamed, hugging her tighter.

"Hey little man! Look how big you got!" Andre was trying not to smile at that comment but he failed miserably. The two girls finally made it, although it looked like one was doing the pulling while the other got dragged along.

"Tasha!" The bigger one yelled, she had a cute high pitched voice but it was very loud. The kind of voice that would render people deaf if she had a tantrum, and something told me she had a lot of those. "Hey Sophie!" Tasha said sweeping her up in a hug. It surprised me that they knew each other so well; I had thought that they were just friends of Andre.

The smaller of the girls didn't say anything; she just gave a little wave to Tasha and a small, shy smile up at me. She was just so tiny!

Tasha had called the little one Claire. Clair tugged on her sister's sleeve and Sophie looked over to see what she wanted. Claire made a few small movements with her hands and Sophie turned to us again.

"Claire says hello." She said in that voice of hers. It was only then that I realized that Claire was speaking sign language.

I waved hello to her.

"Hey, you're really tall. Are you like that giant in the book? The one who says funny rhymes?" She obviously wasn't shy like her sister, but the way that she spoke was humorous, she seemed so smart for a girl her age.

Tasha laughed, "Yep, so you guys better show us inside or he might eat you." Andre looked scared but Sophie gave Tasha a look that said "Yeah right" and then signed something to her sister. I'm guessing that she told her what Tasha said because she had a look that mirrored Andres'.

"Fine I'll show you where the house is. But not cause I'm scare'ded. Just cause I'm sick of bein outside." She grabbed my hand and started towing me toward the steps with determined little strides.

If only I had her confidence.