I know this is really weird, and it's a different style than I usually write in, but I had a lot of fun whilst writing this! :D I want to start back with my old fanfic, so I will be hopefully uploading that soon! I really hope you enjoy this, I don't know if it's too weird, so please review and tell me what you think! The only way I can become a better writer is if you guys help me 3

Disclaimer; all characters belong to Richelle Mead

Drowning. I'm drowing.

I can't grasp a hold of anything. Just as I think I'm about to break the surface, a hand wraps around my leg and drags me back under. Darkness surrounds me, a never ending darkness that I can't escape from. It envelops me, its coldness settling deep into my bones. My lungs fill up with a scream, it takes over my body, but it can't escape. My body refuses to co-operate with me.

I've spent my life fighting for those I love. Prepared to give up my life so that they can live theirs. This is what happens when you can't do that. When you fail. Your body just gives up on you, as if God is shrugging his shoulders and saying, 'you should have tried harder.'

Every breath is one more second of eternity. I wait for someone, anyone, to spare me from it. What's the point anymore? I failed. There's no other way to say it. I obviously didn't try hard enough. And now I have to pay the price for that.

Of course, some would say, that some people were in a worse position. 'Only one person died,' they would say. 'You still have people who love you. It wasn't your fault. There was nothing you could do. They wouldn't want you to waste away like this.'

If I was still me, if I was still Rose Hathaway, I would just say, 'Fuck off, you twat.' But not any more. Rose Hathaway left when that body hit the ground. Her soul ran off with the other, unable to live without each other. If I still could, I would feel guilty for those loved ones I've left here. But I couldn't. I couldn't feel anything except for an endless sense of drowning anymore. I was in too far over my head. I couldn't break through. I didn't know if I could ever break through.

I had no sense of time anymore. I couldn't remember if it had been an hour, a week, or a year since it had happened. I knew that someone came to stay with me every day, sit at my bedside and hold my hand. They updated me on what was going on in the outside world, as if that interested me. I could hear them now.

'Rose, it's time. We're going,' they said, slowly pulling me off the bed and leading me to the door. I look down. I wasn't in these clothes last time I checked. They must have changed me when I was out of consciousness. I was surprised they kept on coming. I would have given up on me by now. They had no idea that there was nothing left for them to fight for, nothing left that they could salvage.

I remember, a lifetime ago, a doctor telling me, 'Grief is the worst thing someone will have to go through. It can all seem a blur until one small thing brings you back out. Gives to a reason to start living again.' That moment hadn't come to me yet. I hoped it would. I don't want to drown anymore. But even though I want to come back up, that hand on my leg wasn't ready to give up yet. And until that let go, I wasn't going anywhere.

The person kept on talking to me. I knew they knew that I wasn't listening, but they were hoping that the more they filled up the silence, the sooner I would snap back. They didn't realise that, at this point, it wasn't going to happen.

They fell silent again, and I realised that we were there. Here. I saw the church in front of me, the church that held so many memories. Where Lissa and Christian got married. Where their daughter, Isabella Rhea Rose Dragomir, was baptised. Where Dimitri and I came, along with Christian and Lissa, every Sunday for church, even though I wasn't too sure that I believed in it. The church that Dimitri proposed in.

And now, the church that would hold the body of the person I failed most.

'It'll be okay,' the voice said, opening my door and leading me inside. I stumbled in in silence, clutching onto the hand that was holding my own like it was a lifeline. I could get through this. They squeezed my hand once. They believed in me too.

More talking. More voices. Echoing all around, never quietening. The voices changed every so often, and I heard wailings around me. I know other people were thinking, 'why isn't she crying?' but I couldn't form any kind of emotion. Until I heard his voice. He hadn't spoken to me since it had happened. It was weird how the one who had meant most to me, other than the one who was currently lying in that box at the front of the room, hadn't been able to wake me up, but this one, the one who was the only other person who had the slightest chance of being as broken as I was, was the person who got through to me. He spoke directly to me, ignoring the other hundreds of people in the room.

'She wouldn't blame you, Rose. I might, but she never would. So stop being a fucking idiot and live the life that she can't. Let her live through you. You might not have been able to protect her that one time, but you gave her a purpose to her life, before she met me. You were her world. She was your world. And the last thing she would want is for you to shut yourself up and not live. If you're going to surrender, then she should be sitting here, not you. Don't let her death be a waste.'

I don't know what it was about Christian telling me to man up, but it worked. It was like the light had been turned on after an eternity of darkness. My heart would always been split in two, and I knew that I would never be the same again. I had thought that losing Mason was the worst pain that I had ever experienced. I then thought that losing Dimitri was the worst pain I had ever experienced. But I knew now, I knew that nothing would match up to the pain of losing my best friend. We may not have been bonded anymore, but she still owned a part of my soul.

I allowed myself to accept that possibly losing Dimitri for good as well would completely destroy me. I could survive with just one of them. But if I was to lose both, I knew that I couldn't continue. But I did have one of them. I could survive. She would never be forgotten, and I will never forgive the fact that if I had just fought that little bit harder, she would be here next to me right now. But she wasn't. Instead, I had Dimitri, Christian, Adrian, Mia, Jill, Sonya, Sydney, and I had that six month old baby, the one who had her eyes. The one who would live knowing what a beautiful, amazing, inspiring woman her mother was. The one who would know the amazing things she did for the Moroi world.

I still hadn't broken the surface. The hand was still there, admittedly weaker. Without acknowledging anything or anyone, I got up and floated to the coffin, sensing a dark shadow behind me. He didn't disturb me, but he knew what was going to happen as much as I did, and he was ready for me.

I saw those golden locks spread around her head like a halo. Her eyes were closed, closed to the world forever, but the corners of her mouth were turned up, the dead echo of the amused smile she gave me, almost six years ago now, when she was crowned Queen. Her dress was white, sparking under the lights that shined above her, and next to her lay a photo of her, Christian, Dimitri, Isabella and I. Her loved ones. The ones who would live with her in our souls. We would live on in her memory, carry her legacy onwards until all was right in the world. That is what she would have wanted.

And, without warning, I fell back into Dimitri's arms. I broke free of that hand, crashed through the surface, and breathed in, her name being echoed on the wind that I took into my lungs. Her name was in my body, my life, my very essence.

She was there through everything I did. She watched over me when I got a new charge, Adrian Ivashkov of all people. She was there when Dimitri and I were eventually given the okay to tie the knot. She was there when Christian finally met another woman and got remarried. She was there when Dimitri and I retired from guarding, taking office places together when our bodies could no longer take the physical stress of fighting everyday. And she was there when I grew old, and watched Isabella grow up and eventually take her mother's place as queen of the Moroi Court.

I wasn't eager for death. I didn't want to have to give up Dimitri and Christian and Adrian and the life I had. But I knew when I was ready. I could sense her presence even more than I ever had, and when I saw her gleaming eyes shining at me, I knew it was time.

'Hey, Lissa.'