Title: The Camping Trip

Word Count: 4,151

Entry for Dimitri's . Smexi . Shewolf's 'Frostbite2015 1.5 million Words Challenge' to support the official Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign. With your donations, the producers will give Frostbite the movie the green light for production. Please spread the word as much as possible, and donate whatever you can.

Summary:
Rose and Dimitri take a little vacation with their young family. However, their camping trip quickly turns sour when someone goes missing...

This oneshot is set after my VA story called 'Blessings,' but you do not need to have read that to understand or enjoy this ^.^

The Camping Trip

"I wanna go with Dad!" My seven year old, George, had been whining in the back of the car for the past fifteen minutes, and my patience was drawing to a close.

"It's not fair, Mama! Luka, Alex and Nik got to go in Dad's car last time!"

"George, please stop complaining or we're turning around and going home. Then you won't get a holiday at all." I hated my 'stern' voice, but when you had five kids (four of which were boys), it was vital that you one. I heard him huff and cross his arms, but said nothing. After another minute of silence, a victorious smile spread over my face.

George was the second oldest of my children, and the most argumentative. Dimitri and I had five kids – meaning that who would go in whose car for every family outing we took, always turned out to be a huge problem.

I glanced in my rear-view mirror and spotted George gazing wistfully out the back window, as though he was searching for Dimitri's car. I sighed.

"Is it really that bad being in my car?" I asked him, following the directions my GPS was giving me. "Lily doesn't seem to mind."

"That's cos Lily's a girl like you! I wanna be in the boy car! Can I go with Dad on the way home?"

"We'll see," I replied, relieved when he finally stopped his complaining and started playing with one of his toy cars. I got to enjoy an entire thirty minutes of quietness until George started acting up.

"Hey, give that back!" I wasn't clear on exactly what was happening, but then Lily-Rose started crying hysterically and I had a pretty good idea.

"George." I warned him.

"Lily-Rose took my car! I was playing with it first!"

"She's four, George. She doesn't understand those kinds of things just yet. Can't you let her play with it?"

Again he grumbled but handed his baby sister a toy car, which distracted her enough that she immediately stopped crying.

"Thanks Georgee," I smiled at him in the mirror. "You're a good big brother."

He lit up. "Better than Luka?"

I chuckled. Luka was the eldest of our children. At thirteen, he was more responsible than George, but they both adored their sister. As did the twins – Aleksandr and Nikolai – who were almost six.

"You're all great big brothers," I replied smoothly. "But if you promise to be good for the rest of the journey, I might buy you an ice cream before we get there." George grinned broadly and I couldn't help but smile at his resemblance of Dimitri. Both Luka and George were like miniature copies of Dimitri – physically, anyway. George, I'm afraid, was much more like me in personality. The twins were identical, and seemed to inherit physical traits from both Dimitri and I. Lily-Rose was very much like me however – except more girly. She may have gotten my long, dark, curly locks, but these days there was always some kind of pink barrette or sparkling butterfly embedded into it. I loved it. After ten years of living with Dimitri and four young boys, I had finally been blessed with a girl – a complete girly-girl nonetheless. And what was even funnier, was that Dimitri loved her ways as much as I did – we both lived for the Disney movies on replay, the pink dresses, the dolls, the tea parties…everything.

That also didn't mean that she didn't have any tantrums, because she did – tantrums that Dimitri swears she got from me…although his mother very kindly informed me that Dimitri had been a child quite prone to bad tantrums. (Something I never failed to let slip my mind).

As I continued making my way to the campsite we had booked for the weekend, Lily thankfully dozed off, which meant that George got his toy back. I stuck to my promise of buying him ice-cream for being good and made sure to clean up all evidence of it before the others arrived. I didn't want World War 3 starting before we'd even taken our little vacation.

"I thought you'd never get here." As I pulled up at our campsite with my windows rolled down, I spotted my husband leaning casually against a tree trunk and grinning.

"How did you get here before me? We left ten minutes before you did!" I said disbelievingly – although I spoke quietly for fear of waking Lily. As I climbed out of the car, he approached me and pressed a sweet kiss to my lips.

"We passed you when you stopped in that ice-cream parlour," I winced. "Don't worry, they didn't see you." He chuckled and walked around to the trunk of my car, then he began retrieving the tent from underneath our bags.

"You need help?" I didn't think he would – Dimitri was like a professional when it came to this kind of stuff. He refused – of course – saying that I would only slow him down. And so while I left him to his own devices, I checked on the twins in Dimitri's car (they were both asleep) and headed down towards the lake, where Luka was trying to skim stones.

"Hey, bud," I came up from behind him and pulled him into a hug. The nice thing about being on vacation was that Luka didn't have any friends around – meaning that I could hug him whenever I wanted without embarrassing him. Although sometimes it was fun to hug and kiss him in front of his friends for precisely that reason.

"Hey Mama," Luka attempted to skim another stone, but it landed in the lake's water with a splash.

"Here, let me show you," I picked up a flat-looking stone from nearby and demonstrated how to throw it. "You're not flicking your wrist enough." He studied what I did before trying again, this time successfully getting the stone to bounce off the water three times.

"That was pretty awesome," Luka grinned up at me. "Thanks, Mama. My friend Steve got five once…do you think I could get that many?"

"Definitely," Much to his dismay, I ruffled his hair. "With some more practice."

"Roza?" The spot where Dimitri was setting up our tent couldn't be seen from the lake's edge, but it was very close. After trudging around a small cluster of trees, I discovered that Dimitri had the very large tent set up already – clearly with the help of a very proud George.

"Nice work, boys," I wrapped my arms around Dimitri from behind. After placing a kiss on his shoulder, I moved around to check out his handiwork. "Good job we decided to get the large tent. This should just about fit everyone in."

"I hope so," Dimitri pulled me back into his arms. "Otherwise, somebody's going to have to sleep outside."

George looked truly scandalized. "But…what if there are bears!" Dimitri and I shared a chuckle and Dimitri went to assure him that we wouldn't be bothered by bears.

"Mama? Dada?" I smiled at the sound of Lily's voice coming from the car and made my way over to her. She was awake when I reached her, but still very sleepy and so spent the next hour curled up into my arms.

It was early evening when her sleepy mood finally lifted. She spotted Dimitri and the boys getting ready to go for a swim in the lake and immediately jumped to life.

"I wanna go, I wanna go!" I nodded at Dimitri to go ahead and he shepherded the boys down to the lake's edge. We joined them a couple of minutes later – Lily kitted out in her pink swimsuit and armbands.

"You not coming in?" Dimitri move towards where I sat on a blanket near the water's edge. All I could do was shake my head in reply – I was much too preoccupied at the sight of his bare torso, dripping wet. He made a face that was humorously close to pouting. Briefly leaving the water, he crouched down beside me.

"That's a shame," he whispered huskily, his voice alone making me shiver. "I was rather looking forward to seeing you in your bathing suit…"

I recovered some of my Rose Hathaway bravado. "Sorry to disappoint, comrade…but let's not forget that you see me in less than that very often."

"Not often enough…" His lips caught mine in a quick, but passionate kiss, before I pulled away and reminded him of our kids. He pecked my lips one more time before hurrying off to watch the boys. Lily stayed relatively close to the edge, and after a little while, I removed my shoes and socks and paddled in a shallow part with her.

When she and the twins had had enough, the four of us dragged ourselves back to the tent where I began drying them off.

"Alex!" I was in the middle of rubbing Nik dry with one of the towels when I spotted his practically naked brother scurrying off in another direction. "Come back here; you'll get frostbite!"

"What's frostbite?" Lily-Rose turned her large brown, curious eyes to me.

"It's when your nose, toes and fingers get really really cold, and it's very sore," I told her, pulling a pair of clean pyjamas on Nik before moving on to Alex. Looking worried, Lily's hand shot to her nose.

"My nose is cold!" Her concerned expression was really quite funny.

"We should fix that then, shouldn't we?" Dimitri arrived back at our little campsite, a sopping Luka and George behind him. Dimitri ran forward and swept Lily into his arms, before peppering her little nose with kisses. She giggled uncontrollably and I couldn't help but smile at the wonderful sound.

The original plan had been to have a campfire that night, but we'd spent longer than expected in the water. By the time we'd set up sleeping bags and blankets inside the tent, the twins and Lily-Rose were already asleep.

"Fire tomorrow evening?" I suggested. Dimitri nodded in agreement, looking quite amused.

"We should tire them out like this every day – maybe then they'd go to sleep on time," he mused, taking Lily from me and tucking her into some blankets. He took care of the twins, while I ushered Luka and George to get ready for bed.

"Hey," Dimitri grabbed a hold my waist as I passed him outside of the tent. "It's after midnight."

"So?" He pushed me gently against a nearby tree trunk and skimmed his nose along my jawline, causing goose bumps to erupt along my skin.

"So…Happy anniversary, Roza…" His voice was husky, his hands wandering…I knew where this was going.

"Nuh uh, comrade," I shook my head and removed myself from between the tree and him. "No sex."

There was that pout again.

"I'm serious!" I stared at him incredulously. "You honestly want to have sex when we're sharing a tent with all five of our children?!" He looked appalled.

"I didn't mean in the tent," he defended, pulling me back into his arms. "And I never said anything about sex – we have all of next weekend for that." It was true; next weekend Dimitri and I were going to Vermont for a romantic getaway for two whole days. No kids. No work. No stress. Just us.

"I just wanted to kiss you," he murmured, moving his lips back down to mine. I let him, more than willing to make out for a little bit before we retired to bed.

"Mama, Dad, do you guys want- Ew, get a room!" Dimitri and I broke apart as Luka poked his head out of the tent entrance. I rolled my eyes.

"Are you okay, Luka?" He grumbled, clearly not liking our public display of affection. Apparently it wasn't cool to see your parents making out when you were thirteen.

"I was just going to ask you guys which sleeping bags you wanted."

After sharing an amused look with Dimitri, I linked my fingers with his and tugged him towards the tent. Upon entering, I could make out four forms fast asleep in the middle. Despite asking us which ones we wanted, Luka had seemingly chosen one that isolated him slightly from everyone else. Teenagers.

But at least that meant Dimitri and I had sleeping bags right next to each other. We may not have been able to cuddle up like normal, but at least his handsome face would be the last thing I saw before falling asleep, and the first thing I saw when I woke up.

Or so I had thought.

For when I actually woke up approximately eight hours later, I found myself face to face with Lily, who had clearly snuggled into Dimitri's sleeping bag with him at some point during the night. Doing a quick scan of the rest of the tent, I could see that all four boys were still asleep where they had been last night, and so I nestled down further into my own sleeping bag.

Despite it being summer, there was a coolness in the morning air that nipped at my face. Thankfully, my bag retained heat very well and so the rest of me was pretty toasty. Noticing that it was probably just past dawn, I happily sank further into the warmth and tried to fall back to sleep for a couple of hours.

Evidently, I was more tired than I had thought, as I was woken up some time later by somebody placing soft kisses along my cheek, jaw and neck.

"Morning," I just about managed to mumble and stretched, trying to lessen my body's stiffness. Dimitri chuckled by my ear.

"I thought you'd never wake up. I've been kissing you for like five minutes."

"Guess you should have tried harder," I joked, finally opening my eyes. Dimitri was lying on his side beside me, already dressed and looking ready for the day ahead. All five kids were nowhere in sight, but I could hear them chattering and bickering over breakfast outside.

"Believe me, I would have had we been alone," he muttered back, going back to kissing my neck. I removed myself from his grasp less than a minute later, knowing that I'd get too hot and bothered to ever leave this tent again. "Where are you going?"

"I'm starving," I told him with a smile. He laughed as my stomach rumbled, backing up my statement.

"Of course you are," he stood and pulled me to my feet too. "Come on, let's see if the cubs have left us any remains – if we're lucky, maybe we'll get some scraps."

After breakfast, the seven of us trekked our way up a large, nearby hill. In hindsight, it probably wasn't a very good idea with three very young children who wanted to be carried for most of the way, but at least it tired them out.

It wasn't until we arrived back at our tent at dusk when a problem arose.

"Mama? Where's Mr Snuggles?" Lily clutched at my leg, gazing up at me worriedly.

"I don't know, sweetie," I replied, gathering some of our campfire wood and setting it up. "Did you bring him with you today?"

"He was in my backpack!" 'Mr Snuggles' was the cat plushie that Ivan had given Lily shortly after she was born. She had been attached to it ever since. The idea of losing 'Mr Snuggles' even made me want to cry, knowing that she would be heartbroken.

Dimitri seemingly saw Lily start to cry and approached us, clearly wondering what was wrong.

"She can't find Mr Snuggles," I informed him. I had to give it to him, Dimitri looked as though he was genuinely heartbroken for her…maybe he was. He instructed her to check in the tent, then waited until she was out of earshot before standing and murmuring to me.

"You think she lost it somewhere on the hill?" We shared a concerned look. Lily didn't go anywhere or do anything without this particular toy – not even sleep.

"He's not here!" Lily, sounding distraught, hurried back over to us as best she could. "He's lost!"

"It's okay, sweetheart," Dimitri lowered himself to her height once more. "I'm going to take a look around and see if I can find him. In the meantime, I want you to stay with Mama and get ready for bed, okay?"

Lily nodded before stretching out her hands. She wound them around his neck.

"Thank you, Daddy."

"Please be careful, it's getting dark," I said to him as he returned to his normal height. "You won't be able to see anything in half an hour."

"I won't go the entire way up; I'll just jog on the path we took and see if I can find it. If I can't, I'll come back and we can try again in the morning before we leave." I agreed with his plan and gave him a quick kiss before he jogged off. While the boys finished off their dinner, I had to force feed Lily. When I said she didn't do anything without Mr Snuggles, I meant anything.

She did eat – thankfully - but between each bite, she continued crying quietly into my shoulder. I prayed to a god that I wasn't even sure existed that Dimitri would find her toy along the way, but it was futile. Dimitri returned almost an hour later, covered in a layer of sweat and Mr Snuggle-less.

I caught his eyes and he shook his head slightly, looked dejected. This caused Lily to let out a wail.

"I can't bear this," I muttered to Dimitri a little while later. After my failed attempts to cheer her up, Luka decided to give it a go. Now, Lily was nestled in between his legs while he read her a bedtime story…

She continued to cry silently throughout the entire book.

The situation worsened further when Alex and Nik got into a play-fight and accidently knocked her over. Lily was overly-tired and upset, and this just spurred on a complete and utter tantrum.

"Mama, will Lily stop crying soon? I can't sleep." I sighed as all four boys looked up at me from their sleeping bags – well, three. Luka looked as though he was already dead to the world.

"We're doing our best," I ran a hand through my hair in frustration. "Just try to ignore it and get some rest. We have an early start tomorrow." As they all settled back into place, I let myself out of the tent to join Dimitri, where he was cradling Lily in his lap.

If possible, her crying increased when she saw me approaching.

"Ssh, Lily," I pulled her into my arms then, letting her rest her head against my chest. "Try to sleep now, baby."

"I can't!" She cried. "Not without Mr Snuggles!"

"Mr Snuggles will be fine until morning," Dimitri stroked her hair, knowing that it soothed her.

"But what if he gets frostbite?" Dimitri looked startled that she knew that word, but I would fill him in later. Right now, the question of whether we would get any sleep within the next eight hours depended on my immediate answer.

"He won't. He's a tough cookie; he'll be fine."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes," Dimitri replied softly, catching on to the fact that she may have been calming down. "Of course he will. And we'll go and find him first thing, alright?"

He gathered her back into his arms and we returned to the tent, where four sleeping boys lay. However, despite our words of comfort, Lily didn't sleep. Ergo, neither did Dimitri and I.

"How about," I suggested to Lily, who was nestled in between our bodies. We had unzipped our sleeping bags to forge them into a large blanket of sorts to fit all three of us. "-you close your eyes and Daddy will tell you a story." Lily complied and I looked to Dimitri, who was lying on his side facing us.

As he told a story about a princess and a pea, I watched Lily closely, trying to decide if she had fallen asleep or not yet. The steady rise and fall of her chest misled me, and when Dimitri stopped speaking, her eyes flew back open.

I groaned inwardly, and could see that Dimitri was as frustrated as I was. I was tired and didn't want to lose my temper with her; she was only four after all – and upset. Apparently seeing this, Dimitri decided to intervene. Clearly trying a new tactic, he pulled her little body on top of his, letting her lie on his chest like she used to when she was a baby. I really thought that the soothing motion of his steady breathing would coax her into a sleep – hell, it helped me to sleep on many occasions – but it didn't work.

She did quieten for a while however, and I made Dimitri go to sleep for a while. What was the point in both of us being deprived of sleep; taking shifts seemed like the best idea right now.

I didn't want to wake Dimitri up a couple of hours later, but it turned out I didn't have too. Lily's sniffling pulled him from his sleep and he insisted that I rest my eyes for a little while. I didn't argue.

Unlike Lily, I didn't have any trouble falling asleep and was seemingly out like a light bulb only seconds after closing my eyes. What felt like five minutes later however, I was roused from my blissful state of unconsciousness by a four year old shaking me.

"Mama, wake up! It's morning!" I'm pretty sure I heard Dimitri chuckle when I groaned incoherently in response.

"Mama, we need to go find Mr Snuggles!"

I remember with a pang everything that had happened regarding her teddy. Why on earth couldn't the damn thing just have stayed in her little backpack?

"Okay, okay, I'm up," I stifled a yawn and sat up, shivering when my skin was assaulted by the vicious cold.

"Here," After pulling on my jeans and a fresh t-shirt, Dimitri handed me one of his hoodies with a tired smile. "It's colder out today."

I thanked him and took his hand as our search party began – led by Lily, of course.

We retraced our steps exactly and felt quite hopeful…however, a couple of hours later when we were nearing our campsite, disappointment began to set in. We hadn't found Mr Snuggles.

"Where could he be?" Lily wept. I shared a helpless look with Dimitri. It was time to pack up and leave for home – could we really do that without Mr Snuggles. Dimitri shot me a look that said 'We have to.'

He was right, I knew he was. Worst comes to worst, we would just allow her to grieve Mr Snuggles and buy her a new teddy. She wouldn't cry over him forever…would she?

Lily bawled as Dimitri began to pack up our things. She didn't want to leave without him, and she had somehow sensed that this was now our plan. Luka – ever the protective big brother – tried desperately to distract her: even going as far as to walk her down to the lake. But it didn't work.

She was still crying when the cars were packed up and we were ready to head home.

"I can take her in my car if you want," Dimitri offered quietly. I shook my head.

"No, it's okay – her car seat is in my car anyway. We'll be fine." It was Luka who joined Lily and I on the way – firstly, to please George and secondly, he really wanted to make Lily feel better. Once Alex, Nik and George were all strapped in, Dimitri led the way out. I had just sat into the driver's seat of my car when I noticed a strange silence…

"Eh, Mama?" I turned and was faced with Luka's smiling face.

"What?" He gestured to Lily, who was fast asleep in her seat…

With Mr Snuggles in her arms.

"Wha- Where did he come from?!" I exclaimed – albeit quietly. The poor thing was exhausted.

"He was sitting on the backseat of the car when we climbed in," Luka chuckled. "You guys are detectives; aren't you supposed to check the most obvious places for clues first?"

I rolled my eyes at him, feeling nothing but overwhelmingly relieved.

Lily-Rose slept the entire way home, and even after we pulled up at the house, she remained in a deep sleep. Dimitri removed her from the car seat and carried her up to bed. On the way, Lily smiled in her sleep and pulled Mr Snuggles closer to her body.

The next time I saw her awake was that evening, and even then, Mr Snuggles remained clutched tightly in her hands, where I was pretty certain he would remain for a long, long time after that.