Disclaimer: I don't own VA. I sure love it though.

Chapter 2: Never letting you go

After I got dressed, I glanced at myself in the mirror. My hair was a rats nest sitting on top of my head. If I wanted to, I could brush it and make it look nice, but I didn't care about pleasing him. He'd have me whichever way I presented myself to him. If he wanted it fixed, he was going to have to have somebody fix it because I wasn't going to. He was lucky I was even wearing a dress for him because I despised wearing them. I made my thoughts on them very known after I saw them hanging in the closet. I even ranted about how they were uncomfortable and weren't easy to do things in and he didn't care about what I thought at all. A queen had to look her best at all times, I guess. What a load of garbage that was.

After I was satisfied with my appearance for the day, I met Eddie outside the door and we made our usual trip down the long hall. Banners, flags, pictures all covered the vast walls. I counted all the things I saw as I walked by just like every other day and I always got a different number. Today it was higher than yesterday.

"You know, he's not going to be happy about your appearance and how late we are, Rose. It's the latest you've ever been since you've been here," Eddie said as he glanced at my hair nervously. We were approaching the door to the King's chambers since we met him there every day before we walked downstairs. He didn't like me to be late and to make us behind schedule.

"Sorry, Eddie. He'll just have to deal with it, or he can get rid of me," I said with a slight smile on my face as I began to play with a corner of my dress. I was secretly hoping the more I misbehaved, the more he'd want to get rid of me.

"You know that's not going to happen, Rose. We've discussed this before, and you're late just like usual." The king said as he opened up his bedroom doors. I felt his eyes assess me up and down, and his eyebrows set into an annoyed line when he saw the condition of my hair. I secretly giggled a little inside when I noticed his annoyed expression. It was still there after he quit looking at my hair.

"I'm sorry we're late, Sire. She wouldn't get up this morning. It was like she didn't want to come at all," Eddie shot me a annoyed expression too and I shrugged my shoulders. I felt a little bad for him.

"He's right, Comrade," I said to Dimitri as we began walking down the hallway again towards the stairs," I didn't want to get up this morning. I hate that it's always this early."

"It's okay, Eddie. I know how difficult she still is being. It's not your fault. You can go ahead of us this morning." Dimitri told Eddie, and Eddie bowed for a few seconds and walked ahead of us.

Dimitri stopped walking and he grabbed a hold of my arm so I was forced to stop walking too.

"Rose, you have to stop calling me, Comrade. It's disrespectful to me. If anyone besides Eddie heard you calling me that, you'd be in trouble. Other people wouldn't tolerate hearing it from you like I am. I'm hoping that if I tolerate it, you'll quit doing it." Dimitri told me harshly.

"I'm calling you Comrade because you really aren't anything more to me than that, and even calling you Comrade is stretching it. We aren't that either. You found me in the streets, so we aren't friends, and we aren't anything." I shot back to him.

"No, you're wrong. I'm your husband. You may not like it, but that's the way it is. You are stuck in this position until I either let you go, or one of us dies. You need to start realizing you aren't leaving, and you're stuck here with me." Dimitri let go of my arm as I began to forcefully rip it out of his grasp. He was a lot stronger than me, so I had to wait until he decided to let go. He disgusted me.

"I may be stuck here with you, but I don't have to like you," I told him as I glared into his eyes that were just as challenging as mine were. If he wanted a fight, and a battle, he'd get one. I wouldn't give in so easily.

"You're right, you don't," he told me," Come on, lets go downstairs and see if Lissa can do something with your hair before breakfast since we are already late and everyone probably knows it."

"Fine," I told him as we began to walk again. Everyone knew we were late because of me, but they also probably heard us fighting too. I know they gossiped that all we did was fight, never got along since I've been here, and we don't sleep in the same room.

I didn't care about the gossip but it was making him look bad too as long as I was here. I thought it would affect him, but so far, it looked like he didn't care either.

As we got downstairs and reached near Lissa's room who was my head lady-in-waiting, I could hear noises outside of her room. It sounded like yelling, and I didn't know why there would be yelling so early in the morning and who it would be with. I wondered if she knew that the King was waiting just outside of her door and that it could get her in trouble.

Dimitri knocked on the door and the fighting stopped just as abruptly as the knocks on the door stopped. Immediately the door opened, and Lissa had a startled look on her face as she noticed it was Dimitri and me.

"Good morning, My king. I didn't know you'd be here to see me or else what you witnessed would have never commenced in the distance for you to hear," Lissa said as she bowed." Did you need me to help with something for Miss Rose?" Lissa glanced from me to Dimitri.

" Good morning to you too, Lady Lissa. It's okay that this happened today, but please, don't make a habit of it with Christian. I get enough fighting with Rose every morning and I don't want to deal with hearing it down here too." Dimitri pointed at me.

"It won't happen again," Lissa replied quickly back.

"Okay then. Rose needs you to fix her hair before we have our breakfast. She didn't bother fixing it again today and she can't go out looking like that. I'm going to head out to the breakfast table and I'll leave her here with you. Christian you can come with me. The ladies don't need to be bothered right now." Lissa opened up the door to her room wider and Christian was standing right behind her. He nodded his head once and followed Dimitri.

Lissa grabbed my arm and pulled me inside of her room, looked down the hallway, and swiftly closed the door. She sighed once and looked down.

"Come on, Rose. Lets get your hair done so you can join Dimitri for breakfast." I sat down on the chair and Lissa grabbed the brush that was sitting next to her on the table. She began to brush my hair smoothing out all of the pieces that were haphazardly standing up on my head.

"For as quickly as you brush my hair, you manage you make it not hurt at all," I told her as she set the brush down on the table again. Every time after Dimitri left us alone, Lissa's demeanor changed too. She was more relaxed just like Eddie was and she just called me by my name. It was like we were becoming good friends.

"Well I have practice with doing hair. Yours isn't the only one that I've done besides my own," Lissa told me as she collected my hair to be brought up into an updo.

"You always do my hair better than I can though."

"I know that's why you do it," She chuckled back in response," And also because you know it annoys Dimitri when he sees it like that. You know he'll bring you down to me."

"That true, but I also like to see you in the mornings, too. I don't get much time alone with you…just you and me besides in the mornings like this." I brought my head back up and she pushed it back in position so she could continue with what she was doing.

"No we don't, but you're also the Queen. I'm not going to be the only one around you." She finished pinning up my hair and she let out the breath she had been apparently holding in for a while as she admired my hair and nodded in approval. She handed me a mirror. My hair was beautiful just like always after she finished with it. I should just tell Dimitri that I want her to do it every day for me. I wonder what he'd say. Maybe he'd say that I was finally doing something right as a Queen. I scowled at the thought of him mocking me and approving of something I asked for.

"It's beautiful, Lissa, just like always," I handed her the mirror back to her and she smiled," I do wish that I could wear my hair down though."

She laughed," He might let you in the future, but for now we'll do it like he wants."

"That does make things so much easier, doesn't it?" I responded back to her sarcastically. Even though she was my friend, her first orders still belonged to Dimitri over me. She had to obey him.

I stood up and walked over to the door and she began to follow me out closing the door behind her.

"You know, Rose, he's not as bad as you think he is." Lissa told me as she walked behind me. Now that we were outside of her room, she was beginning to treat me like a queen again and not a friend. In a few minutes, she'd be addressing me as one again, too.

Lissa wasn't the only one who kept telling me that Dimitri wasn't a bad. Eddie kept telling me that too. They were definitely seeing something in him that I wasn't.

A/N: Please review! I love getting feedback on what you guys think. It makes my day!