Unfortunately, I do not own Lissa. Or Christian. Or Adrian. Or Eddie. Or any part of the Vampire Academy series.

I do, however, own Addy, Andy, Vanessa and any other character i choose to make up during the course of this story.

Anyways, here's the new chapter of Life After Rose (: Enjoy!


My eyebrows shot up towards my hairline when I saw it was Adrian freaking out. I actually wasn't thinking anyone would freak out about this news, besides myself of course, but boy did Adrian look upset. It made even less sense considering the fact that he and Addy seemed to be such good childhood friends. Addy seemed surprised too, but after my freak out earlier, I was sure she could handle it.

"What's wrong?" she asked him, confusion coloring her tone.

Adrian snorted. "What's wrong? What's wrong? You're Lissa's guardian, that's what's wrong!"

I was pretty sure that statement was like a slap across the face to Addy, but she didn't show it.

"Yes," she said with a nod. "I am. Do you have a problem with that, Adrian?"

"You couldn't tell?" he asked sounding incredulous.

Her face hardened and she folded her arms across her chest. I suddenly wanted to be out of the room; I wondered if that was hoe people were feeling when I threw my little temper tantrum.

"Look," she said, sounding rather cross. "I don't know what your problem is with me being Lissa's guardian--because you didn't really seemed upset to see me a second ago--but I was assigned to her by Tatiana and you're just going to have to deal with it." She put on a face that I could only describe as a that's-the-end-of-this-conversation face.

I was kind of surprised that Addy called Tatiana by her first name, since most dhampirs weren't on a first name basis with her. Then again, Addy wasn't most dhampirs.

Apparently Adrian was not going to let it go. "Like hell I will," he muttered.

Addy's eyes narrowed. "What the hell is wrong--" She stopped. I could see that she finally figured it out and I prayed she would tell me because I had no idea. "You think I'm replacing Rose," she breathed, her face softening.

Of course!

I thought. It was so obvious! I mean that was the same reason I had been upset about accepting Addy as a guardian. And since Adrian had really liked Rose, it made sense that he didn't want her to be replaced either.

He looked taken aback. "Aren't you?"

Addy sighed and shook her head. "Not at all. I'm filling in for a while until…until Rose gets back. Then I'm going back to guarding Andy."

Andy? Who was that? Her boyfriend?

Adrian looked immensely relieved, and then confused again. "Wait, you stopped guarding Andy to guard Lissa?"

She nodded, a glint of sadness in her eyes. "Tatiana asked me to guard Lissa, so I couldn't refuse. It doesn't bother me though; I know she's in good hands while I'm not with her. She's actually here at the Academy, for the time being."

"Oh." he said simply, obviously not sure what to say to that.

I didn't either, but I was a little surprised to hear that not only was Andy a girl--which eliminated the possibility of her being Addy's boyfriend--but she was also here at the Academy.

"Who is she?" Christian asked, letting his curiosity get the better of him. But he was ignored so I figured that this was something we didn't need to know yet.

"Well then," Adrian announced. "Now that we've gotten past this little bump in the road, shall we start working, Lissa?" His eyes shifted from Addy to me, and I simply nodded.

With that we began our work. Eddie and Addy took their positions in the room; Addy stood in front of the door and Eddie stood by one of the windows, this way they both had a good view of the room. I wanted to tell them that they were more than welcome to just sit down and relax, but they seemed to keen on doing their jobs that I just left them alone. Christian flopped down on the couch and resumed watching whatever TV show he was watching before I came into the room. Then Adrian and I went over to one of the windowsills that I had placed dead or dying plants on, since he was still trying to learn how to heal better.

"Okay," I told him once we were in front of the sill. "Try it."

He nodded then immediately focused on the plant. This must've been why he had been so sober when I saw him. He gritted his teeth and squinted his eyes as he tried to make the little brown plant become green again. Finally, after minutes of waiting, he reached out and touched it. Life shot through the plant: the stem and leaves turned green, the plant grew to about a foot tall, and it sprouted two magnificent red roses.

I applauded him. "That was great! I can tell you're getting a lot better."

Adrian shrugged. "Yeah, but I still have to really focus. You can just…do it."

I laughed softly. "That's because I've been doing it longer, probably. You'll get it in time but for now, that was great." I beamed at him in the way a proud teacher might beam at her student. "And now, we have to work on something that you can do and I can't."

"Oh, wouldn't that be, um, everything?" he laughed.

I laughed too, but mock punched him. "Hey, I'm trying! Give me a break."

"I know, I know." He said with a grin. "Well what do you want to work on exactly? Auras or dreams?"

"Well," I pondered. "Considering the fact that I can't really fall asleep on cue, maybe we should try auras first." I had always liked the idea of seeing them anyways.

"Alright," he nodded over to the bed. "You should probably sit down though. I don't know how the magic with affect you."

I didn't say anything to that and just took a seat on the bed. I didn't like how he told me to do so though. It was like he was warning me that the auras would do something strange to me. I hoped it wouldn't hurt…

Adrian sat down next to me, snapping me out of my imagination. "Okay," he muttered. "Try."

I lifted an eyebrow and just stared at him, puzzled. Did he expect me to actually know what to do if he hadn't told me? I decided to ask him. "How?"

He pursed his lips and focused on me. Well, actually he was focusing right beside me and, I assumed, on my aura. "You're gold today." He murmured, switched his gaze back to my face. He sighed. "I'm not sure how, exactly, but I think I have a general idea."

I waited.

"I need you to focus, Lissa." He instructed me. "Look right beside me so you aren't actually looking at me and focus."

"Focus on what?" I asked as I stared beside him. I tried to focus on the air rather than on the bed frame that was behind him.

He shook his head. "Just focus." I assumed he didn't know what to tell me to focus on. Either way, I stared and stared at that little spot of air beside him, waiting for some kind of color to appear.

It was like trying to stop time. No matter how hard I focused, nothing was happening. No color, no light, no feel of magic welling up inside of me. There was simple nothing. I gritted my teeth as Adrian had when we were working on the plants, maybe that would help me.

"Nothing's happening." I said through my teeth.

"Shhh," he said. "It will, just focus."

So I did. I tried to re-focus my thoughts on auras. On colors. On light. On magic. On anything, really. Still, nothing seemed to work. I felt a sharp twinge of envy when I realized that I was probably taking more time to learn auras than Adrian had to learn healing. It was shallow of me, but it made me focus even harder, if that was possible.

Finally, after an eternity of waiting, I felt something. It wasn't the warm and happy feeling I got when I used my magic to heal people. On the contrary, this magic was rather cold and confusing. It was like nothing I've ever felt before. The feeling engulfed me and I lost my own feelings in the brief search to find his. Suddenly, they all came at me at once. All of the things that Adrian was feeling: surprise and happiness from seeing Addy, loneliness and sadness from Rose being gone, anger and hatred from being sober, and confusion and wonder at the expression on my face as he saw me take them all in. I then felt something new, something sharp, and something painful. With that last feeling, everything went black.


I don't know how long I was unconscious for, but it probably wasn't long. Actually, I guess unconscious was probably the wrong word for was I was. In fact, I was very conscious, but I just wasn't awake. I heard the voices filled with worry, panic and concern around me as I tried to find my way back to reality, but trying to wake up again was like trying to swim up from the bottom of a pool with weights attached to your legs.

"What happened to her?" Christian exclaimed. I could feel his hand on me, feeling my forehead and such.

"I don't know." Adrian said, sounding worried. "She was doing so well, I think. I mean, I thought, for a moment, that I could sense her…" he trailed off.

"What do you mean 'sense her'?" Addy wondered. She didn't sound panicked or worried like the rest of them. In fact, she sounded rather bemused.

"Well," Adrian said, no doubt having a hard time putting it into words. "I was teaching her how to see auras. Remember how I told you about them when we were kids?" There was no answer so I assumed that she nodded. "Well I was teaching her how to see them too, and…I don't know. At first there was nothing, I didn't feel anything and I know she didn't. But then…it was the strangest thing, before she blacked out, I felt like we were sharing my emotions. Like I could sense that she had been doing it."

"Oh." She said, sounding thoughtful.

"Okay, can we worry about this whole freaky-spirit thing later and for now worry about Lissa?" Christian was starting to sound angry.

"Well, considering the fact that Lissa is a spirit user, the two are kind of connected." Adrian said sarcastically.

"Not the time." Eddie said, speaking up for the first time.

I tried to block them out and focus on waking myself up. This was hard to do considering the fact that my eyelids felt like they weighed a ton. Slowly though, ever so slowly, I was able to open my eyes and take in my surroundings. I was lying on the bed and Adrian, Addy, Eddie and Christian were all standing around me. It appeared that Adrian and Christian were having an argument and Eddie was trying to break them up, so the only person actually looking at me was Addy. She smiled.

"Welcome back," she said. It sounded like a funny thing to say to me just then.

The boys stopped their fighting immediately and looked over at me, relief flooding their features.

"Liss!" Christian exclaimed, yanking me up into a sitting position and throwing his arms around me. Well at least I knew how worried he was.

"How do you feel?" Adrian asked, looking thoughtful.

Christian released me and pulled back to look at my face. It took me a moment, but I was finally able to retrieve my own feelings again. Before I knew it, I was beaming.

"I feel…amazing," I told them, inspiring some very bewildered looks. "I mean, I did it, didn't I?"

Adrian grinned. "From what I saw and what I felt, I can saw that you did."

It seemed that my smile got even bigger; I was thrilled. "Can I try again?" My answer was a chorus of "No!" from everyone, but Adrian. I pouted.

"Maybe you should cool of for a while, Liss." Said Eddie, who still looked panicked.

I shrugged. "Okay, I guess."

To my surprise, Addy laughed. Everyone's eyes shifted from me to her.

"What?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

"You laughed?" Eddie replied; it sounded more like a question than a statement.

"Well, yeah, I thought it was funny." We all just stared at her. "I thought it was funny how eager you are to learn a new thing." She shrugged.

I smiled at her and she smiled back. All the eyes turned back to me, except Adrian's.

"You're sure you're okay, Liss?" asked Christian, he still looked rather worried.

"Yeah, I'm fine." I said, hoping that this would be the last time they asked me this.

My answer seemed to reassure Eddie and Christian, and they returned to where they were before my blackout. Adrian and Addy stayed by me, but I noticed that they weren't even looking at me; they were staring at each other. Adrian looked positively mystified as though he was just now noticing how beautiful Addy was. But that wasn't what he was marveling at. Just like when he was staring at my aura, I saw him staring right beside her and what he saw must've surprised him.

"You're shadow-kissed," he breathed.

I gasped and Addy looked taken aback. She probably didn't know what those words meant.

"I-I'm what?"

"Shadow-kissed," he repeated slowly.

"Shadow-kissed?"

"Shadow-kissed."

"What does that mean?" she asked, cocking her head to the side.

"It means you've died and come back to life." I supplied, sounding awed.

Her eyes widened. "B-but…how is that…possible?"

Adrian and I exchanged glances. Just as I was about to ask her if she knew someone who was a spirit-user, Adrian spoke up. "Has Andy specialized yet?"

She bit her lip. "Well…I'm not sure about that one. I mean…according to our parents she hasn't specialized, but…"

"But?" He pressed.

"But I have a theory."

We waited.

"I went to Victor's trial months ago. You probably didn't see me, because I didn't really want to be seen. I was the only one in my family that showed up. Anyways, when I heard Lissa and Victor testifying…I heard them talking about…healing. And about how healing was apart of the fifth element Spirit." She paused and locked eyes with Adrian. "Andy can heal."

"So you think she's a Spirit user?" I asked, thoroughly interested.

"Well, yeah, I guess. I mean, I don't have any other explanation." She was talking very quietly now, almost like she was afraid of what she was saying.

"When did you…need her to heal you?" asked Adrian. I was sure that he was avoiding saying die.

She looked up at the ceiling and her eyes took on that far-away look again. "About eight years ago now, I believe."

"What happened?" I inquired.

She looked at me, a sad smile on her lips. "We have a little pond behind our house. When I was little, we used to skate on it in the winter, but it was too dangerous to swim in because of all the seaweed." She paused. "It was very deep in the middle of the pond, and that's where the most weeds were. Despite all my mother's warnings, one day when Andy and I were skating…I went out into the middle…and the ice broke."

I gasped, horrorstruck.

"I fell in and the seaweeds caught my feet as I tried to kick my way out. I hadn't learned to swim before that because I didn't really like the water. I don't really think it would've helped. I…I don't remember anything after that. Well, not clearly anyways. I do remember waking up though. Andy must've pulled me out somehow, because she was leaning over me when I opened my eyes." She fell silent and I just stared at her. So was Andy a nickname for Andromeda? Did that mean it was her sister that was the Spirit user?

Adrian looked own at the floor. "I remember that," he murmured. "I was over at your house that day, but I said that I didn't want to go skating because it was too cold, but really it was because I couldn't swim." He looked ashamed. Addy placed a hand on his shoulder, trying to comfort him.

"Are you…bonded to Andy now?" I whispered.

She pursed her lips. "I'm not sure I know what you mean."

"Are you bonded?" I repeated. "Rose is bonded to me, she's shadow-kissed too. She can like get inside my mind and see things through my eyes. Can you do that?"

Pause.

"Yes, I can."

Another pause.

"Can I meet her?"

She looked shocked. "What?"

"Can I meet your sister?" I was excited now. And eager to learn what Andy was capable of.

"Wha? I-I…I supposed that would be…okay." It didn't sound that way. It sounded like she didn't really want anyone to go interrogate her little sister. Then she sounded a little stronger. "Yeah, I think she'd like that actually."

I was beaming again and even Adrian looked interested, his remorse forgotten for now.

"Let's go."


Hope you enjoyed this chapter of Life After Rose (: More to come soon. Please review!