"Can anyone see the plane?"

"For the last time, no. They're not due for another ten minutes at least. Now will you please stop asking?" Tom whispered back furiously out of the side of his mouth. From his countenance, you'd never tell how much I was annoying him.

I just shrugged. Next to me, I heard Kyle and Gregor snigger. Since Pawel, captain of the Royal Guard, had gone to Brazil, Tom, as his second in command, was in charge. And he'd gone power crazy. For the past week we'd all been doing our best to drive him as nuts, as he was driving us. Well, I was. The others were just egging me on. Immature yes, but we were all close enough that Tom would find it funny in about a week. Or he'd switch the sugar in my kitchen with salt. Either way, he'd get over it.

Currently, we were all in our black and white uniform, standing on the side of the runway, shivering considering it was the start of December, waiting for the jet, so we could welcome back our queen, her husband and our colleagues. I was standing at the end of a red carpet, in between Kyle and Gregor, with Tom on the other side of Kyle. The barriers that we'd set up were just holding back the crowd that had turned up to welcome back Lissa and Christian. Most of the staff and full time residents had shown up. Kaleo, Phil, Marios, Vitali, Kuzma and Harry, Royal guards who'd stayed behind with us, were spread out acting as far-guards. Other Court guardians were interspersed amongst the crowd. Everyone was making regular check-ins, and we had the place locked down tight.

I was just about to ask again, when someone yelled out that they could see the plane. Five minutes later, the plan had come to a stop, and the door had opened right at the top of the carpet. Tom and I led the way, keeping an eye out for any trouble makers. The four of us came to attention at the bottom of the stairs, as six of our colleagues came down the stairs, proceeding Lissa and Christian, Dimitri immediately following, and the remaining four guards bringing up the rear. Dimitri made eye contact briefly before returning to scanning the crowd. Everyone cheered, and waved, Lissa and Christian smiling and waving back, looking very realxed, yet dignified. They stopped to talk to a few people, only for a few moments, before moving on and getting into a black sedan, me and Dimitri climbing in after them.

"Why, hello there," I said grinning, as I pulled Dimitri closer for a kiss. I'd missed him so much.

"Hey," Kaleo, a Hawaiian guardian in his mid-forties, called laughingly from the front of the car. He was in the passenger seat, and Iosif was driving. "You're still working."

"I'm just saying Aloha," I replied teasingly. I smiled at Dimitri. "Aloha, Comrade."

He laughed, put an arm around my shoulders, and kissed my temple. Lissa and Christian were sitting opposite us, Lissa snuggled into her husband's side, both of them looking perfectly content.

"So how was it?" I asked them. "You guys have fun?"

"It was amazing," Lissa sighed. "Absolutely incredible."

"Couldn't have gone better," Christian added. They then started to tell me about everything they'd seen, and visited. It sounded like a great trip. We arrived back at the palace before they'd gone through half of it, and after making sure they got upstairs safely, we arranged to meet for dinner in mine and Dimitri's apartment in a few hours.

"Thank you," Dimitri said as I handed him a cup of coffee. He'd just finished unpacking, and was relaxing on the sofa, his feet on the coffee table. I sat down next to him, and he put an arm around me, drinking his coffee. "I missed you, Roza."

"I've missed you too," I told him, snuggling closer. I was debating about whether or not to tell him about the clinic now, or after dinner. Dimitri decided for me.

"Are you going to tell me your master plan yet?"

I slowly sat up straight, and Dimitri did the same, putting down his coffee. I bit my lip, considering how to go about this. Sensing my unease, Dimitri clasped my hand, bring it to his lips.

"Come on," He said. "It can't be that crazy."

"It kind of is." I took a breath, before saying "Let's say that, hypothetically, it was possible for us to, oh I don't know, have a baby," Dimitri looked shocked, and a little upset. He opened his mouth to interrupt, but I continued quickly. "Hypothetically. Would you want to have one?"

"Rose," he started, looking devastated now, "You know that we can't – "

"Hypothetically," I repeated. "Just yes, or no."

"Rose – "

"Just yes or no!"

"Yes!" he burst out finally, that small admission looking like it cost him great effort. "If it were possible, I would love to have a child, have lots of them, and I hate that we can't!" He got up, and started to pace the room. Spinning to face me, he asked "Why are you bringing this up? Why does it matter?"

"Have you ever heard of the Family Institute?" I asked quickly. I remained seated on the sofa. "It's in Georgia. It was set up five years ago by the MAAM."

Dimitri shook his head and sat back down slowly, looking at me confused. "What is that? Some kind of adoption agency?"

"No," I said slowly. "The night of the reception, I heard these two women talking about the fact that one of their friend's husband couldn't, well, get her pregnant, and they, well, they, uh, went to a sperm clinic."

"A sperm clinic," Dimitri repeated slowly. "A moroi sperm clinic?" He looked flabbergasted. I nodded. "The moroi have sperm clinics?"

"Just the one."

"The one in Georgia. The Family Institute." He sat back and rubbed his face with one hand. "And you're considering it." He sighed and looked exhausted. I wished I hadn't mentioned it until after dinner. "So, you'd get pregnant, with an unknown man's sperm?"

I shifted so that I was sitting cross-legged, facing him, and rested my cheek on the back of the sofa. "The baby would still be ours though." Dimitri didn't look at me. "Have your last name, you'd sign the birth certificate, we'd raise this child together. Don't you at least want to consider it?"

Dimitri turned his head to look at me. "I'm still not entirely comfortable with the fact that, well," He looked down, and sighed. "It'll be another man's baby. Not mine. What if I treat the child as such?"

"Oh, come on!" I said, springing up, crossing my arms. I wanted a child so, so badly. It had become an ache in my chest whenever I thought about it. "What if I got knocked up before I met you, huh? Would you shun the kid then?"

"Rose – " Dimitri had likewise stood up.

"What if you got someone else pregnant, you think that I wouldn't love that kid like my own?"

"Rose this is a lot to take in!" Dimitri started pacing again. "Ten minutes ago, I never even thought I could be a father!" He stopped, and looked at me dead on. "No, if either one of us was a parent before we met, then of course we would both love the other's child, but this is different!"

"How?" I asked angrily. "How is this any different? You just said you wanted kids!"

We just looked at one another for a long time, before Dimitri finally replied. "I suppose that it's not that different. But you can't just expect me to decide right away."

"Oh, right, wait here," I told him, as I rushed into our bedroom, grabbed some papers, and ran back to Dimitri. I handed them to him saying "The clinic sent me all this."

"You contacted them?"

Annoyed, I put my hands on hips. "You were gone for two weeks! You wanted me to bring this up with no information, with nothing to tell you?"

"I suppose not," he said, leafing through the information. He slowly sat back down, looking thoughtful as he read the first few pages. I sat down as well. After a few minutes, he looked back up. He looked like he was waging an internal battle.

"I can't just decide right away," Dimitri told me, still looking like he couldn't make up his mind. "Having a baby is a huge responsibility. I need more time."

"Take as much as you need," I said quickly. "I mean, I wasn't planning on doing this, if you agreed obviously, until after the wedding, which is six months away. Plus," I added, smiling slightly, "I'm only twenty-two. Not like my biological clock is ticking away."

That got me one of his half smiles, and Dimitri told me that he would consider going to the clinic. He spent the rest of the evening going over the stuff the clinic sent. We ended up cancelling dinner with Lissa and Christian, saying that we wanted some alone time. That was fine by them. I think they wanted some 'alone time' too. We didn't speak much for the rest of the night, but Dimitri did go on the website for the Family Institute. I really thought that he was coming around to the idea.

"Alright," Dimitri said suddenly. We both in the bathroom, getting ready for bed. I was nearly done brushing my teeth. "I've thought about it."

I stopped brushing my teeth and turned to face him, tooth-brush still in my mouth. "Really? You haven't even had a day!" I spat in the sink, cleaned my mouth, then turned to look at Dimitri again. "What happened? I thought it would be at least twenty-four hours minimum."

He shrugged. "There were pictures on the website. Happy families, and I kept picturing the two of us holding a baby, seeing his or her first steps, hearing their first words." Dimitri looked me right in the eye. "And I realised how badly I wanted that. Before I hadn't really let myself want it because I thought that there was no chance, that we couldn't. But now we have the option." He took a step closer to me. "At first, I was maybe willing to go along with it, because it would make you happy, but," he took a deep breath, "But now I realise that I want it too." He took another step. "I want children. Whenever I see Mikhail with Celia I am so, so jealous, I can barely stand it." He put his hands on my shoulders. "Lets do this. Lets make a family."

I was speechless. Hell, I could barely breathe. "You're sure you've had enough time to think?" I asked him quietly. "You've only had a few hours."Why are you questioning it? He wants to do this! Shut up!

Dimitri smiled. "I was looking at the picture of us with Celia at her baptism. I want us to be parents. Not just godparents. I don't need anymore time."

I threw my arms around his neck and kissed him, heedless of the fact that I probably tasted like toothpaste. I was overjoyed. We were really going to have a baby. A child of our own.

"I take it you're happy," Dimitri laughed, when we came up for air.

"Very," I replied grinning. "But you know," I added slyly, "There's no reason we can't, oh I don't know, simulate the normal baby making process, even if that's not how we're going to have one."

Dimitri didn't say anything, he just smiled, scooped me up, and then took me into the bedroom. We finally said hello properly.