"What do you mean I can't go in and see her?!" Christian snarled.

It was the same guardian there as before. By the time Christian was ready to see Lissa, it was after nine, so I was officially on duty.

"She's not to see anyone today, on the orders of Guardian Belikov," he repeated.

I stood back enjoying the show. Christian had a pretty bad temper, and to tell you the truth I was looking forward to this new guardian getting told off.

"Well I'm not under his orders," he growled.

Christian tried to push past the guardian, who reached out to push him back. But he didn't even get to lay a hand on Christian, before I was there, shoving him up against the wall, arms behind his back.

"You don't touch him," I told the guardian. "You may be assigned to guard Lissa, but you don't mess with me or my Moroi."

Someone cleared their throat. Christian, the grinning fool, was standing beside Dimitri.

"Mr. Hawkins," started Dimitri, "what happened here?"

"This Moroi was trying to go into the princess's room. I went to stop him, and this," he gave me a disgusted look, "girl intervened."

"And why didn't you let them in?" he inquired.

"You said not to let anyone in."

Dimitri shook his head. "No. I said unless it was Rose Hathaway or Christian Ozera, not to let anyone in."

Hawkins looked away, a red tint reaching his cheeks.

"You will be a good guardian," continued Dimitri, "but you need to learn to listen. You may have been recommended by one of the better guardians, but that doesn't mean you're the best."

Hawkins nodded.

"Rose, you can let him go anytime," Dimitri said, giving me a small smile.

I grinned and let him go. He moved away from me and moved to stand beside Dimitri, rubbing his wrists where I'd held them.

"I'm relieving you of your duties for now, Mr. Hawkins. You may go," Dimitri told him.

He glared at me before he left. I gave him the finger.

"Rose, behave," Dimitri told me, and I felt suddenly very childish.

Christian, who had been standing quietly off to the side for the last few minutes, cleared his throat. "Can I go in now?"

Dimitri nodded, and Christian knocked lightly on the door. "Lissa? It's me, Christian. Open the door, please."

He said it with such tenderness that it made me remember how in love the two of them were. In that moment, I realized that he would never hurt Lissa, and he would do anything for her.

Lissa peeked out the door. "I'm not feeling well, Christian. I don't want you and Rose to get sick to, so you better just leave."

She went to close the door, but Christian caught it. "I don't care. I'd rather spend a day sick with you, than a day without you."

Lissa smiled sappily, looking as if she was going to cry. Honestly, it was a pretty sweet thing for him to say.

"And I don't care much if Rose gets sick or not. If she's that worried about it, she can wait in the hall."

And there goes the friendliness I was feeling.

Lissa punched him playfully on the shoulder.

I glanced at Dimitri. "You know what, maybe that's a good idea. If I get sick, I wouldn't be able to concentrate on my duties as well."

Lissa gave me a weird look. Christian shrugged, unfazed, and said, "Fine with me. Come on, Lissa."

She gave me one last glance before closing the door.

"So, I guess it's just you and me now," I said, taking a step closer to Dimitri.

"Yes, I suppose it is."

"So, who was that?"

"Finn Hawkins? He transferred here with excellent recommendations from his other school. And since we needed someone to take over for Eddie anyway."

Eddie had a bad run-in with a couple of guardians the other day. They were testing him, and he was doing really well, considering he'd already take one out of the picture. At least he was doing well until he went to kick the other one and the guardian caught his leg. He tried a manoeuvre to get his leg out, but he pulled too hard, too soon in the wrong direction and he broke his leg. It's a lot easier than it sounds.

"So he's going to be guarding Lissa for the rest of the training?" I asked.

Dimitri shrugged. "He was supposed to, but he doesn't listen to a word anyone tells him. He thinks he can do our jobs better than we can."

Then we stood in silence for a while. It wasn't awkward though. That's one of the many things I liked about Dimitri. You could be with him and feel comfortable without having to say anything at all. Soon I shifted over to stand closer to him, and slipped my hand into his. I expected him to let go, but instead he gripped it tighter, as if he was looking for someone to comfort him.

All of a sudden Christian burst out of the room. Dimitri and I jumped apart. He stormed down the hall, and I gave a bewildered look at Dimitri.

"Follow him," Dimitri sighed, heading in to see Lissa.

I was torn between going in and comforting Lissa, who couldn't have been happy about Christian running out on her, and actually doing what I was brought here to do. With a sigh I chose the latter, and set out on a quick jog after him.

When I caught up to him, he was sitting against the door outside his room with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.

I sat down beside him. I didn't have much to say, and even if I did, I wouldn't have said anything anyway. When he was ready to talk, he would. I guess I was picking up some moves from Dimitri.

Finally he looked at me and asked, "How could I be so selfish?"

It was the last thing I was expecting to hear from him. "What?"

He stared down the hallway. "How could I do that to her? How could I ruin her like that?"

"Christian you didn't-"

"I did!" he interrupted, fiercely. "She couldn't have gotten herself pregnant, and this pregnancy is going to ruin everything she has going for her. God dammit Rose, she was going places! She was representing her family, and I couldn't have been more proud of her. But now? Now, all anyone is going to think of her is that she's a slut or something. That's she's having sex at her age. That she's having sex with me! The abomination of the Moroi!"

His eyes started to water, so he turned his head, blinking them away.

"You did everything you could-"

"No!" he interrupted again. "I shouldn't even have had sex with her in the first place! It was too risky, and now…" He swallowed hard. "I'm going to be a father."

"Look, this isn't as bad as you-"

"Isn't as bad? How can it be good? All I've done is mess up the best thing that's happened to me since… well, since ever."

He stood up and opened the door to his room to go inside. I went to follow him and he tried to slam the door on me, but I stuck my foot in the way. He glared at me.

"This isn't all about you," I told him, never looking away from his gaze. "Think about that for a while." Then I shut the door, and took up my guardian stance.

A/N - Another chapter! I discovered that I like writing (and reading) about Christian/Adrian because of their personalities, so you'll probably be seeing a lot of them.

Thanks for reading! Reviews would be much obliged!

I. Goddess