"She was so calm. She is always so calm", I told Dimitri while we walk back to guest housing. "How could she be so calm? She is our daughter. I mean look at us."

We walked under the sun, talking about Ivanna, because even though we liked to be alone once in awhile, we loved our children more.

"I know", he was so handsome under the sun.

"Maybe they changed her in the hospital."

"I don't think so. She has your hair."

"And your eyes."

"She is going to be a great guardian", Dimitri was so proud of Ivanna, and she didn´t start school yet.

"The best of her age. Always calm and deadly. A russian goddess."

"A russian goddess", Dimitri ecoed me. "The genetic combination is remarkable."

"I just hope she find a suitable partner in crime."

Dimitri looked at me like I had personally offended him. "Don´t you think is a little early to start thinking about our daughter's love life?"

He was such a cliche father sometimes.

"Is never too early to start thinking about our daughter's love life. But I wasn't talking about that, comrade. I just want her to find a best friend. Someone to be for her what Lissa is to me."

"She will, Roza. She will be happy here." Like always he answered the true meaning behind my words. "Weren't you happy here?"

"I want so much for her. I´m afraid that if I am not here, Ivanna wouldn't have it."

"You didn´t answer me."

I thought about Lissa and when we became friends. I thought about Mason and Eddie and Meredith, about the parties and the fun. I thought about all the good and all the bad. And, at last, I thought about the last year I spend in St. Vladimirs.

I looked down, at our hand tangled. "Yes, I was."

"Then, she will be happy too." Dimitri opened the door of guest housing for me to enter. "But I believe that this partner in crime that you want for her has to be more like you and less like Lissa."

"You´re probably is so calm, sometimes that scares me."

"Why?"

I didn´t answer right away because I didn´t want to upset him. I had thought a few times about Ivanna and I had always expected that she would be like me, never holding back, but, what if?

"What would happen if some day she snap? What if this is just the calm before the storm? I am afraid of that storm."

Dimitri didn´t answer until we were on our bedroom. "You mean like me? With my father?"

I nodded.

"I am afraid of that too."

He lead me to bed, without another word. We laid next to each other until we fell asleep.

I woke up a few hours later and Dimitri wasn´t next to me.

"Dimitri?", I called him.

"Here, Roza", he said from the bathroom door. "Go back to sleep."

I turn to look at him, he was dressed with workout clothes.

"Where are you going?"

"To the gym. I promise Christian I would help him with his technique."

"You are cheating me with Christian? The gym is our place."

He laid next to me in bed. "If you like, after lunch, we can go there to have some redemption... For all times sake?"

"Ok. But maybe we should work out too."

"Very well, Roza. We'll meet you, Lissa and the kids for lunch."

He kissed me and the left.

"How was your date?", Lissa was asking me while we walk to the elementary campus.

I smiled at the memory. "Really nice."

"I can see that," she said cryptically.

"What do you mean?"

Lissa looked at me from behind her sunglasses. "You have a hickey."

"What?" I freaked out. "Give me that." I told her and grabbed her glasses to use as a mirror.

And there, in my neck, my husband has made me a hickey. "He is such a child sometimes. I am a mother in my daughter's school, I can´t have a hickey." I pushed my hair forward to hide it.

"Well, you do. Now, can I have my glasses back?"

Lissa was trying to laid low, she didn´t want the people to recognize her, because she said they acted strange around her.

"I still don't know from who exactly you are hiding."

"From everyone. You weren´t here last year, people didn´t know how to act around me. They just embarrassed themselves. I am trying to save the dignity of some people."

"They are still going to know who you are." I told her pointing to the crowd of people in front of us, we were arriving to the elementary building.

"Maybe not. I don't loose anything by trying, right?"

"What. Ever."

We stood a little far from the rest of the parents. And put down our stuff to wait. Lissa had brought a basket for a picnic and I was carrying my gym bag.

"Hola, hermosa." I heard from my left side and when I turned I find a men looking at me.

He was a damphir, around his thirties, not too tall, with black hair and black eyes. He had latin features.

"Excuse me? Are you talking to me?"

"Yes, of course." He had a very distinct latin accent. "I just can't believe that someone so young and beautiful as you could be a mother."

"Well, I am sorry to disappoint you but I am. I´m waiting for my daughter."

"A daughter, how convenient. I have a son, we should schedule a playdate." He said with a wink.

Lissa giggled behind me. I was having a blast.

Being a mother of three sometimes made me feel not too pretty. And Dimitri was a heartbreaker at court. It was nice to have the balance tilted in my favor.

"I don't believe we had been introduced."

"The name is Esteban." He reached his hand towards me.

I put my hand in his. "Rose."

Instead of shaking my hand, he pulled it to his mouth to kiss it. And a moment later I shivered. Not because the contact of his lips in my fingers but because in that exact moment an strong arm wrapped itself around my waist in a very protective way.

I didn't have to look at Dimitri to know that he was looking at Esteban with a menacing look.

"Oh, Esteban," I told him when he look up from my hand, "let me introduce to you to my husband. Dimitri."

And then Esteban really looked at me, and then he looked at Dimitri and Lissa and Christian behind us.

Anyone were able to see the exact moment when everything made sense to him. "You are Rose Hathaway."

"Yes. I was the last time I checked."

"Redemption," whispered Dimitri in my ear.

Esteban didn't have the chance to say anything else because the children start to came out of the building and Ivy and Freddy find us immediately.

We sit down under some trees with the picnic that Lissa had put together.

Dimitri was laying back against a tree and I was sitting between his legs, leaning against his chest, just thinking about how different St. Vladimir seemed now that we were back, being different people.

"Do you think your parents are going to give us back the rest of our children?", Christian asked me.

"I don't think so. Maybe you could enjoy the time alone with your wife and go to the chapel´s attic to remember when life was simpler."

"I don't believe life was simpler on those times. And I hear of your rendezvous last night. How did that go?"

"How...?" I asked, but then the pieces come together and I elbowed Dimitri in the stomach.

"He help me carry some stuff there."

"Is that why you went to train with him this morning?"

"Yes."

"Well, now I really need to punch something."

I didn't really know why the fact that Christian knew about the cabin affect me so much, but it did. It was our place, mine and Dimitri´s, an escape from reality, a place that wasn't part of this crazy world.

I stand and went to look for my daughter. "Ivy, lets go. You don't want to be late."

Dimitri grabbed my bag and followed me. After a few steps I turned to looked at Lissa and Christian.

"After you clean all this up, you can go play." I told them and then left.