Chapter Seven: The Past Makes a Person
Maggie's POV
I pulled myself out of bed as my alarm blared through my tiny room. I yawned and stretched as I trudged down my short little hall way my blurry, sleep raddled mind nearly overlooked the sheet where my door should be and the huge ass man sleeping on my floor. I stopped and just stared between him and the sheet. He was good looking, obviously tall, and muscled, but not disgustingly so. He wore a pair of blue-stripped night pants and a black wife beater.
As my mind woke itself up a little more, I remembered the previous day. Rose's mother and her baby daddy had found where we lived and busted my door down. Dimitri had offered to sleep here to make sure nothing happened during the night.
I crossed my arms under my small breasts and just studied him. That baby was definitely going to be a looker. I mean his mother alone was gorgeous and with a father that looked like that the kid was going to be more gorgeous then Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston's kid would have been.
He groaned and shifted on the floor. That had to be uncomfortable, but he broke my door so he had to suffer just a little. He was sleeping next to Rose's couch and her hand was hanging down and resting on the floor and his hand subconsciously sought hers out and latched onto it.
I kind of wanted to let them sleep; they looked so sweet, sleeping there like that. But Rose needed to work. She hadn't been to the diner in three days and she was really going to need the money. So I quietly walked over and gently shook Rose.
"Rosie, honey," I whispered. She stirred and opened her big brown eyes.
She blinked up at me. "Huh?"
I smiled as I brushed the hair from her face. "We need to get ready for work kid, come on up, up." She groaned but sat up. She carefully pulled her hand from the laxed giant next to the couch.
She looked down at Dimitri with a sad smile on her face and reached down and lovingly brushed his hair from his face much like I had hers.
She looked up at me. "I wish he could know." She whispered. "I hurt him." I wasn't sure what that meant.
She looked up at me with tears in her eyes. "I told him that I got pregnant before we were together."
My eyes widened. "Oh Rosie, you should have just told him the truth, baby." She shook her head and glanced down at his peacefully sleeping face one more time.
"He's the reason she threatened to kill my baby, Maggie, she wants him."
So it was a crazy Ex-Girlfriend. That's nice to know.
"Ok well get ready. Besides Sir Bust 'em Down is going to buy us a new door today." She smiled good-naturedly, the first real smile I had seen on her face since she came to stay with me. Then she knelt down by Dimitri and planted a sweet kiss on his forehead. She really loved him. I was happy that at least in this area she was much more lucky then I had been.
She nodded her head and got up, gathered her clothes and went to the bathroom to change. I smiled after her and then looked down at the sleeping Russian. Now that I really looked at him, he looked like he hadn't slept in days. I could see dark circles under his eyes and his skin had a slight pallor to it.
He must have been worried sick about her. I thought sympathetically. I can only imagine how he felt when she told him that.
I turned away from the sleeping man on my living room floor and went to my own room to get dressed. When I came back he was still asleep on the floor and Rose was still in the bathroom so I made my way to the kitchen to make myself a fried egg and Rose her oatmeal and blueberries.
Dimitri's POV
I rolled over looking for the warmth I knew should be beside me but she wasn't there. Why was my bed suddenly so uncomfortable? I opened my eyes to see that the wonderful life I had just lived through with Roza had been a cruel dream.
I had dreamt that Rose and I had married and that we were expecting a child, our child.
And now I had woken up to cruel reality where Rose and I could never have children together and she was carrying another man's baby. I groaned, my sore back screamed in protest as I sat up on the floor. I rubbed my neck and looked to the couch to see Rose's sweet face only for my heart to stop and my blood to freeze. She was gone. Again.
No! I quickly got to my feet and looked around the living room. She was nowhere to be seen. I was about to pull out my cell and call Janine when the smell of eggs and oatmeal reached my nose. I looked to the kitchen to see Maggie rocking back and forth to the music coming from the laptop on the counter as she cooked.
She turned to get something and saw me standing in her living room looking frantic. She rolled her eyes at me.
"She's in the bathroom getting ready." As she said it, the bathroom door opened and Rose stepped out. She had her hair up in a clip and strands of her dark hair framed her face. In her black skirt and white blouse she looked beautiful. But as I watched her, her face turned green and she darted back for the bathroom.
I blinked confused about what was happening until I heard her gagging. Then my body moved on instinct and I beat Maggie to the bathroom.
Rose was hunched over the toilet, as she got sick. Some of her hair had fallen out of her clip and I quickly held it all back as I rubbed her back soothingly, all the while speaking words of loving comfort in Russian. I winced as she threw up just about every single thing that was in her stomach. No wonder she looked so much thinner then she had at the Academy.
Finally she leaned away from the commode and took deep breaths. Maggie handed Rose a glass of water.
"Here you go, hun." Rose smiled and took the water as she stood up. I'll admit I hovered a little.
I barely noticed Maggie watching me with the eyes of a hawk as she studied the way I moved and acted around Rose.
Rose quickly brushed her teeth and gargled some mouthwash.
"Uh, I hate being pregnant." She moaned and Maggie laughed.
"Oh just wait till you get bigger, then you'll have back aches, swollen ankles, and round ligament pain, oh those are fun!"
I watched the interaction between the two women and I was surprised at how Rose's role had changed. Usually she's the one joking and putting up a face and Lissa or someone else was the one that was miserable and in need of cheering up. It was like Maggie was Rose's, well, Rose.
"Oh joy." Rose groaned. Then she looked to me.
"You're off your game Comrade." She laughed. "You didn't even stir when we got up." My worry for her must have shown on my face because she smiled at me.
"I'm okay, just a bit of morning sickness. You don't have to look at me like I'm dying." She put a hand to her flat stomach and stroked her unborn child. "I have to say I won't miss that part of pregnancy." I smiled down at her.
She was glowing and she looked happy when she thought of the child growing inside her. For the hundredth time in three days, I wished that that baby was mine. But it didn't matter. If she'd have me I'd love and care for her child as if he were my own.
Rose taking her clip from my hand snapped me from my wistful thoughts. She bent over and flipped her long dark locks over her head and gathered them up and clipped them high and off her neck, her Molnija and zvezda marks exposed to the outside world.
It was then I realized that Rose still intended to go to work.
"Roza maybe you should stay here today." I told her worriedly. I really didn't want her to go work if she felt bad.
Rose waved my concern off. "I'm fine Comrade, after I get sick like that I feel fine."
"I have your oatmeal ready Rosie!" Maggie called. I hadn't noticed her leaving. I was batting a thousand today with mistakes in terms of my Guardian duties. If there were Strigoi here, we would have all been dead.
Rose walked past me and to the kitchen. I followed her and just kept my eye on her. If she faltered even a little, I was making her stay here or go to the motel with her mother.
I was a little surprised to see her eating the oatmeal so eagerly. I had tried to get her to eat oatmeal instead of chocolate donuts for breakfast before and she'd never budge.
"It's one of her cravings." Maggie said as she held out a fried egg for me. "The scary ones haven't started yet." I nodded. So she was craving healthy foods huh? Maybe this pregnancy isn't so bad after all.
I sat next to Rose and ate the egg that Maggie was kind enough to make for me.
Once the women were finished Maggie looked to me with very serious eyes.
"You are going to buy that door today, right?" she asked me. I nodded.
"Yes of course. It'll be up when you two get home later." Maggie nodded and then she gestured for Rose to leave. Once they were gone I sat on the couch and just thought about the morning. Rose had a routine and everything here. Maggie had certainly cared for her and for that I was very grateful, but I couldn't stop the irrational fear that maybe Rose preferred this life to the one she had in the Moroi world.
Would Rose even want to come back home with me?
000
After buying and putting up Maggie and Rose's new door I walked through the Diner's door, the little bell ringing and alerting the occupants of the building to my presence.
My eyes instantly went to Rose, who was carrying a full tray of plates to a table.
It was a group of teenagers. The boys eyeballed Rose as if she were a piece of meat or a piece of ass they'd all like to try. That made me want to beat the hell out of them. The girls in the group however looked at Rose as if she were less then the dirt on their shoes.
One girl, a blonde wearing a pink sweater with her name on the right breast pocket, knocked her soda over and the drink covered Rose's skirt and shoes.
"Oops, so sorry." The girl said.
Rose put a sarcastic smile on her face. "Oh, its no problem we all can't be smart enough to know how to hold our drinks." The girl glared at her and Rose smiled sweetly at her. Suddenly one of the boys laughed.
"Oh man Mandy, she told you." He then turned his eyes on Rose who watched him with a guardian's caution.
"So sweet thing, when do you get off?" he asked and I clenched my fists. I walked over and caught Rose's eye before I made my way over. Her eyes widen and a mischievous smile I had learned months ago to fear stretched over her full lips.
"Five, but my boyfriend is taking me to my pregnancy check up. Sorry."
The little shit laughed. "Yeah sure he is," he thought she was being cute. "So how about after your 'check up'? "
It was then I made my way over to Rose and wrapped a protective arm around Rose's waist, my large hand pointedly resting over her abdomen. I kissed her temple, playing along with her story.
"Are you feeling better, Serdtse moie?"
She smiled up at me. "Yeah, I told you I would be fine."
The teens' faces paled when I glanced to them.
"No one is giving you any trouble, right?" I asked, not taking my eyes from the teenagers.
"No, I'm good." She kissed my cheek. "Go sit down and I'll get you something to eat Comrade."
She then walked away, probably to change her skirt and shoes. I leaned on to the table and glared at the teens.
"Bother my woman one more time and I'll make that sadistic gym teacher, that I'm sure you all have, look like Jesus Christ himself." Then I walked over to the same booth that Janine and I had been sitting in for the past three days.
As I sat down I saw Joe glaring at me from the window. He said something to Rose as she walked from the kitchen and to the window in fresh clothes.
He seemed to calm down when Rose said something to him and he let her go.
I watched her as she placed the tray she was carrying on the table where an elderly man sat. He took her hand and spoke to her.
I listened as my sharper ears picked up on the conversation between the two.
"How are you today, child?" the old man asked. "I went so long without seeing that pretty smile of yours I began to worry."
She smiled. "I'm sorry Mr. Larson, I was just not feeling very well is all." She then put a hand on her stomach. "This little guy has been giving me a run for my money, can't imagine what it'll be like when I can actually feel him."
The old man smiled kindly at her and patted her hand. "It'll be worth it my dear. When my wife gave birth to our first it was the happiest day of my life. It was even more so for my wife." Rose nodded and then set his food in front of him. "Now you eat up, Mr. Larson." He smiled and nodded and began to eat.
Then Rose walked over to me.
"Alright Comrade. What would you like?" The soft voice she'd used with the older man was gone.
I smiled up at her and then looked to the menu in front of me. "What's good here, besides the burger, I mean."
Rose put a finger to her chin. "Well, Joe makes a mean veggie omelet, but then again I've been craving that lately. He makes pretty good Philly Cheese Steak too."
I nodded. "Alright, I guess I'll give that a try then." She smiled and wrote down my order.
"You want a coke, right Comrade?" she asked and I smiled again.
"You have no idea how I missed that silly nickname." She looked up at me and smiled.
"You're order will be right out." Then she walked away from me and for once I wasn't worried she'd run.
As I sat and waited on my food, I pulled out an old western and pretended to read it when really I was watching Rose like a hawk. She seemed to have a few regulars that asked her how she was and where she had been and even some that asked after her baby.
No one was mean to her after the teens for which I was grateful. It had taken everything I had to not throw that snot nosed little bastard out a window and that stupid airhead right after him.
I had been so entranced by Rose that, once again, I slipped up as a guardian and didn't notice Joe coming toward me with my Philly until he sat it down.
I looked up at him and nodded my thanks as my eyes darted back to Rose, who was laughing with the pretty blonde waitress we had met a few days ago.
"You shouldn't watch her like that. Someone will think you're some sicko stalker or something."
I looked up at Joe. His expression was calm, easy going.
"I don't want anything to happen to her when I'm not looking. She's in a fragile condition right now." I told him as I glanced toward Rose again out of the corner of my eye.
Joe laughed. "Man, I'd hate to see how you'd act if the kid was yours." I looked at him. He seemed to know an awful lot about me and Roza.
"How much has she told you?" I asked him. He smiled and his eyes twinkled merrily.
"You took her on as your student to keep her from getting kicked out of school and you two fell for each other, hard. So basically I know all I need to know."
"Most people wouldn't be so kind to a twenty four year old having a relationship with a seventeen year old."
"Oh, don't get me wrong." He said as he sat in the booth across from me. "At first I thought you were a sick freak that was threatening to fail her if she didn't put out for you." I narrowed my eyes and glared at him for that.
"But then she explained how at first it was mainly her making the advances and you were dead set on making sure nothing happened between you. That shows you actually gave a damn, man I respect that."
"Hmmm." I hummed as I took a bite of my sandwich. It was good, really good.
Joe's expression got serious then. "You don't have to be so worried about her here, you know." I looked up at him then glanced to Rose.
"She's eighteen, she hasn't even graduated yet." I said as I watch her playfully stick out her tongue at a boy with dark red hair. "And she's carrying a baby that, apparently, has a death threat hanging on its poor innocent head."
Joe nodded. "But we won't let anything happen to her. Trust me, I have experience protecting people from sick fucks that like to hurt innocent people."
I raised my eyebrow.
"My father was a gang leader." Joe started. "He was a very bad man and by the time I was thirteen I had murdered a lot of people and been arrested and put in juvy for selling and distributing drugs." He took a deep breath and my eyes widened. I had hadn't expected that.
"I didn't really care about any of that though. To me my dad was my hero, or at least he would have been if it wasn't for the fact he'd beat my mother every night for the hell of it. When I turned fourteen, my little sister was born and I took it upon myself to look out for her. Dad didn't have much respect for women and his own daughter was no exception." He wiped tears from his eyes as he continued.
"The thing that really made me loose any respect for my father was when my sister came to my apartment when I was twenty seven and she was thirteen. She was beaten, bloody and couldn't even walk. I asked her what happened and she said that-um. That dad had found out she as dating a cop's kid. Dad was worried she'd talk to the kid's dad and rat him out. By this time my old man, well, lets just say he would have earned maybe ten different death sentences. So to punish her for even dating him, my old man had three or four of his men gang rape my baby sister while he watched."
My eyes widened. How could anyone be that evil? To not only watch your daughter be raped and not do anything to stop it, but to order it. I clenched my fists. Did this man not realize what a gift he had in his children?
"Anyways Maria, she stayed with me for a week before my father came looking for her. He was pissed that I had hidden her from him and he grabbed her wrist and jerked her away and toward the door. I didn't think. I just pulled my gun and shot him right in his head. Then I called the cops and I was arrested, not for killing my father that was defense of a minor, not murder, but for a petty theft charge. I was out in a year. After I got out I packed my mother and my sister up and we moved down here. We've been here ever since."
He then looked at me. "The reason I'm telling you this, is because I want you to know that when I look at Rose I see a little of what my sister went through. We all have been through tough times here. My diner is a home for the down trodden and the lost." He pointed to the blonde that I had seen laughing with my Roza.
"That's Laura Collins. She has two twin boys. Max and Zack, they're nine now. But when I met them they were five. Laura's husband had been deployed to Iraq and he was killed in action. Laura was an only child and her parents are dead. Her husband's family never approved of her and doesn't even claim the boys. So Laura was alone with two small children and no way to support herself or them, so she moved down here hoping for a fresh start. She walked in here one day to apply and I hired on the spot. She's a good woman, a wonderful mother, and hard worker."
He then pointed to the boy with the dark red hair.
"That's Jason. His dad beat the shit out of him for being gay and kicked him out on his own when he was fifteen. I found him walking on the side of the road between here and Missoula. I gave the kid a busboy job and when his dad came looking for him I called the cops. I became his legal guardian until he turned eighteen. He just turned nineteen."
Then he smiled and pointed to Maggie who was taking orders from a small family with a toddler.
"Then there was Maggie. Her Mother was a prostitute that left her dying in the hospital after she was born. Her father is serving a life for raping and killing a little girl. Her religiously zealous grandmother raised her until she was sixteen and she wound up pregnant with some lowlife's baby. She came waddling in here five months pregnant. She reminded me a lot of my sister. Because of what happened to her Maria can never have children. I not only hired Maggie but I took her in and she lived with us that whole year. When Maggie was seven months pregnant her grandmother found her and she came here and harassed the hell out of Maggie. She was so stressed she when into labor. Little Annemarie died the day after she was born. It broke Maggie's heart. That's why Maggie is so protective of Rosie. She's scared that you and her mom will stress her out so bad that she'll lose her baby and she wouldn't wish that pain on anyone."
I wasn't sure how to respond. These people had taken Rose in. To them, she and her child were family.
"Thank you for sharing that with me, Joe, but Roza needs to come home. I promise you though if anyone wants to hurt either of them they'll have to get through me."
Joe smiled. "I was hopping you'd say that."
He then got up to go back to work just as Janine and Abe walked in.
Janine slipped into the other booth along with Abe.
Janine's eyes found her daughter as she cleared the old man's, Mr. Larson I think his name was, dishes. He gave her a tip and patted her stomach then got up and went to pay at the register.
"How is she, Belikov?" she asked me.
"She's alright Janine. I did have to deter the unwanted advances of some stupid teenaged boy, but other then that she's fine." Janine nodded.
Rose came back around to our table and she smiled at her mom.
"You want anything mom?" she asked her. Janine shook her head. Her guardian mask was up, as always.
"I want to talk to you, Rose." She said. Rose sighed. I think she knew she couldn't get out of this.
"Alright, but after my shift okay?" Janine relented and Rose took my now empty plate and refilled my Coke then left once again.
Rose's POV
When my shift was over I went to the booth where mom, Abe and Dimitri sat talking. Maggie was staying at the Diner till closing since it was her turn, so I didn't have to worry about getting a ride.
I slid into the booth next to Dimitri and waited.
"Alright mom, what do you want to talk about?"
Mom looked over to Abe, who nodded toward me, and then she took a deep breath. "I, we, want you to come home. You're trials are coming up, there less then a month away. If you don't pass them there is no chance you'll be Lissa's Guardian."
I stiffened. That's right. If I didn't take my trials then someone else would be assigned to Lissa. Someone who had no idea how to take care of her when the darkness took root.
I leaned back and massaged my temples.
"But mom, my baby, if I go back he'll be in danger. Someone threatened to set him on fire while he's inside me!" My mom, Dimitri and even Abe paled at my confession. "How am I supposed to protect him? I won't sacrifice him for anything." Mom nodded. She agreed with me when it came to the safety of my child.
"Who is it that threatened you, little girl?" Abe asked. He looked, dangerous in that moment and I averted my eyes. "You wouldn't believe me. No one would."
Dimitri put an arm around my shoulders. "Rose I told you last night, if you tell us we'll believe you." I shook my head.
"Okay, how about this," I said as I came up with a solution I hoped would work. "I'll go back for my trials and so I can tell Lissa what is going on and I'll wait until I get assigned to her, but after that I'll take the rest of my pregnancy off and come back here. After the baby is born I'll come back but until the person that wants to hurt my baby is taken care of, somehow, my baby stays here with Joe's sister and mother."
According to their faces, none of them liked me leaving my baby with people they didn't know, but it was this or nothing. My baby had to be safe.
"If we agree to this," Dimitri started. "You'll come home?"
I looked up at him and from the way he nodded slightly I knew that he saw my unspoken question. Would he protect me and our baby?
I looked to my mom and Abe. "Can I have a little time to think about it?" My mom looked ready to demand that I come home now, but once again Dimitri's voice cut in. "Of course you can Rose. We won't leave until we have your answer."
I smiled at him, thanking him without speaking and then I got up to help Maggie clean up.
I just hoped that my final decision wouldn't end with my child's death.
Translations:
Serdtse moie- My Heart
And here is chapter Seven. Dimitri gets a glimpse at Rose's life outside of the Academy what will she decide to do? Will she stay with Maggie and Joe? Or will she go home? You'll have to wait and see. Please review and let us know what you think.
Richelle Mead owns VA!
