Disclaimer: I don't own Vampire Academy or any of its characters. Just having a bit of fun with the characters. I own nothing but the plot and the new characters

Warning: Spoilers for Vampire Academy and Bloodlines

Chapter 7: First night

Present time

RPOV

The door lock had long ago clicked but my hand was frozen on the handle. Three years ago I wouldn't have hesitated to turn it around and walked inside. I would probably have run inside hoping to meet Dimitri after a long day at work. But that was three years ago, what I would do now was an entirely different matter. Even I didn't now.

All I wanted was to escape this world, to somewhere I could feel completely safe from everything. Where I wouldn't have to doubt everything that I saw and everyone that I met. So I wouldn't have to wonder if they were real or just a fiction of my imagination. That everything wasn't just a dream and anytime I would wake up to red ringed eyes and bared teethes.

No I would not go down that road. It would just lead to another panic attack. I would try to just focus on the present just like the doctors said. Of course I couldn't be held responsible for my nightmares. I knew I couldn't control them and I was terrified of the moment I had to go to sleep. When I was awake I knew that anything could happen but at least Dimitri, Lissa and even Christian could be here to protect me. But in the dream world I would be alone. Utterly and horribly alone. And I would have no control over the situation.

Suddenly a warm hand covered my own and made me turn the handle. For a moment my breathing became erratic as I felt someone mush taller than me stand directly behind me. But my body relaxed instinctively when I recognized the scent that wrapped itself around me.

Together Dimitri and I turned the handle around and opened the door. The first thing that my brain recognized was the smell. It smelled like home. Of Dimitris western, cooked food and the most important thing; safety. Here I knew where everything was. From my photos from Portland, my clothes, breadboards, toothbrushes, bedsheets, hair ties. Okay maybe not hair ties, those were often lost somewhere. But everything was familiar.

As I walked around in our three rooms I realized that everything was exactly like it was three years ago. The bread I'd left on the counter before our trip had of course passed their expiration date and I would hopefully find new food in the refrigerator if I opened it. But the essentials was still here. Our couch, our dining table, our bed. Our home.

For a long time I wandered around in the apartment, just touching everything. Making sure it was real and not just a dream. In the end I stopped in the living room / kitchen. There, on the window overlooking the little park just outside the building stood a framed photo of Dimitri and me. In the photo we sat on the porch to the Belikov house in Baia. We looked happy. Unknowing of that Victoria had her camera out she had managed to capture us right in the middle of a joke long forgotten. Something that had been funny and important back then but didn't matter in the present. I wish I could just re-live that moment. I'd been so happy then.

I wasn't sad about that I seemed happy and carefree back then, I was sad about the fact that I may never feel that kind of happiness again. Right at this moment it didn't seem very possible.

I groaned and rolled over on my back. My head pounded and my throat felt like it hadn't had any to drink in days. I tried to swallow but my mouth felt dry as sand paper. From what I could feel from my body I thought that I had a mild concussion and someone had definitely kicked me in the stomach. I tried to stand up on all four and heard something rustle to my right.

I opened my eyes but nothing happened. I tried again but the result didn't change. It was still pitch black all around me. Even with my dhampir sight I couldn't make out the outline of the walls I surely was surrounded with. Whatever had rustled to my right kept me from raising my hand very high, so it was probably some sort of chain. When I moved my left leg I discovered that the same sort of chain seemed to be holding that leg down to.

I remembered being taken from Dimitris arms and watching the car driving away. After that it's kind of blurry. When I touched my cheeks I could still feel the dried tears I'd cried when Dimitri was taken, so I would guess that I'd only been in this room for a couple of hours. My dry mouth could just be an effect of my bad habit of sleeping with an open mouth combined with the extremely dry air in this room.

Suddenly the room was filled with bright light that blinded my eyes. I tried to roll around to turn away from the light that pained my eyes but the chain stopped me from shielding my eyes completely. Instead I tried to put my free arm over my eyes and sighed happily when a part of the light disappeared.

"Well, well. We can't have you covering that beautiful face of yours now can we." A voice said from what I though was the door opening.

I felt someone grab my arm and pull it back. Letting the bright light shine on me gain. At least now I had had some time getting used to it and it wasn't just as painful as before. Whoever was behind me chained my arm so the only thing that was free was one of my legs.

"What do you want?!" I hissed at the man who stood in the entry to my cell. I could just make out the silhouette of him.

"We wouldn't want to spoil all the fun by telling you. It will all be revealed in good time" He said as he begun to move forward.

"Right now, you and I are going to have so much fun together."

I was pulled back to reality when someone gently shook me and called my name. I looked up to see Lissa's jade green eyes watching me with worry. Dimitri and Christian stood behind her. I didn't want them to worry but I couldn't make them stop either. If Lissa disappeared for three years and then came back I would be worried out of my mind. And I couldn't stop the panic attacks either. I was constantly worried that I would wake up and realize that this was all a dream. All I could do was enjoy it while it lasted if that was the case. And if I would wake up on the cold metal table I could die somewhat happy with this dream fresh on my mind.

"Do you want something to eat?" Lissa asked.

Honestly, I wasn't hungry. I hadn't been hungry since I got here but I guess it would calm them if I ate something or did something that was considered normal.

"Sure" I replied and walked over to the kitchen like it was something I did every day. The truth was that I hadn't had a normal meal for three years. One of my kidnappers had had medical education in his former life and had given me some sort of nutritional drip to keep my body alive but not satisfied.

I opened the door to the refrigerator and looked inside. Someone, probably Lissa, had bought groceries for us. Because from my memory we never had this much food at home. We usually ate at the guardian lounge or ordered take-out. If not Dimitri usually bought something if he wanted to cook some Russian food for us but in that case he didn't but this much. I had just bought the small stuff, like milk and a few eggs.

Lissa had gone all out. There would be food to feed a moroi family for more than a month if you were smart with it. I appreciated the gesture, it was really kind of her but all it did was make my stomach turn.

What I saw next, would three years ago have made me run and make my mouth water. However, today was a different story. Right now it was just a reminder of what I wasn't. What I couldn't make myself to be. It just made me feel useless and meaningless.

A doughnut.

Two plain, not even chocolate glazed, doughnuts was my fall. Two normal doughnuts. It might as well have been the photo frame I'd held in my hand a minute ago. That would have been better. It would have made more sense. This was hard to rationalize even for my Rose-logic.

To everyone's surprise (I guess some part of me was surprised to even if that part was buried deep within me) I took the plate with doughnuts, opened the window and threw them out. I didn't even want them in my trash. That was to close.

Under their stares, I put the now empty plate and laid it down in the sink. With a trembling hand I grabbed a small yogurt drink and walked over to the couch.

-(-)-

Lissa and Christian left after a while. Nobody had tried to start a conversation after I threw my once favourite snack out the window. I was glad they hadn't tried. I wouldn't know what to talk about. "Hi, nice to see you after three years. I'm sorry you thought I was dead while I was really kidnapped and used as a snack the entire time. So what do you think about the weather today?" Somehow I didn't think that would be a good start.

It had also been an odd moment when I couldn't drink up more than half of the yoghurt drink. My mouth and throat wasn't used to swallow after so long time on nutritional drip.

So now it was just me and Dimitri left. Said person hadn't uttered a word since the others left. He just sat down on the couch beside me and opened his arms. I understood that maybe no one would ever understand what I went through. But it didn't matter in this moment. What mattered was that Dimitri was here for me. Without asking question or wondering what had happened while I was away. Without me telling him he understood that if I was ready I would tell him what had happened, and if I would never be ready he would wait forever. Even if he wondered why my body was covered in bite marks and why I would maybe never be able to be in the same room as strangers, he would be there for me.

I was so grateful for that. I knew Lissa would be there for me. She would support me and help me try to recover from everything. But I knew that she would ask questions, she would wonder, always wonder and worry for me. And I would feel everything through the bond, ten times more than I would feel it from Dimitri because, well, she is Lissa, do I need to say more?

When his arms wrapped themselves around me I started to cry. Because I was so thankful for this. For a new chance. For the fact that I could die here and not in the cold dark room. For the fact that I could be buried next to Dimitri in Baia's cemetery. For the fact that I could rest here and not be worried when a door opened and he would enter.

I don't know for how long I cried but Dimitri held me the whole time, comforting me and murmuring in Russian to me. Sometime later when the tears stopped he carried me inside the bedroom and put me down on the bed.

"I'm just going to turn off all the lights, okay?" He whispered and then left me on the bed.

Our bedroom had light colours. Mostly light brown or beige combined with some white and grey. Lissa had made a good decision decoration the whole apartment. The colours where mostly the same all over the apartment which made it feel bigger than it actually was, which was very much needed. Our bedroom was so small that for me (who slept against the wall) it was easier to crawl over from Dimitri's side to mine because there was so little space on my side. But it didn't matter, it worked for us, or at least it had worked three years ago.

On the opposite wall from the bed was a body length mirror. From my position on the bed I could just see my upper body and my head but that was enough. I gasped and moved over so that I could see my whole body, not that it mattered, and I had already seen what I needed to. My skin, that once was tanned and smooth now looked ghostly pale and dry. My face that had under my whole life been full of life and energy now looked hollow and my eyes looked too big for my eyes. I removed my sweater and looked at my upper body. My skin was covered in scars. Crescent shaped bite marks was everywhere that I looked. I looked horrible. Once I would have called myself beautiful but now I wouldn't even go as far as to call myself pretty. If it was just my face I wound say that I just looked sick and I could regain my looks after a while but when you took a look at the rest of my body it didn't look good. I would always carry this scars, maybe not always physically but always mentally.

Right at that moment Dimitri walked in. I was always grateful for the fact that we could understand each other completely but not in this moment. I didn't want him to see how much I hated myself and my body in this moment. But it didn't matter what I wanted or didn't want him to see, he saw my self-hatred.

He walked over and hugged me from behind meeting in my eyes in the mirror.

"There is nothing wrong with you Roza, you're beautiful. Just as beautiful as three…"

"No, I'm not…I'll never be" I interrupted.

Without breaking my gaze in the mirror he tuned me around so that I could look directly in my eyes.

"How about this. I can't convince you to think that you are beautiful, only you can do that. But you need to remember something; you can't change my opinion. I will always think that you are beautiful and you will just have to accept that. What I said before was my opinion, not yours. If I have to spend my whole life trying to convince you that I actually think so then I will do it, gladly. I love you"

"You can't love me, you love the girl from three years ago."

"If that's the case, then I will learn to love you too. And don't say that your feelings have faded. I can't stop you from leaving when I left you. But don't say it and don't mean it. Because you still love me, or at least care for me. Otherwise you wouldn't have broken down in my arms five minutes ago. And if that's all you can give me then I'll take it. I'm happy just to be near you."

I didn't have the energy to fight against what he said so I just hugged him. I changed into one of his t-shirts that almost reached my knees and crawled down under the sheets. He joined me after a while and spooned me from behind. One of his hands covered mine and I felt safe. Safe and protected. I just laid there and enjoyed it for a while until I realized that Dimitri would probably never fall asleep until I did. So while listening to his heartbeat I closed my eyes.

That was the first night I woke up sweating and screaming because of a nightmare.

I don't know when the last time I posted was, it's been a little hectic in my life over the holidays. But anyway, Happy New Year to you all! I hope you have had a great start of 2019 and that you saw some amazing fireworks when the clock turned twelve.

I'll probably post next Saturday and after that I'll go back to posting every other Saturday.

Story recommendation:

If you're into stories with the whole werewolf mate (where you meet each other and instantly know that you are soulmates) you should totally check out "Precious Mate" by "Crazzy2014". She does this concept but with vampires and with Vampire Academy characters. It's so good! You'll be hooked by the end of the first chapter.

So what do you think about it? Give me your thought please! And thank you so mush for one hundred followers, it's fun to know that my work is appreciated:)

Critiques are welcome as well as your opinion! :)

Have a nice day/night, wherever you are!