When Rose is shot by Tasha Ozera in Last Sacrifice, both Lissa and Adrian use all of the Spirit they can wield to try and bring her back. In a shocking turn of events, Rose is not only healed, but somehow ends up somewhere she never could have imagined. Canon up until Time-Travel. Rated T for language. First multi-chapter fic.

Victor had been found and recaptured while trying to escape campus. I was glad, even though it meant Natalie's sacrifice had been for nothing. Rumors said that Victor hadn't seemed afraid at all when the royal guards came and carried him away. He'd simply smiled the whole time, like he had some secret they didn't know about. In as much as it could, life returned to normal after that.

Vampire Academy

-Richelle Mead

Bonds Of Time

Chapter Ten

Spectrum

When I came to seconds later. Lissa had jumped forward and had her hand outstretched and was about to put it on my hand, but I yelped and backed up so far that I fell off of the stretcher.

"You can't use it anymore, Liss," I pleaded with her as the nurse hauled my ass back onto the bed, "Not until we figure out how to stop the side effects."

"I know." She sighed in defeat. "I just hate it that you've been hurt so bad, Rose. I want to be able to help you. You saved my life."

"Vicci didn't order the hounds to kill you, Liss." I said with a small laugh. "He just wanted them to stop you. And don't worry about me. I'll be just fine."

"But look at you!" She exclaimed hotly. "You look like an old chew toy!"

"You look like a Backwoods Barbie that's been ran over!" I retorted as I glanced at her from head to toe and saw nothing but dirt caked clothes and twigs stuck in her blond hair. "Honestly, you can come back and bitch at me after you've been fed and hosed down. Christian help me out here."

Christian held up his hands as he looked from me and Lissa. "I'm not even going to touch this one."

"I'm fine, Lissa." I told her seriously. "A few stitches and I'm out of here."

"Promise?" Lissa said as tears pooled in her eyes.

"Aw, come here." We were both filthy, so I didn't feel bad about giving her a big hug.

"I love you, Rose." She whispered to me. "Thank you for saving us."

"Love you too." I whispered back as she pulled back and wiped her eyes.

They put me on a morphine drip that gave me little drops of liquid sunshine while they stitched up my hands and leg like a patchwork quilt. My eyes felt gritty and dry and my tongue felt like I had been sucking on the old mattress that sat outside mine and Lisa's apartment in Portland. Despite being heavily drugged, I stayed awake during the whole process. Maybe I was too wired up or in too much pain, whatever the cause, my state of mind was going downhill fast. Because I was starting to hallucinate.

I had to be hallucinating. There was no way in the world that Janine Hathaway would leave her charge to visit me. It just wouldn't happen. I stared at the figure in the doorway. I squinted my eyes and tried to get my vision to clear.

"Is there a person standing there or am I going nutzo?" I asked the doctor as he finished stitching up my foot.

"Miss Hathaway!" Dr. Olendzki exclaimed. "What a wonderful surprise!"

"Doctor," Janine nodded as she walked into the exam room, "how is she?"

"She'll be right as rain by morning." The doctor smiled at my mother.

"Mom?" I scratched my head with a bandaged hand. "What are you doing here?"

"I got a message two days ago that said that you had been in an accident and that I needed to come here." She said as she searched me for signs of grievous injury. "What happened?"

"That's all they told you?" I was really hoping that they had given her more information than that. "Well this is going to take a while."

Janine's eyes narrowed as she pulled up a chair and sat down next to me. "Explain. Now."

My mother had left after my lengthy explanation, saying that she had to speak to Guardian Petrov and that she would see me at breakfast. I wasn't prepared when she pulled me into a hug and told me that she was glad that I was okay. I hugged her back and patted her back as she informed me that I wasn't allowed to take part in anymore dangerous stunts. I crossed my bandaged fingers as I nodded my head.

An hour later I was ready to leave the clinic, with instructions to come back in the morning to have the stitches checked. Freezing cold air and snowflakes hit me the second I opened the door. I stumbled out onto the concrete sidewalk and had to use a wooden bench to catch myself from falling face first into the snow. My leg ached badly and the stitches pulled with every move I made. The entire campus was asleep, safe and warm in their beds, and I was left in the cold all alone. It took almost an hour of limping through the snow covered grounds for me to reach the chapel. Flip flops had not been the best choice of footwear but they were all the nurse could find in the lost and found, after my beautiful boots had been destroyed. My toes had turned blue halfway there and knew that if I didn't make to the chapel soon, I would end up with frost bite.

Thankfully, the chapel door was unlocked and it only took a few minutes of pawing at the handle with my bandaged hands to get it open. The heat felt glorious on my feet and the candles, being the only light on, were lining the front of the chapel and cast an eerie yet cozy glow throughout the large space. My feet could not carry me any further and I collapsed into a pew in the very back. I propped my injured leg up and leaned back as best as I could, reveling in the peace and quiet that solitude brought.

My eyes were closed and I was singing one of Lisa's favorite songs in my head when the chapel door opened hours later. The footsteps were so quiet that I wouldn't have heard them had they not been so easily recognizable. There was only one person I knew that could walk without making much sound. And that person sat down in the pew across the aisle from me.

Dimitri had his head in his hands as he sat there silently. There was no way he could have known that I was here. I hadn't made a sound since the doors opened and was still as possible to avoid alerting him to my presence. But fate had other plans. Or maybe it was just the pain medication wearing off that caused my bad leg to fall off the pew with a loud thud, taking the rest of me with it and sending Dimitri into guardian defcon five.

I yelped loudly when my back hit the hard wood floor and my leg started to feel like it was on fire again. But neither was as painful as the hit my ego took when I looked up to see a very irritated Dimitri staring down at me. The look on his face said that he really didn't want to talk to me, but I had interrupted his quiet time and now he had no choice.

"Hey, comrade," I plastered a fake smile on my face, "what are you up to?"

"Why aren't you in the clinic, Rose?" Rose…ouch. No 'Roza' for me.

"I escaped." I whispered and nodded my head. "Three times in two months is a little too much clinic for old Rose here."

I used my elbows to push myself into a sitting position, from there I was able to half pull half drag the rest of my body back onto the narrow pew. Dimitri watched me struggle, and even though I saw his hands twitch like he was getting ready to catch me if I slipped, he made no move to help me. I was grateful for that. My pride couldn't take another hit. Dimitri sat beside me once he was sure I wasn't going to fall over again.

"Are you okay, Roza." His voice was quiet and tentative, as though he wasn't quite sure of how to act around me anymore.

"Do you have any idea how worried I was about you?" I asked him. "When I was pulled into bond, I could see you tranquilized and you were out cold. Do you know how bad I felt when I realized that I would either be able to rescue you or rescue Lissa and Christian. It was the worst thing that I have ever been through."

"You didn't need to worry about me." Dimitri chuckled. "I was out of the ropes within seconds of waking up and the guards were easily subdued."

There was no question in my mind that Dimitri could take down the guards and even Victor. But the thought of him being that close to a Strigoi had almost ripped me apart. I couldn't take that kind of pain again. I was still plagued with the memory of Dimitri's time as a Strigoi. I don't think I'd ever be able to just forget it. I had nightmares constantly of the night I had shoved a stake into Dimitri's heart and watch him fall from that bridge. Every single time it broke my heart.

"The Princess has a very unique gift." Dimitri said, breaking me out of my thoughts. "I can understand why you fight so fiercely to keep it a secret."

"How?" I choked out. "How do you know?"

"I had to break both of my thumbs to get out of the ropes." Dimitri shook his head and I could see him reliving the moment as he stared at his hands. "When she saw the injury she said that she could heal them. I didn't believe it until I felt them pop back into place. There was no pain whatsoever."

"It would be wonderful, if it didn't hurt her so badly." I growled out. "I hate to think of how much damage it's caused with her healing Victor."

"Don't worry. The Headmistress and Ms. Carmack are already working on the best way to help her." Dimitri promised.

"Do you think she'll ever forgive me for killing Natalie? I mean I just killed her friend," I whispered, "she was just a stupid little girl. And I killed her."

Dimitri sat back against the pew and crossed his arms. "She was Strigoi. She turned of her own free will. Had you not killed her she might have escaped only to kill again. Then those deaths would have been on both our consciences. The princess can't blame you for that."

"I know." I turned to look at him. "What bother's me the most is that I'd do it all over again if I had to."

"You should have taken Victor outside like I asked you to." He said after a long moment of awkward silence. "You should not have taken that risk."

My hackles raised immediately in irritation, but when I looked at him, I could only see how worried he looked. "I'm sorry I went against your orders. But I had the advantage and I used it."

Dimitri looked momentarily shocked at my apology. I think that this was the first time I had ever apologized to him. And it really caught him off guard. So off guard that he put his arm around me and pulled me close so that my back was partially leaning on his chest. My heart leapt in joy and sadness. I had missed this so much.

"When you walked into that room, I was so scared, Roza." Dimitri's voice held this deathly calm that I couldn't ignore. "I didn't even see Dashkov's daughter until she had run into the room screaming. At that point I thought that she was just distraught over what her father had done. It wasn't until I saw her eyes that I realized that she was Strigoi. By then it was too late for the guardians that had been with him. She killed one while I was trying to pull Prince Dashkov out of harms way. The other had merely gotten too close to her, not knowing what she had become. I was trying to keep her attention diverted until I had a way out. Then the sun came up and I knew she was trapped in that cabin, screaming and throwing things, but we were trapped too."

His arms arm tightened around me as he continued his side of the story. "And then you walked in, covered in blood, looking like an avenging angel and my heart stopped. There was such rage and pain in your eyes that I couldn't even begin to imagine what had happened. I feared that the Princess or Mr. Ozera were dead. Don't get me wrong, you are more than capable, Roza. But you haven't been trained to stake Strigoi yet, and Natalie was someone close to you. I feared for you."

I put my gauzed hand on his arm and patted it gently, letting him know that I wasn't offended that he had doubted me.

"All I could think about was that I should have let Natalie kill her father and then staked her before she could hurt anyone else. I held back, thinking that I had everything under control. But you, Roza, you didn't hold back. You did what you were trained to do and more. I am proud to say that you didn't hesitate like I did. You may have ignored a direct order, but you handled the situation like a true guardian. And all I could think was that I never wanted to see you that close to a Strigoi again. I never want you to be in any danger."

"I'm tougher than you think, Comrade." I smiled at him.

After a few moments of comfortable silence, he leaned forward and light brushed his lips against mine, as though he was testing his resolve, and then everything in the world disappeared except for him. He carefully placed my arms behind his head and scooped me up and stood to leave the chapel. I wanted to tell him that I could walk just fine on my own, but the feeling of him being so close was too good to lose.

The kiss ended when Dimitri opened the door and carried me out of the church. The cold didn't bother me as I had burrowed into Dimitri's duster with him. I kept my face buried in his shoulder as he walked back through the thick snow to the dorms.

"I'm very proud of you." Dimitri told me with a heart melting smile.

Dimitri was gentle as he placed me on the my bed. I reached up and pulled him in for another deep kiss. The bright smile was still on his face when we finally surfaced for air. And I know my own was no different.

"Goodnight, Roza." Dimitri walked out and shut the door behind him, leaving me to a very restless sleep.

Only I wasn't really asleep. I was standing in an apartment in New York City that overlooked Central Park. Wearing a skin tight bright red cocktail dress and hooker heels.

I was going to kill Adrian.

- End Chapter Ten -

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