I just want to thank my reviewers for their kind words- it makes me so happy that people enjoy reading what I write! May all your Dimitri/Adrian/otherVAguy dreams come true!

Disclaimer: I'm not Richelle Mead, so I don't own Vampire Academy.

RPOV

I woke up first the next day, which was rare. My back ached a bit from sleeping on the hard ground all night, but I really couldn't care less. I shifted a bit, trying to find a more comfortable position. In the end, I moved so I could look at Dimitri's sleeping face; he was smiling as he dreamed. He should enjoy it whilst it lasts though, as however stiff I was, Dimitri had to worse; at least I'd had him for a pillow. He appeared to be resting his head on his folded-up jeans from yesterday.

That made me remember that we didn't actually have any clothes on, and we were in the woods where anyone could stumble across us. Meh, I didn't really care. Lucky them, it was a privilege to see me without clothes, very few had, though many had wanted to.

I laughed at the thought of unsuspecting humans finding two naked half-vampires in the woods. The sound woke Dimitri up.

He didn't open his eyes yet, but moved his arm from where it was draped over my waist and rubbed my back, trailing his fingers over the sensitive skin and sending an electric current through my body, turning my thoughts to the night before.

As I shivered at the memory, he opened his eyes. "Good morning, my beautiful Roza." He whispered with a smile.

"It is." I whispered back. I played with the ring on my finger, and remembered the engraving. "What does it say?" I asked.

He knew what I was talking about straight away. "It's written twice; in English and Russian. Роза и Дмитрий вечно и всегда. Rose and Dimitri, forever and always."

I wasn't sure what to say to that, so instead I pressed my lips to his, and hoped that I got my point across, of how much I loved him.

We watched the sun rise together, which was the perfect end to our little trip, and the perfect beginning to this next chapter of our lives. Oh dear, it seemed being engaged had made me turn sappy. I'd have to put a stop to that part before Christian picked up on it.

Just before we left, I took a picture of the 2 of us on top of our hill. I had no doubt that I would remember this moment forever, but still wanted tangible evidence.

As we walked back towards the campsite, I found myself getting more and more nervous about telling everyone. At first I had been excited, but now the butterflies had stopped flapping their pretty little wings and had turned into a swarm of bees, buzzing around in my stomach and being generally annoying.

It wasn't just what my friends thought; it was everyone else in the Moroi world. For Guardians to be together was scandalous enough, to get married sealed the deal that we weren't going to be making any more little Dhampirs with anyone else. Even worse, we were Royal Guardians, so what we did would reflect badly on Lissa.
Dimitri was walking on my left, and noticing me biting my lip, which I only did when nervous or deep in thought, (let's face it, I wasn't going to be thinking all that much right now) took my hand, squeezing my fingers gently.

I looked down at our intertwined fingers, my ring sparkling between them. The image looked so right, that it washed away my fears. I looked up into Dimitri's brown eyes, and realised that the only person's opinion that really mattered to me was his, and that our friends wouldn't condemn us. They knew better than anyone that you couldn't help who you fell in love with. No matter what the rest of our world thought, we would always have a place in that group of social misfits. One of which, funnily enough, just happened to be the Queen.

I was Rose Hathaway, since when did I give a toss what people thought of me? This was going to be fun; I couldn't wait to see the looks on the faces of people I used to know when I introduced myself as Rose Belikova.

The thought sent pleasant shivers of anticipation down my spine, and I walked a little faster, suddenly desperate to show off my ring, and the story of my fiancé's perfect proposal.
"Slow down, Roza. You'll trip and fall if you're not careful." Dimitri said, ever the sensible (boring) one.

I scoffed. "Me? Badass Guardian, epic fighter, trip over a tree root? Yeah, right."

He chuckled. "Well, at least look where you're going. You know what they say, 'pride goeth before a fall.'"

I let go of his hand, and spun around, facing the clear, blue early morning sky. "Whoever said that couldn't have been all that creditable. Who said it any-"

I tripped over a tree root, and hit the ground hard, right on my ass. I sat there, blinking in shock, whilst in front of me, Dimitri shook with laughter, barely able to stand up straight.

I huffed loudly, crossing my arms over my chest. "Well, it wasn't that funny. Now get your ass over here and help me up."

Still laughing, he made his way over to me. I shot him my best evils that would definitely have had anyone else running for cover, but it just made him laugh harder. He helped me up anyway, and stood looking down at me, shaking his head. I could sense one of his Zen lessons coming, so I cut in front of him before he could speak.

"Well, if you're so much better than me in the complex art of walking, then go ahead and prove it to me. In fact, you can carry me the rest of the way."

I expected him to come back with some oh-so-mature response, or at least to shake his head at me, but crouched down in front of me instead.
"Climb on, then. I know you wouldn't have fallen if you weren't in sugar withdrawal, so the sooner we get you breakfast, the better."

I didn't need to be asked twice. Shouldering the rucksack that he had dropped on the floor a minute ago, I jumped onto his back. He straightened up, bouncing me higher and holding onto my legs.

I held on tight around his neck, a rare feeling of normal surrounding me. "Wow, Comrade. You can see for miles up here. How do you cope with the lack of oxygen and altitude sickness?" I joked.

"I don't know, you tell me," he said. Before I knew it, I was bumped up even higher, ending up sitting on his shoulders, hands on the top of his head trying to balance. Before I could stop myself, I shrieked, and he laughed at the very un-Rose like noise.

I didn't feel very stable, and though I knew he wouldn't let me fall, I didn't like it. I was well over 8 feet off the ground- his shoulders came to nearly 6 foot, then there was the height of my upper body. I tried to think of a comeback for his question, but it wasn't my best.
"Uh- I think it's different for people with naturally giraffe-like proportions. Average people like me shouldn't be up here, we're not made for it." He hadn't stopped walking, and I was starting to feel a little dizzy.

He helped me down into a piggyback again, and I wrapped my legs around his waist, resting my head against his neck, relieved to be lower again. "Okay, respect to all giants for putting up with lack of oxygen. But that was mean." I said, and raised one hand to smack him gently on the top of the head.

"I'm sorry." He said, but he didn't sound it. In fact, he sounded like he was trying not to laugh. I let it go, just enjoying the ride.

When we eventually arrived back at the campsite, we saw everyone around the fire pit, eating breakfast. Christian was seated on the side of the fire facing us, so he saw us first. "Oh, hey. Looks like Rose did get the ride." It was actually a pretty good one, for him.

Everyone turned to where he was looking, and most called out greetings. Dimitri walked over to the edge of the circle, and I jumped off his back, landing right next to Lissa and Christian.
"You bet I did, Pyro. And that's not all." He looked confused, but I left them in suspense, turning to Dimitri and giving him a pat on the cheek, with my left hand.

"Good boy." I crooned, earning laughs from those closest to us.

Suddenly Lissa shot up, and shouted "Let me see it!"
It seemed that my flashing my left hand had not gone completely unnoticed after all, but I ignored her as I turned to face the crowd.

"Everyone, Dimitri and I are getting married." All the girls, except the Guardians of course, screamed, and came running over to me.

They all gushed over the ring, grabbing my hand to look at it, and asking questions on 'how he did it.' Not wanting to tell the story a hundred times over, I told them all to go get me something to eat, only then would we tell them what they wanted to know.

I quickly realised that Lissa had already known that Dimitri was going to ask me, I didn't need the bond for that. I didn't care though, and could tell that she wanted all the details. I wasn't surprised; after all, Christian had spoken to me before asking Lissa.

We spent the next hour telling the story; it took so long because we kept being interrupted by the girls asking silly questions, half of which we had already told them the answer to, the other half we didn't yet know the answer to ourselves, as they were about the wedding. All I knew was that I wanted to have the wedding in Russia, away from the judgement that would no doubt surround us at Court, and where Dimitri's whole family would be able to attend easily. After all, everyone else who I wanted at my wedding was here right now (except from Sonya and Mikhail, who would be joining us here tomorrow). They would all be able to make the trip.

I could tell that my mom wanted to talk to me, so as soon as people began disappearing off to do their own thing for the day, I left Dimitri talking to Christian about wedding dates. Lissa's wedding was coming up soon, and we didn't want anything to get in the way of that.

I made my way over to where mom was sitting, on the other side of the circle, next to Abe. I sat down on the other side of her.
"Hey, mom, old man. What do you think?" I shoved my hand with the ring under their noses. Abe picked my hand up and brought it to his eyelevel, scrutinising the diamond. He raised his eyebrows and nodded slowly.

"It's a good one; Belikov sure knows how to pick a rock." He said, grudgingly.

I turned to mom. "It's beautiful, Rose." She paused a moment. "Just as long as you're sure this is what you want, that you're ready."

I had been expecting this. "Yes, mom, I'm sure that I want to marry Dimitri. I love him, and after everything we've been through, I know he's worth fighting for."

She sighed. "I know that, but other people don't. Those at Court are judgemental at the best of times, and this will be quite the scandal. Also, you're my daughter Rose, and it's only been a year since we started speaking again. You may be ready for this, but you're still so young. You're almost 19; don't you think you should wait a while?"

I strung her along a bit. "What, like, 25?" I asked.

She smiled. "Exactly. I know you're engaged, but if you said you wanted to wait, then Dimitri would-"

I cut across her. "Then Dimitri would be 32." I let that hang between us for a few moments, before I continued. "Look, mom. I see why you don't want me getting married this young, especially when others will try to condemn us for it. But I'm Rose, since when do I care what others think of me? They've been judging me and spreading rumours my whole life, if they want to bitch about something that's actually true, then let them. In fact, I want the world to know that Dimitri is mine, and that I'm his." I took a deep breath before going onto my next point.

"As for waiting, you should know better than most people that as Guardians, we don't have the luxury of putting things off for later. I've lost Dimitri before, when we had only just...sorted things out between us. Then, we fixed everything again, and I got shot, and he nearly lost me. After that, I swore that one day, if I get into a fight that I can't win, I would die knowing that I did everything the way I wanted to, and I could leave this world with no regrets. I know this better than anyone, I have died twice, and I've seen people I love die, too. I'm ready for this, and I want it. You know what they say; Guardians have to grow up young. I didn't get much of a childhood, and I made my first kills young, I became a Royal Guardian at 18. I think I know if I'm ready to marry the man I love." I finished, daring either of my parents to try and contradict me.

I don't exactly know what I expected to happen, but it certainly wasn't this.

My mom stood up, and hugged me tight. "I'm sorry, Rose. I didn't mean it like that." She pulled back, but kept her hands on my arms. "I know that you've been through a lot, you both have. You've grown up a lot over the last year. Last few years, really. At the time, it may have seemed to us like running away was a childish idea but you were right all along that Lissa was in danger, and you kept her safe better than the Academy did. If you say that you're ready for this, then I believe you, and I'm happy for you."

Abe spoke now. "I'm proud of you, Kiz. It's good to see you inherited my gift of giving persuasive speeches. Though, we already knew that, since you talked your way out of being accused of killing the Queen. Dimitri's going to have his hands full with you."

I shook my head. "Thanks for that, dad. And he can handle it; he's put up with me for the last year, after all."

Abe focused slightly behind me. "He better do. If he hurts you, then I'll-"

"Yeah, yeah. He's heard it all before, haven't you?" I turned around to where I knew Dimitri was standing behind me. I took his hand, and stood up.

"Lissa wants to talk to you." He told me.

I turned back to my parents. "Well, Her Majesty calls. I'll talk to you later."

With that Dimitri walked over to where Lissa and Christian were. I sat down next to her, and Dimitri sat on the other side of Christian. "Hey, Rose. What did the scary parents say?"

I snorted. "Scary? Have you not met me? They are both dangerous, granted, but I am the perfect mix of both of them. However scary they are, I'm twice as bad, therefore do not fear them."
Lissa and Dimitri both raised an eyebrow, but Christian commented, "someone has a high opinion of herself."

Lissa looked at him funny. "You actually understood that?"
That shut him up, and I answered her question.

"They were worried that I was rushing into this, that I was too young. But I gave them a very impressive speech that I can't be bothered to repeat about why I was ready, and that shut them up. Oh, and my mom nearly cried at the end."
They all blinked in shock.
"Yeah, I know, right?" I was still amazed, but glad that she obviously cared that much about me."

Lissa suddenly jumped up and started speaking. "Oh, Rose! I just remembered, what do you want to do for your birthday? It's the day after tomorrow, after all. I mean, it's only 2 days away."

Aah, shit. I was hoping that they'd have forgotten, I'd been deliberately avoiding this.

Dimitri spoke up. "I thought you two would have already planned something."
Yeah, I had planned to spend the whole day with Dimitri, preferably in bed.

"We don't have to do anything special. I thought we could just watch a movie or something. 19 isn't really a big deal."

I saw understanding in Lissa's eyes. Christian was a different matter. "Well, yeah. But I thought you'd want to make something of it, seeing how your 18th was so...oh." He trailed off, realising his mistake. I glared at him.

"Yeah, I think a movie sounds great." Lissa said quickly.

"And we could just play some games or something." Christian added.

"That's perfect, guys. Go for it."Dimitri looked between us, confused. Before he could speak, I jumped in. "So if we're all sorted here, who wants to go for a swim in the lake?" I asked.

Mia, who had just walked up, shouted to everyone else; "Swimming in the lake, everyone!" before running off to find Eddie.

Lissa stood up. "Looks like we're swimming, then. Come on Christian." She dragged him away to their tent, and I followed, shouting after them. "Don't forget your floaties, Pyro. Fire and water don't mix, remember?"

That's all for now, don't want to overload everyone. I think we're all pretty high on the set pictures, anyway ;P SO MANY FEELS.

Review and go swimming in the lake with Dimitri... Dimitri, just wearing trunks, covered in water, secluded location... mm-hmm! Now go review! ;D