A/N: Finally some good, old-fashioned Rose and Dimitri time, sorry if the reflections drag on, they're in love)

Chapter 13: Two Hearts: Mine.

Song: Who by Fire by The Panics (Also, I did listen to Don't Fight It by the Panics a lot and the lyrics are from there)

"You have stolen my heart." I told Dimitri as I softly sat at the table beside him, where he'd been lost in his thoughts before I arrived.

"I love you too." He said with a confident smile.

"I do love you, but I was being serious. You stole my heart." My slight smile tried to hide my unhappiness. Perhaps my heart had chosen wrong – or not had a choice at all. Not that I would take it back now, I loved him so truly it was a part of me: heart, lungs, brain, liver, love for Dimitri.

His smile twitched at the corner, "I don't know about that, you were the irresistible woman who wouldn't leave me alone, after all."

"I didn't love you straight away, but you were always there trying to look after me and being so... you, that it killed me. I never thought that I could love, or that I would, but with another guardian? I knew all the reasons against it, all the dangers of dhampirs living their own lives but when I met you, I forgot completely, questioned ever rejection you threw my way, how could something so powerful be impossible, why would anyone want to stop me feeling this way?" My voice wavered in the last question, a whisper of a secret thought.

He leant towards me, "You gave yourself to me so fully, you cannot imagine how that feels to love someone and try to resist, when they have given themselves to you, all their trust, all their happiness and all their fears. It wasn't at all childish and I didn't know how you did it, suddenly your eyes betrayed that you cared what I said and you sought me out unconsciously in every room."

I sighed, not as sadly as before – his voice saying the things I'd always wanted to hear was distracting me.

"Of course I already loved you, but I was avoiding it, not accepting it until then. I couldn't help myself." He smiled at me, "I started purposely being in every room you were in, so your eyes could find me. Watching out for you, because you'd shown me that you had fears and sadness and insecurities buried deep inside your heart and I didn't want that heart hurt. Before, I must admit, it was your bravery and your body I'd noticed, every man on earth already loved that much of you at first sight."

"When did you start accepting it?"

"When I saw that you loved me, in your eyes, even after I'd busted in on you and Jesse... well, teenagers with bad tempers have a tendency to be outraged by authority. You watched me like you had been waiting the entire time for me, and yet you were shocked I existed." He laughed at how that matched our current circumstances. "Then in practice you weren't all rage and energy, slowly you started thinking, watching my strategies instead of commenting on how I was purposefully showing off and trying to beat you up," Another laugh from him, "Yet you listened to every word I said outside of standard practice talk with such intensity, as if 'how is Princess Dragomir' was vitally important in keeping your heart unbroken. I suppose my point is, I was concentrating on you and if you loved me and were showing me that, I couldn't lie to myself either."

As the late hour of the night changed to the earliest morning, I contemplated this whole puzzle. He had stolen my heart – yet it was my fault for giving it to him. It seemed that he didn't know my point of view well enough to explain how he stole my heart, just that I'd given myself fully to him. How did his stealing my heart fit into the memories he'd just shared?

And how was it that I no longer had my heart – it was solely Dimitri's – yet I felt it breaking at times, felt it grow attached to Adrian and felt it melt for both these men? To love, be loved and love again, an endless cycle without any breaks or pauses.

Don't fight it; don't fight it, if you don't know what it is. Just don't fight it, don't fight it, don't fight it, if you don't know what it is... Where has my life gone, where has my fight gone... I won't resist, my answers always this: Don't fight it, don't fight it, don't fight it, if you don't know what it is, if you don't know what it is...

"Rose?" Soul-deep brown eyes, defined jaw and moonlight pouring in.

"Yes?" My lips brushing against each other, my eye lids fluttering and my breathing even.

"Do you not like my answer?"

"Of course I do, it's just... how'd you steal my heart- why did I give myself to you before you accepted loving me, if you hadn't stolen my heart? And I know you had, I just don't know the details." I searched that face, wanted these answers desperately. Because I was a terrible person, loving another, yet I didn't know how I came to be so passionately in love with this man to begin with.

He chuckled, "I don't know, Roza. I think that maybe I was one of the few people to care about what you were doing, whether your plan for the future included you staying alive to graduate. And that we got along so well, matched so perfectly and our souls were made of the same stuff – the passion and fury and loyalty. Well, it was an irresistible combination for me, but for you it was brand new and unlike anything you'd experienced before completely. I didn't love before you, but I'd felt the suggestion of it – thought it possible. And that was uncontrollable. Your heart chose before you knew it was going to."

I sighed, in love and finally understanding how. I looked at his eyes sparkling in the half light, his hand moving to rest on top of mine in my lap.

"You know, considering it from your point of view, it must have been so much more powerful at first for you. I'd tasted desire and love and I could deal with them, knew how emotionally encompassing they were. I am amazed that you didn't start kissing and attacking me sooner." He grinned.

"I thought you didn't want me, didn't think I was pretty or grown up enough for you. No other man had ignored me in that way, the self doubt stung enough to stop me from thinking of such things as a possibility." I explained.

"My mind thought of such things every morning – I had to focus on duelling with you without noticing the way your body moved. How I would make it move if you were four years older, mm... I thought you'd noticed my staring when our eyes met, you had this mischievous glint in them."

I smirked then, "When I was actually considering what you'd do to me if I jumped you right in the middle of practice, how much trouble I would get into. The trouble was worth it, you know, the pain of you finally touching me, just to push me away, was too much to risk."

He looked like he couldn't imagine having the strength to push me away, even in the past. "Well." Then he was kneeling in front of me, kissing me confidently. "I might have to make you forget about that, it doesn't seem to portray me very well."

"I think that would be good." I whispered into his ear, his hands resting on my hips, soft and warm and perfect.

The feeling of his hands on me was never enough so long as he still had his clothes on, so as we made our way to the bed only a metre away, I did my best to remove his clothing.

Screaming into emptiness, for his ears alone
as far from alone as I could be,
Isolated from reality.
My name panted into my ear,
his hands strong and lethal:
gentle as they tightened around me.
His tongue, everywhere and restless.
His body beneath my own as I drifted to sleep,
his eyes drooping as well.

When I woke again my head was on his chest as he leaned against the wall.

"I love you, Dimitri Belikov."

"I love you, Roza."

I suppose he thought that I was completely his, so long as no one else called me that. And I was his Roza, because no one else knew me like he did and it signified that person I was with him. "Do you miss our love being forbidden?"

"No, but in a way it still is, loving a dead man. Honestly, Rose, there is no one you could love that wouldn't be forbidden, you're a female guardian: love doesn't exist for you. No moroi or dhampir would be socially accepted as more than a 'lover'. Sometimes I wonder if telling you to grow up was the right thing to do, maybe you wouldn't have suffered so deeply, taken responsibility for so much. Maybe you could have had a love that wasn't forbidden: just a reckless teenager with a self-indulgent moroi."

"You changed my life, yes, but I wouldn't have survived the past few years without you – hell, I would have been thrown out that first day we met if it wasn't for you. Come to think of it, we never would have been caught without you, thanks." I smirked at him and kissed him quickly, "I would have found you eventually."

"You weren't looking for someone like me, though, you weren't looking at all. You were surrounded by boys who would have loved to make you happy – for five minutes or for the rest of your life. But you were going to be a guardian."

"I suppose. But Lissa was going to live out the fairytale for both of us; I would have made sure of that." I smiled slightly, remembering a time when we were both young enough to believe that was possible and that it would be good enough.

"What is Lissa up to these days?" He murmured.

"Same old Lissa," I quickly checked on her mind, "Christian snuck into her dorm room, and she's watching him sleep. Blah, Blah, she loves him, she ..." She wonders whether Adrian and I were together earlier. I blocked of her thoughts instantly. I cough, "She thinks a lot of things I don't want to know."

He chuckled, "I remember how I used to have to distract you."

"Mm... Tell me about how you saw me, at first."

"You already must know the effect your body has on men. I was used to ignoring that when I was working, I saw how beautiful you were but I didn't think much of it: you were a student. It was obvious you had an attitude and a temper to be reckoned with, but you cared so much about Lissa, you were so brave." He grinned, playing with my hair.

"I always wondered if you thought about me."

"Well, when you started wearing such sexy things all the time and I couldn't escape it – at practice you would be wearing the equivalent of underwear, then in class you'd be pushing the school rules – I had to think about you."

"I needed you then, so thank you." I smiled up at him.

"And I need you now, Rose, I love you. Don't forget that, no matter what happens. A lot has happened but we're still here."

"I know; I love you too." I buried my head against his chest.

"No one else will ever know me again, I'm stuck in this forest, still yet no one would ever have had me the way you do – even if the attack hadn't happened and we hadn't stayed together."

"We would have stayed together." I stated.

"In a perfect world..." he whispered against my hair, "Sleep now, Roza."

And I was so tired, his voice so irresistible, that I did.

"Rose..." Dimitri murmured into my dreams, then his lips were on mine and the dream dissolved into his face against mine, his hand on my shoulder.

"Hi." I sleepily smiled, rubbing a hand over my face.

He grinned, an inch away from my face, like a camera's focus too close for a proper frame. "Hi, it's just after six, and your phone has been ringing for awhile now."

"Oh, oops, I slept in, but it's still a bit early for people to be noticing that I'm missing." I took my phone from his hand and glanced at the screen: two missed calls from Lissa, one from Christian and a couple of texts from Lissa and Eddie.

I read through the texts:

Hey Rose, are you coming to breakfast?
Eddie.

Please come to breakfast as soon as you see this,
Love, Lissa.

Rose, where are you? You need to come to breakfast asap.
xx Lissa.

I shook my head at Dimitri as I stretch, "Lissa is planning a birthday thing for me and it's probably about that, she wants me at breakfast. Which won't be ending for a few more hours, so I have time to stay and make you breakfast first."

I walked over and turned on the kettle, finding some bread and a worn looking toaster. The fridge wasn't still fully stocked, so it was good to see he was eating, at least.

I put a coffee in front of him and a plate of toast, and then sat across from him with my own coffee.

"You don't need to stay if you're friends are looking for you," Dimitri started.

"I don't need to run off, I do that enough on school days, let's just enjoy the start of the day for a few minutes. We're completely alone out here, just us and the quiet, I kind of like it, you know? Space to breathe."

"I like it when your here, it's very isolated though, like the rest of the world doesn't exist." I could see how that would make him feel like I'd forgotten him in a matter of hours, silence always made time slow.

"Yet I'm just through that forest and always coming back to you. We can't take the risk of anything more, I know it sucks, so many times I've considered other options, but this is best. For now." I held his gaze empathetically, of course he didn't need me to say it – he would have reasoned through everything a lot faster than me.

"I know, this is the only place in the world for me now, with you. I can wait." He smiled and leaned across the table to kiss me as I threaded my fingers through his.