Talking Jill down from the ledge was exhausting, considering I still didn't understand everything about what had transpired between her and her mother. I could only figure out that Emily had told her who her father was. I don't understand exactly why Jill was so upset, if she'd never known him anyways. I hadn't known my father up until just recently, and I wouldn't have even known Abe was my father if I hadn't figured it out myself. I hadn't cried, even though I think I had every right to do so upon learning that I was the offspring of Zmey. But Jill was different than me; She was younger, and with more child-like innocence. I couldn't help but feel for her.

I held Jill until she was able to stop the tumultuous tears. She pulled back, and, looking embarrassed, wiped her face. "Sorry." She mumbled. I smiled weakly at her, and Christian placed an awkward hand on her back, giving her a quick pat.

"It's ok." I said.

"Nice birthday present, huh?" She gave a hollow laugh, and I could feel her disappointment burning into me. I looked at Christian helplessly.

"Jill…" I began, unsure of what I was going to say. "Do you want to go do something?"

She wiped her eyes again, looking at me with curiosity. "Like what?"

"Something fun?" I said, in a lame attempt to cheer her up. Jill was scowling, but she did seem to perk up a bit. Only problem was, I didn't know what to do to make her feel better. I gave Christian a desperate look.

"How would you feel about going to a party?" He asked her. I groaned inwardly. I knew of no parties, and I really wasn't in a party mood. I really wanted nothing more than sleep. But I saw the desire beginning to form in Jill's eyes, and I gave Christian an angry look.

"Where would we throw a party?" She asked, looking back over her shoulder with a contemptuous glance. I could tell she didn't want to go back to her house any time soon.

"We aren't going to throw a party." Christian said. "But we can crash one, if you want."

"Crash it?" Jill repeated at the same time as me, our voices in synch. Except Jill's was curious and excited. Mine was disapproving.

"Sure. Jesse Zeklos is having a party tonight. Nobody will care if we show up."

"Excuse me," I said hotly. "I'll care." Jesse was not one of my favorite people. I didn't want to go to a party at all, and I really didn't want to be seen at one of his parties. Besides, I wasn't supposed to be seen out and about without Lissa. I looked to Jill, and saw her looking a little put out. But she was still holding onto a sliver of hope that I would agree to go.

"You don't count." Christian said dismissively. Jill looked between us, torn.

"I'd like to go…" She said quietly. Her gaze and Christian's fell upon me, making me uncomfortable. I didn't want to go, but I felt so bad for Jill. She needed something to take her mind off of all of this. I sighed.

"Fine."

Christian smiled at Jill's exuberant squeak. She rushed forward and hugged me again, and I hoped I was making the right decision in agreeing to go. We had to get back to Court before we could go to any party, though, which meant we needed a taxi. Luckily, Jill was all over that. She'd been given a cell phone a few weeks ago as an early birthday gift, and she used that to dial 411 and get a cab sent to us. I was very hesitant about waiting for the cab out in the middle of the road. I told Jill we should go back to her house and tell her mother where we were going, but Jill wanted nothing to do with her mother at the moment.

"Why?" She asked me defiantly. "She doesn't care about me anyways."

"Jill…" I sighed. I had forgotten what it was like to be fifteen. I had thought the very same thing of my mother at her age. Everything was so much more dramatic in your younger teenage years, and the only way to simmer down from an emotional high like that was to let your anger take it's course. "Just remember, she loves you, ok?"

Jill avoided making eye contact, but I was sure she knew that her mom cared. Her anger was speaking louder than reason right now, which was something that I could understand. I didn't miss being her age even for a minute.

"So," Christian said when we were in the back of another cab. "How's this for a birthday present?"

Jill smiled. "I'm so glad you guys came to rescue me! If you guys hadn't been there when she told me, I don't know what I would have done."

Probably lock yourself in your room and cry, I thought. But I was just now tackling what Jill had said. "She wouldn't have told you if we hadn't come." It was an inconvenient truth, of course, but she deserved to know. Jill frowned, looking perplexed. "It wasn't any coincidence that we came here right before your mom told you."

"You knew?" Jill asked, her voice full of anxiety and betrayal.

"I didn't know it was you. I just knew I had to find the last Dragomir."

"That's all I am now? The Dragomir? Am I even Jill anymore?"

I looked at her, trying to conceal just how ridiculous I thought she was being. "Of course you are. But you have an obligation-"

"No, you have an obligation." Jill said quietly, cutting me off. I was surprised to hear her interrupt me. I think she was too, because she avoided looking at me. "You have an obligation to me. I don't understand what's going on."

I'd thought that part was imminently clear, but I guess not. I sighed. "You are from a Royal family. That puts you in a position where you're going to have to make choices-"

"That's not what I mean." She said. But she did not offer to elaborate or tell me what she meant, so we rode the rest of the way to the airport in silence. By some little miracle, we made it to the airport twenty minutes before the plane we needed was due to depart. Because we had no wait time to figure in, we were on the plane within moments of purchasing our tickets.

Christian sat on his own again, and Jill sat next to me, although she didn't seem very happy about it. I was beginning to feel hazy, and I was feeling like sleeping. At least the ghosts didn't bother me the way they used to when I was flying. I figured since Christian was far away and Jill wasn't feeling very cordial, I would allow myself to rest, but just when I curled my body against the window, Jill turned to me.

"Tell me everything." She said, her voice cracking from staying so quiet for so long. I looked at her in surprise.

"Everything about what?"

"I want to know everything that happened since you guys came to Court. I want to know how you found out about me. And I want to know what he was like."

It didn't take a neurosurgeon to figure out that she wanted to know everything about Eric. I nodded. "Ok. Where should I start?"

"The part when you got to court. Tell me what you've been doing since then."

And so I did. I spent the entire ride filling her in on everything, and just as she asked me to, I left out no details. I told her all about how Dimitri had captured Lissa and Christian to get to me, recalling how we had attacked and how Lissa had saved Dimitri. I told her of how, after he'd come back he didn't want to see me, and how it was during that time that the royal court voted in favor of an age decree younger than the current one, how I'd argued it to be unfair. I explained to her the intricacies of the quorum, how there had to be a tie breaker, meaning the queen's vote had carried extra weight, since Lissa could not be recognized, seeing as she had no family. I recounted how it was shortly after that the queen was murdered, telling her in detail about the day the queen's guardian's had arrested me. I gave her every harrowing detail of my hearing and my stint in prison, told her that was why Adrian and Lissa had left to clear my name. I explained about the letter that Ambrose gave to me from the queen. I told her how I'd found another official letter from the queen in the form of her will, and how the signatures had matched. I explained how I'd pulled a lot of strings and done some risky things to obtain the information I needed to find her. I regretfully told her about what had happened with Mia, how Damon had turned, and even told her about how I pawned the necklace Victor Dashkov had gifted me to be able to afford this sojourn.

I wanted Jill to know that I trusted her, so that she would feel more open to trusting me. And it was true, because I really did trust her, unlike how I'd ever trusted anybody before. Perhaps it was the fact that she reminded me of Lissa now that I knew, particularly those innocent, hopeful green eyes. I even told her about how I'd broken Victor Dashkov out of prison in order to obtain information from his brother. When it was all said and done, she remained quiet.

"I'm sure you think I'm a horrible person." I mumbled. Jill looked at me defiantly.

"I don't think that at all. I think you're amazing…" I laughed. "Seriously. Look at all the things you've done for people other than yourself. You left school, risked your career, to save Dimitri when he was a strigoi. You broke a criminal out of prison because there was a sliver of hope that you could save the person you love! Rose, you left court even though you're not supposed to so that you could find me so Lissa could have a vote! And that can't even be considered selfish because her vote will fix the age decree and keep prospective guardians safe for a while longer." Her voice was getting louder, and I was really taken aback by this fierce side of her. It was something I never would have imagined I would see from her, but I got the feeling that if we weren't sitting on a plane side by side, she'd be shaking me.

"I sound crazy." I said. That wasn't a stretch. I had probably drawn too much darkness from Lissa. It was driving me nuts now. But Jill shook her head boldly.

"You're unbelievable." I frowned, and Jill jumped, looking apologetic. "Not in a bad way!" She was quick to correct herself. "You are honestly the most loyal person I've ever met. You risked your life and your freedom to save Dimitri. And on top of that, you did save him."

"Lissa saved him." I corrected. I wasn't the spirit user. I hadn't charmed the stake. I hadn't even been the one who used it.

"You did that. If you hadn't gone to find him, or broken Victor out of prison, he'd still be out there killing innocent people! You saved him and countless other people because of an unselfish act! I wish there were more people like you in the world."

I smiled, because I didn't know what else to do. I didn't mind receiving credit for my work, but Jill was practically putting me on a pedestal. I was secretly praying that she wasn't about to develop some kind of hero worship thing with me. I'd told Dimitri before, coincidentally when I'd first met Jill, that I did not think myself a good role model. If I wasn't careful, Jill's flattery would get to my head.

Jill returned my smile and settled back into her seat. We were only a few minutes away from landing, and that caused me to face our next predicament. How were we going to actually get back to the court? Hotwiring the car hadn't been much of a problem the first time, considering that car was Guardian property, and I was a guardian. Here, at a busy airport, we couldn't just take any car we so pleased. While Christian had been right in stating that contempt charges were no big deal, I really didn't want to risk charges of grand theft auto, which could run into the human's methods of punishment. That sort of situation would get sticky. And even if we walked all the way there, how would we get in the gates? People leaving court was never a concern (except in my case). It was the people coming into court that were a predicament. These were the cars that could be randomly audited, checked for any weapons or fugitives.

Christian had no clue how to get in the gates, unless we sneaked right by them again the way I first had. However, he did know how to get us to the gates, which was something. Of course, with our options I should have been happy about what he came up with, but I couldn't bring myself to feel ok with stealing a child's bike. I insisted we call a taxi cab, but Christian said they didn't run that far out, because that would infringe upon the boundaries between moroi society and human society. I suggested a rental car, but we had no means of returning it, and once again there was the issue of being under age for that. Therefore, we had three options: One, being hotwiring a car. The second was walking all the way there, which would take a couple of hours. And the third was theft. Hotwiring another car probably would have sat better with me, but I eventually relented. Christian burned the ropes that tied the bikes to a tree outside the airport. By some trick of fate, there were exactly three bikes there. However, I figured these kids would need a way to get home. So I took one bike and Christian took another. Jill rode on the handle bars of Christian's, and though she was hesitant, I could tell she was excited by what was going on. She liked the thrill of it all.

I slipped three one hundred dollar bills between the spokes of the wheel on the remaining bike and hoped the kids came back to find it soon. We pedaled off down the road we'd come down hours before, and I was grateful for the sun's absence. I was in great physical shape, but the last time I'd rode a bike was when Lissa's parents bought her a new one and got me one to match. We'd rode our bikes everywhere that summer, and I hadn't touched one since.

I was beginning to grow concerned for Jill. I don't know if the stress of recent events and everything I'd told her was weighing her down, but she began to worry me. She laughed almost non-stop on the bike ride back to court, thrilled with the adrenaline from both the theft and from sitting on the handlebars. I didn't know Jill's every thought, but it was scary that she was so pleased with what we'd done, particularly since I was so displeased with our actions. We'd stolen from a couple of kids. That just wasn't one of those things that sat well with you.

Because of Jill's added weight on the bike, Christian went slower than I did. I didn't have the time, but I was fairly certain the bike ride back took about an hour and a half. When we were notably close to the court, we stopped right in the middle of the road. My butt was aching from the seat, and we needed to figure out what we were doing from here out anyways. I ditched the bike on the side of the road and returned to Christian and Jill. Of course, standing in the road is never a bright idea, but I didn't think much of it considering people very seldom came in and out of the Court's gates. These roads were more or less abandoned. That's why I was all the more surprised when a black SUV came speeding down the road. I saw it, and I realized I should move, but it was one of those moments where you just lock up in surprise. My life was starting to flash before my eyes. The vehicle came screeching to a stop, and I looked through the windshield to see who had been driving like a bat out of hell. The man got out and stormed to the front of his car. My heart had already stopped beating, but it stopped again as Dimitri grabbed me by the arms and shook me.

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

a/n: Ok, I sincerely apologize. I pretty much hit a wall, and I could not bring myself to like anything I wrote for this chapter the past two days. That's why it took so long to get out. It didn't help that I started working on it and it got deleted, and then I lost my motivation. lol. And my laptop is broke, requiring me to sit in this chair to type. It makes my butt hurt [I think my subconscious was manifesting itself in Rose when she decided to get off the bike ;)]. That said, I'm thinking this is substandard, but I'm looking forward to the next couple of chapters. This was one of those irritating, but totally necessary filler chapters. It had to be done. So hang in there my people. And for all my Adrian lovers, you may want to check out the one shot I wrote called Dimitrilike, because it was so much fun to write and I think it's hysterical. Then again, maybe you guys are just giving me a big head with all of your wonderful, amazing, motivating reviews! Keep up the hard work, mis amigos! Love, BelleCeline.