I seem to be saying this to my readers a lot lately…I'm sorry. I know it's been forever since I last updated, but everything has been really hectic lately. I could make excuses or I could get right into the story and I'm sure you all would rather have the second…so without further ado, here you go! I'm sorry for any typos, I just really wanted to get this posted. I hope you enjoy it!

Disclaimer: I own the plot. Anything you recognize belongs to Richelle Mead.

Chapter 27

Between Dimitri and Eddie, we were able to carry Ion to a nearby bed. He still wasn't moving, which scared me more than I'd like to admit. I'd just gotten him back…I couldn't lose him again.

Viktoria had cuddled up against him, laying her head on his chest. She had been nearly silent since asking for reassurance from Dimitri. I was worried that if we lost Ion, we'd also in a sense lose Vika. I didn't know how it had happened, but she and Ion had really gotten close in the short amount of time we'd all been here.

Eddie, Dimitri, and I stood watching them in silence for a few minutes before I motioned them back into the other room. I quietly closed the door behind us. Nearly everyone had left the suite in order to get some rest. After the day we'd all had, I couldn't say that I blamed them. All I really wanted to do was curl up in bed and go to sleep. Only my team remained, along with Eddie and Dimitri.

"What are we going to do?" Lev asked.

"And what happened to him to begin with?" Artur questioned.

"Dimitri had the theory that maybe Ion's spirit ring was making him seem more humanlike, like how he wasn't healing as quickly anymore. Maybe that last injury was the breaking point?" I suggested.

"Does that mean he's…dead?" Denis asked quietly.

"I don't know. I don't know how to tell if a Strigoi is dead or not since they don't breathe or have a pulse. I don't think he is though." I paused. "As for what we should do, I think it's fairly obvious. He needs to be staked by a Spirit user, but none of them are strong enough to do it."

"We're going to lose him if we don't do something!" Lev said angrily.

"I realize that! But what do you suggest we do, Lev?"

"Anything!" I was surprised at how angry he seemed, but I understood how frustrating feeling helpless could be.

"Lev, Rose is doing everything she can," Christian defended.

"She isn't doing enough!" Everyone stared at his outburst.

"Isn't doing enough? She nearly died today…"

Covering his face with his hands, Lev said, "That isn't what I meant."

"It's what you said," Christian growled.

"Christian, I didn't mean it like that." Lev's gaze met mine. "You know I'm glad you're alive…you know how close all six of us are. I don't want to lose any of you, yet today I almost lost two of my closest friends." He sighed. "I'm sorry, Rose. I'm just frustrated and stressed. None of this is your fault."

"I understand where you're coming from, Lev. But you aren't the only one feeling frustrated and taking it out on someone isn't going to make the situation any better." He nodded his agreement. "We all just need to calm down and come up with some sort of plan."

"I have one," a soft voice said. We all jumped in surprise, not realizing anyone else was in the room. Oksana sat propped up on the couch beside Mark. The reason we hadn't noticed them was because they sat on the sofa that had its back to where we stood, although that wasn't really much of an excuse.

"I infuse a silver stake and restore him. Tomorrow."

"Oksana, you can't," Mark said.

"Mark, you know how badly I want to try this."

"That's not what I meant. You can't do it tomorrow. You're weak and it's too soon."

"The longer we wait, the less likely it is that their friend will survive."

"Oksana-

"No Mark. It's been decided." She got unsteadily to her feet. She was paler than I'd ever seen her before and I noticed how she crossed her arms, trying to hide the slight tremble in them. I knew what it was like to be so weak you could keel over at any given minute…in fact, I was beginning to feel like that myself. But I could also recognize by the stubborn set in her jaw that no one was going to be able to talk her out of this. Her mind was made up.

"Alright," I answered.

"No, not alright," Mark said, his gaze moving rapidly between me and his wife. "Absolutely not. In any normal situation of bringing back a Strigoi, it's possible for a Spirit user to die. With you being this exhausted, it makes it that much more likely." Oksana sighed tiredly but met my gaze with as much stubbornness as I pushed into everything.

"Mark, you know Oksana better than anyone," I said, walking closer to them. Turning her around, I faced Oksana toward her husband. "When she has this look on her face and fire in her eyes, I think you know just how unlikely it is that you're going to talk her out of something."

"And I could really use the support of the man I love," Oksana said. Immediately getting to his feet, he wrapped her in a tight embrace.

"It's not that I don't think you can do it," he said softly against her temple. "It's that I don't want to risk losing you." She moved closer to him, borrowing into his chest.

"I love you Mark and I love that you worry about me…but I have to try." Mark rested his head on top of hers, his jaw clenched tightly. I knew how difficult it could be to let someone you love step directly into harm's way. I had done it every time I let one of my teammates go up against a Strigoi.

"Okay," he breathed. But from the pained look in his eyes, he found this situation anything but okay.

The next morning, I woke up on the couch in the suite's living room, my back tucked against Dimitri's chest and his arm resting across my waist. The soft light of dawn was just beginning to light up the dark eastern sky, brightening up the room only a little bit. I could hear the muffled sound of a bird chirping outside the glass door, or at least where the it had been before it'd been shattered by two fighting Strigoi the previous night. Boy had that been a mess to clean up.

While Dimitri and I could have gone back to his room, I hadn't wanted to leave Ion without knowing if he would survive the night, so we had decided to stay. Denis and Lev were asleep on the floor, covered up with a few light blankets and their mouths hanging open as they slumbered soundly. Artur was sleeping in an arm chair and snoring softly. Christian had chosen to stay in the living room with the rest of us, though there were still two perfectly good beds in the room that had been assigned to him and me upon first arriving at the academy. I didn't know if it was due to the fact that he had wanted to remain with the rest of us or because he simply hadn't wanted to sleep in a room where a Strigoi had recently been. Either way, he was lying on his back, his breathing even. I'd believed him to be asleep until his face had turned and his blue eyes had met mine.

"Hi," I whispered sleepily.

"Hey," he quietly answered.

Remembering what had happened the night before between him and Lissa, I asked, "When are you going to tell her the truth?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said, shifting his gaze back to the ceiling.

"Oh no, you don't get out of it that easily. Christian, you still have feelings for her. You know you do."

He shrugged. "So what if I do?"

I groaned. "Are you really going to let your pride get in the way of happiness? I know that she hurt you and I get how painful it was. But don't you think you should let it go, especially after everything we experienced yesterday? Either one of you could have easily died without repairing the damage between you from years ago. Don't you think now would be a good time to give her a second chance?"

"Stop," he muttered, getting to his feet and moving into the kitchen area. I knew he was trying to evade this conversation, probably because I was making so much sense, but for once I was going to push at him. Carefully removing Dimitri's arm from around me, I followed him.

"Newsflash: life is short. If anything, yesterday proved that fact. This is a good time for honesty and forgiveness," I hissed.

"Rose, leave it alone," he growled.

"No!" I said. Apparently I had said it louder than I'd intended because Lev, Artur, Denis, and Dimitri both sat straight up and looked over at us while Christian spun around to face me. Even with my other friends' attention firmly focused on us, I continued. Christian needed to hear what I was saying.

"I could have died yesterday," I said.

"Thanks for pointing out the obvious," Christian said harshly. I knew he was only being so crass because he was angry, so I brushed it off.

"You want to know what I was thinking about in what I thought were going to be my final moments? How much time I had wasted trying to avoid Dimitri. How much time we had wasted when we could have been enjoying what time we had together." Christian remained silent.

"I don't know whether it had anything to do with fate or destiny, but when we were called back to the academy, it was a gift. We spent so much time seeing it as nothing but an awful turn of events Christian, but in reality…it's our second chance. Our second chance to make amends with the people we left behind."

"I get how you come to that conclusion with you and Belikov…but Lissa and I are different." In my frustration, I grabbed his shoulders and shook him.

"Would you stop being stubborn and listen to me?" I asked.

"I am listening to you, Rose!"

"Then listen to this. One of your best friends is laying in the next room, possibly dying. Do you think that for one minute that if there were any way for him to get better and be with Viktoria again, even just for a little while, that he wouldn't take it? That he wouldn't want to wake up and see where things go with her? That he would take the easy way out if the hard way was loving her?" Christian looked like I had smacked him, but at least he was paying attention. I think I had shocked him speechless by going this direction.

"Even if they were angry with each other, even if he felt absolutely betrayed and hurt more than he'd ever been before in his life…even then he'd want to come back and make things right." I paused, letting my words hang in the air. "You aren't angry with her anymore, Christian. You're just afraid to let her back in."

His eyes glanced behind me, where I'm sure the team and Dimitri were listening, and he shifted uncomfortably. "So what if I am?"

"You embrace the fear." His eyes locked on mine, again surprised.

"What?"

"Embrace it," I repeated. "Because you wouldn't be scared if it didn't matter to you. You wouldn't be afraid if you had nothing to lose. Nothing worthwhile ever comes easily or painlessly. You just have to keep working through it…especially if you love her as much as I think you do. She's made mistakes…everyone does. You just have to get past them…" In a way, I was prepared for Christian to completely blow up in my face. We were always there for each other and one thing we'd always been able to do for the other was bash our exes. But I was also trying to do what I thought was best for him…so I'd get past it if he yelled at me now.

Only he didn't. His mouth slightly parted as he mulled over what I had said before he seemed to come to some conclusion. Before anyone could say another word, he'd rushed out the suite's door, letting it swing closed loudly behind him. Viktoria opened the door to the adjoining bedroom and peeked outside at all of us. Between my loud voice and Christian shutting the door rather hard, she had probably woken up.

"What's going on out here?" she asked, rubbing her eyes. She didn't look like she had gotten much sleep last night and I instantly felt bad.

"Sorry Vika. I was just trying to talk some sense into Christian."

"About Lissa?" she asked.

I nodded.

"Did it finally work?"

"I think I got through to him." She seemed pretty happy at the idea, or as happy as she could be when the man she had feelings for was potentially on his death bed.

"How is he?" I asked hesitantly, not wanting to hear the worst had already occurred.

"The same as last night. He hasn't moved at all since he was thrown over the couch," she said, before turning back into the bedroom. I didn't know much about Strigoi, especially when it came to those wearing Spirit rings, but I assumed that that wasn't a good sign. Glancing at the clock on the microwave, I saw it was only seven o'clock in the morning. After the day we all had yesterday, I figured it was too early for me to wake up Oksana. Besides, she was going to need all the strength she could get in order to succeed at the restoration. I grudgingly accepted that, even though I was beside myself with worry at the thought that Ion might not make it much longer.

Deciding that they weren't going to be able to go back to sleep, Lev and Denis rose from their positions on the floor, throwing their blankets into the door-less bedroom. Artur turned on the kitchen light and began getting out ingredients to use to make breakfast while I made my way over to Dimitri. He was still sitting on the couch, so I walked in between his slightly spread legs and leaned down so my face was closer to his. A small smile graced his lips before they met mine. One thing I knew for certain: I would never get tired of that.

Before I knew what was happening, I was pulled into Lissa's head. Multiple feelings coursed through her all at once, the most prevalent being shock and happiness.

Christian?

Liss…can I come in?

Umm…sure?

I was thinking about our past and-

I know I was awful. I'm trying to change, become better for you. If you could just try to forgive me-

I can't forgive you.

Oh.

I can't forgive you because there's nothing to really forgive. You made a mistake…but does it really have to define the rest of our lives? Can't we just love each other and move on?

You…you love me?

I always have…I always will.

The words that had been spoken merely moments before swarmed around in her head and warmed her heart. Before I could really get my bearings on the scene in front of me, Christian was pulling Lissa to him. He hungrily kissed her lips, stealing her breath from her lungs. She felt herself respond to him instantly as she wrapped her arms around his neck and let the amazing feelings that always accompanied the moments when Christian touched her wash over her. She couldn't believe this was happening. She couldn't believe he had forgiven her. She couldn't believe he was kissing her. She couldn't believe that he loved her. But her mind shut down as he shifted to kiss down her throat.

She pulled his mouth back to hers, emitting a soft sigh against his lips. They pulled back a bit, just enough to look into each other's eyes before the moment really picked up. Suddenly Christian was tugging at the waistband of her pajama pants while she reached forward to start tearing at his shirt. Their heavy breathing was the only noise in the room besides the occasional sound of ripping fabric as they desperately tried to undress each other. And while I was happy to see that they had patched things up – finally – I did not want to stick around to see what they were building up to. As they fell onto the bed, running their hands over the other's body and reuniting with what they had both thought to be lost forever, I finally ripped myself out of Lissa's head.

And was overwhelmed by the startling loud female yelling going on in the next room as Lev rushed from the suite, slamming the door behind him. As Artur and Denis rushed into the bedroom and Dimitri shook me gently, trying to expel me from Lissa's mind and get me to return to my own.

"What's going on?" I asked. By the look on Dimitri's face, he didn't want to tell me. It was almost like he had some terrible news.

"It's Ion…he's awake. But he's dying."

I'll try not to take so unbelievably long before I update again, especially with this ending. Thanks for reading! Any reviews are appreciated!