Oh dear, this chapter is a bit rubbish. Oh well, the next chapter is the big one, anyway!

And wow, I had like 13 reviews last chapter, that's so awesome! Quite a few people mentioned the fact that they had unprotected sex, just thought I should make it clear that it was just me forgetting to mention it :P Pregnancy is definitely not where I was going with this story ;p

Thanks so much for all the reviews! Hope this isn't too disappointing. I'm super excited to write the next one, though :D

Chapter Thirty-Four

Lissa had just about managed to stop crying and I was honestly impressed I hadn't shed a tear myself yet. It was hard enough to keep my mind of Christian's imminent departure when I was with him, but holding Liss whilst she sobbed meant it was the only thing consuming my thoughts.

"Do you think he'll take me back?" Liss questioned, her voice hoarse. "Do you think there's anything I can do?"

"No." I admitted honestly, realising that I was going to have to be the one to tell her. Christian should have done it really, it was his decision, but it was clear he was putting it off until the last minute. "Christian's going to live with Tasha, you know."

Liss choked on her next words. "What? Really?"

I nodded with a grimace. "Yes." I confirmed. "In two days."

Tears ran down Liss's cheeks afresh. "I knew us not being together would be bad, but I thought we could at least stay friends. You and Dimitri are friends and you seem happy enough." Liss clearly hadn't picked up on any of my emotions for as long as I could remember, then. Not that I could blame her. I had been doing my best to hide it. "He's really going? Tasha lives so far away. Do you think he'll visit?"

"Maybe." Perhaps Lissa didn't need to know about the harsh reality that we might realistically not ever see Christian again.

Lissa snivelled. "He's really going?" She repeated again, scrubbing her eyes, which looked painfully raw.

I nodded silently, attempting to keep my emotions in check. A knock at the door stopped me from having to respond.

I unwrapped my arm from Liss and went to answer it, since she definitely wasn't in a fit state to. "Oh!" I exclaimed, immediately engulfing Dimitri in a hug. "Congratulations!"

Dimitri beamed, before narrowing his eyes suspiciously. "Christian told you, didn't he? Tasha didn't want anyone to know."

"He only told me because you're leaving." I dismissed. I knew Dimitri didn't really care. He probably would have given in and told me himself before he left.

Dimitri raised an eyebrow. "He thought that telling you my girlfriend is pregnant would cheer you up?" He questioned sceptically.

I grinned. "Actually, it did make me feel a bit better. I'm happy for you." I informed him seriously, before smirking. "As long as you call it Rose. Girl or boy."

"Can you imagine me telling Tasha that I wanted to call our child Rose?" He inquired with a flat look.

"I'd pay to see it."

Our conversation was cut short when I heard a little chuckle from the bed. I'd almost forgotten Lissa was there, but it was brilliant to see her smiling, if only slightly. "Congratulations." She offered. "I won't tell anyone, I promise."

"I'm only here because Eddie and I wondered if you wanted to spar for a bit." He didn't tag the 'before we leave' that was implied on the end.

I grinned at Liss. "Nothing will make you feel better than watching me kick these guys' asses." I assured her. "It'll be fun."

Liss gave me a small smile. "Okay." She agreed.

My quick glance to Dimitri asked him if Christian was there and he shook his head in response. After giving Liss a couple of minutes to check her appearance and change out of her pyjamas, the three of us made our way to the gym. Dimitri had probably warned Christian not to interfere since he knew I'd be with Lissa.

Eddie was running on the track when we approached and he grinned. "Sweet." He breathed. "I haven't fought you for ages." I was pretty sure he'd never fought Dimitri, either. I was surprisingly looking forward to this.

"Don't get too excited. You know I'm going to win." I grinned, my eyes automatically shifting to the store cupboard where Christian and I had "trained" this morning. I was torn between wanting to control my emotions so that I didn't upset Liss, being sad just because of the whole situation, and making the most of the time I had left with my friends. I decided it wasn't being too selfish if I went with the last one.

Eddie and I fought first. We circled each other for a couple of minutes before he leapt out with a relatively quick strike. Though Eddie wasn't as tall as Dimitri, he was still far larger than me and his first left a dull pain in my shoulder when it connected. I didn't stumble, though, so he hadn't really gained anything. I knew how to deal with pain by now.

It didn't last long, though. It only took one dodge from me and an overcommitment in his punch for me to sent Eddie to the floor. He fell down so hard that I didn't need to straddle him to get the imaginary stake down over his chest. I smirked. "I win."

Lissa chuckled from where she was sat at the side and it made me more than happy to see her smiling. I'd been worried this would just bore her, but she was genuinely enjoying herself since it was a fairly effective distraction.

"Come on then, Comrade." I taunted. "I'm fairly sure you can't do any better."

Dimitri raised his eyebrow in the way he knew I was jealous of. "Oh really. Let's go, then."

I knew this was going to be a tougher match, both because Dimitri was stronger and because he knew me inside and out. There was only a split second of us weighing each other up before I leapt out and attempted to land a hard punch to his arm. It was blocked easily though and I was forced to fall back.

Dimitri's eyes were glistening and I couldn't deny that I'd missed this either. Aside from the time in Russia, we had barely trained at all and fighting Dimitri was always fun. It was something I'd definitely taken for granted when I'd still been at the Academy.

My distracted thoughts led to Dimitri's foot connecting with my thigh, though, and I grimaced at the pain, stumbling only slightly before righting myself. Dimitri didn't hesitate, though. He knew how to capitalise on my mistakes.

Before I was completely back on my feet, Dimitri landed another hard punch on my shoulder and shoved me down to the floor. I almost had time to push myself back on my feet, Dimitri had straddled me and brought down the stake. "I win." He taunted, exactly as I had done to Eddie, grinning beautifully.

I pouted. "We're having a best of three, right?"

Dimitri chuckled and climbed off me, offering a hand to help me up. "Maybe." He allowed. "If that's what it takes to prove I'm superior."

My sarcastic remark was cut off by the door opening and for a small moment of panic I thought it was going to be Christian. Liss was so relaxed right now that it would be disastrous. Instead, my mother strode into the room, looking as professional as always. I offered her a hesitant smile. We hadn't really spoken since returning from Europe and I wasn't entirely sure how mad she was at me.

"Hi Rose." She greeted, slightly stiffly. "I was just coming to let you know that I'm leaving tomorrow. I've been reassigned, back to Scotland, actually." She smiled a bit at that. I suppose it must be nice for her to go home.

"Want to join our mini tournament?" I asked her, not really knowing what I was supposed to say to her revelation. I figured that wanting to include her conveyed the sentiment I would actually be kind of sad to see her leaving.

"Sure." We shared a smile.

"You're versus Eddie next." I smirked at Eddie, who couldn't hide his momentarily horrified look.

Dimitri and I moved to the corner, I got the feeling this was because he wanted to chat to me without Lissa overhearing and this was the best chance he was going to get between me being occupied with Liss and Christian variously. "How are you?" He inquired softly, glancing down with a concerned face. "I feel awful for not telling you earlier."

I made myself laugh. "It's definitely not your fault." I assured him. "And I'll be fine." I murmured. We both knew I would certainly not be fine, at least for a while. "I'll miss you."

Dimitri wrapped an arm around my shoulder and I think I surprised us both slightly by meeting him in a full hug and burying my face into his chest. "You're too small to hug properly." Dimitri quipped, though I knew he was attempting to keep the mood light. Of course this situation was going to arise anyway – Dimitri was always going to be leaving, but I had still be dreading it. Now that Christian was going too it was just all a bit devastating. There was no one left at Court that I could share my problems with any more. Not that I didn't deserve for it to be that way. "And I'm sure we'll come and visit."

"I don't think Christian wants to visit." I mumbled, hoping he could understand me as I spoke into his chest. I made myself pull away and we went back to standing next to each other, Dimitri looking grim.

"That doesn't mean I can't visit." He reminded me. "And you can phone. I'll give you the number at some point."

"Only if you're bringing mini-Rose with you." I smirked slightly, unable to stop myself. "And if you ever go back to Russia, then you've definitely got to take me, since your family loves me so much."

Dimitri laughed. "I suppose that's a fair deal."

My eyes moved away from Dimitri's face, which was torn between looking sad and smiling, to where my mum and Eddie were sparring. It looked pretty even so far. "I think it's pretty lucky Christian's not here." I lowered my voice so Liss definitely wouldn't here. "I don't think my mum would hold back. I think she'd probably enjoy beating him around a bit."

Dimitri grunted. "I think he probably deserves it."

Frowning, I ran a hand through my hair. "It's not really his fault." I defended automatically. "At least, not completely, I mean. It's not so bad, really. In fact, this is the best thing. And you know it. Just sucks that it has to happen again."

"I know." Dimitri agreed. "But I still think he's been a bit of a..." He trailed off before muttering something in Russian.

I couldn't help but chuckle. "I know." I repeated his sentiments, just as my mother managed to floor Eddie. He'd put up a good fight, though, and both were out of breath. "But it'll be fine."

Dimitri ended up winning our little tournament. It was worth losing to him just so that I could watch him kick my mum's ass a bit. Liss also seemed to have a great time. After my chat with Dimitri, I stayed sitting next to her and we joked. She spent most of her time sympathising with me after watching mine and Dimitri's interaction. I wasn't sure that made me feel any better.

When it came to the evening, Liss was in high enough spirits that she didn't feel like me sitting around until she went to sleep. Instead, I returned to my room and knew that Christian would be waiting for me.

He was laid on my bed, looking completely asleep when I returned. It was fairly late and I absently wondered what he'd been doing all day as I tried to stay as quiet as possible. Probably training with Tasha, since I'd been occupied. That seemed pretty tiring.

Sitting down on the edge of the bed, Christian didn't hesitate in wrapping his arms around my waist and burying his face into my side. "Morning." I chuckled. "How are you?"

"Sleepy." He mumbled against my skin.

He was too cute for me to resist the grin that slipped easily onto my face. "I'm going to get my pyjamas." It was surely best to at least start off with them on. Besides, taking them off was part of the fun. "Then we can sleep."

"No." He groaned. "We have to go out. I had something planned. Every night. Let's go." His grip tightened around my waist, though, and I was perfectly happy to stay in bed.

"We can go out tomorrow." I assured him.

"But I have something else planned for tomorrow." He countered, yawning loudly but still rolling over and sitting up, stretching so that the bottom of his shirt lifted up and revealed a small amount of skin. "Come on, we're going."

I rolled my eyes at his stubbornness, but I had to admit it made me a little bit fuzzy inside that he cared so much about really spending his time with me. Plus I was completely curious as to what we'd actually be doing.

Christian and I didn't speak much as we walked towards wherever it was that he was taking me. The urge to hold hands was almost overwhelming, but we resisted. There was still a chance that someone might see us, despite how late it was getting and we hadn't seen anyone yet.

I frowned. "You know we're going outside the wards right now." I pointed out uneasily. "I don't want to risk anything happening, definitely not after everything."

Christian looked unfazed. "We're literally less than ten metres away." He promised. "Trust me, it's worth it."

I didn't have the heart to question him any further. I did trust Christian and I doubted he'd want to risk anything either considering he knew how much it tended to mess me up when we got attacked. Now that we were out of the way of people, he linked his fingers through mine and dragged me into a little clump of trees. Court was surrounded by a forest - a good way to hide the non-human zone, I supposed.

I could hear the sound of water running and strained my head in curiosity to see where we were going. Christian was looking smug.

The trees opened up into a tiny clearing where there were two benches and a small stream running down the middle - small enough that we could both jump over without risking falling in. But the real beauty was in the flowers which were blooming variously all over the clearing. Some were climbing up the trees and others were in plant pots next to the benches. It was clear someone had worked hard on this little haven, but they weren't here now, so I supposed it didn't matter.

Christian and I took a seat on one of the benches and shared a small smile. "It's very pretty." I acknowledged. "How did you find this place?" I worried for a second that he'd just been wandering around outside the wards.

"My Aunt told me about it." He replied quickly, understanding my thought process. "I'm not really sure who did all this, but she said she's never seen anyone else here. Maybe they moved away, or something." He suggested with a small shrug. "But yeah, I started spending more time here than I meant to. It's peaceful." And away from people, was the added implication. This was Christian's equivalent of me training all day and night.

I brought my knees to my chest and leant my head on Christian's shoulder. I realised I'd end up spending more time here when Christian left, too. It was relaxing and I gave a small smile. "Thank you for bringing me here."

Christian gave me a soft kiss on the forehead. "What have you been doing today?"

"Dimitri, Eddie, my mother and I had a mini sparring tournament." I explained. "It was fun. It cheered Liss up, too, so double bonus."

"Good."

We lapsed into silence again, but we didn't need to be speaking to appreciate each other's company. There was almost the knowledge that if we spoke, there was a high chance we'd say something which would ruin the mood completely.