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Enjoy xxx


I took a deep breath and raised a shaking fist to the door in front of me, trying desperately to silence the persistent inner monologue that had been echoing through my head all afternoon. I worked to control the trembling in my hand as I tapped gently on the door to Lissa's suite.

Now or never, Rose.

A few moments later my best friend answered. She was dressed in sweatpants and her hair was tied messily on top of her head, but she had never looked more radiant. She grinned at me, pulling me into a big hug and jostling me up and down with her excited bounces.

"We did it!" she squealed.

I chuckled, returning her hug as tightly as I could. Just in case. After a minute of this, I sighed, pushing her back gently.

"Are you going to let me in?" I teased, working to shake the nerves that were currently wreaking havoc in the pit of my stomach.

"Sorry," she said, pulling back to look at me. "I'm just so excited." She stepped out of the way, motioning for me to come in. "We did it, Rose," she said, her voice thick emotion. "I just can't believe it."

"It is pretty amazing," I replied, smiling at her warmly. "But I always knew you could do it."

She motioned for me to sit on the couch and I took a seat, working hard to keep the nerves out of my expression as I smiled at her. She hovered above me, still buzzing with excitement.

"Do you want anything?" she asked, waving towards the kitchen. "Tea? Water?" I made a face and she laughed. "Something sugary and terrible for you?"

I raised my eyebrows at her and she shook her head in exasperation, a smile tugging at her lips.

"I have Coke," she said and I nodded my thanks, rubbing my hands nervously over my jeans.

A moment later she came back into the room holding a glass of Coke and a steaming mug of tea. She handed me the Coke and flopped on the couch opposite me.

"God, I can't believe how exhausted I am," she groaned, her head falling back onto the cushions. "It's like I've been working off pure adrenaline for so long and now I'm just... I don't even know how to –"

"Lissa," I interrupted.

Lissa stopped talking, her eyebrows bunching together in confusion at my tone as she lifted her head to face me.

"What's the matter, Rose?" she asked cautiously after a moment of tense silence. "You look..."

"I have something to tell you," I said with a sigh. I ran my hand through my hair, placing the glass down on the table and leaning forward to take her hand in mine.

"Oh," she replied, her tone cautious as she reached forward to grip my hand.

I took a deep breath, meeting her jade eyes as I gnawed at my bottom lip nervously.

"Rose," she said, her voice laced with concern. "Whatever it is – just spit it out."

I nodded, taking a deep breath and releasing my lip from between my teeth.

"Okay," I said, squeezing her hand tightly in mine. "Lissa, I made a promise to be honest with you from now on, no matter how hard it is. So here it goes..." I paused, taking one final, shaking breath. "Before I went on the mission, Dimitri asked me to resign... and," she took an audible breath through her nose and my heart tugged painfully in my chest. Do it, Rose, I told myself. I sighed, gripping her hands in mine like she was a lifeline anchoring me to shore. "... And I promised him that I would."

When she didn't respond straight away, I continued on, my voice turning pleading as I fought against tears. "I have to do it, Liss," I cried. "You've always come first – from the day I met you I have always chosen you. I have shoved my feelings and personal life to the background so that I always knew you were protected. And that's okay; I love you and it was all I ever wanted to do with my life." I shook my head sadly, "But then I met Dimitri, and suddenly I wanted more. I still wanted my life with you, but I wanted a life with him too – a normal life where we could be together without all of this," I motioned around me and Lissa nodded sagely, her eyes shining with tears. "Ever since the moment I realised that I loved him, it felt like my heart was caught in the most painful tug-of-war. I still loved you, but now I loved him too. And the two weren't harmonious – it was like they were at war with one another in my body; the two loves of my life pulling my heart in opposite directions..." a tear escaped and ran down my face and I wiped it away in frustration. "But we found a way to make it work," I said with a small smile, "and for a while, everything was okay... But there's no compromise now, Liss," I cried, my voice thick with tears. "It's time to put Dimitri and our life together first. Please understand; I can't lose him. I'm so," a loud sob ripped through my chest and Lissa's grip around my hand tightened. I continued speaking around the loud sobs, wiping the tears in frustration. "I'm so sorry. I feel like I'm betraying you. Please... please understand."

I stuttered to a stop, holding my breath as I studied my best friend's face through the blurry veil of my tears. She was studying me closely, her eyes filled with pity.

"Rose," Lissa whispered when I finally got my breathing under control. She reached forward, her arm stroking mine gently. "I'm sorry that I made you so scared to tell me. I know last time I didn't take it so well," she shook her head at the memory. "I'm so sorry that I made you feel as though you owed it to me to stay. You don't owe me anything; you've already given up so much for me. Of course I understand if you want more with your life. You've been through so much - you deserve more than anyone to be happy."

I stared at her at disbelief before I stammered out a response.

"You're... you're not mad?"

"Of course not, Rose," she said with a light laugh. "I'm a little sad, I'll miss seeing you every day. But how could I be mad that you want to start a life with your husband? That the two of you want a real life together? I've had you as my protector for my whole life," she said gently. "It's someone's turn to look after you."

Another relieved sob overcame me and I ran around the table, throwing myself at my best friend. She laughed, falling backwards onto the couch with her arms locked tightly around me.

We lay like that for a long moment, Lissa's fingers gently stroking through my hair.

"What will you do?" Lissa asked eventually, pulling back to face me.

"I'm not sure yet," I answered honestly. "Dimitri mentioned going back to St Vlads to teach." I shrugged, giving a light laugh. "At first I hated the idea, but now I think it's something that I wouldn't mind doing. If I could help prepare just one kid the way that Dimitri prepared me, I would feel like my time was worth it. That extra training saved me, Liss. Heaven knows where I'd be without it. There are so many Novices that go out into the world with this false sense of... readiness. But they're completely unprepared for what's out there. Most won't even make it through their first fight."

She nodded, her expression turning thoughtful.

"I think you'd be a good teacher," she said, smiling at me softly.

I snorted. "Are you kidding? That's the one thing holding me back! Do you not remember me in high school? There's no way Alberta will trust me with her students. And we all know where Stan's vote would be."

"Give yourself more credit, Rose," Lissa said, rolling her eyes. "You were a star pupil in combat. Dimitri and you together would be a lethal teaching force."

"Yeah the Russian is hard-core," I said with a laugh, shaking my head at the memory of all the sessions that had ended with me collapsed on the floor, unable to breathe. "That man kicked my ass into shape hard. Those kids don't know what's coming for them."

She laughed too, shaking her head lightly. "I remember that crazy training schedule you had. All those insanely early wakeups – I was so surprised you actually got up in time." She gave me a slow, exaggerated wink. "Although maybe now I understand the real force that was dragging you out of bed at 4 o'clock."

I chuckled. "It wasn't a bad sight to wake up to. But honestly, he just made me realise how not ready I was for what's out there, you know? I realised that if I wanted to be your Guardian, I had to be the best. And to be the best, I had to train with the best."

She slapped the couch suddenly with a loud thwack. I jumped back and gave her a confused look.

"What?" I asked when she started bouncing up and down on the couch excitedly.

She turned to me, grinning widely. "I know exactly what you can do!"


"Comrade, I'm home!" I called out, dropping my keys into the bowl in the foyer.

I entered the living room to find Dimitri on the couch watching a documentary on Mixed Martial Arts. He turned to smile at me sweetly for a moment before digging back into a bowl of pasta. It smelt heavenly.

"There's some more on the stove," he said, pointing with his fork towards the kitchen. "I wasn't sure if you'd eaten."

My stomach growled loudly in response and he chuckled.

"What did you do today?" he called out as I was shovelling spoonfuls into a bowl. We had the most ridiculous sized pasta bowls, and I was sure not to waste even an inch of space in mine.

"I went to the meeting," I called from the kitchen, shovelling a couple pieces of pasta into my mouth directly from the pot.

"Obviously," he said dryly. "I did see you there, Roza."

I chuckled, ignoring his snarky comment.

"Honestly, not much after that," I replied, rounding the corner to plop on the couch next to him. "I kind of bummed around, thought about some stuff, watched TV and then, I went to see Lissa."

"Oh?" he asked, his gaze flicking between the documentary and me. "How is she? I imagine she's very happy with how things went today. I know Christian was ecstatic."

I fought back a smile, watching his face closely.

"I told her."

I grinned as he dropped his fork, turning to face me fully with a look of absolute bewilderment.

"What?" he asked, his eyes scanning my face closely in disbelief. "You never told me you were going to tell her... you didn't even tell me you were thinking about your promise!"

I grinned again, raising my eyebrows at him.

"Where's the fun in that, Comrade?"

"How'd she take it?" he demanded, fighting back a smile.

I smiled, shovelling a forkful of pasta into my mouth. Dimitri stared at me impatiently and I laughed, leaning forward to kiss him.

"She took it great."

"Roza, that's amazing!" he replied ecstatically. His gaze turned serious as he studied me. "Does that mean... does that mean it's happening?"

I smiled again and he dropped his bowl, pulling me into a deep kiss.

"Dimitri," I cried, pushing him away playfully. "You're going to get marinara on the couch!"

He laughed, grabbing the bowls and putting them on the coffee table.

"Sorry," he said, leaning forward to kiss me again.

"No you're not," I chuckled. "Anyway, you didn't even let me finish – that's not even the best part."

He raised an eyebrow, looking at me expectantly.

"Liss and I were talking about what we would do after retiring from the Guard. I mentioned teaching, maybe going back to St Vlads and running programmes like you did for me. It gave Lissa an idea..."

I paused dramatically, wiggling my eyebrows.

"Spit it out, Roza!"

I laughed, sticking my tongue out. "Alright, so she's decided that we are the new faces of an intensive programme teaching Moroi and Dhampir to work together in combat!"

He blinked a couple times, clearly thrown by the idea. After a moment a big smile overcame his features.

"Roza, that's perfect."

"It gets better..." I said and he stared at me in disbelief.

"How could I possibly get better?" he asked, shaking his head.

"Well..." I drawled, teasingly slowly. "We made some calls while I was over there. I was very insistent that we'd like to make the maximum impact possible. So we've made the calls and it turns out we are a very hot commodity – lots of schools want us. We ended up deciding on St Vlads and St Basils. We'll do six-month stints in each, alternating between the two."

Dimitri's mouth fell open, his eyes wide in disbelief.

"Do you mean..."

"You're going home, Comrade. Half a year, every year, we'll spend in Russia. You get to see your family."

He shook his head in amazement and met my gaze with a brilliant smile, pulling me into a tight hug.

"Thank you, Roza," he whispered into my hair, his voice thick with emotion. He pulled back, staring at me in admiration. "This is happening?" he checked, studying my face closely. "You're happy with this? I know I gave you... a bit of an ultimatum. It's not something I feel good about."

I nodded slowly, taking his hands in mine.

"I know I fought this for a long time, and honestly I was so frightened to tell Lissa... of leaving her and everything I've ever known behind. But now that I have... I can't describe it. If feels like... like the biggest weight has been lifted off my chest. I feel... free."

He smiled, leaning forward to kiss me gently.

"And honestly," I continued, pulling back to face him. "I'm really excited that we still get to do some good. Imagine how many lives will be saved with this new programme! We can do for so many kids what you did for me."

"Minus the inappropriate relationship I hope," he added dryly and I rolled my eyes.

"Hey," I replied, wiggling my eyebrows, "no promises 'til I see what the kids look like."

He shook his head in exasperation and I laughed, pulling him into a tight hug.

"I'm happy, Comrade," I promised him, putting all joking aside. "I honestly can't even describe how happy I am."

I felt him smile from where his lips were pressed against my hair.

"Me too."


Tada! What do you think of their plan for the future? Don't forget to review and let me know what you think!