AN: Wow guys here is a long one for you! Trigger warning, talk of miscarriage ahead.
I want to set the record straight on something that was left in a review. Sometimes bad things happen. Miscarriages happen, often times for no reason at all. Rose and Dimitri did not purposefully kill their baby because they trained while Rose was pregnant. Neither of them knew and could not have known. It is a sad thing, but worked out exactly how I wanted it to in this **fiction** story. Now Rose and Dimitri know they can have kids later if they want, and Rose doesn't have to worry about raising a child at 18 and missing out on being Lissa's guardian. Okay, now that that's out of the way, thank you so much to everyone who reviewed! I love hearing feedback. Please enjoy!
The physical pain only lasted about a day, but after that, I passed through the next few days until my trials in a blur. I avoided Dimitri because I was sure that he would hate me. He tried to come and find me several times, tried to talk to me during our trainings, but I did what was necessary to prepare for trials and nothing more.
Lissa, Christian, and Eddie knew something was wrong with me. Lissa tried to pry it out of me several times, but I convinced her that it was nerves about the trials and asked her to please just let me focus. Adrian was harder to trick. He could see my aura and told me multiple times how it was darker and duller than usual so he knew it wasn't just nerves bothering me.
The only person I really wanted to talk to was Deborah, but I didn't have time to get an appointment in with field experience and all the training. I also wasn't sure how I would even explain how I got pregnant. I wasn't even sure myself! I was also worried if I told anyone, even Deborah, that I somehow got pregnant with a dhampir, I'd get carted off to an insane asylum for being certifiably insane. If seeing ghosts didn't do it, this sure would.
Focusing on getting through the trials was all that helped me cope. The morning of the trials, Eddie and I sat in nervous silence as Lissa, Christian, and Adrian tried to coax us into eating. I managed some toast and water without tasting a thing simply because I knew I needed energy and hydration to fight. When breakfast ended, Eddie joined Meredith to walk over to the arena that had been built on the edge of campus. As Lissa and Christian wished me good luck and went to find a good place to hide and watch from, Adrian hung back.
He, uncharacteristically, looked shy and nervous.
"Rose, can I walk you to the arena?" He offered me his arm which I accepted with a small smile. However, as soon as we turned to continue on, we found Dimitri blocking our path.
I froze and felt my heart race at the sight of him. He gave Adrian a significant look and Adrian got the hint. He gave me a kiss on the forehead, wished my luck, and left me with Dimitri.
Dimitri beckoned me to follow him and ushered me down the gap between two buildings. Swallowing my nerves, I steeled myself and followed him into the darkness. He stopped just out of the view of the courtyard and turned to look at me and for the longest time he didn't say anything. He just stared at me, his eyes warm and his face soft, the side of him that I loved so much, that he didn't show to anyone else. He took my hand and squeezed it, smiling.
All the fear and tension I had been carrying around in my body since my trip to the clinic, melted out of me. Dimitri didn't seem mad at me and at the moment, I couldn't for the life of me remember why I had been so scared to begin with. When I smiled back at him, he pulled me into his arms, holding me tightly to his chest. I felt my eyes begin to burn and I pushed my face into him, willing myself not to cry. Dimitri pulled back and took me by the shoulders.
"Milaya, we don't have to talk about anything now, but I'm here for you when you're ready."
I knew we didn't have a lot of time before we had to be at the trial grounds, but I had to clear the air a little before I walked onto that field.
"Dimitri, you have to know I would never cheat on you and that I didn't cheat on you. I swear to you. I don't know how I could have become pregnant." I looked at him imploringly. Knowing that he forgave me was suddenly the most important thing to me in this moment. "I'm so sorry, Dimitri."
"You have nothing to be sorry for, Roza. Of course I believe you." He kissed me on the forehead and I lost my battle with trying not to cry at that moment.
Brushing the tears from my cheeks this his thumbs, Dimitri cradled my face. "Don't cry, Roza. It's okay. We just need to focus on getting you the best score possible at your trials and then we can handle everything else after. Okay?"
I nodded at him and tried to pull myself together.
"You have nothing to worry about. You've worked so much harder than the other novices. There's nothing in these trials they could throw at you that you can't handle and you're going to do amazing, Milaya," he told me.
"How do you know?" I asked, my nerves getting the best of me.
"You trust me don't you, Roza?"
"With my life." I replied quickly.
"Then trust me when I tell you, you will do amazing. I have no doubt. Come on, Roza. We have to head over."
Dimitri gave me one more kiss before leading me back out onto the quad and towards the edge of campus. When we got to the grounds, I was ushered into a tent to wait with the other novices. Dimitri had to leave me at the door, but gave me a few more words of encouragement before he went.
The mood in the tent was tense. I quickly spotted Eddie and went to stand next to him. We were being tested in alphabetical order which meant that Eddie was going to be one of the first and that I wouldn't be too far after him. When Eddie's name was called, I gave his arm a squeeze for good luck. I wished I could watch him, but knew he was going to do great.
When my name was called, I could feel the whole tent turn and put their eyes on me as I walked out. The space where we would be doing the trials was enclosed by fencing. The trials weren't open to the rest of the students, but most of the guardian staff that weren't on duty and the students who had already finished were crowded around the outside. The judges who had come in from Court were seated on a raised platform overlooking the arena. As I looked them over, I wondered how much they knew about Rose Hathaway the runaway, kidnapper of the Dragomir Princess and how much they knew about the Rose Hathaway who killed multiple strigoi before even graduating. Either way, I was going to blow their socks off with my trial.
Before I stepped into the arena, Dimitri grabbed me by the arm and whispered "fight like Lissa is behind you."
So that's exactly what I did. Not a single damn strigoi touched my moroi. We made it through a maze, through a forest, over some rickety rope bridge that I ended up cutting to pieces to escape over the side and finally, my moroi and I sheltered against a wall to protect our backs as I fought off every strigoi in the arena.
In the blink of an eye, it was over and the second the whistle blew signifying the end, I knew I had crushed it so I walked back out of the arena smiling for the first time in days. Lissa, Christian, Adrian and Eddie were hovering behind the judges platform, clearly trying to wait for me without getting caught crashing the trials.
I weaved through the crowds over to them and Lissa immediately threw her arms around me.
"Rose! We couldn't see much because we had to hide, but we saw enough to know that you were amazing! There's no way they won't let you be my guardian." Her happiness was radiating off of her in waves, leaking into me through be bond.
"I went up to the fence and watched. You really were amazing, Rose." Eddie gave me a hug as well.
"Thanks!" I grinned at him. "And how did you do?"
"Well I didn't have to go over that bridge like you did or fight off nearly as many strigoi, but I think I did well too."
"Don't be modest, Mr. Castile," a Russian accented voice floated over my shoulder. "You did extremely well."
I turned to face Dimitri, checked that we were still hidden behind the judges platform, and threw myself into his arms. Dimitri laughed as he caught me.
"I'm so proud of you." I stayed in his arms for a moment longer before pulling away, just to be safe.
"I couldn't have done it without you, Comrade… so thank you. Really."
"You didn't need me Roza, you would have been fine." He took a step back as something over my shoulder caught his eye.
"Dimitri, I would have been expelled if you hadn't agreed to mentor me and you know it." I was still grinning, but it quickly faded as I saw the guardian mask slip back over his face.
"What is it?" I asked.
"Rose, it appears that your mother is here."
All 6 of us turned and despite her height, my mother's red hair made her easy to pick out of the crowd. As well as the fact that she was standing next to an extremely flashy and overly dressed Moroi man. Did my mom get a new charge?
As they got closer, I felt Dimitri tense next to me which immediately put me on edge as well. Was he really that scared of my mom? She didn't even know that anything was going on between us and I was about 2 days away from graduating.
"Mom… hi" Tentatively, she reached out and gave me a hug. We had made some progress at repairing our relationship the last time she was here, but it had still been months since we last talked. "I didn't realize you were coming."
"I had always planned on it, but I didn't want to tell you and disappoint you if I was called away on work. I hope you don't mind the surprise," she said, still not explaining the man standing to her side, who I noticed was staring intently at Dimitri.
To ease the tension, Lissa did what Lissa does best. "Guardian Hathaway, we'd love to have you and your friend come join us tonight for Rose's celebration in one of the guest housing lounges."
"Thank you, Princess. We would love to come. Rose, I want you to meet Ibrahim Mazur, he's an old friend of mine." The man at her side reached out to take my hand.
"It's wonderful to finally meet you. Might I say, you fight like a force of nature, just like your mother."
"Um thanks… they let you watch my trial?" He wasn't a guardian or a royal so he shouldn't have been allowed.
He smirked at me and simply said, "My dear, there aren't a lot of people who tell me no in this world."
My mom rolled her eyes at him and nodded formally at us all as she excused the two of them to go talk to some of the other guardians who had come in for the trials.
As soon as she walked off, I turned to Dimitri. "What's wrong? Why are you so on edge right now?"
His guardian mask didn't give too much away, but finally he said "I really don't think we should have invited your mom's friend to our celebration. I knew him back in Russia."
Despite my asking, Dimitri wouldn't say anything more on the topic. Instead he reminded me that we had more important things to talk about at the moment and asked me to follow him to the empty lounge in the guardian offices where we had made hot chocolate after my first failed field experience attack. In the rush of adrenalin after my trials, I had momentarily forgotten about the events of earlier in the week. It hit me again with a wave of sadness.
Dimitri made us hot chocolate again when we got to the lounge and gestured for me to sit in one of the arm chairs. He pulled his chair right up in front of mine and took one of his hands in mine.
"Roza, I'm so so sorry."
I blinked in shock. "Wait… why are you sorry?"
Dimitri sighed and looked into his steaming paper cup. "I just can't help but feel that if I hadn't pushed you so hard and made you train with all these other guardians, this wouldn't have happened."
"How could you have known? I didn't even know. With training so much, I miss periods all the time and I've only ever slept with you so it never crossed my mind." I squeezed Dimitri's hand, steeling myself for what was next.
"Dimitri, you believe me that the… baby… was yours right? I don't… I can't understand how, but there's no other option."
"Roza, I have to be honest. It didn't make sense to me at first. For the first few hours after we got the news, I had two thoughts in my brain that I knew were both true. That you would never have slept with a moroi, or anyone for that matter, behind my back… and that dhamphirs can not reproduce with each other. It took me a while to figure out how they both could be true, but I think it has to do with Vasalisa."
He waited a moment to let me process and took a sip of his hot chocolate.
"You mean her spirit?" My eyes widened when I thought of the implications. "I'm shadow kissed and she healed some of your injuries after the battle… do you think that's why?"
"I can't think of what else it would have been unless we both happen to be genetic anomalies." Dimitri grinned at the idea.
Suddenly I gasped, thinking about Lissa healing Dimitri. "Lissa and Adrian healed so many dhampirs after the battle… If that's really all it takes, are we going to have a dhampir baby boom in 7 months?" I laughed out loud thinking of the possibilities for my species. Those of us who wanted families might actually have a chance to have them now!
He grinned at me. "We might. As long as one of the dhampirs doesn't have to be shadow kissed."
"How hasn't this happened before though?" I asked. "Lissa, Adrian, and St. Vladimir can't have been the only 3 spirit users in history? And St. Vlad healed lots of people… did it ever happen then?"
"It might have and it just never got recorded in the history books. I heard stories about this happening in Baia, but most people never believed them. Dhampirs communities like that are always worried about bringing attention to themselves so it's also possible that it happens and people hide it." Dimitri's face suddenly fell. "I'm not sure if we should tell anyone, Roza."
"Why not?" I whispered.
"What if they make you or the Princess into experiments?"
I sucked in a deep breath. "I don't mind helping give Dhampirs the ability to have children, but I'll be damned if they touch a hair on Lissa's head."
Dimitri nodded at me. "Until we know who we can trust, I think it's best that we keep what we suspect a secret."
I was silent for a long moment, trying to get up the courage to voice something I had been ashamed of feeling during the last week. The more I thought about speaking the words, the more horrible I felt. Looking down into my cup, I started to cry and Dimitri immediately came to kneel at my side.
"Roze, what is it?"
"Dimitri... " I looked at him with watery eyes, my voice barely above a whisper. "I wasn't ready for a baby. I don't know if I'll ever be ready, but I definitely could not have had a baby at 18."
Dimitri nodded at me, waiting for me to continue. His eyes looked at me with such warmth that I finally said the thing I was ashamed of all week.
"Part of me feels relieved I had a miscarriage." As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I covered it with my hands and cried even harder. Dimitri wrapped his arms around me and whispered softly to me in Russian until I calmed down. The idea that something Dimiri and I made out of love was lost and I was relieved had been eating at me all week.
"Oh Milaya," Dimitri pulled back to look in my eyes once I wiped my tears away. "Of course you weren't ready. I've always believed that everything happens for a reason, even tragedy. The universe knew that it was not the right time for us. Please don't cry, Roza. It's okay to feel that way."
Before I lost my courage, I blurted out the second thing that was eating me up inside. "What if I'm never ready, Dimitri?"
Dimitri would be an amazing father and I knew he loved children so much. He gave them up once for me and I was sure that he would resent me if he had to give them up again.
He frowned slightly and gathered his thoughts before answering me. "Roza, I had already known that kids were likely not in the cards for us, but at least now we know we have the option if we do want them."
I threw my arms around him, unable to contain myself. This man was the most selfless, loving, kind-hearted person and somehow he was mine. "I don't deserve you Dimitri. I don't know what I would do without you."
"It is me who doesn't deserve you, Roza. Now, I think we have a party to attend in your honor. Don't you want to shower and get ready? No more sadness on your special day." He cupped my face in his hands and kissed me gently.
I laughed and kissed him back harder. "Or you could come shower with me, Comrade… I'm on birth control now."
Dimitri grinned one of his rare smiles that made his eyes crinkle at the sides. "A tempting offer, but I have something I need to take care of before tonight. I'll meet you at the party."
As we parted ways at my door, I felt a million pounds lighter than I had all week. I almost forgot we would be confronting Tasha this weekend when she came for graduation, but that was a problem for after my party.
AN: Thanks so much for reading and sticking with me after that very sad twist. Please review and let me know what you think!