PSA: This is not a LissaxDimitri one-shot.
He was moving in today.
They'd talked over the phone last week when he'd called to introduce himself. But she hadn't met him yet. All she knew about him were the same small bits of information that Guardian Thompson knew about him. He sounded overqualified. Honestly, she would have been okay with Thompson just taking over. But that wasn't the case. He was one of her mother's guardians and today was handover day.
It didn't make a difference who was in the apartment with her. It felt empty no matter who was around. Even more so with Thompson walking on eggshells around her from the moment he'd arrived. She was grateful for him, he made sure she was fed and physically healthy, but also gave her space to grieve. And it was easy to when her presence was everywhere, but also…nowhere, at the same time.
Photos of them were hung everywhere. Her laptop still on the coffee table. But her laugh was nowhere to be heard. Her voice was gone as was her energy.
With the new guardian starting, Eddie had come around to the apartment and helped clean out her room yesterday, which was as raw and rough as it sounded. But it wasn't fair for him to sleep permanently in the study as Thompson had been. They had to do it sooner or later.
He'd helped Lissa pack her clothes into boxes and collect her little knickknacks and possessions that she'd strewn around the room. Eddie stripped the bed of her sheets and left just the mattress and pillows behind.
Lissa picked the photos out from the crease in her mirror and placed them in a smaller box. She wasn't sure what she would do with them, but for now, they would stay with her. She didn't want them being accidentally thrown out.
They left the bedside table, chest of drawers, bookcase and desk bare for its new occupant's belongings.
Eddie had been as silent as Lissa was. There had only been a few times that they smiled and laughed while emptying the bedroom. But even despite the circumstance, she liked having someone around her that cared as much as she did. So when Eddie eventually left with the boxes back to court, Lissa returned to her place on the couch with a blanket wrapped tightly around her to mindlessly scroll through her Instagram feed.
When the next day came, she didn't want to leave her room. Thompson woke her up with a soft knock on her door and a cup of coffee placed on the hallway table outside her door.
There was nothing but good stories to be heard about her new guardian. He was dedicated and loyal. He was strong and was an excellent fighter. Thompson had wanted to tell the young royal not to worry – that Belikov would be able to protect her.
But he knew today was going to be difficult for her.
He was also lucky that Lissa's mother had beat him to it. She had instead received the backlash to the comment. Lissa had almost lost her mind saying that her new guardian had no more ability to protect her than Rose had. She didn't need a new protector.
She just wanted her best friend back.
It was around lunchtime that the apartment buzzer went off.
Lissa had frozen in her place on the couch and just stared at the intercom. This was it. This was the moment where he came into her life and replaced her.
Noticing Lissa's hesitancy, Thompson walked over to the intercom and spoke briefly with the new arrival before letting him into the building.
Mere moments later, Thompson was opening the front door for him and letting him into the apartment.
There were a few things that immediately stuck out to her about her new guardian. One, he was tall – like the kind of tall that played basketball or football. He had to be well over six-foot. The guy almost had to duck to avoid hitting his head on the doorframe.
The second was the duster he wore. Lissa almost felt like asking where his cowboy hat was, but without knowing Guardian Belikov, she knew she had to remain professional. Who knew what he would find offensive or not.
Her mother had always taught her to bite her tongue on whatever popped into her head on first glances and think about her words. A proper woman, the Lady of the Dragomir household wanted her children to exert a level and propriety and respectability. So she kept quiet and waited for his introduction.
"Lady Dragomir," Guardian Belikov greeted in accented English to her – her third point – and tipping his head down slightly. Lissa nodded back with a small smile and listened as he also greeted Thompson.
His Russian accent as incredibly thick, but his English was perfect as he conversed. She used his break of attention to survey him quickly. He was very easy on the eyes, not Lissa's type, but she could have seen him being Rose's.
She had always been a sucker for the tall, dark and handsome trope and they seemed to gravitate towards her just as much as she did to them. She'd liked her men broody. And between Guardian Belikov's height, dark eyes and that strangely attractive shoulder length hair, he would have been a picture standing next to Rose.
Thompson eventually gave him a quick tour of the apartment before showing him to his new room and leaving him to settle and unpack his duffle.
When he returned, Lissa only listened to parts of the conversation he began having with Thompson. She heard them mostly discuss the area they lived in and the building, also learning that Belikov had been studying both of the former during his flight over to the states.
He knew a lot, Lissa would give him that. She tuned out of the conversation though as she set out to make some coffee for everyone, returning to the table just as they began touching onto the attack. Spotting her, Thompson promptly stopped talking and gave her a sad smile.
"It wasn't anything she did wrong," Lissa said softly, placing the cups on the table. When she looked up, she realised she had both Belikov and Thompson's full attention.
"Often it's just wrong place, wrong time, Lady Dragomir," Guardian Belikov responded sincerely, his strong gaze never swaying from her own.
"Call me Lissa. Please."
"Only if you call me Dimitri then."
"I'm going to go out and grab some dinner for us all. I'll be back shortly," Thompson announced once it started getting dark. He took his jacket off the hook by the door and left, giving Lissa an encouraging smile as he left.
Perched on a chair at the breakfast bar, Lissa simply stared after him. She knew he was giving her an opportunity to get to know Dimitri. Tomorrow, Thompson would leave and it would just be the two of them. It was best they at least spoke more than a couple of sentences with one another before being left alone.
She hadn't realised that he'd left his place on the couch and started wandering around the apartment until he spoke.
"What was she like?"
Lissa jerked to watch her new guardian pacing the apartment, looking over the photos hung on the wall.
"Who?"
Dimitri laughed under his breath. "Guardian Hathaway, I mean. I've only ever met her mother many years ago. I never knew she had a daughter until recently."
Lissa thought to herself. What could she tell him about Rose? He'd met Janine. Could she tell him how different she was to her daughter? Could she tell him that Rose never had a good relationship with her mother and that she'd never gotten the chance to meet her father?
Would he sympathise with that? Many dhamphirs only knew or connected with one parent, if they were lucky enough. Many were like Rose, dumped at an academy doorstep once old enough and forgotten about. And if not an academy it was an orphanage. Was Dimitri the same?
"She was this enigma that you just couldn't ignore," Lissa began softly, getting down from the chair and walking over to join Dimitri. "She had a dedication to everything she did like no one had seen before. She had this way of commanding a room. No matter what, everyone listened to her because of how strong she was. She had a clear vision of what she wanted for herself or others, and she worked hard to make it happen…"
From there, the floodgates opened. Lissa told Dimitri everything she could about Rose. She told him about Rose's strength and how she would beat every other novice she came up against at the academy.
She talked about how Rose trained with Alberta, the head guardian at St Vladimir's, twice a day, every day for two years.
Before long, she wasn't talking about what Rose was like, she was telling him who she was. She spoke about her heart and how it had too much love to give. She told him about all the people that had doubted her over the many years. The people that had said she would never be good enough to be a guardian, that she would never finish college and that was destined to be nothing. Yet that never stopped her from giving everyone she met the same respect and kindness that she felt she deserved. She was as strong spoken as she was strong-willed, but she never gave anyone more of a reason to doubt her.
"She sounds amazing," Dimitri finally said, smiling brightly at the photo in front of him.
"You would have loved her," Lissa smiled sadly while staring into the bright eyes of the same photo.
"I can tell I would of. I'm sorry that you lost her."
They were quiet for a few moments, both of them absorbing all the information that had been laid in front of them. Lissa has spent so much time grieving the loss of her friend and not celebrating the life that she'd had. She was ashamed that she hadn't given more to Rose's memory.
"She stood beside me ever since we were four years old. She was my guardian even before she was promised. She deserved so much more than what she got. I wish I could have helped her more."
"Is that why you both left court?"
Lissa nodded and pointed out the photo of them both holding diplomas. "We both didn't want to go back after that. We were so used to being out on our own that we chose to stay out here. Plus, court had all these rules for Rose. Things she could and couldn't do. I didn't want that for her. At least out here, she could do anything she wanted to."
Dimitri looked at her curiously. "You know, there aren't many moroi like you. A lot wouldn't even care enough to learn their guardian's given name."
He was right. Every guardian had a number that they went by in the system and were rarely addressed in public by their full names. Their given names went practically unknown to moroi who didn't ask.
"Rose was never just a number to me, just like I was never just a job to her. She was everything to me, and the fact that she died because of me...I don't think I will ever forgive myself for that."
"We are beings that search for blame, but often place it where it's not deserved," Dimitri says in an attempt to lift Lissa's spirits. She had shared a lot with him over the past hour; it was only fair he gave her an equal glimpse into his own life.
"You lost someone too?"
Dimitri nodded. "My charge. He was also my best friend. He died a little over five years ago in an attack while I was visiting my family. I blamed myself for his death for so long. It haunted me greatly."
"But why? You weren't even there?"
"Precisely. But I believed that he'd died because I wasn't there to protect him. A friend of mine's nephew reminded me that due to the size of the attack, I most likely wouldn't have survived either if I had of been there."
"Your friend has a smart nephew."
"Well, he's had his fair share of grief and feelings of blame. You may know him; he went to St Vladimir's around the same time as you. Christian Ozera?"
The name instantly clicked in Lissa's head. "Yeah, I know of him. I never talked to him in school, but I remember him."
"I should introduce him to you sometime if you'd like?"
Lissa laughed to herself, realising that she really would like that! "I'd love that. Thank you."
They fell into a comfortable silence one again, both of them just enjoying the stories of the photos in front of them. The silence soothed Lissa, smoothing her soul and sanding away some of the jagged edges left behind from Rose's death. It was been one hell of a rough day, but that moment was the first time in a long time that Lissa had felt calm.
Keys jingled in the door and Thompson came through with his hands full of boxes of takeaway Chinese food.
"I'm back guys," he announced excitedly before noticing the sombre looks on both Lissa and Dimitri's faces. "Is everything okay here?"
Lissa looked up to Dimitri and they both shared a soft smile. "Yeah. I think everything is going to be fine."
I'm trying to get back into the groove of writing. Please let me know what you think x