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Days until wedding- 5

Disclaimer- Still not mine

DPOV

Scarcely five minutes after arriving at my family home, I began to realise that getting here a week before the wedding may have been a mistake. Every surface was polished to perfection, my sisters were hyperactive, and trying to grab a snack from the kitchen resulted in a fierce telling off from my mother.

"Dimitri, put that back!" she shouted, catching me with a box of crackers in hand. "I don't have time to buy more before the wedding feast!"

I slowly replaced it, shocked. Never had my mother implied there was even a possibility of this house running out of food. Seeing my surprise, her own face softened. "There's some bread in the oven, you can have some of that once it's cooked. It won't be long now."

I nodded and slunk back to the living room where everyone else waited, feeling chastised for the first time in a long while.

Somehow, Rose had procured a handful of cookies and sat snacking on them whilst Lissa and Christian toured the photos on the walls, guided by Karolina and Zoya.

"Where did you manage to find that?" I asked, incredulous.

"Paul," she mumbled around a mouthful of chocolate chips. "He's got a secret stash hidden in his room. Apparently Olena has all the snacks under lock and key."

"You have no idea."

She passed me one, and I barely had time to eat it before Viktoria came barrelling back into the room carrying a stack of papers.

"These are all the hairstyles I've been trying out," she panted, throwing the paper into Rose's lap. It quickly became showered in crumbs. "Which ones do you prefer?"

Rose shook her head. "Nuh-uh. Wrong person to ask. If it's not loose or a ponytail, I'm out of my depth. These drawings are gorgeous, but they all look the same to me. Go ask Lissa."

Viktoria pouted. "But it's your wedding."

"It's Dimitri's wedding too," she countered, "and you're not asking him for advice."

Vika looked at me hopefully. I sighed, knowing I'd get no peace until she was satisfied.

"I like this braid," I told her, pointing to a sketch at the bottom of the first page. "It'll show your promise mark."

She bobbed her head in thanks and ran off to get Lissa's approval.

Viktoria had just graduated from St Basils, and I couldn't be more proud. She was the first of my sisters to finish her training, and with her high grades, could have her pick of charges. She wanted to remain at home for a while longer before getting an assignment, but I had a feeling that she may come to the States. It would be nice to have her close again. I also knew that Nikolai wold follow her without a second thought. It would be easier to keep an eye on him if he too were in America, though so far I had no reason to be concerned about the way he was treating Viktoria.

The chime of the kitchen timer signalling that the bread was cooked was enough to stem the flow of weeding talk for a good while. The smell distracted Christian from fussing over Lissa, who had not found the journey from the States pleasant with her pregnancy. She picked at the food politely whilst Christian attacked his plate with a ferocity that rivalled Rose. After two bites he declared my mother the best cook in the world.

"You're admitting that there's someone better than you?" Rose needled.

"Absolutely. I can't compete with this. Olena, I'd love to help with the food prep for the reception if you're happy to teach me some of your recipes?

My mother bobbed her head in a slight bow. "It would be an honour, your highness."

"It's just Christian," he insisted for the tenth time. "Formality makes me want to throw up and it would be a shame to waste this amazing bread."

Viktoria snorted, sending a mouthful of the American soda Rose had brought across the table and onto Karolina's plate. Zoya, screeching with delight, did the same with her juice. That made the baby start crying. The remaining colour drained from Lissa's face, and I met Rose's eye.

This was going to be an interesting week.

ROSE POV

It was barely past lunchtime and already I had seen too many strange things for one day. The most shocking thing that I had witnessed since arriving at the Belikova house was not Christian being a polite and respectful guest. No, it had to do with Lissa and Yeva.

For some reason, Lissa seemed to adore the old witch. Even more strangely, Yeva liked her back. They sat on the porch, sipping sweet tea from floral cups and cackling quietly. Well, Yeva cackled. Lissa giggled angelically. I strained to make out what they were saying, but not even dhampir hearing was that good.

"She's been brainwashed," I whispered to Dimitri. He was unpacking our bags and folding clothes neatly into drawers whilst I watched the crazy scene out the window.

"I'm sure Lissa wouldn't use Spirit just to compel an elderly dhampir into liking her."

"Obviously I meant Yeva is doing the brainwashing!" I gave him an 'are you dumb?' glare. "It must be her witch magic. Maybe she's getting Lissa to drink tea to sweeten her up so she can eat her, like in Hansel and Gretel."

Dimitri let out a tired sigh and came to join me, abandoning the shirt he had been folding. "My grandmother does not have a taste for Moroi flesh. She's probably just pleased to meet a young woman that respects her elders."

"I respect my elders," I argued petulantly, earning me a look.

"Roza, I have literally never met anyone with less respect for authority than you."

I scowled. "What about Christian? He's a little shit." His response to causing the fuss at lunch was just to laugh whilst the frazzled women tried to quiet their misbehaving children.

"That's true, but he doesn't come close to you. Remember when you called me 'cheap foreign labour'?"

"Hey, I know how low a young Guardian's wages are. Technically I wasn't wrong."

"You never are." Dimitri shook his head in exasperation, but there was a smile lurking at the corner of Dimitri's lips. One arm pulled me close to his side, and I surrendered my view of Lissa and Yeva to press my face against his chest. The surveillance could wait.

"Hmm, I don't know. I'll admit I was very wrong in thinking it would be a good idea to hook up with Jesse Zeklos."

Dimitri grunted, holding me closer. "Yes, that was a particularly bad decision. I nearly punched that boy's teeth in, fangs and all."

"You were pretty terrifying. It was kinda hot." Ok, very hot. My thoughts at the time had been incredibly indecent, especially since they were about my mentor. Dimitri was definitely right about the whole not respecting elders thing.

"Oh, Roza. That was nothing."

When I finally made it back downstairs, after much rearranging of hair and clothes, Lissa had returned from her little tea party and was stood in the hallway. She seemed to be drawing something in her notepad, and I peered over her shoulder to see a rough sketch of the room with loads of annotations coming from every corner.

"Dimitri's in the shower," I explained upon seeing her search behind me in vain. "Where's your new bff?"

"If you mean Yeva, then she went for a nap. I'm surprised you didn't hear her pass you." Lissa smiled knowingly. Yikes. I hoped Yeva hadn't heard anything either.

"What were you two chatting about out there?" I asked, covering my embarrassment. I knew I should have stuck to my plan to keep things PG-13 in Olena's house. "It seemed like you were having way too much fun for the old bird to handle."

Lissa shrugged, continuing to add details to her sketch, which I could now see contained ideas for decoration placement. I could see a worrying number of roses. "She was asking me about the pregnancy. Apparently she really likes babies."

"Probably eating them," I muttered under my breath. Lissa still heard – damn Moroi hearing- and elbowed me in the ribs.

"She's a lovely lady, Rose, I don't know what you've been complaining about. She was very interested in how I'm getting along. She asked when I'm due, and what names we were thinking of, and if I was experiencing any discomfort. She even suggested some teas that would help with my nausea."

"Surely she's got enough of her own grandkids to worry about. Anyway, didn't the morning sickness stop months ago?" Lissa looked down, guilty all of a sudden. "Liss?"

She met my eye sheepishly. "Mostly. But for the last few weeks, I've been feeling a bit icky. Not all the time- it comes and goes."

I placed a hand on her arm. "Why don't I know about this?"

"You've been so busy, what with the wedding planning and the tournament and all, that I didn't want to worry you."

"Lissa, I'm your Guardian. I need to know everything that might affect how you fare in a Strigoi attack. What if there was a raid and you felt too sick to run away or defend yourself? Or what if-"

She shook her head gently, cutting me off. "Rose, don't worry. It's only a bit of nausea. You don't need to keep up with every little discomfort in my life. That's not your burden to bear anymore."

The reminder of our shattered bond still stung. "I want to be there for you though, Liss. Don't worry about burdening me. I care about you and these babies. Anything I can do to help, I'll do it, even it it's making stupid teas that Yeva suggests. I'm going to be with you every step of the way, from now until these kids are pushing us around in wheelchairs."

Tears shone in Lissa's eyes, and she smiled. "I know. I'm sorry I didn't tell you, but like I said, this really wasn't that big of a deal. It's not like I kept it from you on purpose."

I didn't need the bond to sense that something was strange there. I knew her voice well enough to hear the implication those final words had.

"Have you been keeping other things from me then? On purpose?" She didn't reply at first. "Lissa?"

Her smile fell and she focused on her drawing again. "Oh Rose, it's not like that. Only… sometimes I don't talk to you about the pregnancy as much as I'd confide in you about other stuff. I suppose I try to contain my excitement around you."

I snatched the notebook from her hands and dropped it on the table beside us. It landed with a thump, and the pencil rolled to the floor. Neither of us picked it up. "What the hell does that mean? Is this why you discussed baby names with Yeva but have never bothered mentioning them to me?!"

"Rose, don't be mad. I didn't think you were that into baby stuff!"

"That doesn't stop you talking wedding favours day after day, and I'm mad about that either."

"But you're getting married! And you can't-"

She didn't need to finish her sentence for me to understand, and she knew it. Lissa's pale face coloured to a level that was impressive for a Moroi, and she kicked at the pencil that lay on the hardwood.

"You've been holding back on the baby talk since I can't have kids of my own?" She nodded. "And you've been acting negative about the pregnancy in front of me so what, I won't get jealous? You're insane."

Lissa's tear-filled jade eyes met mine then, and in them I could see everything the bond would have told me.

"I didn't know what to do, Rose," she whispered. "This wasn't what we planned. I never expected to get pregnant so young, with the whole Court watching and judging me. I thought my mom would be here to help. I thought I'd be older. I thought I'd already be aunt to yours and Andre's babies and I'd have some idea of what the hell I was doing!"

In spite of everything, I laughed. "Lissa, there is no universe in which your plan to set me up with Andre would ever have worked. That was only ever a pipe dream."

Lissa cracked a smile. "I still believed in it. Kind of."

"No way. I'd have hooked up with the drummer from his crappy band."

I hadn't meant it to, but my snotty comment somehow dissipated the last of the tension throbbing between us. Lissa heaved a heavy breath and leaned against the wall, suddenly seeming very tired. I bent to pick up her pencil, placing it carefully on the table. From the other end of the house I could hear Olena calling to everyone that dinner was ready. Whatever she had cooked smelled incredible, of course, but for once I wasn't hungry.

"I am sorry, Rose," Lissa said, finally breaking the silence. "I know I've probably been really dumb."

I sighed and leaned next to her. "No, you're not dumb. You're just being your usual thoughtful self. This is big, really big, and we're still figuring out how to handle things without the bond. Now more than ever we need to communicate, even if we think it might be painful. If not, someone will definitely end up getting hurt."

"We're a fucked up pair, aren't we? Struggling to communicate without a magic bond."

"Nah," I said, punching her in the arm. "I think it's called being normal."

I was sat on the window seat in Lissa's old playroom at the Dragomirs' house. The antique rocking horse stood behind me, the dolls' house under the window. The teddy bears on the yellow wallpaper paraded around the room, matching the ones lined up on the shelves.

In my arms was the baby doll my mother had given me for my sixth birthday. Annie, that's what she was called. After orphan Annie, a girl I sadly identified with.

Before me, two figures materialised on the red rug in the centre of the room. One pale with blonde hair, one tanned with dark brown hair.

"Our babies are best friends. Like us," the blonde one said.

"Of course they are. And mine will be your one's Guardian. Just like I'm yours," said the dark haired girl. I didn't need to see her face to know that she was me.

"But they've been playing all day, so they're all tired now. They need to go to bed." Lissa explained. She brushed the hair of her blonde doll. 6-year-old me was envious of that doll with the real hair.

I watched as the two little girls got their dolls ready for bed. They changed them out of their day clothes- a fairy costume on the blonde one, and jeans and a red shirt on the darker one. They wrapped them up in little blankets, and laid them side by side in a small wooden cradle. Young me rocked the cradle gently as Lissa sung a lullaby that her mother used to sing to her.

"Rose, do you think that when we're grown up, we'll have real babies of our own?"

Young me wrinkled her nose. "Yeah, I guess. You definitely will. But I'm going to be your Guardian."

"But you can still have a baby. And we'll live together, and I'm going to marry a prince. You can too." A joyous smile lit up Lissa's angelic face.

"I don't care about the princes. It can just be me and you and our babies, and I'll protect us all from Strigoi."

"I know you will. We'll always be a family."

The two girls faded from the scene at the same time as I felt a movement in my arms.

The doll my younger self had been playing with had become a real, live baby. I didn't remember picking her up, but it felt like she had always been right there. Familiar brown eyes stared up at me, and I instinctively held her tighter, stroking the downy, dark brown hair covering her head. She made little cooing noises, and stared at a spot behind me.

I turned around to see Dimitri by my side, smiling down at the baby. He reached out and stroked her cheek, before she grabbed his thumb in her tiny little hand. Father and daughter both looked radiant, and I was sure I looked the same.

The light in the room seemed to take on a rosy glow, and Dimitri's body was warm next to my own. I stretched up on my toes to kiss him, but before I could reach his lips, the light in the room began to fade back to what it had been before. The warmth in my arms cooled, and felt different somehow.

I looked down, and shock ran through my body.

In my arms was a doll, hard and plastic and cold. Not the baby that had been there moments before. Just a toy.

I looked up at Dimitri, panic turning my blood to ice. But he just looked confused, and concerned. It seemed like to him, nothing had changed. He looked at the doll in my arms as if he had expected to see it, but wasn't quite sure why I was holding it in the first place. The look was one of acceptance.

Then the room started to disappear, the colours fading and floor seeming less substantial. The walls crumbled, around me, and I woke up.

My eyes flew open, and I had that disorienting feeling of waking up and not really knowing where you were.

Slowly, I shook off the remaining confusion of the dream.

I was in Dimitri's old room; the quilt covering me was soft patchwork rather than our usual silk sheets at the palace. I could hear Dimitri's breathing and heartbeat, feel the gentle rise and fall of his chest beneath my head, and his arm draped over my waist.

I let those familiar things comfort me and waited for my own heartbeat to slow. The confusion had faded, but the sense of gut-wrenching loss remained.

Suddenly feeling very hot, I tried to disentangle myself from Dimitri. The movement caused him to stir.

In the semi-darkness, I could see him frown, hovering on the edge of sleep. My moving hadn't alarmed him- he'd have jumped up instantly with stake in hand- but even when unconscious, he could sense my...

I didn't know what it was, exactly. So I focussed on trying to get Dimitri to go back to sleep, so he wouldn't wake up and see the tears on my cheeks.

I hadn't even realised I was crying until now.

"Easy there, Comrade. Nothing's wrong, I'm fine. Go back to sleep." I whispered, running a hand over his bicep. It didn't work. Something in my voice alarmed him, and he woke with a start.

"Roza?" he asked, hand moving towards the stake on the nightstand. "What's wrong?"

I caught his arm, stopping him from grabbing the weapon. "It's nothing. Just a dream."

Dimitri sat up, twining his fingers with mine and using his free hand to wipe the tears from my cheeks. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"I don't think that would help," I said, leaning into his hand.

He nodded sagely, a flicker of his Strigoi trauma glinting in the depths of his gaze. "Sometimes it's better not to give the nightmares a voice." He lay back down, pulling me after him. I resisted for a moment, feeling the urge to move and run off the adrenaline coursing through my limbs, but pushed the urge aside. We were on a human schedule, meaning it was dark outside and there was still a chance of Strigoi lurking on the outskirts of town. I couldn't leave Lissa unprotected.

Pulling the covers up over my chin, I said nothing as Dimitri stroked my hair and murmured soothing words in Russian. After all, it hadn't really been a nightmare. The start was a memory, the end was something like a prophecy. But what had the middle part been?

A small, quiet voice inside me knew the answer.

It was what I wanted.

Lissa's earlier confession had dragged out a revelation of my own. Much like when we had been at the Academy and my counsellor Deirdre had accused me of being jealous of Lissa, it had taken somebody else pointing out the truth to make me realise it myself.

I envied Lissa.

When I first found about the babies, I'd felt jealous that she was getting what I could never have. But I passed it off as simple nature; it was expected for me to want what I couldn't have. Deirdre had said something along exactly along those lines.

I'd never desperately wanted children, right? And certainly not this young. I mean, I hadn't even wanted to get married before I was at least 20, but here I was doing just that. And I was happy about that, glad I was bending my rules, and knew it was the right time for me. And even before I got with Dimitri, I knew children wouldn't be an option for us, aside from adoption.

But that didn't change the fact that suddenly, I wanted it. Pregnancy, motherhood. I wanted a baby with my temper and Dimitri's smile. I wanted what I couldn't have. I wanted what, for a few brief seconds in a dream, had been mine. It was like Avery's cruel Spirit dream all over again, and part of me wanted to dive back into that fantasy world.

The worst part was, I couldn't confide in Dimitri about this. He wouldn't want to think he was depriving me of anything by marrying me. I knew he had wanted kids one day, maybe still sort of did, but had accepted it wasn't going to happen.

That was what I needed to do. I hadn't truly accepted that we wouldn't have children, because I hadn't needed to. I'd never wanted them, never thought seriously about it, so hadn't come to terms with the fact it was something I might actually miss. Better to get this out of the way now, before the wedding, than a few years into the marriage, right? Perhaps it was just pre-wedding jitters.

I was perfectly happy with Dimitri- more than that. I couldn't wait to marry him and start this next chapter of our life. Plus, we'd have Lissa and Christian's babies here soon, and it would be wonderful and chaotic. That would be enough.

It would have to be.

Okay so a chunk of this chapter was actually written when I was like 15... holy hell I've dragged this series out. I'm not 100% happy with it because obviously I've changed a fair bit since I planned this story. At the time, 18/19 seemed like a lifetime away and I didn't think twice about the decisions these characters had to make regarding marriage or having children. Now, as a supposedly grown woman living in my own place and still barely remembering to feed myself, those decisions carry a lot more weight and significance. Shoutout to anyone who is married or raising kids and bossing it - at this point in time I would fail miserably at both. So, I do feel... unsure about the path I've set these characters on and the choices they'll have to make. But the storyline is staying as I originally planned it, and I hope I can do it justice despite my lack of confidence in the subject.

Um, thanks for listening to my TedTalk. Guess I'll go back to making dumb innuendos now :)

Review and your next family gathering will feature Dimitri as the special guest