Oh, look! An update! From Stan's POV, since I figured he would logically be the next one to figure out Rose and Dimitri's illict relationship — or, figure out there was something going on between them that wasn't exactly platonic.

DISCLAIMER: Vampire Academy and all of its books, characters, settings and plot lines belong to Richelle Mead, who I cannot thank enough for writing such a wonderful book series. This means that anything you don't recognized (plot lines, characters, settings, etc.) are my intellectual property. Please ask first if you want to translate or expand upon anything. Thanks!

For the record, Stan Alto didn't actually hate Rose Hathaway.

Did he like her? Hell no. Did he think she was reckless? Hell yes. But did he hate her? No.

Despite the way he came across sometimes, Stan cared about the novices. He hated the way they never got the chance to lead their own lives, instead having to cater to the whims of the Moroi and needlessly sacrifice themselves for theirs, but he wanted them to have a fighting chance. Stan made sure his students were as prepared as they could be before they got out into the real world, and the real world was a harsh and unfeeling place. Maybe his methods and demeanor, in that respect, also came across as harsh and unfeeling, but he didn't particularly care because his way – most of the time – didn't lead to his students' early deaths.

And, from the time she became a ward of the Academy at four years of age, Rose had been one of the students he felt might actually benefit from harsher tactics.

Rose was wild, untamed, and seemed to prefer making jokes and flirting with boys than caring about the grade she got on a bodyguard theory exam. In her physical classes, Rose had always been naturally gifted but she'd been content to coast on her laurels instead of working to rise to the top. Stan knew she had potential to be the best guardian in her class – maybe, even, the best guardian to ever come out of St. Vladimir's – and it frustrated him to no end she chose to slack off.

To a certain extent, Stan was correct. His harsher methods, harsher with her than with anyone else in the school, were perhaps the only reason she'd been passing before she'd left with Princess Vasilisa. She worked harder just to spite him and make him eat his words, and in doing so her true potential shined through in good marks and in sparring wins.

But even he thought he'd gone too far earlier, when he'd completely humiliated her in class in front of her classmates and other school guardians – including her appointed mentor, Dimitri Belikov.

At the time, Stan had thought it was justified. Rose had taken the last of the Dragomir's out of the safety of the school and into the world. Although she had somehow survived for two years and kept Vasilisa alive, the utter stupidity with which she'd acted didn't seem to penetrate her skull. In class, Stan had seen a potential opportunity to hammer that point home and had taken it without really thinking about the consequences of what he'd done until Belikov angrily confronted him in the guardians' dorms later that evening.

In the almost two years Belikov had been at the school, Stan – nor any of the other guardians – had seen him react so viscerally or emotionally to much of anything. The 24-year-old, though the youngest on campus, handled life with the clear-headedness of a man decades his elder – decades even, to Stan's embarrassment, to Stan's elder. So, when Belikov had stormed into the guardian commons – body dripping with sweat from his training session with Rose and anger set in his features – and got right in Stan's face, every single guardian in vicinity went deathly silent. But, despite briefly fearing for his life (holy shit, is this what Strigoi faced when they battled him?), Stan's mind began churning with questions.

"What in the hell was that earlier today, Alto?" Belikov's voice was a study in barely constrained fury.

Stan's lips pressed together tightly, weighing his words, before he took a calming breath. "I had to get through to her somehow. What she did was stupid, reckless, and could have resulted in both of their deaths. And all she seems to care about now that she's been brought back to the Academy is doing it again."

Dimitri was breathing heavily, and Stan could tell he was fighting to stay in control. Interesting. The other guardians were not even trying to hide their curiosity and excitement.

"I agree she needed to hear what you said," Dimitri responded. "However, my issue isn't with what you did; it's how you did it. Rose has faced nothing but derision, judgement, and scolding since her return, and all of this in the face of trying to catch up on at least two years' worth of schooling just to be competitive with her classmates. She's already been humiliated enough for a lifetime, and she knows she put the Princess in danger when she took her out of the Academy and is working hard to make up for that. Why did you feel the need to give her a lesson, which could have been delivered privately, in public?"

Stan bristled a bit at the hidden accusation that he wanted to see Rose suffer. He raised Rose from the time she was four years old. If Alberta considered herself her mother figure, Stan was her father figure; and sometimes fathers gave tough love. He was terrified when Rose left St. Vladimir's, and not just because she'd taken the Princess with her. In the past, Stan had used public demonstrations like that to get through to Rose, and no one had stood up to him for her about it much less confronted him directly about it.

He didn't have to justify himself to anyone, much less a dhampir a little over half his junior, about why he'd done what he did the way he did it. But still, Stan knew he had been out of line. Staring into Belikov's eyes so the other man knew he meant business, Stan thought he saw something flicker in their depths.

"You're right," Stan conceded. "I was out of line doing that to Rose in front of everyone. It won't happen again."

Dimitri searched Stan's face for sarcasm, and then nodded when he found none. "Good." Then, ignoring the awestruck faces of the school guardians around him, Dimitri turned on his heel and walked up to his room.

As the guardians broke into conversation about the confrontation, Stan couldn't help but wonder why such a usually stoic guardian would have such a strong reaction to Rose being humiliated. Especially since said guardian had only been at the school for a little over a year now and hadn't known Rose before she'd disappeared. Maybe Stan's methods were a little zealous and could be seen by someone who was looking with newer eyes as cruel, but there was something else at play here.

And Stan was going to figure out what it was.

"But Comrade, I need food!"

The sudden, loud exclamation from outside the cafeteria drew the attention of a decent portion of the student population – namely, those who were too busy eating breakfast to talk to their friends – and almost all of the guardians who were either stationed or sitting at tables near the doors nearly jumped up with their stakes at the ready. But Stan, one of the few who didn't pull morning guard duty that week and actually had a chance to sit down and eat breakfast, simply groaned deeply in the back of his throat, and took a large forkful of eggs to keep himself from blurting out the comments that immediately streaked across his mind.

It's too early for this shit, Stan thought, already anticipating the scene to which he would soon bear witness.

Since the incident in the guardian's dorms, Stan Alto had made it a point to avoid dealings with Rose lest he further incur the wrath of Dimitri Belikov. But avoiding infuriating himself by the hellion novice didn't mean he'd stopped paying attention to her. Nor, in fact, did it also mean he stopped trying to figure out the cause of his earlier instincts that told him he needed to pay attention to the vehement way Belikov stood up for a girl he'd only just met.

On the contrary, him backing off Rose allowed him to observe her without interruption or scrutiny. And he honestly didn't know what to do about what he discovered.

There's a reason Stan always proselytized to the novices about keeping their eyes sharp and listening to their instincts. Guardians always needed to be on the lookout for anything out-of-the-ordinary, because catching something amiss could possibly save not only their charge's life, but their life as well. Stan hadn't lived to be 59 years old – ancient, by dhampir standards – without learning how to see patterns and listen to the tingling in his gut telling him something wasn't quite right.

And he knew something wasn't quite right with the mentorship between Dimitri and Rose.

When he'd sat down and tried to pinpoint it after the confrontation, he decided the issue didn't lie with mentorship itself. In fact, the rapid progress Rose was making in her novice training (which, considering she missed a little under two years of critical physical training, was nothing short of miraculous) and the progress she was making in her book-related studies (again, such a marked improvement he couldn't help but comment on it to Alberta) proved the mentorship between the two was positive and beneficial.

No, Stan thought. There was something else.

And then he remembered that little flicker of something when Belikov had stood up for Rose in the guardian commons. So, he watched them. Carefully. And he began noticing things.

He noticed Rose was decidedly less unruly during class and in the halls and actually was working hard to understand the material and apply it to her training. Yes, the wildly inappropriate comments were still made, but they were made just one or twice a class period instead of every other minute. Stan noticed Rose was a lot more focused in the gym than she had ever been before, and when he saw her peeking out of the corner of her eye to gauge Belikov's reaction (and subsequently either preening at his nod or frowning at his head shake), Stan noticed a flicker of something in her eyes. The same flicker he saw whenever one of the other novices asked her about her remedial lessons with Belikov.

The same flicker he had seen in Belikov's eyes that night after Stan had humiliated Rose.

Cold suddenly spread throughout his body, and Stan felt his heart drop through to his gut as his brain put the pieces together.

In hindsight, Stan probably could have caught on sooner. When he'd arrived at the Academy a year ago, Belikov was sullen and moody, very stoic, and kept to himself. But, since he'd brought Rose and Princess Vasilisa back to St. Vladimir's, Belikov had somewhat began to loosen up a bit. Instead of sitting in a corner and reading to himself when they had free time in the guardian dorms, Belikov would participate in conversations with their coworkers and invite people to play pool – something which increased in frequency over the course of the two or so months since they brought back Rose and Princess Vasilisa. Inevitably, someone would ask him about Rose and her progress, and Belikov – though outwardly would have a professional and cool demeanor to St. Vladimir's most untamed student – would speak of her progress with the pride and affection one might speak of a girlfriend, not a student. And since Lissa had discovered the dead fox in her dorm room, Belikov and Rose had almost doubled the amount of time they spent together training, and Stan had noticed the looks become heavier with more barely disguised emotion: affection, pride, and love.

Honestly, it was a miracle no one else had noticed what was going on. But it wasn't like their outward relationship shifted – more like they were just starting to figure out what was happening between them and trying to deny it. And when Steve noticed what was building between the two, he found himself in a dilemma: should he say something, or should he keep quiet?

As a teacher, Stan knew he had a duty to say something to Alberta (who was, only by a handful of months, his superior). Although Belikov, technically, wasn't a school employee – he was paid by the Court's Council to be Vasilisa's guardian – and although he willingly (albeit, some what reticently) agreed to mentor Rose, what Stan believed their relationship was developing into would violate the ethical responsibilities to which a mentor-mentee relationship needed to adhere. If left unchecked, and their feelings came to a head, it could potentially burst open a bevy of legalities for which the school could potentially be liable not only because Rose was still a student, but she was a ward of the Academy.

But as a fellow guardian…? Stan knew all too well the kind of lonely life awaited both Belikov and Rose. Although Belikov was still relatively young, he'd be guarding the last Moroi of a Royal line. And, if the rumors he'd been hearing from his contacts at Court were correct, Queen Tatiana was already seriously considering the last Dragomir as her successor. With the constant threat and target on her back, Dimitri wouldn't have time for any sort of meaningful relationship. Not that dhampir males had meaningful, lasting relationships in the first place outside of academies like St. Vladimir's, but the life of a guardian – especially a Royal guardian – was short, unhappy, and mostly devoid of connection. Already he'd noticed the change in Belikov from a serious man who only cared about his work to a man in his mid-twenties who knew how to balance fun and responsibility, and Rose was apparently responsible for that change.

And Rose…Stan had never seen Rose like this before. Obviously, their connection was enabling Rose to become the guardian Stan always knew she could be. And, as someone who considered himself her pseudo-father, Stan thought Rose honestly looked happier than he'd seen her – even before she'd disappeared. And Dimitri Belikov was a huge part of that.

Stan would be doing his job by alerting someone to what was brewing between the duo, but – if they were separated – would he be able to handle being the person responsible for destroying whatever potential happiness the two had created for themselves?

The opening of heavy oaken doors brought Stan out of his thoughts and back to the St. Vlad's cafeteria, through which Belikov was currently striding with Rose Hathaway clinging to his back like a spider monkey. Rose's muscular arms circled around his neck while her long, wavy hair hung down her back, face flushed with exertion. Belikov's hands grasped the bottoms of her thighs, holding her securely to his back as she couldn't hook her ankles across his sweat-drenched, t-shirt covered stomach due to the obvious angry swelling Stan could see plaguing her uncovered left ankle. Her workout outfit, consisting of a brightly colored, patterned sports bra peeking out from underneath an extremely cropped gray t-shirt with a line of Cyrillic on the back and black spandex shorts, was drawing a lot of attention from the male student population, while Belikov's standard outfit was drawing a decent amount of attention from the female student population – including some of the female guardians in the cafeteria. But the pair seemed completely oblivious to the sudden interest of the student population and the low hum of rumors starting as they made their way toward the food.

"Comrade," Rose begged, trying to adjust herself on Dimitri's back as she observed what meal he was crafting in a plastic takeout container. "Seriously. Please. I NEED chocolate donuts to survive. Literally… I will die."

Dimitri, whose hair was out of its usual ponytail and shiny with sweat, laughed a wide-mouthed, big-bellied laugh at her begging and simply continuing piling fruits and other healthy breakfast food into the box. He could probably feel Rose's anger, which she was trying to channel into the back of his head in the form of a glare.

"Rose, you need to eat healthy food," Dimitri lightly scolded. "Chocolate donuts are fine…in moderation. But you need to dominate your diet with healthy food that's going to help you improve your physical conditioning – including your reflexes."

He pointedly glanced at her swollen, red ankle and Rose huffed in frustration. "Olendzki will fix me right up, Comrade. Besides, I'm hurt because of your training. The least you can do to make up for causing me pain is to give me a chocolate donut."

Belikov looked at her wryly for a moment, holding her stare. Capitulating, Belikov took a napkin and gingerly picked up a chocolate donut before placing it carefully in a small paper takeout bag.

"For good behavior." Belikov smirked. With a quick wordless gesticulation of his head toward the injury, Belikov secured his grip on Rose's right leg and gently placed the icepack he shortly received from one of the cafeteria workers on Rose's injured ankle with his left hand before securing her left leg on his hip with his left hand and grabbing the food and shifting it out of her reach with his right. Rose pouted at the donut being held out of her reach, but ultimately quieted down in appeasement as Belikov walked the length of the room – Rose clinging to his back – and out of the cafeteria toward the medical center.

Immediately, conversation broke up about the scene everyone had just witnessed – even amongst some of the guardians. No one was talking about any potential affair or more-than-just-professional relationship between the two, just general shock of seeing the usually stoic Belikov show some emotion and lust-filled comments from the hormone-driven students – thank goodness for willful ignorance. But Stan, who hadn't stopped eating even to watch the interaction, finally decided on a course of action.

Although he would talk about what was happening behind closed doors with Alberta, he would deny and discourage others from realizing the truth. The people in front of him had been willfully ignorant this long, and they would be willfully ignorant until the truth punched them in the face with a well-executed right hook.

Whether Stan liked it or not, Rose and Belikov were falling in love with each other and there wasn't a damn thing anyone could do about it. He would, more or less, keep their secret intact. Even if they didn't realize they had a secret that needed to be kept in the first place.

As always, constructive criticism and no flames. Review!