This is, perhaps, my favorite chapter in this entire fic. I'll let you figure out why. ;)

Update next weekend!

"I finished the book," Rose told Paul when he entered his literature class on the second Monday since her arrival at St. Basil's. In the corner of her vision, she saw Paul's friends Boris and Viktor enter the room, and the latter boy gave her and Paul an odd look before taking his seat.

"Excellent," Paul said with a knowing grin as his bookbag slid off his shoulder, oblivious to the room behind him. "What did you think of it?"

"I think you're a little shit," she said, her tone almost affectionate, and Paul only smiled wider in response before leaving her against the side wall for his friends.

The bell rang and the teacher, whom the class addressed as Natalya Sergeevna, brought the class to attention. She announced, in Russian, that the discussion was going to be conducted in English as practice for their upcoming American literature unit. The news was met with fewer groans than Rose had been expecting, and Paul flashed her a look that said he knew exactly what he was up to by asking her to stand in on this particular class meeting.

"Pavel Dmitrievich," Natalya called in English, and Paul's head whipped around, seriousness overtaking his expression. "Give us context of novel since you appear most ready to engage others in this discussion." Her accent was thicker with a more staccato rhythm than what Rose had grown used to hearing in Baia.

It wasn't until Paul spoke that Rose finally grasped just how fluent his English was. "Fathers and Sons was published in eighteen-hundred-sixty-two by Ivan Turgenev as a response to the growing nihilism movement that occurred nearly two hundred years ago," he rattled off. "Major themes include the struggles parents and children face in relating to each other, the heartache of suffering in silence, and the sacrifices we make when we favor rebellion over tradition. It is arguably Turgenev's best novel, and I am inclined to agree."

A few titters rang out. Ignoring them, Natalya leaned against her desk at the front of the room, a dog-eared, beaten up copy of the novel in one hand. Her finger was bookmarking a page about halfway through. "Then why is this book still taught now? Is our nihilist movement not over?"

"It's being taught because it's timeless," Paul replied. "The themes are relatable no matter what is happening in history."

She called on another student, a Moroi, and asked, "Do you agree with him?"

"Yes," the boy said, glancing at Paul from across the room. "Although we are not university aged the way Arkady and Bazarov were, we still have a hard time relating to our parents. I know I do."

"Not having your feelings reciprocated is horrible, too," a Moroi girl said, raising her hand. "I cried when Bazarov died alone at the end."

"Why?" Natalya asked.

"Because I cannot imagine myself making so many mistakes that I become like Bazarov," the girl said, playing the ends of her ponytail.

"He didn't screw up, though," Paul argued. "Madame Odintsova was only mildly interested in Bazarov. He acted like himself and she decided that she didn't actually return the feelings after she got to know him."

Rose's jaw tightened at Paul's words, and she wondered what direction he was going in.

"Then why did relationship between Bazarov and Madame Odintsova failed?" Natalya posed to the class. Nobody spoke for a few moments until eventually Viktor stuck his hand in the air.

"Bazarov was a nihilist," he said slowly, his eyes fixed directly on the teacher. His hand twitched when he paused, seemingly collecting his thoughts, and then at a more normal speed, continued on with: "He was too proud to let himself fall in love. Madame Odintsova figured that out, and so she wasn't willing to give her feelings to someone who wouldn't let themselves love as much as they could."

"Do you think that is failing of the nihilism? Too much of this pride — can it hurt someone?"

"Definitely," Ponytail Moroi Girl said. "If you never admit that you are wrong, you will end up destroying your relationships. Bazarov always thought he was correct and it lost him a friendship with Arkady."

"What about how nihilism rejects authority?" Natalya's eyes flicked over the class. "Can that hurt someone?"

When Paul answered, Rose felt like he was speaking to her and not his teacher, even though he was facing the front of the room.

"I think rejecting authority can hurt people, but I think it can also help people, too. There are many instances where doing what you want can benefit you more than it can hurt you, especially if you don't worry about what others think."

A jolt of awareness shot through Rose. If Paul wanted to make a point to her about how she was handling her relationship with Dimitri, she was sure this was it. If a fifteen-year-old could grasp the concept of balancing what the heart wanted versus what logic and reasoning were saying, then why couldn't she?

At the same time, though . . . he was only fifteen. He was still young and had a lot of growing up to do; he didn't have the responsibilities she had to prioritize, nor had he learned yet that life wasn't fair and often forced people to make sacrifices that they didn't want to make.

She stopped, shocked by her own thoughts. When in her own life had she gotten so cynical?

The discussion ambled on, but Rose tuned out, still stuck on Paul's words. She had no doubt he wanted her to hear him say that. In some ways, he could be just as meddlesome as his aunts. The similarity would be amusing if it didn't tear at her heart.

After Paul's literature class let out for the day, she fell into a fog through which she wandered for the rest of the week, grappling with herself and her thoughts. Maybe — maybe — if she and Dimitri had met under different circumstances, then maybe — maybe — it could've worked out for them.

If she was being honest with herself, there wasn't much in her daily life that would actively prevent they from really being together. Siberia was huge and Court was thousands of miles away. Dhampirs protected each other out here; there was no way couples like Mark and Oksana or Alex and Karolina would still be together otherwise. In truth, she really was putting too much stock into being caught when there was no one around her who would turn them in.

In terms of pushing Dimitri away, the only thing she could really hide behind was her damn assignment and a bunch of uptight Moroi who could seriously hinder her career — but only if they found out. Maybe — maybe — she could teach herself to calm down while she was away from Court because truthfully, she did want some time with Dimitri, even if a relationship wouldn't last forever. She could have a little bit of happiness for a while.

It was a shame she'd already burned that particular bridge.

It can be seen that for an ethnographer to accept being affected does not imply that he identifies with the native point of view, or that he takes advantage of the experience of fieldwork to tickle his narcissism. To accept being affected, however, supposes that one takes the risk of seeing one's ethnographic project vanish. For if this project is omnipresent, nothing happens. But if and when something does happen, and the project has not been drowned in the adventure, then an ethnography is possible.

— Jeanne Favret-Saada, "About Participation," Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry

Rose finally got her conversation with Dimitri two weeks after she'd arrived, though it wasn't anything she'd imagined.

"Can we actually do some sparring today?" Paul asked while warming up during his Friday practice session. Other novices, third and fourth years mostly, were scattered across the cavernous gym with their own mentors. "I get the importance of running, but they're killing me in class."

Rose had seen as much. Paul was taking a lot longer to get back on her feet than she had. "Maybe you should hit harder," she deadpanned and at Paul's glare, she laughed. "I'm kidding, of course we can. I've been waiting for you to ask. Get your gloves out, we'll go to one of the practice rooms."

Twenty minutes later, she slammed his upper body into the matted floor for the umpteenth time, having lost count a while ago. She had him pinned down, her knee pressing into his lower back and her hand wrapped securely around his wrists; after counting to three in her head to claim victory, she released his wrists and rolled off him, grinning at his conceding defeat.

"I regret asking you to do this," he groaned.

"Yeah, well, your fault." She pushed against the mat and jumped up, hands on her hips and her breath heavy. Behind her, the door opened, but she didn't register the noise. Instead, she reached out a hand to help him up. "You want another chance or do you want to go back to running?"

"I'd go with running if I were you, plemyannik," a voice said and Rose turned, her ponytail whipping her in the face with the motion. Dimitri stood by the open door, openly observing the two.

Rose tried to blame her racing heart on the energy she'd just exerted, but she knew she was kidding herself — her breathing had already returned to normal. It was because of Dimitri standing right there, looking at her long enough that she knew she wasn't imagining it.

"Dyadya," Paul greeted, leading Rose to guess the word Dimitri had used was probably something like nephew. "I want to see you two go a round," Paul said, his regular shit-eating grin in full force. His words caused both parties in question to immediately jump into protests.

"This is your time with Rose—"

"He's in jeans, that's not fair—"

They stopped and looked at each other, and Rose focused back on Paul before whatever expression was on her face could give her away.

"I can only get better by watching the best," he said, smirk still firmly planted on his face. He stepped out of the boundary line taped on the floor, took his gloves off, and tossed them to Dimitri, who caught them despite his initial argument. Gesturing to the floor before him, Paul said, "Come on, I've got homework to do."

"You're with me until four," Rose countered, unconsciously backing up to the center of the room to get in position.

Paul just shrugged, smirk growing wider when Dimitri finished tightening his borrowed gloves and stepped into the center of the room opposite Rose. He met her gaze for a moment and awkwardness was about to settle in when she leapt forward in an offensive maneuver that had knocked Paul down almost right away.

Dimitri, however, merely blocked it, evidence that he was double his nephew in age and experience, and for the briefest of seconds, the move reminded Rose of the night they'd met. His reflexes had been quick then, but they were faster now, not worn from a long drive and dealing with a younger sister who had a penchant for driving all her siblings up a wall in irritation.

Rose was good — by the time of her field experience, she had caught up with her peers and could dispatch opponents while hardly breaking a sweat and cracking a few jokes along the way. But Dimitri was perhaps a little bit better, if only because she, too, had less experience than him in the field, and she received as many blows as she dealt. His reputation as a badass, she decided early on in their match, was more than definitely earned.

She had to focus with everything in her to gain some kind of advantage — an advantage that would then slip away when he picked up on what she was about to do. There was nothing one knew that the other didn't; he just threw kicks and punches in an order that literally kept her on her toes. Her one strength against him was that for as much power as he could pack into his moves, she was just as quick, dodging before he could really land anything or do any significant amount of damage. It was exhilarating to finally meet her match.

She didn't know how long they parried, but enough time passed that she was beginning to sweat and her hair was starting to loosen from the elastic tying it back together. Dimitri looked like he was wearing out at a similar pace, and she knew the victor would only be determined by who collapsed first. Vaguely, she was aware that people were congregating by the door and bleeding into the room, curious about what was going on. The part of her that could process movement in her periphery wasn't surprised. Reputations aside, it wasn't often that two guardians would engage in a sparring match during school hours, particularly, Rose had learned, at St. Basil's, where the gymnasium building had enough space for a small staff gym on the top floor.

It was bad luck that did her in. Just as she was about to call for a draw, exhausted and barely able to keep her head up, she misstepped on a block, causing her foot landed wrong and her ankle to twist, giving out as she stepped into the move. She could see it happening in slow motion: her, on a quick trip down to the floor; him, taking advantage of her mistake and winning. She could have sworn he reached out to help her on her way down, but she was pinned before she could really tell.

Well, not quite pinned. Dimitri's hands held her wrists down but he'd overshot where he fell on top of her — his knees landed by her waist instead of her hips. Her legs were totally unrestrained.

"Match," he called breathlessly, triumph shining through his fatigue.

Defeat wouldn't do. As he claimed victory, she summoned her last ounce of strength and pushed up from her feet, throwing all of her weight into flipping him over. She made sure her knees were correctly snug around his hips, even though it meant she had to reach to keep his wrists down.

"Checkmate," she countered, smug as hell.

He didn't move. Their eyes met and she froze, not expecting the hunger and admiration in his face. She was suddenly very aware of the position they'd landed in, her nerves little more than live wires as she fought the urge to lean down and kiss him. His expression said he was fighting the same urge, and she could've sworn she smelled smoke as they held each other's gaze, chests heaving from exertion.

Applause slowly filtered into her worldview, and she sprung up and away from him. No. She couldn't do things like kiss him. They had agreed they couldn't be together like that, not when she was openly claiming that all of her focus had to be on her job. She barely noticed Paul handing her a bottle of water, but she still drained it in four swallows, robotically accepting praise from onlookers — novices and other guardians alike — as they filed out.

"Roza," Dimitri said. She briefly closed her eyes, trying not melt at the nickname; when she opened them, she met his gaze through the mirrored wall in front of them. A thousand messages were splayed across his face, and she didn't want to read a single one, not when she couldn't back him up against the nearest flat surface to get rid of the last of her fading adrenaline.

She let out a sigh and slowly spun around on her heel to look at him in person. Paul had long disappeared with everyone else, leaving them two of them alone.

"You're . . . really good," Dimitri said as that blank stoicism she hated so much fell into place on his face.

She nodded once. "Thanks. So are you. I don't know how long we would've gone had I not tripped."

"How's your ankle? I saw you twist it."

She looked down to where she was leaning all her weight on it. "Doesn't hurt right now. It might later."

"Good. I mean, not good, but good that—"

"Dimitri, it's okay." Her laugh was nervous. "It's not like I've never dealt with a sprain before."

He stayed still, staring at her for a moment, like he was checking to make sure she really was okay. "How have you been?" he finally asked.

Her first instinct was to reach out and shake him for asking such a stupid question. The past nearly three months had been an emotional kind of hell that she hadn't previously experienced in her lifetime. Mason's death had been horrible and awful in the way that watching your good friend get dragged off by evil vampires was horrible and awful. Breaking up with Adrian had hurt, yes, but only for a few days and nothing like the emotionless void she'd fallen into as a way of protecting herself from the agony of parting like she and Dimitri had.

She couldn't lie, though. He'd see right through it. She wondered if he'd been hurting just as much as she had the past few months.

"I've been better," she settled on. "I've been much worse, but I've been a lot better, too. You?"

She'd been aiming for diplomatic but he still winced as if her words had cut right through him.

"About the same." Then: "I miss you."

"Don't," she said immediately, holding up a hand and squeezing her eyes shut tight again. For all the buildup in her head and the fact that he'd just said exactly what she'd been longing to hear, it was suddenly too much for her to deal with. The pain on his face alone was enough to squeeze her chest in a vice grip. "I'm sorry, but I just . . . I can't go there right now."

He was silent while she worked up the courage to open her eyes again. When she did, it took a while to look even look in his direction let alone at him directly.

"It would probably be too much to ask—"

She knew where he was going with that. "To be friends?" She shook her head. "Yeah, it is. Just a little bit. I'm still trying to get over what happened because if I can move on, then I can stop spending every day thinking about what could have been, and I need to stop feeling like I can't breathe."

He seemed to accept that.

"Maybe in the future," she said, throat thickening. "But right now, I just can't."

He stepped towards her and she was about to tell him off when his fingers brushed her cheek, tucking her hair back with all the gentle care in the world.

"To the future, then," he whispered, like he was making a promise and then he left, leaving her a shaking, quivering mess of emotions.

Patrol shifts were Rose's least favorite thing on the planet. There was nothing to do, especially during daylight shifts, except keep company with her own thoughts (how terrifying) and hope for something exciting, like a Strigoi that had figured out how to bypass sunlight hurting them (how implausibly terrifying). The only upside to working a daylight patrol shift was that she got to walk around in the sun for a couple hours, something she'd come to quickly miss once being back on an academy timetable.

And also catch punkass kids sneaking around after hours.

"Shouldn't you be in bed?" Rose cheerily asked one night a couple days later, her arms crossed over her chest.

Paul's horrified look as he slowly turned around was worth a laugh. He looked disheveled, like he'd just been in a bed that wasn't his, and his hand on the side door leading to the novice dormitory wing tightened once recognition dawned on his face.

"Shouldn't you?" he asked, quickly aiming for swagger and falling flat.

She raised her eyebrows and gestured at his bedraggled appearance. "Who's the girl?"

Paul's expression said he'd rather be eaten up by the ground but . . . there was something else there, almost like fear. Rose couldn't put her finger on it.

"There is no girl," Paul said, looking everywhere except her.

"Uh-huh," she said. If there was something going on, she wouldn't figure it out by pressing for answers. The best secrets were revealed naturally. "I'll let you go this time, kid, but next time I'll have to kick your ass for breaking the rules."

"Oh, I believe you," he said, eyes wide as he nodded. Word of Rose and Dimitri's match during Paul's practice had passed around the novices and other guardians quicker than the usual gossip speed and Paul had experienced a small popularity boost from being the source. He'd later admitted to Rose that he hadn't expected the fight to be so epic, but he was glad that he'd gotten to see it in person, unlike most of his friends.

"Paul," came an exasperated voice, and Rose and Paul looked up to see Dimitri approaching them.

"Dyadya." Paul nodded and Rose watched, intrigued, as Paul slid his game face back on, a carefree expression that she associated with him and — of all people — Adrian.

"What are you doing?" Dimitri asked, not nearly as amused. "It's after curfew."

Paul's lazy grin seemed forced in light of Dimitri's arrival, making Rose wonder what she had stumbled into when she caught him a few moments ago. "Testing security," he joked. "It sucks. What are you doing, uncle?"

"I am security," Dimitri replied, exhaustion slipping through his words. Rose tried to swallow a laugh; she failed and it came out sounding like a choked snort. Dimitri glanced at her and then, as if remembering she were there, amended his statement. "We are security, I should say."

"Cool." Paul gave Rose a friendly punch on the shoulder, the gesture an inside joke between them now. "Keep us safe from those big, bad Strigoi, tyotya. I gotta get to bed." He shot the pair an unidentifiable look and then pulled the door open and slipped inside.

Rose was silent for a few moments, watching Dimitri watch his nephew through the small window in the door. "He called me 'Aunt'," she said after the click of the door closing cut through the quiet air.

"He did," Dimitri agreed and offered nothing more.

The back of the school reached the far edge of campus; around them white birch trees stretched up around them for seemingly miles and melting into the foot of snow that had fallen during the school day earlier. Paths had been cleared wide enough for two people to walk side-by-side comfortably. The sky was dull grey, splotched by leaves far enough away that they silhouetted against the clouds that were threatening more snow despite April's recent arrival. Even their clothes, the standard white and black guardian attire, seemed to disappear into the landscape. The only color in Rose's world in that moment were deep chocolate eyes gazing at her and dark brown hair peeking out from underneath a knit cap.

"Do you want to join me?" she asked out of nowhere, taking both of them by surprise. "I'm about to do my perimeter walk before my shift ends." Her mouth twitched. "I mean, you don't have to, not unless you have somewhere else you need to be."

Dimitri pushed past his shock quicker than she did. "No, I don't need to be anywhere else."

"Good," she said, letting herself fall back into nonchalance to cover up how the butterflies in her stomach were about to take off through her heart. "Because walking around by myself is pretty damn boring."

They fell into a silence, this one not as awkward they'd recently been but still not nearly as comfortable as they once had been. She usually had a million things to say and when all else failed, she had a million more ways of making small talk and yet . . . she was perfectly content to wander through the school's rear gate and pick through the woods by his side, the snow untouched the deeper in they went.

"It's weird," she said after nearly a half hour of quiet. They'd reached the farthest point from the campus and were about to double back along the wards. Above them, snow was beginning to fall.

"What is?"

Her gloved hands were jammed into her coat pockets, what little of her face that was exposed to the elements reddening from the cold nipping at her skin. "I have these moments — split seconds, really — when everything is quiet. It's easy to imagine I'm back at school, before the attack, when life was simple enough that I could be carefree. I was focused on catching up to be able to be Lissa's guardian when I graduate, but I still let my hair down, you know? But it's only for a moment, and then reality comes crashing back in." She shook her head and glanced at Dimitri to see if she was boring him to death. "I'm sorry, I don't know why I told you that. Sometimes I—"

"Roza." The use of her Russian name literally stopped her in her tracks and he slowed with her. "In the time that I've known you, you've never apologized for sharing any of yourself with me." She felt a flash of heat at his words that she shoved to the side. "And you don't have to start now. I will always listen to what you have to say, no matter what our relationship is."

Her gaze bore into his and she could see he spoke nothing but the truth. Her eyes were dry but the rest of her felt like crying, worn out and heavy with purposelessness.

"God, you'd be good to me," she mused, looking off to his left. "Because I'm a mess."

She turned back to see him raise an eyebrow.

Did I say that out loud? Shit.

"In literally any other circumstance," she said, not quite sure where she was going with her thoughts, "I'd definitely be making suggestive comments about us being out here alone." She blew out a breath. "I think if things were different, if I hadn't met you while on an assignment, that maybe . . . maybe I wouldn't be half as terrified of how you make me feel. I think I would've let myself forget about responsibility and doing the right thing and just . . ." She met his burning gaze and finally was able to finish with: "I could just let myself be with you and enjoy every second of it."

"Why can't you?" He sounded like he was barely able to get the words out.

"Because I'll lose focus. I'll forget who I am. You make me do that. When I'm with you, I'm calm. Happy. I feel like who I was before the real world slapped me in the face. But I'm scared . . . I'm scared that you'll become my priority, that I'll sacrifice my ability to do my duty as a guardian because you'll be my first concern."

He took a step forward into her space. "You're worried that in the face of danger, you'll throw yourself in front of me and not your charge."

Breathlessly: "Exactly."

Fuck, he's really close.

"You're not the only one who's thought about that," he said, "But I think it says something about the depth of whatever this is that it's even a consideration."

He gets it.

She impulsively threw her arms around his neck, rocking up on her toes to press her freezing nose into his scarf. All of her stress over the past two and half weeks about being around him and the possibility of a Strigoi attack and fifteen-year-olds who weren't at all subtle about book symbolism disappeared, and she leaned into him when she felt his arms come around her waist, using all of his strength to hold her against him. She felt safe and cared for in his embrace, like anywhere else was as cold and harsh and lonely as the winter surrounding them that had disappeared from her conscious thoughts. All that existed for the eternities between heartbeats was his aftershave and the pressure against her lower back and was that someone else walking nearby?

She felt him go rigid under her at the same moment it registered that she heard someone else nearby. Her gaze darted around as she reluctantly pulled away, trying to determine if it was just an animal or, worse, a potential threat.

"You heard that?" she whispered and Dimitri only nodded in response. He put a finger to his lips and then pointed in the direction of the western edge of the wards. That way, quietly, he seemed to be communicating.

They walked as silently as they could. At the edge, a letter that looked like the number three was carved into a tree for zapad, the Russian word for 'west'.

"Maybe we imagined it."

"Maybe." He didn't seem convinced.

"I mean, you do start to—"

She paced in a small circle as she looked around, stopping when her foot hit something in the snow.

She didn't move. She couldn't breathe, couldn't think.

Please don't let this be—

"Rose?"

"I'm about to pull a stake out of the wards," she said, stock still and shoulders taut. Slowly, slowly, you can breathe, it's okay. "This isn't going to be the only one. There will be others. That's how they do it. A school this big with wards as highly maintained as these would require stakes every ten feet or so to break them, if I had to guess." She could feel the object against her boot still and without flourish, she reached down and gave a tug on it, coming up slowly with a wet, cold, gleaming stake.

Dimitri's body language suddenly mirrored her own and she could see him fighting the urge to look around wildly. She glanced over her shoulder. The falling snow was beginning to mask footsteps leading away from the wards.

"They must have put them in before the earlier snowfall," Dimitri said and Rose nodded, sidestepping a couple yards before poking her foot out to feel around in the snow. When her boot made contact again, she reached down and produced another stake with another slight tug. She held it up, stakes in both hands now, and Dimitri turned away, swearing under his breath in Russian.

"We have to go," he said, eyes darting through the trees behind her.

"Yeah, we do," she said as fear and adrenaline kicked in, because where there were broken wards, there were Strigoi waiting to wreak havoc.

She only had one thought as they booked it back to the school's rear gate: I was right to worry.