Author's note: Hello, everyone! Welcome a story that hasn't been updated in like three years to the rotation once more! I know that everyone is probably gone at this point and has forgotten about this story, but I still planned on finishing all of the stories I started and this one isn't an exception. I know a lot of people are confused as to why Dimitri hasn't gone looking for Rose yet, but I promise you, there is a reason and Abe has kind of already revealed it. Anywho, if anyone is still out there, I do hope that you enjoy and let me know what you think. I do love hearing from all of you! Welcome to 2018!

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Everything belongs to Richelle Mead, the most brilliant woman in the world.

Warning: Nothing, except maybe language.

Word Count: 4,563

I lay my forehead against the warm window, closing my eyes. I'm suddenly exhausted. Using the bond that still connects myself to Lissa - somehow, man, magic is a big old mystery - has left me feeling like I just ran three consecutive marathons. I feel like a broken record wishing, once again, that I was in Court, with Lissa and Christian and Dimitri. I want to see them all again. My dreams just aren't enough. I want to be there with them. Alive, protecting Lissa like I've always wanted to. Like I was born to. I was her Dhampir, and she was my Moroi.

No longer. Now... now I'm a hunter. And Lissa's kind is my food. That sucks.

I let out a slow breath, opening my eyes to see the dark, shaded view of the world pass us by. I wanted to see Lissa. I wanted to go back to the day that I left Court. My simple and crisp goodbye to my important people. Lissa, Christian, Dimitri. I never said goodbye to my mom - and I would be terrified to do that at this point. She would probably lecture me as she was trying to stake me.

As much as I'm conflicted about going to see Lissa and watching her life as she moves on without me, thinking that I am dead. Or Strigoi - and she's right if she thinks that. Or that I somehow shirked my duties and just ran away. I don't want to imagine them moving on without me, let alone actually watch it happen. But I do want them to be happy. I do want them all to find peace. As much as I would love to run back in time one month, just before I left for Gerard's house, and hug Lissa just a little bit tighter, a little bit harder. Tell Christian that he was a true friend and I trusted him to look after the girl that meant the most to me. To kiss Dimitri one more time, tell him I love him. And maybe shoot a text to my mom. Tell her I love her and I'm proud to be her daughter. That I would give anything to see her again.

Any chance I see my mom again, it'll be a fight to the death. I know it will be. She's too good of a guardian to not just accept that her daughter is a monster and needs to be destroyed. I wouldn't expect any different from her. I accept that might be the only way I will ever see my mom face to face again. I don't ever want it to come to that, but I'll accept it if it does. She's just doing what she does best.

It doesn't mean that the prospect doesn't scare me. Or if that time comes I'll be able to fight for my life. She's my mother. I don't think I could ever hurt her. Not as I am.

I miss Lissa. I miss Dimitri. I miss Christian. I miss Mia and Sonya. I miss Jill and Adrian. I miss Eddie. I miss Rose.

I miss Mason.

He was my best friend at the Academy. He was one of the few boys who didn't look at me like a piece of meat. Sure, he ended up developing a crush on me that wasn't reciprocated, but I did love him. He was my best guy friend and I always knew that he had my back. To be honest, in my own way, I sort of imagined that it would always be the three of us. Eddie, I liked Eddie a lot, but he wasn't as much of my friend as Mason was. Not until after Mason was already killed.

I knew that Lissa would get plenty of Guardians as she was the last of the Dragomir bloodline - that we knew of at that time - and in my own dreamy eyed Novice days, I knew that I was going to be by her side, but I also thought that Mason would be there too. I don't know why, but I just always sort of imagined that he would be. He was my best guy friend, and Lissa and he were pretty close too. I never imagined that he would die. Right there. Right next to me. Before we were ever really alive.

Thinking about Mason - and even Eddie. He survived the encounter in a way that Mason didn't, but he didn't make it out unscathed - brings a pain to my chest that I can't really describe. It's a deep-rooted pain that connects me to the Rose Hathaway that I used to be in a way that I didn't know was possible. It hurts to think about Mason. To think about his fate. To think about all of the terrible things we had to go through. He was so close, he could have made it. But he stopped. He turned around to kill a Strigoi. To help save them and -

Crack.

The snap of Mason's neck is an echo through my soul. Deep and chilled as it is, my soul still aches with my near perfect memory of that moment. And it breaks my heart to think about it again. I will never be able to get over that moment. Even now, a few years later, that moment is fresh in my memory. The first time I lost someone. Lost someone I loved. It wasn't the first time I had seen anyone die. And while watching someone die is traumatizing in their own right, losing someone you love, as terribly as I lost Mason, hurts me so deeply.

Maybe it was reliving the pain in my past - this incident in particular not being something I've offered a lot of thought to in order to protect myself - I must have subconsciously called out to the bond with Lissa. She didn't live through it as I did, but she was the one who knew me better than anyone else in the world. She would be the only one who would be able to understand my pain of losing Mason because she was the one who knew me best. Not because no one else could sympathize with losing someone they love.

The bond between Lissa and I was special. Always had been. Long before I was Shadow-Kissed. When we were in Kindergarten, before there was a real distinguishing light in the eyes of a child between a Moroi and Dhampir, we were just two little girls. Best friends. It wasn't about protecting one another, it was about loving one another.

Thankfully, between Lissa and I, that's all it's ever been about. Love.

"I miss her," Lissa whispers through our bond, pulling me through it all the way to her. Lissa is standing before a group of Guardians. By a group, I mean like twenty to thirty of them. They are all standing before her, evenly spaced apart from one another as she stands, on a stand that allows her to look around at all of them with relative ease. She looks around at them. Her eyes run from face to face, each a Guardian that I recognize and that I would say I've got a good relationship with.

Over my time at Court, I've got to know a bunch of people, a good number of which being the Guardians that I worked alongside. I was Queen Vasilisa's primary protector - her main Guardian - so it gave me the ability to meet a lot of the staff that cycle through her protection. Some of which, like those that stand before her now, I've managed to become good friends with. I hadn't realized how many of them there were until almost all of them stood before Lissa, looking up at her with masked faces. This was their Queen. They weren't going to be anything short of professional.

"Rose is my best friend, and I've gathered you all here because she was also important to you as well," Lissa says, looking around at those lining the walls. Other people, I've befriended. Feeders that I'll speak to outside of feeding time for Lissa. Moroi that I've grown close to. Mia, Sonya Karp - and Mikhail was in the crowd of Guardians - and Christian being some of them.

Her eyes land on Dimitri, who was off at the side of the Guardians, in the front line, but the last one, so no one would have to attempt to look over his head, as there really aren't many people who would be able to.

"Rose had a quirky way of dealing with people, and loving them." Lissa smiles, remembering some of my best one-liners. It's a rue smile, but there is a touch of mirth in it too. Why is she talking about me? To them? I mean, a lot of them are friends, some of them are my best friends, but this is a very public place - the courtyard outside the throne room - to have what feels more like a sleepover type conversation. "As all of you know, she wasn't the easiest to get along with, but she is loyal, perhaps to a fault. She believed that we could do anything so long as we worked together. So long as we trusted in one another and pushed on."

She looks into Dimitri's eyes, feeling him with her heart. She knows perfectly well how much he means to me. How I thought about him and loved him more than anyone else. How I could barely go on without him there at my side. That he was the only one that meant anything to me. He was my soul mate, my perfect match. I can't imagine being with anyone else, but him. There was no one else for me and I feel in my heart that he had to of felt the same. Or, at least, I hoped he did.

And maybe because of how I felt about him, she was able to get a pretty clear picture of how he felt about me. Or, all that time they spent together while I got the frostiest shoulder after he returned may have given her a pretty good insight into his thoughts about me and our budding relationship - maybe? - at the time. Although I can imagine that I wasn't exactly his favorite person at the time, considering what I did for him, and what he did to me. I'm sure that he was feeling a lot of things very different from love, affection, and admiration.

But however she knew of the depths of the feelings shared on his side of the Rose/Dimitri relationship, looking at him now, she knew he was in pain. She knew that every moment of every day was like a constant battle with himself. Torn between his love for me and his duty. Lissa remembers a time - now helping me see - after I had left, ironically she had asked him about when I left to go looking for him after his turn.

He was annoyed, not at her for asking, but at remembering my actions - and maybe his own. We promised each other and I upheld my end of the bargain, but when it came to that moment, I couldn't do it. Not right away, at least. I stayed with him. I stayed in a Strigoi stronghold - I guess? Maybe hideout is better - and relished in my one-sided love for him. Sleeping together and letting him drink from me. Just being together was enough for me and he hated that I allowed that to happen.

In some ways, I had betrayed him. He was happy to be alive and have his life back, and I know he loves me, but he feels that when I went to Russia and found him, he should have died. I should have done what I promised to do. But I didn't. Not right away, and for a short time, he hated me for it. I gave up a good, promising life as Lissa's Guardian to go galavanting across Russia looking for a man I didn't know for very long to fulfill a promise I didn't even really do. Not right away and not right at all. I eventually smartened up and did what I had to, and even though I was sure I had killed him, along with myself, I had finally tried to comply with our promise.

Abe said that he reasoned with Dimitri, which seemed typical for the old codger. I can understand why he did it. Dimitri is stronger than I am. Not just physically, but emotionally. He is married to his duty, it's why he didn't want to be with me in the first place. He was a very good Guardian - and still is, I suppose. He hasn't left Court, Lissa, and Christian, to fulfill a silly promise, because this is his life. He's smarter than I was. And I know that he is.

And I know that it's killing him. Lissa can too.

Just staring into his eyes all she sees is rage and agony. Rage about the situation and the circumstance and the irony and agony over the role that we are all asked to play. He wants to uphold the promise we made to each other but something that Abe said to him when they spoke - whenever that was - was enough to stay his hand for now. But it was obviously tearing him apart.

Maybe my old man really did break his knee-caps. Or is holding his mother and sisters hostage, who knows?

He stares back at Lissa, trying hard to be the good Guardian he has always been. The god that people have always called him. But Lissa fears her worry for him may have played across her face or in his eyes because he looks away first as if unable to hold eye contact any longer and it hurts Lissa. She likes him because he's a good man and friend. She loves him because I do.

"I know things may seem strange now and everyone has many questions," Lissa finally continues, willing herself to look away from Dimitri and address the gathering as a whole, once more. "I just want to encourage everyone to stay strong and keep your heads held high. We will all be okay. We will all make it through this and when the time comes for us to stand together against whatever it is that stands before us, whether it be change, Strigoi or something else entirely," her voice is strong and sure and I can see through her eyes that everyone is enraptured by her. Drawn in by her strength and her confidence. "We will stand together," she says meaningfully, this time drawing Dimitri's eyes back up to her own with something lurking in those dark depths, something akin to hope, "Rose will stand by our side."

Everyone seemed moved. I was definitely moved. A gentle feeling of pride and love washed over me in a way I didn't think was possible for my dead Strigoi heart. I don't know what she is expecting to happen sometime in the nearing future, but using me as her rallying cry feels to me like a bit of a mistake, but I am honestly honored, and awed, at how others seemed to have banded behind it. Before I was sucked back into my own body. All I saw in the faces of the people I loved and befriended over the years was harsh determination and loyalty to my best friend in the entire world.

Queen Vasilisa Dragomir.

And what they feel for her is not of subjects to their Queen. But as friends and comrades and two races of people who are still searching for their place in this world, and their right to exist.

"Rose?"

I blink back into myself, feeling all sorts of emotions a lot stronger than I've felt in a long time and it's hard to tell which is coming from me and how strongly and likewise through the bond I share with Lissa.

I look over at Abe, who was staring at me with his hands resting neatly in his lap. He stares back at me with large, dark eyes so much like my own - or what mine used to be. Eyes that I used to be proud of. I used to love my rich, dark hair and eyes, thinking it helped emphasize my beauty. Now I'm sure I'm sicky gray with dark brown hair and red eyes. I'm sure I look like a monster.

"What?" I ask, my voice softer than I've heard it in a long time.

"You've been gazing at that same page for a while," he says, then narrows his eyes slightly, curiously. "Is something wrong?"

I shake my head, not sure how else to answer him. "No. I don't think anything is wrong. Not yet, at least."

"Hey, Old Man," I say, fiddling around with Abe's phone for about five minutes absentmindedly before I called out to my father. We had stopped for the night - human, not Moroi, seeing as we have been traveling a few days without really resting - at a hotel with the door between my bedroom and Abe's open. Asland and Pavel both stand guard at the two entrances to the room, seeing as we are on the seventh floor and there is no other way to access the rooms other than the windows that don't open.

"Yes, Rosemarie?" He calls from his room.

I stand up from my bed, listening to my knees creak a bit as I walk through the door that connects our room and into his own, seeing him sitting at the desk in the corner of the room, playing around on his computer. Probably planning out who else's lives can be ruined before we make it to whatever safe house he's trying to get us to.

I hold up the phone he gave me and turn the screen on, showing him the picture of myself and my mother as the background. "How did you take this picture without either of us knowing about it?"

Abe squints at it, as if not knowing what I was talking about, before shaking his head and leaning back in his chair. "I wasn't trying to be sneaky about it, Rosemarie. Just because you didn't notice, doesn't mean anything. Besides, Janine noticed."

"Of course she did," I mutter, looking down at the picture of my mother, wondering how many of those existed out in the universe. My mother and I were hardly together as it was, which is why when we were both in the same room, Lissa was quick to insist on a picture of us. She probably still has it as something to hang over my head when I get into a spat with Guardian Hathaway and need a good reminder that we were cordial at one point in our lives. Like a good mother and daughter.

I'm not sure there are any other pictures of us together. If there is, I've never seen them. It's kind of crazy. I have more pictures with Lissa's parents and Andre than I do with my own mother. Shit, that one picture between mom and I was more than what I have of me and Abe. I stare down at the picture of myself for a long time, wishing I could step back into this moment, with my mother.

Even while I was alive, I had a lot of things that I was carrying with me. A lot of things that I regretted about the relationships I had in my life, with the people in my life. I wish a lot of things were different between me and a lot of people. I wish that I could have been a better friend to someone like Natalie, and helped be a reason that she didn't turn Strigoi. Or with my mother, and not secretly hate her for leaving me alone all my life to pursue her dreams - which seems very hypocritical at this point.

I decide to do something very uncharacteristic of me. I turn toward Pavel, who was standing by Abe's door and walk over to him with the phone outstretched in my hand. "Take a picture of us, Pavel."

He blinks out of whatever daze he was in and slowly takes the phone, still wary of me.

I walk back over to Abe, noting his confused look, and wave for him to stand up. Maybe it's foolish and unusual to want to take a picture - it's not like we I won't show up on pictures, thankfully - but I want something with us together. I wish that I had something from before I turned Strigoi. I wish that there wasn't so much strangeness between Abe and I. We don't know how to be father and daughter - yet we are - and we don't really know how to be friends - yet we kind of are.

I wish I had swallowed my pride and done something like this a long time ago. In my line of work - in my mother's and my father's - we can't live our lives expecting we had tomorrow. We should have cherished every moment we had with one another because we never knew which one would have been our last one.

"Stand, Zmey," I say gruffly, "let's do this."

Abe, with a perched eyebrow, pushes to his feet and steps up next to me. I turn to look at the phone in Pavel's hands, feeling Abe step up next to me before Pavel takes the picture and holds it out for me to take. Abe beats me to it, grabbing the phone from Pavel and looks at the picture with a frown on his face.

"What's wrong?" I ask.

"Nothing," Abe says, still frowning down at the picture.

"It's more than nothing," I say. "What? Did I not appear in the picture? Or was a floating t-shirt and shorts?"

Abe looks up at me, incredulously. "No, Rosemarie."

"Were you just a floating ascot?" I ask, eyes wide.

That draws a sideways smirk from him. Crinkles appear around his dark eyes as he stares at me amused before he hands the phone back to Pavel and walks back over to me. He stops next to me and puts an arm around my shoulders in a stiff, but very fatherly action. "One more time, Rose."

"You were a floating ascot!" I accuse, grinning up at him, unable to help myself.

Abe laughs, a sound that was a bit warmer than I expected, but not without considerable mirth. "Yes, yes, and you were a floating hair tie. I'm hoping this next one will be more effective."

I raspberry at him, looking back over at Pavel to see him holding out the phone for us. Once more, Abe gets over there and takes the phone, looking down at the picture for a moment before nodding, pleased.

"Better," he says before holding the phone out for me to take. "Take a look."

I do. I walk over and take the phone from him. I know what I look like. I know that turning Strigoi won't change me too much physically other than paling my skin further and reddening my eyes. So when I turn the phone toward myself, I look at Abe first. He looks... like Abe. Crazy powder blue pants and dress shirt with a leopard print ascot. He's looking down at me with twinkling brown eyes and a smile on his face so wide that it shows off two sharp white fangs in a mouth full of teeth.

His arm is around my shoulder and I look... like me. My face is half turned up toward him, and in the poor light of the room that we are in, it's hard to tell that my eyes are red. They could easily be mistaken for brown and my skin actually looks tanner in the bad lighting. I'm wearing a large white t-shirt with a Disney character on it and black shorts with white stars on it to show off my long, shapely legs from years of working out and keeping in shape. Well, excluding the two years I was on the run with Lissa in Portland. Ha, run. Punny.

I look... normal. I look like a girl, looking up at her father. Laughing. I look like me.

I flip to the other picture and I immediately know why he wanted to take another one. With my chin level to the ground looking at the camera with the way that the lighting is, it casts a shadow across my face that makes me look like the monster I was afraid I would look like. My eyes practically glowing in the shadow my head provided from the light in the room.

"Thanks, Old Man," I say, deleting the picture where I look like the monster I felt like.

Abe nods, taking the phone back from me. "You can have this phone back, just let me get rid of some unnecessary baggage that comes with it."

"Like Bart?" I ask, remembering all the shady messages on the phone that I snooped through while I waited for him to come pick me up. He looks up at me and I stare back. After a long silence, I ask, "What?"

"Nothing," Abe says, sitting down at the desk again. "And yes, like Bart."

"Who's Bart?" I ask, crossing my arms over my chest.

"An old friend," Abe says, typing away on his computer.

I stare at him, surprised by how easy and flippant that came out of him. Although I probably shouldn't be surprised. I know who I'm talking to, at least. "I don't believe that for a second."

Abe grins at me wolfishly, like not believing in him suddenly welcomed me into his shady unground knee-cap breaking business. My baptism will come in the form of drug money and blood. My holy song is the sounds of snapping bones and the gentle cries of my proud father. I always kind of wondered what it would be like to have a father who was proud of me. Maybe one of these days I can figure it out.

I smile to myself before letting it drop. "I'm going out for a bit," I tell him, heading back toward my room to change.

"Why?" Abe asks as I pass through the threshold and passed Asland.

"I need to hunt," I call back.