Gaaaaaah school starts tomorrow *spazzes and dies*

Jk, I'm still alive. I haven't read Clockwork Angel yet so no dying for me (this failed delivery service is pissing me off already D: )

I love the enthusiasm for the cabin. No promises on whats going to happen *wink wink* but feel free to send in some lemony paragraphs so Darla doesn't pick her mind of things she doesn't know for them O_o But that ^ doesn't mean anything…. Nothing at all…. Really. Stop making assumptions that this is a spoiler ;P

Disclaimer: -sigh- I am not Richelle Mead. I'm merrily the great and mystical Darla who will someday have people having disclaimers like these on their fanfics of my awesome stories that will (somehow) surpass VA and Dimitri and all. It's. GLORY!

Confidence. A good thing to have and share.

The cabin –I once again refused to let my mind wander to what happened last time I was alone with Dimitri in one- was cute. Adorable, really. It was small and made entirely out of logs except for the windows. A small chimney was puffing out a thin line of smoke and the idea of a warm, romantic evening by the fire with Dimitri sent my heart into a racing riot. It was a fair distance into the forest and was surrounded in pine trees, giving it that secluded feel you have when you're playing hide-and-go-seek in a giant mall. Or when, say, you're in a tiny wood cabin, surrounded by wood trees in a gigantic forest made of these wood trees with no other sign of people at all. The moment we stepped into the forest, it felt as if we were the only two people on earth. And when we got to the cabin, it felt as if we were the only things in existence. Of course, this feeling only lasted for a couple minutes before I literally feel into Dimitri's arms with exhaustion. Normally this small little hike wouldn't have even made a chink in my energy but that's what you get for being horribly injured and sleep deprived. And my body wanted sleep. Now.

Dimitri smiled and picked me up, pulling me into his chest. I breathed in his lovely scent and felt warm muscle beneath his shirt. I closed my eyes and he carried me into the house, laying me gently on a soft bed. I sighed contently and already felt my body shutting down for sleep. His callused hand caressed my tender cheek and I felt his soft breath on my forehead before he pressed his lips to it. "Sleep tight, Roza," he whispered before walking out, shutting the door behind him. Once he was gone, I remembered I still wanted to ask some questions. Too late now. Maybe later when I don't feel as if my eyes are being held down with 100 lbs weights.

I slowly came to, first only registering the warm blanket on my and how it was slightly itchy. I ignored it though, feeling perfectly happy on my little cocoon of bliss and heaviness. I had had a nightmare earlier but after some deep breathing and reminding myself that Dimitri was only a couple feet away from me in the next room, I had calmed down and fell back into an undisturbed sleep. I realized my stomach was pissed at me. It grumbled and I grumbled back at it. It shut up, for a second. Figuring I probably wasn't going to win this grumble fest, I pulled myself into consciousness. I opened my eyes and rolled over to peer through the closed blinds covering the window. A dim light shone through so I figured it was around sun set, since I really didn't think I slept for a whole day.

I, literally, fell out of bed, with a loud thump. I groaned, and pushed myself up with my sore arms. I looked down at my legs and realized that they were one: completely asleep and two: felt like they had been continually munched on by little rabbits for the past 48 hours. No wonder they immediately dropped my ass. They didn't seem the like the little workout I put them through yesterday. I grabbed onto the bed and stood up again, my legs now only having a slightly unpleasant tingling feeling, which meant I could now feel them in general. I looked down at myself and realized that not only was I wearing a different shirt than I was when I feel asleep, I wasn't wearing any pants. Slow down there, I was still wearing panties. Just… no pj shorts or anything. I quickly started shuffling through my poor suit case (it looked so battered from all the quick moving) and pulled some out. Slipping them on, I opened my door fractionally, not sure if I should feel embarrassed that Dimitri obviously changed my clothes while I was comatose or happy and wither or not I should avoid him at this point.

I saw no one out in the tiny kitchen or living room (aka a couch set just outside the kitchen) so I scuttled into the kitchen. I hadn't gotten the chance to eat my eggs and bacon earlier so I opened the fridge to see if Dimitri had so kindly wrapped it up for me. Sure enough, it was there in a glass plate covered in plastic wrap. I pulled it out, ripped off the covering a popped it in the microwave. I sat down on one of the bar stools with a glass of milk and listened to the hum of the microwave, waiting for it to beep. When it did, I hopped off and took it out, my stomach grumbling happily at the smell of creamy eggs and salty bacon. My only hope was that Dimitri was as good a cook as he was at fighting. I grabbed a fork and started shovelling food into my mouth as Dimitri walked in. I slowly stopped the movement of my fork and swallowed my food. He looked as sexy as usual but something beige in his outfit made me do a double take. "Dimitri, is that a cardigan?"

He suddenly looked sheepish. "Um, yes?" He said it more like a question than an answer.

"Why?"

"I raided the closet in my room. Do you not like it?" he asked, disappointed. "But forget that, I think we need to talk."

I nodded slowly, setting my fork down. "Yes, yes we do."

"First of all, how are you feeling? I directly disobeyed an order by letting you sleep before you ate so…"

"Like I've been run over by five semis and then spit on my fire breathing dragons and then carried away to a far off castle and dropped off the tallest tower."

"Wow. You want any ibuprofen?"

"Sure." He opened a cupboard and pulled out a bottle, popped the top off and dumped a couple pills into his hand. He also handed me a glass of water. I took it down gratefully and returned to my quickly cooling bacon.

"Now, about what happened before Victor – "

"I'm sorry, I can't take you seriously with that cardigan." He sighed and pulled it off, tossing it onto the couch that was three feet away. "And I get it Dimitri. You regret what we did. I already know that so don't make it hurt anymore than it already does with actually saying it."

He looked quizzical and a bit hurt. "Why would you say that?"

I took a deep breath and pushed away my plate, my appetite suddenly gone. I looked down at it. "Because you never once looked at me when you came to rescue me," I whispered, barely audible.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him shake his head. His finger came to my chin and forced me to look at him. "When we made love that night, I was ecstatic. My only regret in that was that we hadn't made the choice fully sober. If we could go back in time, I would still do exactly what I did. Roza, when I woke up to an empty spot beside me, I was distraught. You couldn't have been thinking straight. When I read that letter, I felt myself die a bit inside knowing that you set out to die. I had no idea when or how he would do it. My only hope was that he would keep you alive long enough for us to find you. When Adrian told me what he was planning to do to you," his voice started to crack, "I-I don't know how I managed to hold myself together. To think, that you, my precious Rose, was going to be put through something like that, I wanted to rip his fucking throat out. So, that was the job I was assigned to do. Well, capture, not kill. I knew that the moment I saw you, in whatever state, I was going to lose it. I knew I would run to you, make sure you were okay. Nurse you back to health. But that would endanger you and the others and that was totally against my goal. I was going to make sure no one ever touched you again. I still am." I was speechless. Here I thought he didn't care. Maybe just wanted to go back to that love-hate relationship that we had somehow fallen into.

"But, before. You called me a bloodwhore."

"That, I regretted. Very much so. I would do anything for you, Rose. After, after, you saved me, I was plagued with images of what I did to you every time I saw your face and that hurt me so much. I had sworn to protect you and here I was the one that had caused you pain. I tried to push you away, to help get rid of some of the pain. I wanted to keep you safe, away from me. But that only hurt you more. There was nothing I could do. I knew I no longer had any chance with you, that I blew it with those two words." Those words that had been forever etched in my brain made a reappearance. Love fades, Mine has. They still stung, but I forced myself to hear him out. "I didn't deserve you. And you deserved someone much better than me. Someone who hadn't put you through so much pain and suffering. I could have killed you, turned you Strigoi. And being an evil monster with no sense of wrong or right is no excuse for that. The only thing I could do was keep up the act and hoped you moved on."

"So, why did you come with me on this mission?"

"To protect you," he said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "I had hurt you. And so I needed to protect you."

"Is that the only reason?" This confession was nice and all but I needed to know only one thing.

"I had sworn to protect all that I love. To give my life for theirs. There is no one on this earth who I would give more protection to than you." And then he bent down closer to my face and lightly pressed his lips to mine.

"Love you too, Comrade."

"When are you going to stop calling me that?"

XXX

After a steamy make-up make-out session, Dimitri made me a grilled cheese sandwich even though I had just finished my eggs and bacy. He said that if I didn't eat whatever Abe wanted me to, he'd kick Dimitri's ass and sue him for neglect of a sick person. "My father's the over protective sort, huh?"

"No. He's the rich over protective sort."

"Is there a difference?"

"Yes. Rich is worse. They have resources."

"Hmmm." I took a bite of my sandwich. I loved grilled cheese and Dimitri was as good a God in the kitchen as he was outside it. "I wonder what he would say if he found out I was in love with a Dhampir?"

A voice from the door cut in. "He'd say he already knew, that he was happy for you and hope's to walk you down the aisle."

I turned in my seat to see a smiling Abe leaning against the door. "So, I'm getting married now?"

He shrugged. "Just calling dibs." Cause who else would I call to walk me down the aisle? He looked at Dimitri. "You feeding her properly?"

He sighed. "Yes. As you can see, she's eating right now." They both turned to me just as I had started to lick the grease off my fingers, now that my sandwich was done. "Or, was."

"Good, good. Remember, Belikov, I'm watching you." He did the two finger thing pointing as his and then Dimitri's eyes. I held back an eyeroll.

"Abe, no girl wants her father to be keeping close examination of her weight. I'm fine. I like food. I'll eat."

"You better."

"I'm not sudden going to kneel over from starvation if I miss eating a single calorie in my meal plan." He had literally gotten someone to write out a meal plan for me. I had looked at it once, ripped it into little pieces and thrown it in the garbage so Dimitri couldn't follow it.

"I don't remember grilled cheese being on it." He glared at Dimitri.

"Which is why the meal plan no longer exists."

Abe turned his glare to me. "Then it's not my fault if you're too malnourished to attend Victor's trial."

I gapped. "He's on trial? Already? Yes!" I resisted the urge to jump up and down doing a happy dance.

"Yes. And this trial affects your fate. If he pleads guilty to murdering the Queen, you're off the hook. If he pleads innocent, well, there's no evidence that he did it."

"But he did!" I exclaimed, outraged.

"I know, but there's no evidence. But don't you worry, we'll figure something out. I'm not going to have you killed after all of this." And with that he left, before I could yell at him again for something he couldn't control.

"Uggh!"

"Rose, calm down. Here, eat another grilled cheese sandwich."

Yay! Dimitri's stopped being an ass! Let's celebrate :D

Anyways, expect later updates starting around next week. This week isn't really much, just registration, then orientation and then half day. And then three day weekend.

Schools so weird. The only thing I'm looking forward to is English AP and design studies.

Review and give Darla a good start to the school year!