Hello again everyone :D. I am reading all of my reviews, and I am tickled to death at everyone of them! Thank you to Dimika's froggie, Doctorwholover, rakel123, smile, and many more who had reviewed. It means a lot, and thanks to a-love-bug-bit-me. Indeed, it has been a long time. But better late than never, right? I hope you like my story.

NOTICE: I have been going as fast as I can. I had to redo this chapter three times, because it was crapy and not to my liking. If you guys want, I can do deleted 'sense', lol, like they do on the movies, except, it will be writing-hee hee. If you want to read them, that is. If I get about twelve reviewers that are interested in that, then I will do that. I will let everyone know if there are enough reviewers that are intrested.

Well, that is it for me, enjoy this chapter, and happy new year amigos!

I looked through the peep hole and was shocked to see Dimitri standing there. With the day I had, I really shouldn't have been so shocked. He was wearing his normal jeans, but wore a tight white t-shirt that showed off his muscles. It looked great on him, really, really great.

I turned from the door, ignoring him. I wanted to be alone, damn it! If I wanted to talk to someone, I would have gone back to my room. Does anyone understand the concept of being alone? Did they not get the memo when I didn't return to my room?

There was more knocking, followed by Dimitri yelling.

"Rose, I know you are in there! Your Hummer is parked right outside, now open up. Rose!"

I kept ignoring him.

"Rose, if you do not open this door, I swear I will break it down."

I smiled. That would be kind of hot.

I kept ignoring him, not believing he would do that. It was out of character for him to do something so…uncivilized, reckless even. That is m job. He is Mr. Reasonable.

"Come on Rose, everyone is worried about you. You haven't eaten in practically a day, and no one has seen you for over thirteen hours."

Has it been that long? I have been awake for a day and half? No, that can't be right. I don't even feel tired.

I played with the idea of opening the door and slamming it in his face, but that would be rude…but not unlike me. I walked over to the window, seeing if I could jump down from the window. I looked down, and realized for the first time, that I was on the sixth floor. No, I value life.

Suddenly the knocking stopped. Maybe he thought that I really wasn't here, that I was out for a mid day stole? I walked over to the door again, and locked the deadbolt and locked the chain on the door just in case. I also looked in the peep hole, and I saw nothing but empty space. I walked back over to the bed and laid down, suddenly exhausted over the drama.

Time passed and I started to daze in and out of consciousness. I thought I was asleep when I heard a clicking sound, the turn of the door handle, the stopping of the deadbolt, followed by an annoyed groan. "ROSE! GODDAMN IT LET ME IN!" That was the first time I ever heard Dimitri swear in a language I understood. "I will give you to the count of three until I break the door in."

"One."

No.

"Two."

Maybe I should. I walked over to the door, unlocked the deadbolt and chain as fast I could.

"Three."

I opened the door just as he was about to kick it in. I tried to smile, but my face remained impassive. I looked at him, questioning why he was here. Dimitri froze in place at my appearance. I could only imagine that I either looked like the walking dead, or high on meth.

"Rose." He said, and he looked worried. His arms were around me before I could step away. His shoulders concave towards me, holding me protectively, as if he could shelter me away from everything bad in the world. "I'm here."

I pushed him off me. "What is with you? I'm fine, Dimitri."

He shook his head. "No, you are not. Have you looked at yourself lightly?"

I rolled my eyes. "I don't care what I look like." I closed the door, not wanting anyone to hear us bicker, and turned back to him. "What do you want?"

"I came to check up on you. We were all worried about you."

"Well, I am alive. You can go now." I turned and walked to the window.

"Rose…"

"Just leave." I demanded, walking away from him.

"No. Not until I tell you…" He put his hand on my shoulder and pushed me towards him. "Not until I tell you what I came here to tell you, and until I know you are alright. First thing, you are right, that something is going on with me. Second, you need someone right now. You have been hurt, and someone needs to be here for you."

I almost laughed at the idiocy of it all. "What part of me not returning to my room did you people not understand? I want to be alone. I am dealing with my problems by myself." As I said each statement, my voice gradually got harder and louder. "I don't need anyone." I said stonily.

He took his hands off my shoulder and grabbed both my hands with one of his hand, and the other hand of his was on one side of my face. "You do." He wiped something from my face with his thumb. "I can see it Rose. You are hurting. You loved him. And on top of that, you deal with your problems like I do, alone. We feel like it is our problem and no one else's, that if we run to others for comfort, we are weak and useless. And that if we admit things, we are cowards. But that is not true. We are anything but cowards, so admit it Rose, you love Adrian."

I shook my head.

"Don't deny it. It will only hurt worse."

I tried to hold in a sob, by taking in a deep breath, but Dimitri knew better. His arms were around me before I could back away. "I hate this!" I half yelled, half cried. "I hate falling for the guys that just end up hurting me in the end. Is it so much to ask for one guy that won't hurt me that wants to be with me because they want me and love me?"

His hold on me got tighter as I sobbed. And sobbed, and sobbed. Somehow we ended up on the bed, and we were laying down. He was patting my back and rubbing it, while I buried my face in his chest. Every now and then, he would say something comforting in Russian. I still didn't understand a word of it, but it was comforting. All the while, all I could think and see was Adrian kissing Sydney. Why couldn't he have waited until he broke up with me to kiss her?

I couldn't stay up a second more, and exhaustion claimed me and I fell asleep.

At first I was disoriented, wondering where I was, and what happened. Then everything came rushing back to my memory: Adrian with Sydney, Jill and Emily, and especially Dimitri. Dimitri was with me and I fell asleep in his arms. Ironic, isn't it? I have always wanted to fall asleep in his arms, but I fell asleep, crying over another man.

I touched his white t-shirt. "I've turned into a marshmallow."

He laughed. "Happens to everyone, even the toughest of people."

I sighed. "I expected you to leave the moment I went unconscious."

He shook his head, like he knew that was what I was thinking. "I would never abandon you Roza."

I flinched. My nickname. The nickname use to mean everything to me. But not just that, he once promised he would never abandon me. Somehow, I thought when he told me his love had faded, that no longer applied to me.

"Rose, I have to explain something to you." He moved to sit up, so I sat up as well. "Spending time with you on that mission, it opened me up to everything, and I realized you are right. I do need to forgive myself."

I smiled, glad he finally realized that. "Duh."

He gave me a half smile. "And I want to start my life over. When we found Jill, and you gave her that speech, you didn't move just her and Emily. You moved me, and you made me I realized that I have been given a second chance, and that I have been wasting it. Life is a gift, being alive is a gift, and I didn't realize how important it is until now."

Start over? What does he mean by that? "Okay, so how do you want to start over?"

"I want to first start by apologizing to you-no, listen" I was shaking my head and about to protest against the part of apologizing to me. "You tried to help me, time and time again. And as many times you tried to help me, I blew you off and hurt you." The memory of the chapel came racing back and I flinched, feeling the stinging of those words again. "I'm sorry I did that. And I want more than anything to start what we had over."

"When you say we, you mean, like together or friends?"

He didn't say anything he just looked at me tenderly. Before he could do or say anything, there was a knock at the door. I got off the bed and looked through the peephole of the door.

Auburn hair, brown eyes, and a muscled female body; what a shock, it was my mother. Here to scold me on running out or probably from humiliating her.

"It's my mother. Should I talk to her?" I asked Dimitri, needing his advice.

He got off the bed, and I felt conflicted between ignoring her and letting her in. After everything that has happened, I don't know what to feel about her except resentment. And I could tell that Dimitri knew that. Like always, we understood each other and knew what the other needed.

"You need to talk to her." He said, and pulled me into short embrace. "I will be waiting, so that we can talk some more. I really do have a lot that I want to tell you, that I need to tell you."

I nodded. Dimitri let me go and opened the door. He nodded to my mom and left the room, leaving her in the door way, and me a couple feet away from the door. We stood like that, in awkward silence. I broke it.

"If you are here to yell at me, feel free to leave. I'm not in much of a talking mood today." I wanted to turn away from her, but I had to hold my ground. I don't want to become a coward.

"I'm not here to yell at you. I want to talk to you, mother to daughter."

Since I came back to Court yesterday, my walls were down, nothing to hide my emotions. So I was a hundred percent sure that my face showed my pain. I wanted her to be my mother so bad, but I was tired of the neglect. Janine Hathaway proudly entered my room, closed the door and sat down on the bed, which was still made, except it has wrinkles from where Dimitri and me laying in it. I walked over to her, where I was a foot away from her.

My mom looked at me, and I never saw such a tender look on her face. I saw this woman cry in the face of disaster and be hard as stone, but never tender. I had begun to believe this woman was made of steel; never showing any affection.

"Honey, God created Adam, but forgot to put a brain in him, so he made Eve."

I sighed. "Not in the mood for jokes mom."

She smiled. "I thought it was funny." Her smile whipped off, but her face turned tender again. "I heard what you said to Adrian. I am very proud of you on how you handled that situation. I would have laid into him. Your father is handling that, though." She smiled in affection. I looked away.

"I would say don't make Adrian's life hell, but he needs to learn that cheating is not very nice."

She grabbed my hand. "Adrian was a good guy." That is true; he is a good guy, which is why it was hard to lose him.

"Mom, why are you here." Talking about Adrian was the last thing I wanted to talk about, especially with my mother.

Her hold on my hand slightly tightened in comfort, but I mistaken that for something else. "I wanted to apologize and talk about what happened before you left."

I looked at her, sizing her up in case she wanted to give me another black eye. My black eye had hurt, and I didn't want another one.

"Rose, I love you. I am glad you are my daughter. I am not a woman to regret anything, but I regret one thing; not being there for you. I was just beginning my life when I found I was pregnant. I had graduated top of my class, but when the moroi found I was pregnant, that suddenly didn't matter. Mostly every moroi that sent a request for me, dropped out when they found out that I was pregnant. Only a few stayed, and Mr. Szelsky was one of the few. The thing is I was not ashamed to have been pregnant. It sucks that it happened when I wasn't ready for it, but it opened my eyes to a bigger picture. Most of it was ugly. I had realized that the moroi expects dhampires like us to be perfect, especially the royals. What they don't understand is that we have a life to live too, and they need to understand that."

That was an apology? I kept quiet, not knowing what exactly to say. "I want to be here for you now. I'm not going to lie; having a baby at that age scared the hell out of me. I may have been an adult, but even adults are not ready for certain things. I wasn't ready for a baby."

She pulled my arm to get me to sit down beside her. "As my pregnancy," I cringed inside at the idea of her telling me what it was like being pregnant. I did not want to hear this, but I have to if I want things to be better between the two of us, "I began getting attached to you. The way you would kick, at certain things I would say, and when I work out, how you turn and tired to mimic me." She smiled, and for the first time in my life, it was in adoration for me. "I didn't want to give you away to the Academy. You have to know that. I wanted to raise you, but at the same time, I wanted to be a guardian. I am good at what I do. My decision was very hard to make. I wanted to raise you like any proud mother would, just like Mrs. Dragmoir. I wanted to be there for you, explain about the birds and the bees, and watch you grow up. But I there were other things that I had to worry about, like where was I going to come up with the money to take care of you? I also couldn't ignore the fact that strigoi numbers were increasing; they were hunting and killing more and more moroi. And as a guardian, I could not ignore that. I saw the pain and loss on stranger's faces; even on people I knew.

"But, I want you to know, that I wanted to choose you. If it was not for the strigoi, I would have given up my guardian career and gone to college and build another career. I wanted to be there for my baby girl, because I loved her so much. You were precious to me then and precious to me now."

When she first told me loved me, I started to sob. That was all I ever wanted to hear.

"But why couldn't you have been around more often? Like I said, it would have been a gift to me if I could have seen you at least once a year. That was all I ever wanted, Mom."

She ran her finger through my hair with one hand, and whipped my tears with her other hand. "Because if I came back too much, I would have took you with me or never left. Rose, sweetheart, you will never understand how much a mother truly loves her child until that child has one of its own. It's both a beautiful and scary thing."

"But, you wanted me, right?" That was the crucial point that I wanted- needed- to know.

She wrapped her arms around me, holding me tight to her. "I have always wanted and loved you, Rose. Very, very much."

I don't know how long she kept me in her arms, and what she was thinking, or remembering, but I do know it was a while. And every part of me wanted to cry with both joy and relief. My mother wanted me, and she loved me. I just wished she would have told me and expressed it whenever she talked and saw me when I was living at the Academy. It would not have resent her.

I think it is safe to say that my mother and I have worked out our problems. And it felt so, so nice, to know what I know now. I could sleep with a smile on my face tonight.

She pulled back and looked at the clock on the nearby table. "Have to be somewhere?" I guessed, thinking she has to get back to her charge.

"No," she looked at me and smiled. "It might be too late to ask this, but would you like to go out and get some ice cream?"

I laughed, carefree. "Mom, it's never too late to buy me ice cream."

She laughed too, and we left the hotel room. The sun was down, of course, so the moroi world was alive and active. We decide to walk, instead of drive, seeing on how Dairy Queen was right across the street.

I ordered a Reese's blizzard, and my mom ordered a banana cream pie blizzard. We were walking around Court, talking about random stuff. She wanted to know the little things about me, like my favorite color, flower, best friend-other than Lissa- favorite food, favorite candy bar, least favorite candy bar and color, the type of music I am into, my first boyfriend. She was shocked to know that I have only had one boyfriend (I didn't count Dimitri). She wanted to know the most embarrassing thing that happened to me, and I told her and demonstrated 'oops I did it again' by Britney. I never saw my mom laugh so hard in all my life. And I decided that I wanted to get to know her too. So I asked her the same questions she had asked me. Then she asked me more questions. She wanted to know about Mason, and told her everything. I started to tear up talking about him. He was the closest person to me, next to Lissa.

After a while, I started to feel like we walked a marathon, but I didn't care. "Rose, there are a few important things that I want to ask you."

I didn't like her tone one bit. My guard snapped back on. I was done with my blizzard by then, and threw it away in the trash can that we were just passing.

"The first one I want to know, is why did you go to Russia?"

"I told you-"

"You told me nothing, Rose. I want to know."

I looked away and into the distance. "I went free Dimitri of being strigoi."

I looked at her and she had a stunned look on her face. "Why? Why would you risk your life for your mentor?"

"When Lissa and I were on our way to shop in Missoula, Dimitri and I talked about strigoi, and how becoming one of them was a fate worse than death. We both agreed that we would both rather be dead than be one of them. And how heavy the conversation was, it was like we both promised each other that if one of us became strigoi, then the other would hunt the other down and end that hell the other was going through. And that was just what I did. I kept my promise."

"Rose." She sighed, but I felt that she was proud of me. "I'm glad you had Guardian Belikov as a mentor. For his age, everyone speaks extremely highly about him. It was a tragic loss that he was turned. But he is back now, and that is a wonderful thing."

"Yes," I agreed wholeheartedly, "it is a wonderful thing."

"I am also sorry that you had to go through that alone. I wish I could have been there to help you in some way."

I shook my head. "You couldn't have helped anyway. It was something that I had to do and cope on my own. I don't think anyone realized how close we were." I didn't want her to ask how close Dimitri and I was. She would most likely resent me. "So, your next question."

She looked at me, her face proud. "Your father told me that you killed four strigoi in less than ten minutes. How in the world did you manage that?"

I smiled, even though killing is not something you should be smiling about. That is, unless if you are a cold blooded serial killer, which I am not. Strigoi are the only exceptions. "I just got lucky."

"That is what Dimitri said you said, but Rose, be honest."

"I am. All four of them were either human or moroi before the transformation. I mean, yeah they were strong, but any guardian could have done it if they are quick enough. Those strigoi had no training, so they didn't know what to expect. Most of them didn't even realize how fast guardian reflexes are. So to sum everything up, I just had the upper advantage."

She looked at me, like she was deciding if I was being too modest or not. But I any guardian could have taken them on. I recalled how they lashed out at me, not protecting their chest at all. It was so obvious they had no fighting skills what-so-ever.

"I have something to tell you." She said, beaming.

I looked at her, and realized that she was a very beautiful woman when she smiled and was happy. She looked five years younger when she is in a bright, smiling mood. "What is that?" I asked curiously. We decided to go back to the hotel, and it was only a few hundred yards away.

"You are declared Lissa's guardian."

Normally, I would have jumped up for joy, even if I already knew. But I didn't. Mostly because I was sad for the reminder; no one knew I was leaving yet. Well, better to tell my mother first.

"You don't look to happy about, Rose."

I gave her a sad smile. "If you gave me this news before I left Court, I would have jumped with joy."

"But?" She sounded worried. Probably thinking I was making the worst mistake of my life.

"I found out what my 'destany' is."

"Your destiny is what you make it."

I shook my head. "No, it's what you feel it is. I just have this gut feeling, Mom. I know what it is, what I am suppose to do."

We stopped, at the entrance to the hotel I was staying at.

"I can't stop you, Rose. I know that. At least tell me where you are going."

A few moments passed before I decided to tell her. "Back to Russia."

She pursued my face, and how serious I was. "You are serious!" she exclaimed. "Why do you want to go back there, after everything that happened?"

"Gotta face my demons, Mom. But like I said I know what I am supposed to do."

"What is that?"

"If I told you, you would call me crazy."

"You told me you would tell me-"

"-Where I was going. Not what I am going to do."

"Damn it Rose!"

"Good night mom." I said. I hugged her and kissed her on the cheek. "I love you."

She sobered up after I said that, and that tender look returned. I liked that tender look of hers. "Good night Rose. Get some sleep, need it."

I smiled. "I know. I can feel the bags under my eyes."

She laughed and kissed my forehead. "Sweet dreams, my little girl."

"No, not you too! Abe calls me that, can you at least say 'my daughter,' or just stick with 'Rose'?"

She smiled. "Fine, 'my daughter.' Get some sleep. I will come and checkup on you later."

I nodded and went inside, and I suddenly was desperate for my bed. I needed to sleep, more than I thought.

I went up to my room, closing and locking the deadbolt when I entered and crashed in the bed, falling asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

I thought that was a good place to stop this time.

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