I know it's long over-due and most of you propably don't even want to read it anymore, but I'll still finish it up! *evil-laugh* No, of course I know there are actually some readers out there that wish for me to finish this story. And I'm really happy about that! So please excuse my delay and enjoy the next chapter. I will post the next one within this week as I've written it out already!

ENJOY!

CHAPTER 17 – Christmas at the Belikov's

Christmas was coming with big steps. Soon the house would be crowded, as Dimitri had already warned me, because Christmas was a huge event in the Belikov family. All family members would attend and this year also my family members would join us: my parents, Lissa and Kevin.

Baia had been wrapped up in a huge amount of snow, giving it the image of an old town during winter season. From many houses you only saw the upper floors and roof as the snow was piling high. The trees and streets where covered in white, making it very difficult to walk or drive. But being used to this much snow, many inhabitants didn't really mind and it was fun to go out and have a funny snow ball fight.

In the beginning of December, Victoria had come back from St. Basil's and we hit it off together instantly. Poor Dimitri always was the receiving end of our games of who can throw the snow ball fast and furthest away. When we would come back, Olena always had a cup of hot chocolate for us and we all sat down in the living room, enjoying the returning feeling into our noses, fingers and toes. I really enjoyed the company of Victoria as she showed me how an ordinary girl my age behaves, especially since she was also a Dhampir.

I had bribed Dimitri into sharing his room with me since my nightmares still returned and didn't decrease in intensity. I was sure that it would stay that way for a longer time but I honestly wanted to avoid questions I really didn't have an answer for. And since neither Olena nor Dimitri did mind, we had made the change of rooms before Victoria was supposed to arrive.

The days before Christmas had been busy for all of us. Since the family would be almost twice as big as usually, Olena and Yeva had to prepare much food to get us all fed up. We all helped them as much as we could but the space in the kitchen was not that big, so Victoria, Dimitri and I mostly created chaos in the living room by preparing the cookies and cakes.

Singing along loudly to Christmas carols, Victoria and I tried our best to get Dimitri into trouble by eating all the cookie dough. When being younger, Dimitri always used to steal the dough bowl and Olena still thought he was doing it. So we all had our laugh and even though none of them (except for Dimitri) knew that this was the best medicine for me to recover.

The week before Christmas, the rest of the Belikov family arrived in Baia and I got to know Karolina, Sonya and Paul. Together with them our snow ball fights quickly turned into a full war and Olena was even busier with providing more hot chocolate and warm covers for us.

The day before my family would arrive, Victoria, Dimitri and I went into the next bigger city to get our Christmas shopping done. Since I've had enough time to think what to get everyone, I was finished quickly and we were heading back after spending a few hours at the mall only.

I have never been happier when seeing my family as they arrived in Baia the next day. As soon as I heard the car stopping in front of the house, I was out of it and ran into the arms of my mother. I had missed her tremendously, especially after our relationship had changed from being enemies into being mother and daughter.

The next person I threw myself onto was my father. Though I wasn't able to stand being near him right after it happened, I now found myself wrapped in his arms and him smiling down on me. I knew the time of him not being able to touch me had been very hard for both of us; he now gave am brilliantly happy smile which I returned.

Greeting Lissa actually felt a little awkward. We used to be best friends for such a long time and being busy with coping, I never thought about slipping into her mind to check on her. But I couldn't bring myself to feel sorry for that since I've had enough problems of my own to fight out. Still I was happy to see her, engulfed in the arms of Christian. Our relationship will have a crack for sometime in the future, but we will work that one out.

The next person I saw was Kevin, the chief of security of my father. He had always been a trustworthy and fun loving Dhampir, with whom I could talk about everything. And he had helped with my rescue which I will always be grateful for. Kevin's job was to protect my parents, but since coming into a home full of trained Dhampirs, my father had given him order to just relax and enjoy the holiday.

Unfortunately Mia wasn't able to come over since her father wanted to introduce her to his new girlfriend and there had been no way around that. We had promised each other to exchange our gifts later when I would return back to my parent's home. This would be soon sadly.

Ushering us all inside, Olena gave another round of hot chocolate for everyone, which made me wonder where she had gotten all this chocolate from. Sitting in Dimitri's lap since there wasn't enough space for everyone on the couch, we all exchanged news and what had happened during the last weeks.

After having a wonderful meal we all went to bed since Christmas would be tomorrow and all of us were excited about it. Tiredly, I more or less fell into the bed, wrapped up in Dimitri's arms and fell asleep instantly. For the first time I didn't have any nightmares and I slept peacefully.

I was awoken by someone singing a Christmas carol softly to me. Cracking my eyes open, stared directly into Dimitri's eyes and I wished instantly that I could be awakened like this forever. Smiling up at him, I also wished him a Merry Christmas. Not really wanting him to leave the comfort of the bed, I sighed inwardly when he rose to get ready for the day.

Not really feeling the usual excitement if Christmas at all, I silently followed him. I could hear the house awakening to the new day and soon heard Victoria shouting a 'Merry Christmas!' through the house, making sure everyone would be awake by now.

Grinning at each other at this kind of lame attempt to wake everybody so Victoria could get her presents, Dimitri and I left the room and went downstairs to greet all the other early risers. Most of them had already been awake and were crowded in the small kitchen, sipping coffee and hot chocolate.

Thanking Dimitri when he passed me a pot of hot chocolate, I said my good morning to everyone. My mother and father had already their second pot of coffee and Kevin was also awake already. Victoria came pouncing into the kitchen, urging everyone to help her to wake up the other so she would get her presents.

Though I had always loved Christmas, especially with Lissa's family as I used to for nearly all my live, I smiled at her excitement. I saw myself in her reaction, only one year ago. But many things had changed during that year and though I was excited about receiving presents, I didn't really feel the urge to jump around like a reindeer on marihuana. But I encouraged her nonetheless by grinning at her and urging her on to wake the rest of the family.

When everyone was awake (as awake as you could get when being woken up by a jumping and screaming Victoria), Olena, my mother and I prepared the breakfast. As the living room of the Belikov's wasn't big enough to fit everyone in, Victoria, Lissa, Christian, Dimitri and I made ourselves a place in the kitchen and where throwing around jokes and had a lot of fun. I found myself slipping into the old Rose for some extend and was happy at being together with the people that mattered the most to me. Quickly we ended up in some sort of food fight. Once I turned towards the kitchen door, seeing my parents standing there, smiling at me happily. I wanted to smile back but Christian hit me with a cookie in the face and I had to retaliate. The next time I had a chance to look, they had left already.

After everyone had helped cleaning up the kitchen and living room, I could feel the excitement rising as the present giving drew nearer. Everybody went to the bathroom to fix them up as Olena told us that even more visitors would join in later.

Together with Lissa and Victoria, I went upstairs to get myself ready. I had never really felt the need to dress myself up for the last months, but when I had seen this skirt in the mall a few days ago, I couldn't get around it. Today would be the perfect occasion to show myself that I almost was ready to turn back into the old Rose as far as I could get. I knew that I would never turn back fully but I hoped that to some extend I was able to do this and I wanted to prove to myself that it was time.

Showering in turn, we filled the bathroom with hot steam as we stood in front of the big mirror and applied make-up to each other. Lissa had always been the queen of make-up and so I watched my reflection in the mirror as it stared back at me with black lined eyes and black and thick eyelashes. The rest of my face had been left with a somewhat natural look so my eyes would be the outstanding feature for today. Applying a little bit of lip-gloss, I grinned at the girls.

"I'm ready for the big show!"

Lissa and Victoria glanced at each other and an uneasy feeling roared in my stomach.

"No," Lissa said, shaking her head and grinning at Victoria widely, "No, not yet!"

Looking at both of them smiling at me, the bad feeling in my stomach only worsened. "What else is there to do?"

"Your hair!" Victoria suddenly screamed at me, pulling me into her room and sat me on a stool. "We need to do your hair!"

And so I complied with my doom and let them both work on my hair. I really hadn't planned on that, but I allowed them both to have their fun. With Lissa doing it, it could only get really good.

After only a few minutes and some pain caused by sticking pins in my head, I was allowed to look at the full length mirror in Victoria's room and I really was astonished. It wasn't the old Rose staring back at me but it was a mixture of the old and new. I really liked it. Wearing a grey knee-length skirt with a deep red pullover was the old Rose. The new Rose wore a little make-up and her hair had been pinned up at the back of her head so that only a few loose strands framed the face. Oh boy, would they ogle at me!

Giving them two thumbs up at their work, we quickly went back downstairs to see the result of our work. And surely it worked! Everyone looked at me and Dimitri even came up to me, engulfed me in his arms and pressed a light kiss on top of my head.

"Roza, you look beautiful!" he whispered to me and I felt a blush creep up my cheeks.

Unfortunately the bell rang and announced new visitors. I didn't know who answered the door and I wouldn't really have cared if I would have known. But I surely would have said something along the lines of 'Keep the door shut. We don't need any more guests!' Unfortunately I did neither of those things and so I could only stiffen, when hearing Olena saying:

"Tasha! It's so good to see you! Oksana, Mark! Come in!"

Let the drama continue!

Please give me a short review on what you think about this chapter. I know it's not very well but I wanted to finsih it so I could give you guys more to read!

Lilian85