Note from the author: Hi everyone, thanks to all you people for reading my writing, it really means a lot to me. However, only a couple of you are actually reviewing and let's just say if you really want a chapter five to this story, I'm going to need to see a lot more reviewing from everyone.

Four

"No!" I shouted. Please god no, not another dream. No I couldn't it take if it was just another dream . Please not another dream. I didn't want to wake up. So what did I do? Did I attack the Strigoi like I should have, or have been taught to? Nope. Instead I closed my eyes and started to shake my head in rapid motions. I didn't want it to be real. Because if it were real, well it couldn't be real. Dimitri was dead. Plan and simple. No if, ands, or buts that went along with it.

"Roza?" He called to me in what sounded like a disbelieving voice. It was the same way as I remembered it. But it also didn't sound like a dream. I gave up long ago, telling the difference if it was all but a dream, or if this was really reality. Opening my eyes, black spots filled my vision throughout the frozen terrain. A jolt of what felt like pure energy pieced my being and I fell limp to the ground. I couldn't believe it; I had actually just fainted right in front of a Strigoi.

"Is she going to be okay?" Someone spoke as I reigned in consciousness. What happened?

"She hit her head pretty hard, but I couldn't detect any source of a concussion." What were they talking out?

"But she's been out of it for hours!"

"Give it time. Usually when a person undergoes such great trauma as she did, they can be unconscious for days to weeks." Wait a minute that was Rebekah, wasn't it. What happened to me?

"Weeks! No she's too strong for that. She's not like ordinary people she's much stronger."

"I know you're concerned, but trust me she'll be just fine until she wakes up but…"

"But what?"

"I'm not quite sure how much she'll remember."

"What?"

"It's plausible that she could have suffered some memory loss, that was a pretty nasty drop she took." Did I remember? Where am I! Okay just kidding, I knew exactly where I was. I was at the good Strigoi shack. But how long have I've been out for? The door to my room squeaked open. Someone was in the room. Normally I would have panicked, but I guess it was either my sluggishness from the drugs that coursed through my veins. Or I actually felt safe here...hmm. One or the other it didn't matter. I needed to get up, I needed to find Dimitri and I needed to destroy him.

Slight pressure could be felt next to me on my right. Someone was sitting next to me on the bed. Ugh, it was probable just Mary checking up on me. I mean seriously for a Strigoi not even a Moroi could be that compassionate or caring. As soft as a whisper, slight hands caressed my own, creating small circles that were traced into the palm of my hands. I couldn't help but to open my eyes. Only when I did, it wasn't Mary who was looking down at me, it was Dimitri.

My eyes shot open as I realized who was trying to comfort me. Dimitri, what was he doing here? Pushing myself to the corner of the bed I huddled myself into my legs, staring at the Strigoi, counting his movements and analyzing his tactics. He hadn't moved an inch since I did.

"Roza." He spoke calmly and longingly. What the hell?"Roza, please do you remember me? Roza please."

"What are you doing here?" I asked. It was the only thing I could force myself to speak to him.

"Roza." That's when I saw it. His eyes. They were exactly as they were before, a very dark shaded color of brown. Wait wasn't he a Strigoi? Of course he was, the nausea in my stomach confirmed it. I couldn't think. I couldn't. Because never in my life have I been more overjoyed for my first answered prayer. I didn't have to kill Dimitri. He wasn't suffering as a Strigoi. He wasn't killing people. My heart leaped with joy. He can live. Forever. And for once I was glad. I was glad that this wasn't a dream. It was real. I hadn't realized till now that I was laughing out loud.

"Roza?" Dimitri spoke, confusion forming in his eyes. "What are doing here?"

"No fair I asked you first." I said shot back, still swimming in my high mood of him being here, with me.

"You shouldn't have left." He told me.

"Wait the academy. Of course I had to, how else would I have found you"… and killed you. I couldn't bring myself to finish that sentence. So I let the words roll out of my mouth. Dimitri didn't need to know that kind information. Not now, not ever.

"You shouldn't have left, it dangerous and stupid of you." He exclaimed.

"Hey I'm eighteen, I can go where ever I want and do whatever the hell I want!" My anger was starting to flare again, but I tried to keep it contained as best as I could. I couldn't get mad at Dimitri, past, present, or future.

"Roza why didn't you think? Why didn't think that if anything ever happened to you, I would instantly blame myself for it."

"I'm… I'm sorry Dimitri." I apologized to him. Why hadn't I seen it before? The look Dimitri was giving me. I couldn't believe I had missed it. It was the same expression that that he used to show for me when he was still a Dhampir. A look of passion, of wanting desire. Dimitri still loved me, maybe even more than ever. And now I had worried him by risking my own life, for him. Way to go Rose, Dimitri still loves me and I decided that maybe trying to kill him would be the most perfect way of cleansing his soul. Great, don't I just feel great.

"Roza." Dimitri said while touching my cheek, just as a tear fell from my eye. Now it's going to be really hard just to get away with anything especially with Dimitri's new Strigoi quickness. Steadily, without hesitation, Dimitri took my hand and had me place it over the left side of his chest. Right where his heart should be, he sort of taught me that. Only there was something else. It was beating. His heart was beating. It wasn't a strong beat more as a weak, frail kind of beat. He was alive though, in a sense.

A meek smile played across my lips. I was… happy. No that word was too small. I was more than happy. My Dimitri. Somehow inside of me I felt whole again, I was complete and strange enough I think Dimitri felt the same way too. At one moment we were motionless. Just staring at the other inches away from touching him. I knew what he wanted 'cause it was the same thing I wanted as well. Seconds brushed past but I nor him moved a centimeter in the quiet room. Anything that I had planned or set out to do was lost in the vast space of my mind.

Ugh. I couldn't take it anymore. I wanted… I wanted… I wanted him. I wanted him to wrap his arms around me once more and speak that my name in that beautiful accent of his. Registration played across his eyes and in a time of pure bliss our bodies intermingled with the other and our lips met passionately.

"Roza." He moaned. Oh how have I missed this. Dimitri please don't stop! But just as it started it soon ended. Pulling me back I looked deep into Dimitri's eyes. They were radiating something that I thought I would never see again. Emotion. He still loved me. After everything that has happened between us he stilled loved me. Tears bloomed down my cheeks. Great I'm like a broken fountain; you can't turn me off once I've started. As he kissed the tear away from sight I wrapped my arms around Dimitri. He didn't tense up or even reject the hug; actually he leaned closer into me.

"Roza." He spoke my name with his gorgeous Russian accent. "We'll try."

"Okay." I said allowing my voice to crack though my one worded answer.

"Well howdy ya'll." Mary said as she busted into the room with Alex and Charlie tailing her behind.

"Mary please." Dimitri hissed. Wait a minute they knew each other? Seriously how long was I out for?

"Aww Dimitri your not the only one who wants to see Rose too." Mary pointed out.

"Another time then." Dimitri seethed.

"Look at her she's completely confused, she needs to know the truth." Mary said. Wait, what?

"If you had at least told her the truth in the beginning we wouldn't be having this conundrum now would we?" Dimitri stated.

"But it was more romantic." Mary said emphasizing her words.

"How? She fainted!" Dimitri pointed out.

"Will someone please tell what the hell is going on here?! I yelled. Dimitri sighing next to me.

"You tell her." Dimitri finally spoke.

'Yay." Mary squeaked taking the seat opposite of where I sat on the bed, in a fashionably stylish chair I might add. "Okay, so… after you left the academy and went out looking for Dimitri, he also went out looking for you." He did? I couldn't help but sneak a smile to him. He's so sweet." Anyway." Mary realizing I wasn't paying hundred percent attention to her." When you finally got here. Aww Rose I just had to keep you here. You probably would have left and absolutely missed Dimitri on your way back, or who knows what. I also thought it'd be was utterly romantic for you two to be reunited without you actually knowing about it." She spoke as she shot a glance over to Dimitri. "Okay so I had no intention on you running out and meeting him and then you fainting."

"Oh really?" Dimitri interrupted.

"Fine maybe I did have a part in it, but believe me I had no idea that you almost going to get a concussion from… whatever happened." Well that explained a lot, but not one of the major details that I subsequently wanted to know.

" Well that answered so many of my questions I had." Shooting Mary a dark glare."But one."

"Which one?" Mary asked overlooking her story, trying to place if she forgot any big or major details.

"What happened to Dimitri before… he met up with your group?" I asked honestly. Now Mary was looking to Dimitri for answers, obviously having no clue on how to respond to my query.

Dimitri hesitated at first. Odd Dimitri never hesitated except… except for when he was taken from me. "How much do you know already?" He asked letting his gaze relax on Mary.

"Not really anything, some people around here like to keep secrets." I explained.

"I said I was sorry." Mary said meaningfully.

"Fine then." Dimitri said with a sigh. "After I was… captured and turned." He said with in a harsh voice. Not like it was painful or anything like that, but difficult to discuss… in from of me. "I ran. I ran away from the group of Strigoi that had taken me away from you." He said while rubbing my hands against his. They were cold, but an almost soothing cold. "I wanted to go back to you. Believe me Rose that was the first thing on my mind, but I couldn't, you were being protected by the academy and I needed to stay alive, for you. So I came back home to Russia, I guess home was calling for me. That is till I came across this little terror sneaking up on me."

Mary giggled playing around by making her hand appear as a claw. "And one thing led to another, she brought me here, introduced me the others and told me of what our kind is capable of. That's how I basically realized that I was immune to wards."

"And you started freaking out like a madman." Mary finished for him. "You kept shouting about Rose and that you could finally see her again. Then you started saying that she would reject you for the ugly, horrible creature that you are." I frowned at that comment. How could Dimitri think such a nasty and untrue thought?

"I was a little stressed out." Dimitri murmured the answered to me, understanding my train of thought, as always.

"A little. Boy you were going bonkers, and then you started up a storm about going back for her. Nobody could convince him to just drop it. The next day he was out the door and there you were five days later. On that cold, lonely bench looking for the man who had given his heart to you."

"Five days?" That didn't add up right.

"Like I said before, I wouldn't have let you leave because I knew you would have missed him by at least a hundred of miles or so." Mary explained.

"You scared me so much." Dimitri spoke once more cautiously, as if Mary was going to finish another cycle of questions and answers again, but she remained quiet, for now. Almost intrigued by what Dimitri was going to say. "I didn't know where you were. Once I got back to the academy and discovered that you had dropped out. Rose please, never do that again, you almost gave me a heart attack."

"At least you can have one." Mary interrupted once more. Envious to the fact of Dimitri's more lively body.

"Anyway, Rose why did you do that, why didn't you just stay there?" He asked.

"Cause she loves you silly." Mary filled in for me. Okay, not exactly what I was going for, but close enough.

"Because I love you, you and only you Dimitri Belikov." I told him myself.

"That's what I thought." Dimitri murmured as he kissed me on the lips with a hidden force that erupted from his body into mine, craving more of him then it was possible.

"Umm I'm right here." For once I wish she would just go away. I could tell Dimitri wanted the same thing as me. He usually did."Doesn't anyone want to hear my story?"

"Not again." Muttered Charlie. Whoa I had completely forgotten Alex and Charlie were here.

"I'm out." Alex spoke up for the first time as both she and Charlie departed from the room.

"So come on do you want to know?" Mary said in a giddy almost too happy tone of voice.

"Fine Mary tell us all of your heart wrenching, tragic tale." Dimitri told her obviously annoyed to her interrupting presence.

"It's not just my story, it's Benjamin's as well." She spoke informingly.

"Will you please just tell us!" I said angrily. Dimitri clutched me closer, trying to settle me down before I jumped little Ms. Sunshine over there.

"Okay, okay. Now where should I start." She said tapping her face with her finger.

"How about the beginning?" I countered. Seriously, I didn't mean to sound like a bitch but she was getting on my last nerve.

"I know." She chirped." So me and Benny were just getting down with our final year at the academy in Moscow. We had already been dated for a couple of years now. You could say we were inseparable. Actually Ben kept promising me that on our graduation day he was going to marry me. That however, never happened. About a week before graduation the campus was overrun with Strigoi. Ben was located in the Dhampir dorms and I was in Moroi. But like that ever mattered to me. I wanted to be with him, especially if that was going to be our final moments with each other. Instead of meeting at his dorm though, we met at the center court. Apparently, he had the same thought in mind about me. So there we were. A Dhampir and Moroi caught in an epic battle against the only known forces of evil. Ben tried to protect me the best he could, but we were easily outnumbered. Capturing us was a piece of cake for them.

"I keep remembering them laughing and saying of how they were going to awaken us, but like I cared, the thing I cared about was the message I kept shrieking to them 'you can have me, but not him let him live.' I didn't even realize till later that he was asking them the same exact thing for me. However, one Strigoi out of the bunch actually felt some small molecule of compassion for the both of us, so she ordered that the both of us were to be 'awaken.' I still shutter at what that word really means. Anyway, a few days later I woke up and I was in desperate in need of finding Ben. That is until I found out what I had turned into. I was so furious at them. I thought they had changed me and killed him. I started… I started tearing them to shreds, every last one of them till I finally found him, which wasn't too long after my little outburst.

"Then I guess one thing led to another. We left the group of Strigoi and escaped into the night. Eventually we got married. Found this home, fixed it up and were introduced to the rest of what we call our family. Our family of good Strigoi. And that is why." She said finally reaching the conclusion." Ben's and my heart beat the strongest. Besides Dimitri." She added under her breath.

"You also forgot you're the most talkative." Dimitri retorted.

Mary's only response was sticking out her tongue to him. "And now." She said suddenly."I shall make my depart."

"Finally." Dimitri and I said together. And then we were left alone. Alone as alone could be, living in a house filled with good Strigoi with over talkative mouths.