Richelle Mead owns the VA and Bloodlines series.

7/23/14 WARNING: Go back and read the extra 2000 words added to Chapter 12 before reading this chapter.

Okay, I know I said this chapter would be from Sydney's POV, but some of it worked better from Adrian's POV so I changed it up. I did add more to the last chapter so make sure you read that before starting this one, or you'll be a little confused.

Sydney woke me up again right after dawn. And let's just say the way she woke me up was nothing short of spectacular. Being separated for so long had done nothing to diminish her sex drive.

She sighed, rolling off of me and stretching her arms over her head. "We should start everyday like that," she smiled, getting out of bed.

I turned my head to watch her get dressed, but felt more like going back to sleep than getting out of bed myself. The fact that she was smiling was enough incentive to make me think about it though. "Better than coffee, huh?" I teased.

She picked up a pair of dark jeans out of the bags I'd gotten her last night and then leaned down to kiss me. "Who needs coffee when I have you?" She grinned and kissed me again. "Now get up. I'm hungry and you need to go to the feeders."

She was acting normal this morning, way different then she'd acted last night. Though she'd clearly worked through some things last night, I felt like she was putting on a brave face. Trying to force herself back to normal. But, if it made her feel better to act like nothing happened, then I'd let her. For now.

"I'm good here," I mumbled, rolling over and pulling the covers up over my head. I felt her sit down beside me a minute later and smiled.

"Adrian, come on—ah!"

I sat up swiftly and pulled her down onto the bed beside me. Her legs draped over mine and I pressed her into the mattress, kissing her as she laughed.

She was fully dressed now, wearing jeans and a white blouse I'd bought her last night, but that didn't stop me from running my hands up under the hem of her shirt. She sighed, tilting her head back so I had access to the smooth skin at the base of her neck. Slowly, I trailed kisses up her jaw and just below her ear where I bit down gently, causing her to gasp.

She was laughing for the first time since we'd gotten her out of Utah and it made me so happy I wanted to cry. She twisted us until she was straddling my chest and beamed at me, her golden hair falling around us like a veil, keeping all of our problems at bay for a little longer. That's what all this was: the sex, the teasing. She was distracting herself and I'd be damned if I didn't help her for just awhile longer.

"After breakfast we'll have plenty of time for this, you know," she breathed.

"Or we could make time for it now," I reasoned. "I believe there's a saying that goes something like, 'Don't put off until later what you can do right now.' Does that sound familiar?"

She leaned in and kissed me, taking my breath away. "How about this," she said, pulling back a little. "We go get breakfast and bring it back here so we can eat it in bed."

"Mmm," I murmured, leaning up to nip at her lips. "I like the way you think."

Forty five minutes later, after I'd showered—and managed to get her undressed again to join me, though she was adamant about keeping it short—and I'd made a quick run to the feeders, we found ourselves in the lobby, a blonde kid the only thing between us and our breakfast.

"Miss Sage. I've been assigned to watch over you while you're here at Court, under Queen Vasalisa's orders," the blonde guardian said.

Rose had mentioned something about Sydney getting a guardian last night. I smiled and gestured out the door. "Miss Sage and I were going out for breakfast. We'll be back in an hour."

"I'm afraid I can't allow that." He must have only been about nineteen, but he spoke with a confidence that stopped Sydney and I in our tracks. "My assignment was clear. I am not to let Miss Sage out of my sight until my shift's over unless she's in her room."

"It's just breakfast," Sydney said. "And I'll be with Adrian. He won't let anything happen to me."

The guardian looked at me like he wasn't so sure. I'd never seen him before, but from the look of recognition in his eyes, I'd say it was a good bet that he'd heard of me. And my reputation.

"My assignment was to—"

"Yeah, yeah," I said pulling my phone out of my pocket and dialing a number. "Hold your horses there, champ. We'll get this all sorted out."

"Hello?" Rose's grumpy voice answered on the third ring. "What do you want, Adrian? I was just going to bed—" She broke off, startled. "Is it Sydney? Is everything okay?"

"Sydney's okay," I said, shooting her a look. "It's the Boy Scout Lissa assigned her that's giving us trouble."

"What? Oh, Henry?" She chuckled. "Let me guess. Sydney doesn't want some dhampir following her around? I would do it myself, but I need to get some sleep. Tell her I'll be there later—"

"No, it's..." I hesitated for a second before going with the excuse she'd, oh so helpfully, handed me. "She's hungry and I told her I'd take her to get breakfast. It would be easier for her if some stranger wasn't breathing down her neck."

She sighed. "Fine. Put him on the phone."

I handed the phone to Henry and he listened to whatever Rose was saying with wide eyes. His earlier confidence faded quickly when the infamous Rose Hathaway was bossing him around. "Yes, ma'am," he said and handed the phone back to me.

Rose was talking the moment I put the phone to my ear. "Don't take your eyes off of her, Adrian. I'm serious. The last thing she needs is a repeat of what happened last time she was here. That would really help her get over whatever the Alchemists did to her."

"I'll take care of her."

Rose sighed again and I imagined her pinching the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefingers. "I know you will. I'm just worried. Does she really seem okay? I mean, last night she was all over the place. I've never seen her like that before. I'm worried."

"She's going to be okay, Rose," I said, trying to convince her as much as myself. I looked over at Sydney who threw me a small smile. She looked okay, and even though I knew she was pretending, I had to believe she'd be fine. Maybe if we kept doing normal things like sex and kissing and breakfast, by the time she finally did break down she'd already be on the road to recovery. I wasn't stupid enough to believe it could be that easy, but what else could I do?

I'll bring up reeducation again after breakfast, I promised myself.

As we walked down the empty pathways towards the businesses in the center of Court, Sydney leaned up and pressed her lips to my cheek, even though anyone could have seen. No one was out at this time of day, but still.

"Someone's feeling reckless today," I laughed.

"Haven't you heard?" She smiled up at me and some of the tension I'd been carrying eased away. She really was okay for the time being. "I'm a rebel now."

I grinned back at her. "Sage, you've been a rebel as long as I've known you. It's other people who are just starting to get the picture."

"I'd kiss you again," she laughed. "But someone might literally get the picture, so I better not."

"A rebel, but still practical, I see. Just the way I like you."

We found ourselves at the same diner we'd visited the last time we were at Court. We ordered and then waited at a booth, sipping coffee and staring at one another. I wanted to wrap her up in my arms and never let go, but, unfortunately, that wasn't possible. We might have been free of the Alchemists—for now—but we still had the prejudices of my people to contend with. And I didn't want to give anyone any reason to bother Sydney.

I enjoyed the time with her, regardless. I knew that soon, probably after breakfast, we were going to have to talk about some heavy stuff between us and it wasn't going to be easy. Although we were obviously far from the point of breaking up, we still had a lot of serious problems to work through. What happened with Nina was, surprisingly, probably one of the smallest on the list. Sydney's traumatic time in reeducation was the big one, with our plans for our future coming in a close second. We were safe at Court for the moment, but the Alchemists weren't stupid. They'd realize we were here, or, at the very least, that Lissa might be able to find us. Once they started badgering her I wanted to make sure we has some sort of plan in place. Lissa had enough problems, she didn't need us causing more for her, so we needed to find a way to make this easier on her.

"So what exactly did you tell everyone I'd do if they rescued me?" Sydney asked softly, her fingers tapped against the table across from me in a nervous way that made me want to take her hand. "You didn't tell them I'm a..." she glanced around to make sure no on in the diner was listening, "a witch, did you?"

"Of course, not," I told her, making sure to fake a hurt look, before looking at her seriously. "I wouldn't tell anyone that without you here, they'd think I was crazy. Like I told you, I said your blood might hold the same potential that Olive's did and that I think we should experiment with it."

She took in my words, thinking them over and throwing me a smile. "They'd definitely think you were crazy. Rose, barely seems to think I'm comfortable here. If she found out I could do magic she might faint. As far as my blood goes though, I don't know. It might work the same way Olive's did, but they don't exactly need me to test it. Any witch would do."

I smirked. "Which is why I left that convenient detail out. I figured it wasn't relevant at the time and I really needed Lissa's plane."

"You're devious." She smiled again, but it faded quickly. "What do you think they'll do when we tell them why my blood has the power to protect people against Strigoi?"

This time I did reach out and take her hand, regardless of being in public. Though there weren't too many people in the diner. Just us and the people behind the counter cooking our food. "They'll understand. We're all involved with the supernatural here, Sage. The things Lissa's done... The things we all have. They might be shocked at first, but I think they'll be more intrigued than anything else. Especially if our experiment works."

She nodded and pulled her hand back, leaning back in her chair. "I hope it works. Wouldn't it be something if it was that easy? Just use my blood to tattoo people? Maybe we could even figure out a way to do it without the tattoos. I guess we'll have to think about it. If it works, of course."

"It's going to work, Sage. And if it doesn't, we'll come up with something else. The two of us together: we can do anything we set our brilliant minds to."

She laughed. "Now just imagine what our brilliant children will be able to accomplish."

I smiled at that, remembering the last time we were here, in this exact place, talking about our future children and all of the amazing traits they were destined to inherit. "Our kids will be so smart that when they learn about the history of the Strigoi vaccine in school, they'll be like 'Duh. Why didn't our parents come up with that sooner?'"

That got a real laugh out of her, the kind that comes from deep in your belly and doesn't let go. I'm pretty sure it had more to do with being free to have a future and kids than me actually being funny, but I'd take it. As long as she was smiling, I'd take it. But too soon her laughter cut off and she sat up straight in her chair.

"Uh oh," she whispered intensely, staring off into space.

"What?" I must have looked a little terrified because Sydney smiled, even though I could tell she wasn't feeling it.

"Everything's okay," she said quickly. "I'm fine, I just... I remembered something."

"What is it?"

She took a deep breath. "We slept together last night, and again this morning..." She trailed off, looking like she expected me to pick up her train of thought. It was something I was usually capable of, but right now I had no idea what she was talking about. She sighed. "I've been off birth control for months..."

That time I got it. "Oh. Shit."

"Yeah. Oh, shit," she repeated. If it wasn't so serious I would have laughed at her uncharacteristic swearing—I almost did anyway—but this was fairly serious. "Is there a pharmacy around here anywhere? They sell things for situations like this."

"Yeah." I thought about it for a moment. "There's one down the street that should still be open." I started to stand so we could go, but just then the waitress called us up to the counter to collect our order.

"It's fine," Sydney told me. "Go pay for the food and I'll be right back."

I handed her some money so she could buy whatever she needed at the pharmacy and then went up to get our breakfast.

A couple minutes later I met Sydney out in front of the pharmacy. She had a plastic bag in her hand and a faint blush on her cheeks. She looked adorable and I told her so. She just rolled her eyes and started walking back to the room, but that blush stayed with her for awhile.

Once we were back in the room she read the instructions that came in the little blue package she'd purchased. In the end it was pretty simple, really. Just a pill. Once she'd taken it I could see her mood change, though I wasn't sure if she looked happier or sadder.

"You okay?" I asked, sitting down on the bed beside her.

"I'm fine. This should work. It's meant to work for up to 72 hours and it's been less than 10, so we should be okay."

I wrapped an arm around her. Her muscles were tense, but she relaxed a little at my touch. "That's not what I meant, Sage."

"I'm fine," she said again. "I just... I can't believe I didn't think about it last night. I'm supposed to be the level headed one. The organized one. How could I forget something like that?"

I pressed my lips to her hair. "It was the first time we were together in months, Sydney. It's okay. I didn't think of it either."

"I bought condoms," she said, grabbing a box out of the plastic bag. "The guy behind the counter at the pharmacy told me these were more effective than some of the other brands. I took his word for it. I really didn't want to stand there for five minutes reading all the packages while he was staring at me."

I smiled at her, guessing that was the reason for her embarrassment at the pharmacy earlier, and placed the box on the nightstand. "They're fine. But are you? I mean, really. Are you okay?"

"Yeah." She shrugged. "I'm fine. I probably wouldn't have even gotten pregnant at this point in my cycle anyway. I just wanted to be sure."

"No," I said, taking her hands. "Not about that. About everything. Are you okay?"

She inhaled deeply before looking at me. Her amber eyes locked onto mine and she gave me a suddenly watery smile. "I don't know. I hope so."

I didn't push her to share, but after we had breakfast I pulled her to me and she went into the full story. Finally. I was appalled that they'd physically tortured her while she was in reeducation. And I was furious that they'd kept her naked for a good portion of the time she was there. For any length of time, really. They had no right to touch her! But the mental stuff was what bothered her the most. Even though they'd used drugs to get her to agree with them, she still felt violated. That was the worst part. We'd broken the tattoo, but she still had to live with all the things they'd said to her in that horrible place.

Sydney didn't care to think about it too much. Instead she wiped away a few tears and told me about all of the things she did to keep herself occupied while she was there.

"I know this might not be the best time, considering our recent scare and all, but I went ahead and picked out a few baby names while I had nothing better to do. I hope you don't mind."

I ran a hand through her golden hair and smiled. "You were locked away in a torture chamber and you spent your time picking out names for our future children?"

A haunted look still creased her brow from all the reeducation talk, but she smiled at me as best she could. "I had two options," she said. "Listen to the Alchemists and let myself get caught up in their mind games, or plan for the future when I'd be free of them. Plus, I figured our perfect, brilliant dhampir babies would eventually need names and they shouldn't be thought of hastily." She shrugged. "Besides, I did read that baby name book."

I laughed and kissed the tip of her nose. "So what did you decide on?"

Her head drifted back to my chest and I felt myself relax at the warmth of her cheek against me. Right where it should be.

"After a lot of thought," she said grandly, "I've decided I like Nadia for a girl. It means hope. I thought that was sort of fitting. But, then again," she said with a small shrug, "I thought maybe we could name one of them after your aunt. And I like Tiana just as much."

She looked up at me with a small smile and my breath caught in my chest. I leaned forward to kiss her, feeling like my heart might actually explode from my overwhelming love for her. "I guess we'll just have to have two girls then."

"Good plan. It was a lot harder picking boys names because I didn't read that part of the book, but I've always had a preference for the name Alexander. And, also, I thought it sounded pretty good next to Ivashkov."

"Two girls and a boy," I murmured, thinking about what those kids might look like. Her hair, my eyes, her nose, lips, chin. Would they be as brave as she was? Would they be as generous and kind and loving? I squeezed her tightly to my chest. They would be. If they were our kids, they would be. "I think I can handle that," I laughed. "Maybe even a couple more. Once those ones are older, of course."

"Of course," she nodded, trying to sound serious, but her smile negated her tone. "Honestly, I don't care how many or when. I just want that with you. I want a life and a family with you. I want to know I can have that whenever I want."

"You already have it." I stroked a hand down her arm and could see the shivers it caused in her. It distracted me enough to forget what I was saying, for a moment anyway. "We're each other's family. And, Sage, if you want a baby, just say the word. Trust me, I wouldn't mind making one with you. I think we've proven that already."

She barely suppressed rolling her eyes. I could tell. "We both know you have no problems in the practice arena, but actually raising a baby requires money and stability we just don't have right now."

"I know that," I told her, "but I want you to know that if you want a baby I'd have had no problem if you'd gotten pregnant today."

She smiled but shook her head. "We made the right decision. Someday, when we're older, we'll have the kind stability to raise our children without having to worry, but for today, I'm just content knowing you're with me on this."

"Oh I'm with you. I'm behind you one hundred percent." I paused and cocked my head at her, a mischievous grin spreading across my face. "Or on top of you, or underneath you, or... Well, I really liked that time when you—"

She laughed and smothered me in kisses, ending all talk of babies, or anything else beside the feel of her body against mine, for a while. But when we finally broke apart we still had hours ahead of us before we needed to meet up with Lissa and the other, and lots of other subjects we needed to discuss. The subject of Nina and our "incident" being an important one. Sydney told me she wasn't exactly angry about it anymore, but it did leave her feeling unsure, and I hated myself for that.

"There's no reason to feel that way, Sage. I promise. You are my once in a lifetime epic love. I was drunk, really drunk, when it happened, but that's not an excuse. I know better. I am better. Even though I know don't act like it all the time. I hate that I did it. That I was weak..."

She snuggled close, but I could feel the tension in her muscles as she did. "I can't concentrate on something that I can't change," she said. "And neither can you. All we can do is learn from our mistakes and become better for them. That's all I'm asking of you."

I smoothed her adorably messy hair. "I know. I feel so guilty though."

"If you didn't feel guilty I'd be worried." She pulled herself onto her elbow. "Please don't concentrate on what happened when I was gone. I don't want to concentrate on it. I know we can't ignore it completely, but, for just a little while, I would like to concentrate on just the good. Like cuddling up to you in this warm bed and knowing I have all the time in the world to be with you."

I sighed. "You're right. We went in a direction I didn't like there for a while, but now we're on the other side of it. This is our escape plan."

I could still feel some tension in her body, but she'd relaxed a little. "Escape," she murmured. "How did we really escape? They'll never leave us be. They'll track us for the rest of our lives."

I shook my head. "We just need to come up with a reason for them to leave you alone. You being a witch is the most obvious reason. Jackie promised she'd look into places we could hide out for awhile, and discuss outing the witch community with some of the head honchos. She hasn't gotten back to me yet." I pulled her closer. "Actually, you should probably call her. Let her know you're okay."

She nodded. "The Alchemists will be here soon, possibly even today. We need something solid. And I'm not entirely sure I want to tell them I'm a witch anyway. They might want me even more if they know. They might even want to study me or something."

"Alright," I said. "So what do we do? Lissa will back us, but we need to give her a legitimate reason, one the Alchemists will have a hard time disputing." A thought occurred to me and I snorted. "You know, if you hadn't taken that pill we might have been able to tell them you're pregnant. They would have had to back off if that was the case. Lissa would never let them touch you if you were having a dhampir."

Sydney stilled and I immediately felt like an ass.

"I didn't mean that. I think we made the right choice. I was just saying. If you were pregnant..."

"No," she said with a shake of her head. She sat up, propping herself against the headboard, and smiled down at me. "You just have me an idea."

"Sage, I know that before I said we could have a baby if you wanted one, but getting pregnant just to outsmart the Alchemists—"

"Not pregnant," Sydney said, exasperatedly. "I was serious when I said we weren't ready for a baby yet. But..." She looked down at me and pulled her bottom lip between her teeth. She only ever did that when she was considering something important. It made me want to lean up and kiss her. "I think I might know a way to get the Alchemists to back off," she continued with a small smile. "It all depends on if Lissa will help us or not, but if she will... They won't have any legal ground to stand on."

I pulled myself up beside her, leaning against the headboard and taking her hand in mine. "What's the plan?" I said, twining my fingers with hers.

She squeezed my hand, swallowing hard. She looked nervous, but there was a certainty in her eyes that made me believe everything would work out. Sydney was the smartest person I knew. Of course she could out smart the Alchemists.

"Adrian," she said in a voice barely above a whisper, but somehow more confident then I'd ever heard. "Will you marry me?"