A/N I'm baaaaaaaaaaaack. My holiday went too quick, and I've discovered that Richelle Mead will not be coming to England for the Last Sacrifice tour. I am displeased muchly. I also cannot stop obsessively watching/listening to random Korean boybands. Yes, I know it's weird. But they're good…

Oh, well, at least it'll be Christmas soon…

Disclaimer: You know the drill. I. Do. Not. Own. Vampire. Academy.

I sighed, staring down at my nails. They had been perfectly painted with a lovely sparkly nail polish, but now they were jagged, chipped and encrusted with dirt. The one time I do a manicure properly, and it gets ruined… Is it my lot in life to get stuck with crap?

I dropped the spade I'd been holding, and wiped my nails on my jeans. It didn't do any good. I sighed again, harder this time. Rose looked up at me. "What's wrong with you?" She asked.

"My nails…" I said mournfully. "They're not pretty any more." I told her, showing her the remains of my nail polish. She chuckled.

"Well, what did you expect? We're guardians; nothing ever stays neat with us." Did I detect a hint of bitterness in her tone? It seemed unlikely, what with how much she appeared to like her job. Her hands, clutching her own spade, were a tad rough looking, but not as bad as they could have been. She was really quite beautiful, when you looked at her. Not in the super skinny super-model way, or the airy-fairy innocent way Lissa was. She was more earthy, with her darker skin and eyes, and her gorgeous almost-black hair. I was nothing like that. I was pale, with sharp green eyes, wavy red hair and a pert mouth. I was also tiny and curvy, something which annoyed me. Couldn't I be one thing?

Anyway, I'm rambling. The reason for this digging of earth was, of course, Lissa. We were, after all, here to do her bidding, and she wanted her garden replanted. She said she would do it herself, but Christian refused to let her bend over or do anything strenuous. Go figure. So instead, she'd begged me, Rose and Eddie to do it. Dimitri had gone on some Court business, apparently. It sucked-he was big and tall, I'm short and not that big, who's going to be the better digger?

I'd been at Court for two weeks now, and was slowly acclimatising. No, it wasn't as bad as I'd feared, but I still couldn't shake the feeling that something awful was going on. To be honest, it was all rather annoying, and I wanted it to go away. Lissa was a good employer, and she was considerate. Indeed, she'd given me a few days off, starting from tomorrow, because Alex would be arriving, as he'd promised. I was very glad. I might of settled into a routine, but I missed everyone, and especially Alex. I don't like to be away from the people I'm close to. It felt like I hadn't seen my parents in years, or Chloe, or Cassie. And I really wanted Alex. If I was totally honest with myself, I was also kind of horny. Not that I'd admit that, because Dom would make fun, and Alex would take advantage of my weakened state. Suffice to say, I was very ready to see everyone.

I picked up the spade, and started digging again. "Rose," I said conversationally. She looked up at me questioningly. "Why does Lissa even want us to do it? Doesn't she have gardeners?"

"She likes to heal plants, you see. With her powers." She clarified. "And she won't let the gardeners near the garden after what they did last time." I gave her a curious look. "They dug up the wrong plants, and killed her flowers. And they wouldn't agree with her when she told them she was going to fix the dead plants." I nodded. Okay, do not murder plants…

I pushed the spade in deeper, until I hit something hard. I huffed; not another bloody tree root. I squatted down, so elegantly (not) and wiped away some of the dirt. It looked like something was embedded in the earth. I got rid of more earth. I could see more clearly now, and the object in the ground was very interesting. It was about thirty centimetres long, and ten centimetres wide. It appeared to be made out of some kind of metal, the dull sheen catching the light as I pulled it from the ground. Pewter, it looked like. Odd-why would a stick made of pewter be in Lissa's garden?

"Rose?" I called, wanting her opinion on my find. She glanced up, and seeing my puzzled look, quickly came over.

"What is it?" She asked, sounding commanding and in charge. "Is it dangerous?"

"I…don't know." I told her, holding out my find. She took it from my hands and examined it gingerly. She ran her hand over its puckered surface. "Wait!" I told her, my hand on the object. "Aren't those runes?"

Rose shrugged helplessly. "I wouldn't know-I didn't tend to listen to my history teachers…" Well, fat lot of help she was. I took it off her again.

"Well, I've got a friend that knows practically everything there is to know about Ancient stuff; maybe she can help. And one of my other friends is a jewellery maker. She could help too." I help the whatever-the-hell-it-was up to the light. It shimmered a little, something it shouldn't have done, as it was so filthy. I nearly dropped it. How could I have missed the waves of magic radiating off it?

Rose watched me, eyes wide. "What do you think we should do?" I shrugged, then tightened my hand around the thing.

"I'll look after it. I think it's been charmed. I'll ask around, see what information I can glean about it. Do you want to tell Lissa about it?" This was so weird. I didn't understand what the hell it was for, and we didn't even know how long it'd been in the garden. That was even more worrying.

Oh fuck. I didn't have the time for this! Alex and everyone would be here by tomorrow, and I'd promised myself I'd focus only on them, not how I was feeling here.

Rose thought for a minute. "Leave it to me. I'll tell her when I think it's okay. If you could find something out about it, that'd be great." She said determinedly. "For now, we better get this done. If we do it quickly, we get more time off. Don't you want to prepare for your boyfriend?"

I nodded enthusiastically, and she smiled as I eagerly started thrusting the spade back into the dirt, shoving the metal thing in my back pocket. "Yes. I really do. But it's not only my boyfriend coming."

"Oh no?" I shook my head brightly.

"My parents, my best friend and Dom are all coming. Cass and Ariana couldn't get time off and I'm not sure what V was doing…" I was working diligently now. Rose seemed interested.

"That's a lot of people." She stated.

"Yeah, but I haven't seen them in weeks. I miss them." I pouted, sticking my bottom lip out. She chuckled, and we stayed in silence for the next hour or so, desperate to finish.

The next morning I was up bright and early, ready to see everyone. Lissa had enlisted one of the Court Guardians to fill in with me, and I sped over to the Court landing strip. I waited with bated breath as the plane landed smoothly, clutching the necklace I had on. Eventually, the plane touched down, and the entrance opened.

I was the only one waiting for anyone today, and I had to restrain myself from running to the plane. At last, I saw Dom come down the steps, the bronze buttons of his military jacket catching the light, and the buckles of his boots flashing. I smiled. Next, my parents, bickering as usual-they never could get along properly. Chloe stepped out, her gold hair blowing in the wind, one hand shading her eyes, the other clutching a black, shiny patent case. Finally, Alex appeared, his untidy black hair peeking out underneath a fedora hat, his green shirt casually untucked from his worn jeans. He looked gorgeous. My smile became even wider.

They were here.

A/N Hee hee. Happy Hallowe'en, people! Please review! *Begs*

Shout Outs:

Abbie

MaggieChauvin

talkygirl

CandiGal

Thanks for the love!

Oh, and by the way, if anybody reads Harry Potter fanfiction, maybe you could check out my oneshot about Dumbledore. Just a thought…