Disclaimer: I don't own Vampire Academy.

Ch. 16 Home

It felt like we'd danced for a long time, but eventually we had to leave and return to Baia.

"Just one more dance?" I pleaded, looking up at Dimitri when it was around ten.

Dimitri sighed but put his arm around my waist and took hold of my hand again. "Only one more dance, and we're out of here," he warned me.

I gave him my best innocent smile. "Whatever you say, Dimitri." The smirk on his face told me he wasn't falling for it.

The last dance…it was the tango. Very fast and sultry, if you asked me, which was perfectly fine with me. We were moving so closely together that it felt like there was no space between us.

After the music ended, Dimitri kept hold of my hand. "Come on, let's go Roza."

I reluctantly let him lead me off the dance floor and we walked outside to the car meter.

"Thank you for taking me here tonight," I whispered to him. "It was one of the best nights of my life."

He kissed me softly, and smiled. "It was fun, dancing with you. Let's go home now."

"We're finally back in America," I murmured sleepily as we got off the plane.

Dimitri smiled down at me as he led me through the busy airport at Missoula.

It was now barely dawn. We'd flown back to Missoula from Ob, and it seemed to have taken forever. I'd shed tears while bidding the Belikovs goodbye. Viktoria wept the hardest, and made me promise to keep in contact as often as I could.

We'd then driven to the airport at Ob, and went through the entire checking in and security process. The security wasn't nearly as tight as the airports in America, which I was grateful for.

On the plane, I'd talked with Dimitri. We knew that once we arrived at the gates of St. Vladimir's, we couldn't act like a couple anymore. We would have to pretend that we had a strictly professional teacher-student relationship.

However, I'd come to a decision while we'd still been in the air. It was time to tell Lissa the truth about me and Dimitri. My secret wouldn't remain one for much longer.

I'd talked with Dimitri about it, and he agreed. "You can't hide it from your best friend forever," he'd said, gently squeezing my hand. "It hurts you to keep secrets from her, so I think this is the best thing for you to do. And besides, once you graduate, it'll all come out anyway."

I sighed, but something occurred to me. "Once I graduate…but that would imply that things had been going on between us when I was a student. It could get you in trouble."

Dimitri had shrugged, not seeming too concerned about this problem, which had surprised me. "Just wait a week or two once you graduate to announce it."

Now back at the airport, he led me to one of the terminal parking lots. It was a huge struggle to keep my eyes open. I hadn't been able to sleep much on the plane, and now returning to our nocturnal schedule was throwing me off.

Dimitri shot a smile at me as we kept on moving through the parking lot. "Don't worry. It's the weekend anyway, so you can take a day off and sleep."

"Yay for sleep," I muttered groggily. He pulled out a key, and the lights of a silver Honda Civic beeped noisily.

"I just want to sleep," I groaned, leaning my head against his chest. I nearly slipped before he caught hold of my arm and kept me upright.

"Sleep while we're driving," he said, gently stroking my face as he opened the passenger side and buckled me in.

After stuffing our luggage in the back, he slammed the trunk shut and came around to the driver's side. He got into the car, and started backing up the car.

I instantly fell asleep after the car started to move.

My dream surroundings felt very solid.

I looked around. The new computers, the circle tables, the smell of books…I was in the library at St. Vladimir's.

I looked around, putting my hands on my hips. "Adrian?"

He popped up from behind a bookshelf. "Little dhampir."

I jumped although I knew he'd been somewhere around. "You scared the shit out of me!"

"Sorry," Adrian shrugged, not sounding particularly sorry at all.

I felt a twinge of unease, remembering the last time he'd pulled me into a spirit dream. His expression was wry as he took in my expression.

"Don't worry, I haven't come back to make moves on you," he assured me. "I was just curious…where are you right now?"

I tried to raise an eyebrow at him but failed miserably judging from his face. "I landed at Missoula with Dimitri like…..half an hour ago. I'm on my way back."

"Finally," he said melodramatically, putting his hand over his heart. "I've been wasting away without you, little dhampir."

I rolled my eyes at his dramatics, but I knew that he really had missed me. "Well I'm on my way home so yeah."

"Might be time to use a bit of compulsion to make a few people get crazy ideas of where you are," he mused, stuffing his hands into his jean pockets.

Alarm shot through me at his words and I gripped his arm. "No! You'll make yourself worse!"

And we don't need a spirit user going crazy, especially since he already self-medicates on alcohol so much, I added in my head.

Adrian rolled his eyes. "I'll be fine if I did. But since you don't want me to…"

"Don't," I sternly ordered, letting go.

"Fine," Adrian grumbled, reaching into his pocket and lighting a cigarette. The smell instantly filled the air. Yuck.

I scowled at him, and made a big show of waving away the cloud that lightly blew towards me. "Could you not? It's bad enough you want to give yourself lung cancer in your waking life."

The cigarette (and the smell) instantly disappeared, thank goodness.

"Well…I'm guessing that you'll be back in a few hours, so I'll just let you rest up until then," Adrian said. The dream landscape around me slowly started to fade, and I sank back into true sleep.

I woke up two hours later, and we were pulling up to the gate at St. Vladimir's. It was now "night" for us, even though the sun shone brightly on the school grounds.

The guardians at the checkpoint verified our identities, and let us through.

I looked around me. The Academy looked exactly the same as when I'd left it.

Dimitri pulled into the parking lot. He helped me out of the car, and got our luggage out of the car.

"Let's get you to your dorm so you can sleep," he said gently, briefly entwining his hand with my own. With a sigh, he let go of my hand.

"Mkay," I murmured sleepily. "But Lissa…"

"It won't do you any good if you pass out trying to see her," Dimitri said firmly as he led me up the path. "You're getting some sleep first then you can go see her."

He checked me in with the dorm matron, and asked to see me to my room so I wouldn't trip over. The dorm matron agreed, clearly thinking I would pass out somewhere along the way to my room.

I changed into a tank top and sweats before stumbling my way over to the bathroom, where I brushed my teeth.

I examined my reflection in the mirror. My long dark hair was matted and wild on one side, and my eyes had circles under them. Clearly I wasn't at my best.

I looked down at my silver promise ring. With a sigh, I took it off and went back to my room.

Dimitri was still there. I put my ring into the box and put it back into my nightstand and leapt into my bed. I wouldn't be able to wear it for some time.

"Good night, Roza," he whispered softly to me as he tucked the blankets loosely around me, and kissed my forehead.

"Night, Dimitri," I whispered back, closing my eyes.

Another spirit dream wrapped around me. This time, I was standing outside the Academy's gates.

I looked around for Adrian. "Okay, I know you're here."

Adrian popped up out of nowhere, which made me jump. "Little dhampir."

I felt a familiar presence, and gasped. "No way."

Lissa ran towards me, her luminous blond hair practically glowing in the sunlight that surrounded us. "Rose!"

She threw her arms around me and hugged me. I hugged her back. I'd missed her so much even though we couldn't truly be apart, with the bond we shared.

"Where have you been?" she asked as she let go of me and looked me over. "The school's been buzzing with talk about where you've been!"

Well. No one had believed Alberta's story that I was visiting my mom, and I couldn't really blame them. It must've gotten out that I wasn't exactly on good terms with my mom from last Christmas. I offhandedly wondered what stories had been going around about where I'd been.

I hesitated as I looked her in the face. I knew I could tell her the truth, and I should…but I couldn't bring myself to do so while Adrian was around.

"I'll…tell you when we wake up," I said at last.

Lissa frowned. "What's going on? Just tell me."

She had the look that said she wasn't going to stop until she found out. She was very stubborn in her own way. I sighed. "I was in Russia."

She froze. I allowed her thoughts to stream through the bond and into me. She'd expected me to have maybe gone traveling on my own…but Russia wasn't the place she'd been expecting. "Russia? What on earth were you doing in Russia of all places?"

"I'll tell you tomorrow," I repeated.

Lissa sighed but nodded. She directed her thoughts at me. And you better explain in detail.

"How'd you get into the dream?" I asked, looking from Adrian to Lissa. "Last time I thought Lissa couldn't create a spirit dream."

"I still can't," Lissa grumbled, crossing her arms over her chest. "I've tried and tried, but I can't do it."

Lissa had constantly complained that she wished she could walk in people's dreams the way Adrian could. Her strengths were healing – which she'd done without knowing at the time to bring me back from death – and compulsion.

Adrian could walk dreams, and to a lesser extent, he'd learned to heal and grow plants although not as well as Lissa could.

"This is the first time I've ever been able to pull Lissa into a dream that wasn't her own," Adrian put in, his green eyes thoughtful. "I've never been able to pull her into a dream like this before."

"And if he can now do it…there's hope that I might be able to learn how to walk dreams," Lissa continued, her eyes bright with hope.

I could feel the longing in her to be able to learn more spirit abilities. So far while working with Adrian, she'd learned to see auras but not much else. Adrian had made more progress learning how to heal than her learning to walk dreams.

The surroundings around us began to fade. Alarm coursed through Lissa and into me. "What's going on?"

Adrian scowled. "Someone's waking me up, so I have to go. Later."

With that, the dream completely dissolved and I was dreaming my own dreams.

I woke up to see that it was around five in the afternoon. Time for me to wake up and see Lissa, I thought to myself.

I quickly showered and dressed in record time. I then headed over in the direction of the Moroi dorms.

There wasn't anyone watching the door, which surprised me. Usually there was a dorm matron who was permanently stationed at the front door.

I walked up the stairs to the third floor. Because there were so much Moroi than dhampirs, the Moroi dorms had more rooms and were more crowded in general.

I knocked on Lissa's door. I purposely closed off the bond because I didn't want an advance warning of how she would react when she saw me.

The door opened, and Lissa stood there. Her jade green eyes went wide when she saw me.

I briefly wondered if she would be mad at me, but that thought was squashed when she pulled me in for a hug.

"Rose!" her voice was slightly choked up when she spoke. "I've missed you so much!"

"I've missed you too," I said as she pulled me into her room and shut the door behind us.

Russia hadn't been the same without her. Although I'd had a wonderful time in Russia with Dimitri and had loved spending time with him…it hadn't been the same without my best friend by my side. It was good to be reunited with her at last, since seeing her in a spirit dream was nothing compared to real life.

"You really were in Russia?" she asked me. I nodded.

I could feel her hesitation, and the question that was burning on her tongue. "Spit it out, Liss."

"Why…why were you in Russia?" she asked at last, not able to look at me while she asked.

One of the hardest questions of all. She was my best friend, and she would never tell anyone…but it was still a hard question to answer. I took a deep breath for strength, and let it out. It's time to reveal the truth, I thought.

"Liss…I have something to tell you."

Dundundun...Rose is finally going to tell Lissa. What do you think Lissa's reaction will be? Reviews greatly appreciated :)