Okay so the last chapter wasn't brilliant so I'm going to have a look at it and improve it some more somehow just for DuskyGurl who gave me some advice [Love you!]. Here's the next chapter which is hopefully way better than the last one.
After that the weeks passed in a general routine that I slowly adjusted to. Training with Alberta, classes, more training, hanging out with Lissa. The routine was good – it was what kept me focused instead of drowning in self pity. I kept expecting him to open the door or turn up for training in the mornings and save me from my sorrow. Mostly I just wanted him to call up and tell me that he'd been a huge idiot and was going to let Lissa heal him and he was going to come back to me. But the call never came, nor did any letters.
But I'd be damned if I was the one to crack. The whole time we'd known each other I'd been the one who had to apologise to him for my behaviour and my mistakes I wasn't about to take the blame for this one too. If he wanted this to get fixed he'd have to make the first move.
Once I'd found my self resolve I found it easier to push him form my mind. I didn't stop missing him or wanting him back but I didn't spend as much time thinking about him. Or that date.
We were in one of the Royal Courts many cafés. It was bustling with people when we arrived as it was lunch time. The only table left was in a secluded corner behind a massive plant pot. We couldn't see may people from where we were sat and it felt kind of like a real date. We'd both ordered BLT's and a glass of coke.
"How's the hand?" I asked trying to get his mind off whatever had been occupying it since we left the hospital.
"It's alright." He lied.
"Okay." I said and took a bit of my BLT. He looked relieved which completely gave him away. I munched it sand then said, "Now tell me the truth."
"It's painful." He unwillingly confessed knowing I wouldn't let this drop until I had the truth. "The doctor said I should have seen him earlier because I've got stitches. It might not heal very well."
I looked at his hand which was on the table and debated taking the bandage off so I could have a look at it myself. His fingers involuntarily twitched making him wince. I wanted to hold his hand in mine but I was scared of hurting him even more and my hand hovered over the table above his thick bandage. Seeing my distress he said:
"If it's still troubling me when we got back I'll go straight to Dr. Olendzki."
"Alright." I said sceptically just knowing there was more to what he was saying than he was letting on.
We sat in silence for a while until Dimitri said, "I know it's not a movie but I hope this is okay."
Was it ever? I was practically on a date with my Russian God and we were talking as equals instead of mentor and student.
"Yeah, it's nice." I blushed knowing the meaning behind his words.
I felt loved and for the first time in a while it had nothing to do with comforting me about Mason. I wanted to stay in that moment for ever and just gazing into his eyes and enjoying being around him. He gazed back into my eyes. And my sandwich filling fell onto my lap.
"Damn it." I cursed. Dimitri laughed. "Hey, not cool!"
He laughed some more. It was that easy laugh he'd shared with Tasha all Christmas break and I'd been wanting to hear it again so badly. I was surprised to hear it so soon.
I picked the food off my lap and just enjoyed the date.
I was stunned back to reality when Eddie punched me in the stomach. Training was a bad time to let my mind wander. He pulled me back up and gave me a moment to get some oxygen into my lungs before trying out the new move on me again.
A couple of ordinary weeks passed but then the new semester started. As did the most fun six weeks we'd ever have at school.
Field placements. We'd all just been given our field placements. And I'd been lumped with Jesse Zeklos. I just knew I was going to get in an argument with him myself before the six weeks were up. Fortunately he made me stay like a fly on the wall so I didn't actually have to listen to his incessant idiotic speech. Just so long as I remained polite I would survive. Just.
Over the six weeks I got into a lot of fights with all the instructors and won every fight. But I couldn't help but think that it should have been Dimitri I was fighting to prove myself to everyone else as well as me that I was good enough to protect a Moroi. He would have been the biggest challenge of them all. I knew his moves just as well as he knew mine, we knew each others strengths and weaknesses and habits of combat. It would have been a mind game as well as a physical fight. It would have been the best fight ever.
As it was the closest I came to that was fighting with Alberta. We knew each others moves but not as well as Dimitri and I did. It was a good fight all round with blows on both sides but not as good as the fight Dimitri and I would have had.
Jesse wasn't much of a problem since I was able to ignore him most of the time but one night he had plans for rebellion. He waited until I was asleep before trying to sneak out. And man, it was a lousy attempt. He stepped over me – I was sleeping on the floor – and stood on my fingers in the process. I muffled my cry of pain and waited until he had opened the door.
"Where do you think you're going?" I asked without moving.
"None of your business, Hathaway. Go back to sleep. There won't be any attacks now." he growled.
I knew he was up to no good and I was so not letting that happen. Alright there wouldn't be any Strigoi attacks but with humans helping Strigoi anything could happen during the day. I stood up and walked towards him.
"Back to bed, Jesse." I ordered putting on my scary face.
"No. I'm your Moroi you have to do as I say."
"Until you put you self in danger. Back to bed now or I will force you back there and it will hurt." I dragged him away from the door with no effort and slammed it closed waking his room mate up. I stood in front of the door and crossed my arms over my chest until he reluctantly went back to bed.
I stayed awake for a couple of hours and when I thought he was asleep I went back to my makeshift bed. Only to be woken up half an hour later by the sound of the window opening and Jesse was sneaking through. I jumped up the sound making him hurry up. He slipped.
"Jesse!" I shouted.
His room mate, Karl woke up.
"Karl, tell the warden that Jesse fell out the window. Go!"
He hurried out the room shouting all the way. I looked out the window. He was lying on the floor in a daze, his leg and arm bent at an un-natural angle. He came to and began screaming in pain. I eased myself down the wall with years of practice and landed next to him.
"Help's on its way, Jesse." I said. "Stop moving, you'll make it worse."
For once he shut up and did as he was told. A few minutes later Stan joined us with Dr. Olendzki. We put him on the stretcher Stan had carried and then walked him to the hospital. Whilst Dr. Olendzki looked after Jesse Stan and Alberta questioned me about what happened. I told them about both escape attempts and what happened just before he fell. Then I was allowed to go to my own bed but had to continue watching over him in the morning.
He woke up and blamed me for falling. Alberta ignored him and told him what an ass he'd been. In the nicest possible way of course. When she turned her back he scowled at me. I kept my guardian face in play and bluntly ignored him.
The next day was Sunday so I caught up with Lissa. She was, predictably, with Christian but I didn't mind so much this time – I needed to trade insults with someone.
"Rapunzel didn't let her hair down quick enough the other night I hear." He smirked not looking away from the TV.
I flopped down on a couch and was glad to be off my feet. It seemed that all guardians did all day was stand round.
"If we're talking fairy tales I guess that makes you the big bad wolf." I mocked.
"Nah I was the clever little pig."
"That explains the smell in here."
Lissa rolled her eyes and shook her head reminding me too much of Dimitri. I looked away and focused on something else. It turned out to be Eddie I focused on. He had a rainbow bruise in his right temple and a bandage covering his left forearm. I remembered hearing about that fight. He'd been against Stan, Alberta and Celeste at the same time and he'd been pushed backwards, fell over a chair that someone had carelessly left sticking out and fell into the fish tank the teacher kept in the room. He carried on fighting until he'd 'killed' them all and then had to go to hospital adamantly refusing Lissa's healing skills all the way.
"Nice work, Eddie." I smiled.
He blushed and shrugged a little before starting up a conversation about a different fight he'd won.
I hung out in Lissa's room that night until just before curfew. She didn't give me a chance to say anything before she began the interrogation.
"You still miss him, don't you?"
"Who?" I pretended I didn't know who she was on about but I knew I couldn't get away with it. She knew I'd heard his name in her thoughts.
"Dimitri." She said anyway.
"Sure I do. We were close. Especially after Spokane."
"He seemed to help you more than anyone else." She said regretfully. Guilt flashed through the bond telling me she didn't think she'd been there for me enough.
"Don't be silly, Lissa. You had Christian to worry about too. He needed you. I had Dimitri to help me."
"I still should have been there more. Aren't you angry with him for leaving?"
"Yeah. But he's being allowed to make his own choice. It's pretty much the only reason I haven't tracked him down and brought him back – he was a way better instructor than Alberta." I added onto the end so she didn't get suspicious.
"You respect his choice that much you'd risk your own… I don't know but your recovery from Spokane has been less noticeable since he left."
"He's being allowed to make his own decision for once." I retorted.
"What do you mean?"
I looked at her incredulously. How could she not know? She didn't know what Dimitri and I were sacrificing but surely she knew what Dhampirs in general were sacrificing. We sacrificed our freedom of choice, seeing our families, having families, loving who and how we wanted. We gave everything up to protect them and all we got in return was money we'd only ever spend on buying the few essential things we needed and some stupid tattoos for killing Strigoi. We got carted all over the world, following orders remembering our mantra: they come first. It was something that had been drilled into me my whole life and I wanted to protect Moroi but it wasn't fair that we were taken for granted the way we were with no appreciation of our own wants and needs and love lives.
But worst of all Dimitri had sacrificed his own career, his own hand, so that I'd be able to better protect a Moroi. We risked our lives day in day out and most of the time we didn't even get a thank you for our efforts. We were just expected to do it.
"Don't you see, Lissa?" I asked after I'd ranted for a while. "Dhampirs are only second rate in this system. I'm angry that he's done this but I respect his decision."
I was jealous in fact. Not that he was able to get out of protecting Moroi but that he'd had the choice in the fist place. He was able to decide for himself what he wanted. But I was angry that he'd made his decision based on the protection of a Moroi.
"Rose… Is there anything I can do?"
"No. Just start to understand what we have to give up for you." I said it more bitterly than I meant to crushing her. I pulled her into a hug and said, "When your queen take up Christian and Tasha's cause and get Moroi fighting again. You're beautiful enough to have the guys on the council agreeing with anything."
So what did you think? Was it better than the last chapter?
I, although I hate to admit this, do not own Rose, Dimitri, Lissa and the gang or, well, anything that Richelle Mead created for VA. It all belongs to her... She's one lucky gal!