Disclaimer: I do not own VA and thank Richelle Mead for writing such an awesome series.

Sadly, this is the final piece in my Romitri Forever series. Hope you like it.

I started off this series with plans to do one-shot pieces, and even though this is still true, I guess I couldn't help but do them in a somewhat chronological order (you can even imagine my Fantasies series being set sometime between the honeymoon and this final piece ).

Well without further ado – enjoy!
_

They never thought it was possible but Rose and Dimitri finally get their 'happily ever after'

Our family

RPOV

PAIN!

SO MUCH EXCRUCIATING PAIN!

I never thought it was possible to experience this kind of pain.

I know pain… pain is my constant companion.

I've experienced all kinds of physical pain and suffice to say the pain that I just went through was by far the worst kind of pain I have experienced to date.

But…

The end result was totally worth it.

As I held my beautiful daughter, Christina Lyssa Belikova, the nightmare that I went through in the last 38 hours was instantly forgotten. The pain, the drama and the foul language a distant memory, like remnants of a bad dream which disappear the moment you become fully awake.

I flicked a quick glance towards my adoring, tired husband, who had been by myside the entire time and was now lost in some much needed sleep.

I really am blessed – to have had Dimitri's love and now finally our miracle. She was the perfect combination of us – my hair and ears, his nose and eyes. I could spend countless days just staring at this wonderful creature we created together.

But one thing I have learnt in life is that nothing worthwhile comes easily and recalling this little 'Zen life lesson' caused my chest to tighten when I suddenly realised that actually Christina technically wasn't our first born.

No, as always we had to endure more heartache before we could finally achieve our greatest desire – to have a family.

FLASHBACK

I was super excited – today was my 8 week scan!

I still can't believe I am pregnant – it feels unreal.

In fact it shouldn't even be possible, what with me and Dimitri being Dhampir, but thanks to Spirit, this was yet another miracle we were able to achieve.

I can still recall the day I found out – when the test came out positive.

Poor Dimitri had freaked out because I had been locked in the bathroom for almost 2 hours and had failed to respond to his calls. Busting open the door, he found me by the sink, frozen in shock. Checking me over for any injuries he had grabbed me in his warm embrace, muttering comforting words to himself and me in English and Russian. That's when he noticed the stick, still held tightly in my grasp.

Grabbing it off me, he took one look and let out a loud shout in excitement.

"Oh my God! We are going to be parents!"

It was his jubilant exclamation that finally broke my trance and I couldn't help the tears of joy that fell as I grabbed him and kissed him hard. After almost a year of trying, we were finally pregnant!

Thinking back to that day, I couldn't help but smile. We were ecstatic (naturally) and went straight to the clinic to get the blood test to confirm. Luckily it was our day off, so it wasn't hard to keep things under the radar – we were too keyed up and probably would blab to the next person we saw.

Dr. Olendski had moved to the clinic at Court and was aware of our unique situation. We had gone straight to her, and in less than 24 hours had confirmation that we were in fact going to have a baby!

Naturally after that we had to tell everyone – organising a quick dinner at our place, we invited our family and friends (who were at Court) to join us, while organising Skype chats for the same night with those who weren't.

We just wanted to share this joyous news with everyone, at the same time!

I had been anxious the entire night, and could barely eat (due to nerves and excitement). Lissa and mum noticed my lack of eating and kept looking between me and Dimitri, trying to figure out what was going on.

After dessert we finally made the announcement and suffice to say we got some big reactions. Screams and shouts could be heard as we were both tackled by loved ones giving us hugs and kisses. Everyone were over the moon and we couldn't wait to meet Baby Belikov!

Bringing myself back to the present, I realised I had reached the clinic just in time for my appointment. I was going by myself unfortunately as Lissa and Dimitri (the only two people who I would consider taking with me) were busy. Both were upset for missing out, but it just happened that way. Comforting them that this was just a routine check-up and that the next major scan (12 weeks) would be the more crucial one, I told them it was ok to miss.

Lying down on the table, I got myself ready for the technician to start the scan – I assumed like last time (when we had our first scan at 6 weeks), she would start and then Dr. Olendski would join later to take over.

We exchanged small pleasantries as she got my ready and turned the machine on. I was trying not to be too impatient, after all I wanted to see my little baby!

The polite smile that had been on the technicians face, slowly started to disappear, as she anxiously moved the stick around. Within minutes a frown appeared and my whole world slowed down.

"What's wrong?" I whispered, suddenly feeling numb.

She looked at me nervously.

"Hmm, let me just get the doctor…" and without any further explanation she bolted out of the room.

I was trying to keep calm, but I could feel my breathing pick up and felt myself on the cusp of a panic attack.

Dr. Olendski rushed into the room with the technician right behind her, who was whispering to her constantly while pointing at the screen. Dr. Olendski took the stick and carried out the same movements, pressing harder and staring at the screen in deep concentration.

Finally, with a sad sigh she turned around and said the words that shattered my world.

"I'm sorry Rose, but it looks like you had a miscarriage…"

The next few minutes were a blur, and I don't know how I did it, but I was outside the clinic. The whole world seemed to fade away and I struggled to breath. Somehow I managed to call the one person who I knew could help me make sense of all of this.

"Comrade, I need you…"

Its funny how only a few weeks ago we were excited and anxious to tell everyone our big news. Now all we wanted to do was avoid them, because each time we told someone we lost the baby it felt like the wound was being ripped open over and over again.

We were a mess for a whole week – to the point where both Christian and Lissa ordered us to take personal leave to properly grieve. A part of me wanted to push it all away, forget it happened and through myself into work, anything to stop the pain. But another part of me felt shattered and broken – I couldn't help but blame myself.

I lost the baby… it was no longer growing in me… my body had rejected our child!

No amount of soothing or comforting words from Dimitri could help. He couldn't understand. He kept telling me that it was probably for the best, better to lose the baby in the early stages than later, but he just didn't get it.

I had this little being growing in me, someone who was depending on my 100% to protect them, feed them, keep them safe and I failed. All my past anxiety about whether or not I was cut out to be a mom in the first place came crashing back to me, and I was just about ready to give up.

A weird depression had fallen on me and even though externally it looked like I was ok, I wasn't. Without telling Dimitri I had put myself back on the pill – I didn't want to go through that again, trying for so long, to be given a glimmer of hope only to have it all taken away.

Nobody seemed to notice my depression, well except for Dimitri, but then again it wasn't surprising since we were soulmates. After trying everything he could possibly think of (to get me out of this depression) he tried the final Hail Mary card – he called his mama.

Olena was on the next flight to the US and 24 hours later I found myself bawling my eyes out to the only woman who to me epitomised true motherhood. She locked us in our guest bedroom, telling Dimitri to cancel my shifts and to leave us alone.

We spent the entire day talking, hugging and crying. I was shocked to find out both Olena and Karo had experienced miscarriages too. Olena's, unfortunately, was due to her abusive partner, Randall. Unknown to her, she had fallen pregnant one final time after Vika but a violent encounter one night at the hands of Randall had caused her to lose the baby.

Karo had a 'natural' miscarriage between Paul and Zoya, and she had been almost 12 weeks along.

Even though they tell you there is a high risk of something happening in the first 12 weeks (which is why you shouldn't go around telling everyone until you pass the danger zone), you normally don't hear about the miscarriages that have occurred in your inner circle until you go through it yourself. Guess it makes sense, no one wants to re-live such a painful experience and it isn't exactly something that comes into everyday conversation. But, nonetheless, having heard Olena's and Karo's stories made me feel better. Not completely, but I wasn't hating myself as much as I was before.

END OF FLASHBACK

It had taken me another month before I was ready to try again with Dimitri and I'm glad I did, because otherwise this beauty would not be in my arms.

Wiping away the millionth happy tear I had shed since her birth, I cuddled my daughter closer to my heart and thanked God (or whoever was listening) for blessing me with another miracle.

25 YEARS LATER

I couldn't believe the last of my babies were graduating today!

I could see our twins, Adriana Sage Belikova and Mason Ibrahim Belikov, standing in line, next to their cousin Timothy Mason Castile. All three were excited to graduate and become Guardians, just like their parents.

Everyone had turned out for the ceremony (including their eldest siblings – Christina and Ivan). We have all been there for one another at every occasion – the good (weddings, births, our kid's graduations) and the bad (deaths, divorce).

As I sat there, letting the tears roll down my cheeks, I reminisced about my life and our vampire world.

Boy, has it been a crazy adventure!

Running away with my best friend (only to discover her element was Spirit and that I was Shadow-kissed)…

Being caught by the tall, dark, handsome Russian (who ended up being my soulmate, my husband and the father of my children)…

Killing countless Strigoi before I had even graduated (and many more after, especially as the Head of the Royal Guard and Elite Force)…

Restoring said soulmate to Dhampir state (and helping him overcome his guilt)…

Forcing best friend to become the next Queen (which helped shape a new order for our race through initiatives like Magical defence & combat for Moroi, making sure non-royals and Dhampir had better representation when it came to legislation, but most importantly, finding a vaccine that prevented Strigoism)

The vaccine helped us cull the numbers of Strigoi dramatically and even though it didn't eradicate the race completely, it did slow down their growth. The first phase – vaccinating every Dhampir and Moroi to prevent them from turning should they get bitten and given blood (of course this didn't stop the Strigoi killing the poor soul completely, but at least they couldn't be forced to become a monster). The second phase – getting the vaccines to the larger human population – which proved to be much more difficult (hence the reason why the growth wasn't completely stopped). Reason for this was that once the Strigoi realised they couldn't 'awaken' the Dhampirs or Morois, they had resorted to 'awakening' humans. It took the Alchemists another 3 years before they realised they needed to distribute the vaccines to the human population.

Naturally it was hard to convince humans to take the vaccines (without revealing our world to them), but thanks to the sneaky people at the Alchemist organisation, a global 'epidemic' just happened to occur around the same time as when the Strigoism vaccine was meant to be administered. Needless to say now nearly everyone was immunised to Strigoism.

Now it's the Strigoi who are hiding from us and even though we have more Dhampirs attending the academies and graduating to be Guardians, it's no longer a necessity. In fact, mandatory Guardianship only lasts for 5 years and that's not counting the first 3 years were newly graduated Guardians act as interns with an experienced Guardian. This program helped reduce death post-graduation by 80% and further encouraged more Dhampirs to stick around to be Guardians.

Mixing amongst the races (e.g. Moroi with a Dhampir, Dhampir with a Dhampir, a Moroi or Dhampir with a human) was no longer frowned upon (well not by most anyway) and the vaccine helped Dhampirs to have children with partners who weren't Moroi, so they no longer felt inclined/forced to procreate with them.

The world we now lived in wasn't perfect nor peaceful, but it was a hell of a lot better than what it was when I had become a Guardian!

I turned to look at my gorgeous husband and couldn't help but smile in complete happiness. We had made it (despite the numerous obstacles and odds) and here we were, surrounded by family and friends, watching the last of our children graduating from school and becoming full-fledged adults.

I couldn't help but lean in and kiss my soulmate and best friend, all the while wondering what other adventures life had instore for us.

And there it is… all done!

I ended with only RPOV (felt like full circle considering 'return to academy' was RPOV)

Just so you know the miscarriage bit in the story I wrote from personal experience (this was exactly what happened to me) so please be kind about it – if you didn't like it then keep that opinion to yourself. For me, I found it cathartic to share.

On a brighter note, now that I have finished Romitri Forever, I can go back to RW.