Alberta's POV:

I sighed again for the fifth time I have been in this meeting, of course I sighed under my breath, otherwise that would be unprofessional, and in this business you need to always keep up your image otherwise people think they can walk all over you.

So here we are again sitting in the conference room in the guardian building in yet another meeting on how we propose to safe guard moroi and rid the world of evil strigoi, and so if that sounds easy to you well let me tell you it's not.

I'm now currently on my sixth cup of black coffee in an attempt to keep myself awake but if I'm honest it's not doing much good. And so far all we have come up with is either have all the eldest novices graduate early, which is ridiculous.

I had much expected this argument to come up, but one: it would only last a few years and then what? And after seeing what it had done to Rose, well there was no was going to let them graduate early, so when this came up in the first meeting, I disagreed completely.

However Yuri had argued and said "oh come on Guardian Petrov you saw Rose in the field experience, she was dangerous, you can't denied it" I smiled sadly at the thought "yes she was, but look what all the death has done to her, she's not herself anymore, all you have to do is take one look at her to see it. We need to give the novices time to prepare, because sending them out there on their own unprepared will only make numbers fall more"

"But in our world the struggle for survival is always lurking, and the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment. We need to adapt, If we don't we die. Simple as, and plus they only have two months until graduation, what more do they have to learn?" she said, thinking that she had won it, but I wasn't going to let that happen.

So I replied "a lot" I replied simply and dryly "but the-" I cut her off "enough" I said with authority in my tone, and I gave her the I'm-not-messing-around look "there is no way on earth you will get me to agree for the novice to graduate early, it's only a short turn solution and won't solve the main problem, and it's cruel to send KIDS out there they need the two months to mentally prepare, we need to find another solution, one that will be long term. End of story"

Since then, well there still hasn't been much progress. Many different ideas have been flying all over the place: juggling guardian shifts around, making the guardians work longer shifts, and merging schools together so there could be more guardians guarding one place at a time.

These were the three main ideas that we had, however each of them came with their own problems, and each of them had their own problems and making the guardians work longer shifts was just cruel likewise joining schools together would hold more of a risk of an attack because strigoi would target places with higher numbers of moroi, especially with their increasing numbers.

I let out a growl of frustration. These problems just seemed endless, and we couldn't seem to find a suitable short term solution, let alone a long term solution. Right now I feel like I want to rip out what's left of my short hair in annoyance. Everyone was silent, mulling over the options we had, but none of them were suitable.

All of a sudden someone cleared their throat, breaking the awful, awkward silence that had enclosed the room. I swiftly turned in the direction that it came on to see guardian Celeste looking at me proudly. "Please let her have something suitable to say" I thought, we just needed some good luck at the moment, anything that would help. "Yes guardian Celeste, you have something to suggest" at this moment I was ready to hear anything.

"Yes guardian Petrov, may I suggest that we that we keep all the guardian schedules near enough the same as we can, and have the older novices pair up with one guardian, on a shift paroling the parameter so therefore we could have double the amount of security, and it could be a training exercise for the novices. That way no novices need to graduate early, they get trained in real life circumstances, and we have more security" She said glowing, and I could tell she was proud of her suggestion, and to be honest she should be, that's the best idea I've heard all day.

I smiled at her "Celeste, that's the best idea I've heard all day" I said wistfully this could possible work, right now we just need to think of any problems that could occur with this.

"It's not too much of a problem that we have the novices missing any core subjects (e.g. math's, English, history etc) because getting this close to graduation they're not going to need it much, but the only thing I'm worried about is that they will miss out on their combat classes and training sessions because they will all be on different time schedules" This time Guardian Jean who had been sitting in the corner seat listening to what was being said spoke up "If I may Guardian Petrov?" she looked over at me for permission, which I approved of with a sharp nod of my head.

"Now this will take a lot of planning, and hard work from the guardians, but what we could do is we could scrap all the novices classes all together" this earned a few gasps and shakes of the head, but I just simply listened, this could actually work "then we could pair up ever novice with a guardian from the school, because we have enough. Then because we will have more pairs of guardians paroling the parameter that means more guardians will have a longer time off. Then during this time the guardians who have been paired up with a novice can have a two hour training session with their assigned guardians, much like miss Hathaway and Guardian Belikov to keep their skills up, and there will still be enough time for everyone to have their own time off as well" she finished. I couldn't believe it this could work, and I'm quite impressed, and by the looks of everyone else in the room they were to.

"Okay guardians this sounds like an improvement we could make, now it won't be long term solution but it will do for the next two months, and it sounds like it will make some significant improvements to security. So does anyone disagree with this suggestion?" I asked, secretly hoping no one would. I just wanted to get out of the cramped room I had been in for quite a while. Luckily everyone stayed silent and no one disagreed, so I said "this is early start yet people, and I'm going to have to talk to Queen Tatiana and Head Guardian Hans Croft about this, but if they see no problem with this, we will start preparing as soon as possible. You are dismissed" I said as I picked up my papers and left the room.

I was on the way to my office to start preparing the arrangements, when Guardian Stan Alto came up to me "Guardian Petrov, I'm not sure if you're aware but Rose Hathaway wasn't in my class this morning, and I checked, she hasn't been in her combat class either" he said.

'Snitch' I thought, has he got nothing better to do? "Okay thanks Guardian Alto, I will look into it as soon as possible" I said then I started to walk away, but I stopped but didn't turn around when he asked "Oh Guardian Petrov, how did the meeting go this morning? Did anything good come of it?" so I replied simply "things are looking up Alto" short and sweet I thought I just wanted to get away and get on with my work, and so I walked away.

As soon I had reached my office, I put the documents I had carried out of the meeting on my desk and sat down. 'Rose' I thought 'she wasn't in class this morning' not that I didn't expect it, I mean she's looks terrible ever since Belikov left, she's lost so much weight her curves look non-existent, she has big black bags under hers eyes which shows she obviously hasn't been sleeping well, and her hair, well that looks awful, it's lost all its shine and just lays limply on her back.

I sighed. Why would Belikov do this? He had told me he loved her the day he left, he said she felt the same, which I knew was true, just by her reaction since he left. This is so stupid, I don't get Belikov, I use to respect him, but now I hold nothing but anger and pity for him.

He's made his choice, but obviously made the wrong one, but I will be damned if I let him come anywhere near here ever again. He's made his choice, now I'm making mine. It's now one am human time, so it's just after lunch time here I thought, great. Well I need to go talk to Rose now before I start calling the Queen and Guardian Hans Croft with our new solution, because no doubt that's all I will be doing later. So I headed off for Rose's dorm. Now I was frustrated, I have been standing outside of Rose's dorm trying to get her to open up her door; I know she's in there because it's locked from the inside. This is one thing she never does.

Now I'm starting to get a little panicked, so I banged a little harder, but stopped when I could hear her feet dragging against the floor, on the other side of the door.

Her door then swung open, and there stood sleepy-eyed rose standing in the doorway. Now I had originally planned to shout at her and tell her how irresponsible she was for skipping classes, but the way I saw her now, I just didn't have the strength to. She looked heartbroken, and defeated, I couldn't bring myself to make her feel any worse.

She was like a daughter to me, all I wanted to do is to hug her and tell her that he isn't worth her tears, but I was going to wait until she is ready tell me in her own time.

She then stepped aside, which allowed me access to her rather messy room. Hmm I thought I never remember my room ever being this messy, even when I was a teen I thought, but I just gave Rose a look then made myself comfy on the wooden chair at her desk, which was quite hard considering that it wasn't a comfy chair.

I decided that I would speak first before Rose could start making excuses for why she hasn't been in class, I also wanted her to know I wasn't her to tell her off, I knew she was going through a hard time so I wasn't going to make it any worse. "I love you like a daughter Rose, you know that don't you?" I said soothingly as possible she looked like she was going to breakdown any minute "You know you can always trust me with anything good... or bad, if you asked me not to tell I wouldn't.

I could never do that to you" I carried on; I wanted her to open up to me. It won't be good for her to keep it all locked up, but first I needed her to trust me, and to feel that she can tell me about Dimitri, but that was going to be hard, because although she considered me as a second mum, I am still captain of the Guardians here and so maybe she feels because of that she can't tell me, so that's what I'm trying to change.

"You know I love you to, just like the mum I never had, but what are you getting at Alberta?" I sighed; she was stalling, trying to doge the main question. So I then decided to for half the truth, seems that's as far as I can go "Rose I know something's up I'm not stupid and not being rude but you look like crap. You have very dark circles under your eyes, paler skin and god knows how many dress sizes you've dropped, in the past month and a bit.

And I've wanted to come and talk to you for a long time, but you know how things have been, and I'm sure you can tell their not going good just from looking at me, I just haven't been able to get away, but I'm here now so please talk to me" I was practically begging by the end of my 'speech' but I wanted so desperately for her to open up, it's killing me seeing her like this and not being able to do anything about it.

As head Guardian I am so use to being able to get things done, and to know everything I needed to know, so I'm sure you can understand why this situation was becoming more and more frustrating for me.

"Alberta I'm fine honestly I'm just not sleeping well recently, I think the atmosphere around here is getting to me, everyone is so hyped up about the strigoi I think it's just put everyone on edge". She lied, straight to my face, and I gotta admit that hurt. I was expecting her to say that she didn't want to talk about it, but she refusing to even admit to me that there's a problem, which is making it increasingly more frustrating and hurtful for me, but I've just got to remember she's not herself at the moment.

"Don't lie to me Rose, I have known you for thirteen years, I can tell when you're lying. It kills me to see you like this, tell me what's happened, please?" I said, giving it one last chance, hoping that if I told her how I was feeling, that she could do the same for me. But obviously not, because she just didn't say anything.

I think it's becoming a bit too much for her, and it seems to me she's to hurt to talk about it. 'Just let her heal a bit then she will talk to me when she's ready. Just give her time' I thought to myself "Okay Rose I get it you don't want to talk, but I know you wouldn't skip class for no good reason, especially when you're on the road to becoming a great guardian, so please just go back to class.

I need to get back to the meetings, now that Dimitri has gone we need to find a replacement but that's proving to be difficult" I said lying slightly, because I can't tell anyone about our plans yet, especially a novice. We all know how that turned out when Dimitri told Rose confidential information at the ski lodge a few months ago, no way was that to ever happen again.

And the reason I said his name is, I just need to know it's him that she's upset about, which should be obvious seems it all happened when he left, but I needed to be sure, and sure enough I got my answer, because when I said his name she flinched. At this point my anger started to boil, not at Rose but at Dimitri, how could he do this to her? After everything she's been through, it's just cruel.

This is when I left her room. I needed to get out, away from the mess that he has left her in, it's heartbreaking. I headed towards my office, planning on getting some of the new novice/guardian scheme sorted, but to be honest I don't think I can do any of that at the moment, I'm just not in the right mind set.

However I still went to my office anyway, so I could appear to be doing work. Once in my office I shut the door and went at sat in my chair perched at my desk, and shut my eyes then I started to think. I don't know how long I sat there, just thinking about this whole mess I have to deal with the strigoi and Rose but when I opened my eyes I saw it had only been about ten minutes. 'Great' I thought, this day is just going to drag on and on. Just then startling me out of my own little world my mobile phone started to ring. I sighed; do I ever get a break? Obviously not, I thought. I looked at the caller ID to see it was withheld.

That's strange; I never normally have one of them. Anyway I answered with caution, it could be something important "Guardian Petrov here" I answered but what I heard on the other end of the phone made my blood boil. "Alberta? Hello its Dimitri Belikov" I was now surged full of anger! Why is he calling? He has no right to! But I carried on being professional.

"Yes hello Belikov, what do you need?" "Err...errrm" he stuttered a bit "well I was just calling to see how Rose was, I know it's been a while but I need to know" he said desperately, but this just made me angrier, how dare he? He comes here breaks her heart then has the nerve to call and ask how she's doing, this is unacceptable, and now after seeing what he's done to her first hand, well he's going to feel the wrath of Alberta Petrov.

"wait!" I said firmly "you leave, and then call up asking how she is? That's unacceptable" I said sternly "Alberta, with all due respect, I explained to you the situation, I had no other choice" he said weakly, ha! I guess he doesn't like being the one having his emotions toyed with. Good. "I know Dimitri but she's a mess" I said, trying to show him that his current actions are unacceptable.

I for one wasn't going to take any nonsense off him "I'm sure she is but-"I interrupted him "Oh screw you Belikov!" I shouted down the phone, and there was a pause, where both me and him didn't speak. 'Oh I'm sure she is' he says like it's no big deal! This is Rose we are talking about she's not easy to break, but he's broken her and doesn't even care. He claims to love her but doesn't, if he did he wouldn't be acting like this.

"Guardian Belikov, you are no longer working for me and no longer the mentor for Miss Hathaway, and so you have no reason to be asking about her well being. Miss Hathaway will be fine as long as you stay away, and I do not want you to call me unless it is for purely professional reasons. Nothing else."

I said completely professionally, I wasn't going to let him break my control anymore. "Do you understand Guardian Belikov?" I asked, not wanting to be on the phone any longer than needs be "yes loud and clear" Belikov says sarcastically, but I just hang up, not wanting to give up any more of my time on him. I have much more important things to be dealing with than him.