For Anon who requested Janine POV about her relationship with Rose. I have never written Janine POV before, so I hope I did the character justice. Please excuse any errors, I wrote this while watching TWD and am posting it in it's first draft, which is something I never do. Unedited/Unproofed
She'd never been the affectionate type—not even during her tumultuous relationship with Ibrahim. She wasn't one of those people who was open and expressive with their emotion, preferring to keep others at arms-length. It wasn't that she was cold and unemotional, she just preferred to keep her relationships on a friendly but somewhat professional level. It made things easier for everyone involved, because forming close ties was dangerous for a guardian—you couldn't afford to be emotionally attached to anyone if you had to focus solely on keeping another person alive. She didn't know if her standoffish disposition was a natural facet of her personality or if it was the culmination of years of intense mental preparation, but it didn't really matter, so she didn't examine it closely. The only thing she knew was that somehow, at some point, she had developed a hard, impenetrable shell around her heart and her emotions that was impossible for others to breech—and that was exactly the way she wanted it. She was well aware that her peers thought she was a stone cold, hard hearted bitch, but it didn't bother her one bit, because it was completely true. She had an almost clinical view of interpersonal relationships and how they should be handled, and she wasn't going to change who she was for anyone—certainly not for a smooth talking, devilishly handsome Moroi with a reputation as a ladies man. Even when she wound up pregnant—goddamned Ibrahim and his fucking faulty condoms—she remained aloof and detached, fully intending to hand the child over to a wet nurse and remove it from her life as soon as it was born.
However, life has a way of throwing unexpected curve balls, destroying even the most resolute plans. In the blink of an eye, her stance shifted—all because she heard the baby's first furious wail in the birthing room. An overwhelming need to comfort the tiny, red, screaming infant filled her, and she instinctively reached for it, forgetting her resolve not to touch or even look at the child at all. When the midwife handed her the baby, it immediately stopped it's painful sounding cries, and in that moment, the carapace she had spent years forming… cracked. For the first time in her life, there was someone that she wanted to hold close. Someone she wanted to cuddle and cherish and… love. And for the first time since she was old enough to understand the meaning of 'they come first', there was someone other than a Moroi that she wanted—no, needed—to protect.
Her baby girl—Rosemarie.
However, no matter how much she might want to do those things… she couldn't. She had taken an oath when she'd obtained her promise mark, swearing to devote her life to the Moroi, and that vow was unbreakable. So despite the fact it destroyed her, she kept her beautiful, sweet little girl at arms-length, just the way she had so many people over the course of her life. She tended to the child's needs, forcing herself to pretend it was someone else's infant in a futile attempt to detach herself and her foolish emotions—but no matter how hard she tried, it just didn't work. All her daughter had to do was look up at her and smile, or let out a stream of ridiculous sounding baby talk, and the shell around her heart shattered even more. It wasn't long until she was cuddling Rosemarie and singing to her, or playing silly games of peekaboo, allowing herself to become attached—the one thing she swore she would never, ever do. Slowly but surely, her little girl was becoming the axis around which her world revolved—and for the first time in her life, she felt a sense of completion the likes of which she'd never experienced before.
It might have kept on that way, the love she felt for the tiny baby growing and flourishing until it took over, completely overpowering her sense of loyalty and duty and becoming the total focal point of her existence, had it not been for one single event that completely destroyed her newly emerged soft, maternal side once and for all.
Her charge was attacked, and she wasn't prepared. Her thoughts hadn't been on their surroundings or the fact that the street was completely deserted—her mind had been on her child, replaying the way her sweet voice had sounded when she'd uttered her first word a few hours before. She didn't notice the Strigoi detaching themselves from the shadows they'd been hiding in, or see them advancing on their small group so fast that there was barely time for her guarding partner to shout out a warning—not until they were completely surrounded and outnumbered. Even then, her first thought wasn't that the Moroi Lord must be protected at all costs—it was that she had to live so she could make it back to her daughter.
That thought was wrong, going against everything she'd been trained to believe, but it fueled her throughout the fight, and they all made it out alive with minimal damage—but just barely. In the aftermath of the skirmish, it weighed heavily on her conscious. She knew she had a choice to make, and it was the hardest thing she'd ever had to do. For most people, the answer would be an obvious one; her duty as a parent superseded any oath she'd taken—but Janine Hathaway wasn't 'most people'. In her opinion a person who went back on their word had no honor—and a person without honor was morally unfit to raise a child. It was a double-edged sword, because no matter what path she took, she would end up losing her daughter, since she couldn't in good conscious raise the child to be a guardian if she had turned her back on her duty.
Slowly she began distancing herself, hardening her heart to Rosemarie's smiles and her sweet, childish giggles. She spent less and less time with the child, opting to work on her days off in an attempt to avoid the temptation to cater to her daughter's needs. She ignored the ever present urge to gather her in her arms and cover her small upturned face with kisses, refusing to nurture her or show her affection in any way at all, despite the fact it tore her heart out to do so. And as soon as Rosemarie was old enough to meet the minimum age requirement, she turned her over to the Academy.
Walking away that day, hearing her baby girl scream and cry, begging her mama to come back was torture—but she did it. Once her mind was made up, there was no altering her course. She didn't even stop to look back, or kiss the girl goodbye, shoving her existence out of her mind by sheer force of will. From that moment on, her focus and intensity to her charge was complete, and it made her one of the best guardians alive.
Even so, not a single day went by that she didn't think of Rosemarie upon waking, and the last thing she did every night before sleeping was to pull out a picture of her tiny daughter and kiss it goodnight. For the rest of her life, not a moment went by that she didn't regret her decision…but she would never, ever let anyone know.