Leila and Cora walked into the gym together. Their chatting fell silent when they noticed Dimitri and I. They froze for a second, before they walked towards us.
The girl on the left must be Leila, the formal keeper. She looked more like the Keepers that Dimitri and I met, while we were running away from the guardians that wanted to kill me.
Dimitri, having more experience with teaching than I had, started.
"Welcome girls. You know why you're here, I suppose?" he asked.
Leila nodded, while Cora only looked bored.
"I think it's the best to start with running and work outs. Those will be with the four of us. Guardian Hathaway and I will train with you. When we're going to do the combat, we will do that separated with one to one training. Guardian Hathaway and I will train the both of you," Dimitri continued.
It annoyed me that Dimitri didn't talk to me about this, that he didn't ask my opinion. Not that I didn't agree with him, I would have come with a similar plan, but the fact that he thought he could decide for the both of us annoyed me.
"Okay," I said, "we'll start with running a few laps, to see how good your condition is."
Cora groaned. "Why do we have to run? I thought we were here to learn how to fight."
"No, you are here to learn how to survive," Dimitri said.
"But..."
"Listen Cora, I know where you are coming from," I interrupted her, "But Guardian Belikov is right. It can safe your life, and the life of your Moroi when you are a fast runner."
Cora groaned again, but started running, following Leila.
While the girls were doing their laps, I walked to Dimitri.
"So, what is your plan with the girls?" I asked.
"To train them just how I trained you, first running and work outs, later the martial arts."
"Okay, tell me what I have to do then."
I knew I was acting childish, and that Dimitri would use this against me, but at the moment I didn't care.
"Rose, this is not the time to act childish," he said.
"No, listen, Comrade, that our relationship didn't work out doesn't mean that you can treat me like I'm your student again, because I'm not. We are equals now and I wanted to do this with you, together, not me doing what you say I have to do."
"We always were equals Rose, and I'm not trying to boss around, I'm just doing my job. Besides, you said that you agreed with me, about the running," he said.
"I do agree, but that isn't my point. My point is that you think you can decide everything without asking my opinion on it," I snapped.
Cora and Leila came back just when Dimitri wanted to reply on my comment, which forced him to shut his mouth. He quickly wore his emotionless mask again, which I tried to do too.
Leila looked pretty relaxed, considering she just had ran a few laps. Cora however was panting and really out of breath. I made a mental note to let Cora train a bit more, to focus a lot on her condition. We could start with the combat for Leila earlier.
After a short break we let the girls do some workouts before Dimitri dismissed them.
I left right after the girls, walking towards my room, without saying a word to Dimitri. I didn't want to fight with Dimitri. I would never say it out loud, but I wanted that things between us would be like it was before. I wanted to wake up next to him, to train with him, to be with him. Sometimes, when I can't sleep and take a walk, I walk past his room and sometimes I hear he has a nightmare again. Moments like those I just want to walk in his room and comfort him. I can't do that, and I walk past his room and the next day, when I see he is wearing his mask again, pretending he slept well and isn't haunted by the nightmares and the past, I regret I didn't walk in the night before.
The next day I apologized to Dimitri, because I was hurt, because I missed him, though I wouldn't admit that.
The weeks went by. Dimitri and I trained the girls. We agreed to focus on condition for Cora and getting more to the combat for Leila. Sometimes we trained with them, since we also had to keep training.
Leila was dedicated; she really wanted to learn everything she had to learn. This resulted in her being too focused and wanting too fast. She was a bit like the Keepers Dimitri and I met when we were on the run. While we just worked with Leila for a week, we learned that she is a quickstudy. Cora caused us a lot more trouble. She reminded me of my 15 year old self. The Rose before things started with Victor Dashkov stalking Lissa, which made me take Lissa outsides the guards of the school.
Cora, like I did these days, cared more about parties and everything but classes, especially her training. It was mainly Dimitri who dealt with her, because he was much more patient than I was. At the other hand, he also was more strict than I was.
It may have taken a while, but slowly we were finding our way with the girls and with each other.
Author's note: I'm sorry for not updating for so long. I have been busy with school and stuff, while I have written a few chapters. I'll try to update once in the 2 weeks.