Richelle Mead owns the VA and Bloodlines series.
Can I just say, I love you guys. Seriously. I do. You're all amazing with your support and ideas. A lot of you want to see more future Sydrian, specifically Adrian and Sydney looking back on their lives when they were younger. I ran with that idea and hopefully what I came up with is cute and different and not just a boring rehash of things we all already know :)
Review and let me know what you think!
Looking through photo albums with your parents is not the way most teenagers want to spend their day. It certainly wasn't the way I had planned to spend mine. Not only was it completely lame, but also, my parents were much cooler than this. And I know, thinking my parents were cool was just as lame as the photo album thing. But they were. And, also... well, it had sort of been my idea to rehash the past in the first place, so really I had no room to complain.
"Do you remember the day she said her first word?" Mom asked, smiling over at Dad and me while she flipped through the photo album.
We were all seated in our living room, me and Dad on the sofa and Mom in a reclining chair. She was pregnant again—six months, though she didn't look it—and it was good for her back, or something. It was cool, her being pregnant, but it was also gross because it meant my parents were still doing it. Just the thought made me want to gag. I mean, they were pretty young considering Mom had me when she was only nineteen, but still. "Parents" and "sex" should never be thought about in the same paragraph, let alone the same sentence. I mean, I could barely handle the PDA that they rarely held back on in my presence. I didn't want to imagine what they did when I wasn't in the room!
"Yeah," Dad said, answering Mom's question. "She said, 'now', which only goes to show what a demanding little thing you are." He reached over and messed up my hair causing me to grimace and pull away.
"Daddy!" I complained, trying to straighten my long blonde hair back into place. He always did that even though he knew it drove me crazy. I shouldn't really complain, though. He could mess up my hair everyday for all I cared, as long as he was here.
I'd never really understood that my family was different from everyone else's. I mean, I knew we were different. Mom was a witch and Dad was Moroi, a vampire. Me and my sister, Lily, were both a weird mix of the two. Part dhampir, the result of a human/Moroi relationship, and part witch. As a result, we sort of inherited the best traits of both of our parents. Our Mom's magic and Dad's vampire blood. We were stronger and faster than most humans and because of our parents unique magical abilities, we were more powerful than most witches as well. So, yeah. We were definitely different.
But I hadn't realized that our family setup was so different from everyone else's. I'd grown up going to human schools, because my parents didn't want anyone in the Moroi world trying to exploit our unique power. I'd had human friends who lived in normal homes with their mom's and dad's. Now that I was a freshman in high school my parents had let me decide if I wanted to remain in normal school or... go in a different direction.
I'd asked what other directions there were and they'd told me, honestly. There were covens I could join for more intense magical training. I'd been trained by Mom, who was really good at magic even though she had never joined with a coven, but she said there were still a lot of benefits to training with a group of varied witches. Another option was to go to a Moroi school. I'd been intrigued by the second option.
Most Moroi academies were boarding schools, places where parents sent their dhampir children off to be taught how to fight or their Moroi children how to use their magic, but Mom and Dad didn't want me living on campus. I couldn't lie, I didn't really want to live on campus either. I'd miss my parents and Lily. Instead we moved into a house near campus so I could go to school every night—because the Academy was on Moroi time—but close enough to a human community that Lily could still go to public school during the day.
It wasn't until I'd made a few dhampir friends at St. Grigory's that I'd realized how strange my family actually was. My friend, Stacia, had stared at me wide eyed when I'd explained that I was living off campus with my parents and that, yes, my dad did live with us.
"But, he's Moroi, right?" she'd asked. I'd thought it was the stupidest question I'd ever heard, until she'd followed it up with, "You're lucky. I wish I even knew who my dad was. He made my mom sign some sort of agreement saying she'd never out him has my father."
I'd heard the same thing from a bunch of other dhampir as well. It made me sad, but I now appreciated my dad a little more than I used to. I mean, I'd always loved him. He's, like, my best friend, which is a weird thing to say about your dad, but it was true. We'd always hung out and painted together in his art studio or teased Mom and Lily about their constant studying and obsession with classic cars. Although, I will admit, I did love the classics as much as the next girl. I just hadn't realized that what we had was out of the norm. That's why when I'd woken up this afternoon I'd casually asked about how Mom and Dad had met.
I knew the story, but only the SparkNotes version. They'd been sent away to Palm Springs to protect Aunt Jill when she was under attack by Moroi rebels trying to overthrow Aunt Lissa as queen. They'd met, become friends, and then fallen in love. I vaguely knew that some bad stuff had gone down before Mom was pregnant with me, or while she was pregnant with me, but no one really discussed it. So, when I asked, I asked about all of it.
"Here," Mom said, flipping to a page in the photo album and laughing. "I love this picture. It never gets old." She handed the album to Dad and he smiled at the photo before giving it to me.
I looked at the picture, noting it had clearly been taking with a camera phone and then printed out on glossy paper. Aunt Jill had demanded Mom send her any and all meaningful photos last year when she was going through her scrap booking phase. Like I said, Mom and Dad weren't lame enough to put a photo album together, but Aunt Jill was. Somehow, that lameness worked for her though.
The photo was of Mom when she was a little older than me. She was wearing business-like clothes, tailored khaki pants and a crisp white button down, and standing on a mini-golf course next to a plywood Dracula decoration, grinning like a crazy person. The golden lily tattoo on her cheek gleamed in the sunlight, unlike now. I'd never seen her tattoo so bright. Now it was faded, not nearly as pretty as it once was. I knew better than to ask about that though. It was a sore subject for my parents, even though I always saw Dad tracing his fingers over the golden swirls on Mom's cheek.
"That was taken, by Daddy actually, not long after we'd gotten to Palm Springs," Mom said. "We weren't really close back then, not by a long shot."
"Yeah," Dad said, grabbing the picture back from me. "I was an ass then, but you were so cute."
"Were?" Mom asked, sounding offended, but her amber eyes were twinkling playfully.
"Are," Dad corrected, making me laugh a little. "You look so cute today, did I tell you that?"
"Shut up," Mom said, laughing and grabbing the photo album back. She flipped a few pages and found another photo before showing it to me.
It was a group shot of Mom and Dad along with Aunt Jill, Uncle Eddie, Angeline, Sonya and Dimitri. They were all crowded in front of a couch in an old, antique looking living room.
"Jailbait wanted to take that photo. For posterity, or something, she said. The Palm Springs gang all together." Dad shook his head and took a better look at the photo. "I look hungover," he said, sounding disappointed.
"You were always hungover," Mom said. It didn't sound like she was joking, which was weird to think about because I couldn't remember Dad ever having more than a glass of wine on special occasions.
"Because of spirit, right?" I asked, intrigued. "You used to drink because you hadn't figured out how to control spirit yet?"
"Yeah," Dad said, flipping through the photo album. "That on top of other things."
"What other things?" I asked. I'd never known my dad as a drinker, but I knew he used to drink, heavily, when he was younger. People always eluded to it, but never came right out and said why and I'd never cared to ask when I was a kid.
Mom sat up straighter in her chair, leaning toward a little, and took Dad's hand. "Spirit was a huge part of that," she said.
"Another part was my strained relationship with my parents," Dad admitted, squeezing Mom's hand back. "I used to like to piss them off and nothing pissed my dad off more than me being drunk all the time. Plus, it helped me get through any lectures he tried to give me about how I needed to straighten out my life." He smiled a little and looked at me. "Don't do that, by the way. It's bad for you. Doesn't make anything better, just makes you numb to everything around you. Blah, blah, blah. You know the drill."
"I'm not planning to go and get wasted after this, Dad," I said, rolling my eyes. "Although, maybe I will if you don't get to something a little more interesting."
He laughed and rolled his green eyes right back. We had the same eyes. I was glad I'd inherited his, even though I sometimes envied Lily's golden eyes and all of the different shades of eye shadow she could wear with them.
"Alright, how about this," he said gamely. "Did you know Rose and I used to date?"
My eyes bugged out a little. "You used to date Rose? Like, Aunt Rose?" I usually didn't call her that, she didn't like the formality of the title even though she constantly referred to me and Lily as her nieces. We weren't, not by blood anyway.
"Yeah," Dad said. "I met Rose first, at a ski lodge, and decided I had to have her. It was sort of a misguided-love-at-first-sight kinda thing. We dated for a bit, when Dimitri was... away."
I knew what he meant by that. Dimitri had told us the story of how he'd once been Strigoi. He didn't go into details except to say that Rose and Aunt Lissa had saved him.
Dad kept talking. "When she dumped me for him I was really angry. And depressed. I'm sure the spirit was fueling it, but at the time I felt like I was drowning in it." He brightened up and smiled at me. "Until your mom showed up and kicked my ass into gear. Then I was alright. But this picture," he said, tapping the group photo, "was taken before she managed to straighten me out completely."
I flipped the page and saw a cute picture of my parents sitting on a plaid couch and laughing at something the other had said. Clearly someone had taken the photo when they weren't paying attention. I could even see Uncle Eddie smiling with Angeline in the background.
"This," Dad said, grabbing the album, "is one of my favorite pictures ever." He studied the photo with a small smile on his face. "This was after I kissed you," he said to Mom.
"So you guys were dating?" I asked, genuinely curious. This was the part I didn't understand. I knew my parents loved each other, it was obvious to anyone in a ten mile radius, but what I didn't know was why they had chosen to be together. Human/Moroi relationships were taboo and I wasn't sure how they had gotten passed that stigma.
"No," Mom said, and her voice had a sad note to it. "I freaked out when he kissed me for the first time. I still maintain that my reasoning for doing so was sound," she said to my dad before looking back at me. "I was scared. Alchemists aren't supposed to even be friends with vampires. Kissing one was like the ultimate sin. I panicked." She shook her head slightly as if brushing away the memory of the feeling. "I was also caught slightly off guard. He sort of sprang this whole kiss and romantic speech on me. I wasn't ready for any of it."
"It wasn't like I'd planned it either," Dad said. "But you were there and you'd just broken up with that Holden guy—"
"Brayden," Mom said in a way that sounded automatic. Dad ignored her.
"—and you looked at me with those big, golden eyes and I couldn't help myself. You know I'm a total sucker for your eyes."
Mom smiled sweetly at him, making me feel like I was invading a personal moment, but then she looked back to me and the moment was over. "Our relationship wasn't great for a while after that. We'd become sort of unlikely friends, but after the kiss it all went up in smoke."
"I was a moody asshole," Dad explained. "I was mad that she ran away from me. From us. When I finally grew up a little and realized I needed to act like an adult about it things got better. Some of that had to do with your mom learning more about being a witch."
"It did. As I learned more I became more comfortable with magic," she admitted. "And I also became more resigned to the fact that I wasn't a regular human anymore. Or a regular Alchemist, anyway. But your dad also was pretty good at winning me over all by himself." She smiled at him again. "You always said the perfect things at the perfect times. You made me feel like I could survive everything that was happening."
"Then?" I asked getting impatient and also wanting to get them onto a different topic before I had to witness another case of parental PDA.
"Then," Dad said indulgently, "your mom finally succumbed to my wit and charm and we started dating." His face clouded over for a brief moment that told me were were finally getting to the good part. Or bad part, really. "We didn't have long before the Alchemists realized we were together. They didn't even question us or anything. Just kidnapped your mom in the middle of the night and took her away."
This is the part I sort of knew. "They took her to that Re-education place I heard Grandpa and Aunt Zoe talking about, right?" I asked.
"When did they tell you about that?" Mom asked looking a little angry.
"They didn't," I said quickly. "I sort of overheard them while they were in the kitchen. At Christmas a couple years ago. I just heard that you'd been there and that it wasn't... a good place to go," I finished lamely. Truth was, I hadn't heard much of their conversation at all because Dad and Lily were in the living room with Grandma watching A Christmas Story and being all loud about it. But I'd gotten the gist of the conversation—and the movie. And it sounded to me like Re-education equaled bad news—and A Christmas Story equaled lame.
"I asked them not to talk about Alchemist business in front of you girls," she muttered, more to herself than me. Soon though she turned back to me, giving me a small smile. "Re-education is a bad place to be. It's for scaring unruly Alchemists straight. And my relationship with your father and being able to practice magic made me the unruliest of them all."
"So they locked you away just because you're a witch and fell in love?" I asked. That seemed highly unfair to me. It felt like everything was seeming more and more unfair recently. I suddenly appreciated all my parents went through to keep Lily and I in charge of our own lives and beliefs instead of getting bullied into a certain way of living and thinking.
"The Alchemists are rigid in their beliefs," Mom said. "You see the way Zoe and Grandpa are. And, believe me, they've lightened up a lot since before you were born. There was a time when I really didn't think they'd ever meet you."
"So what happened in Re-education?" I asked, getting back on topic.
"Well," Mom said thoughtfully. "The Alchemists usually... brainwash you there. Make you forget everything except the fear. But once they realized I was pregnant with you they didn't try any of that. They focused on my magic instead and let me give birth."
"So I was born in Re-education," I said. I'd already guessed as much. "Away from Dad."
Dad wrapped an arm around my shoulders and pulled me into a quick hug. "For a little while, but then I busted in all manly-like and rescued my girls."
Mom laughed. "Yeah. So manly. His eyes nearly bugged out of his head when he saw you." She flipped a few pages more in the photo album before finding a section dedicated to me and Lily. She pointed to a picture of her holding me in what appeared to be a sleazy motel room. "This was our first day out of Re-education."
I glanced down at the next photo. It was taken in the same flee-bag motel, but this time it was Dad who held me. I was only a month or two old I guessed, sleeping soundly nestled in a pink blanket in Dad's arms. His green eyes were wide, looking at me in shock and amazement. It suddenly occurred to me that this photo was probably of one of the first times he'd ever held me. The first time he even realized he had a daughter. The look of adoration on his face as he gazed down at me... It brought tears to my eyes.
"And you never thought about leaving?" I asked him, cautiously. "Even though... even though Moroi don't usually want to be associated with their dhampir kids?"
"Why would I leave?" he countered, a confused look on his face. "I fought hard for you and Lily and Mom. I wasn't going to throw that all away just because of some stupid Moroi prejudice. If your mom and me got through the threat of the Alchemists, a little old fashioned thinking wasn't going to stop us."
"I know," I said, nodding slowly.
"Adrianna," Dad said, wrapping his arm around my shoulders again. "What's got you talking about this? About me leaving?"
I shook my head. "It's nothing. Just... just some kids at school. They were asking about our family and they seemed really shocked that we all lived together. My friend, Stacia?" He nodded, recognizing the name from stories I'd told him. "She told me she didn't even know her dad because he made her mom sign some sort of nondisclosure agreement..."
I had to blink back a few tears, much to my embarrassment. Mom noticed and hurried over to the couch, sitting on my other side and wrapping her arms around me too. Suddenly, being squeezed in between both of my parents, I couldn't stop the tears.
"Oh, it's okay, baby," Mom crooned, holding me tight.
I shook her off, trying to hold my emotions in check. It was something I'd picked up from Mom. I was never as good at it as she was though. "I'm fine. I just got emotional for a second. I keep thinking, what if that was me? What would it be like to grow up without a dad?"
"You don't ever have to think about that," Dad said fiercely. "I've known a lot of Moroi men who have done things like that. And I never wanted to be one of them." He took my face in his hands and made me look at him. "Sweetheart, you and Lily and Mom and the new baby are my whole life. You're not my dhampir daughter. You're my daughter. My beautiful, green eyed witch. Don't let those morons at that school put their archaic beliefs on you. You're not just a dhampir, or even a witch. You are an Ivashkov, and don't forget it."
He pulled me closer and kissed the top of my head while I squeezed him as hard as I could. He was right. I knew that. I felt better hearing him say it though. Mom brushed my hair back from my cheek affectionately.
"Maybe you should take a break from St. Grigory's..." she said uncertainly, like she knew I was going to fight her on it. She was right.
"No," I exclaimed, sitting up and facing her. "I can handle it. I swear. I just got upset, like I said. I was feeling guilty about Stacia because I have a dad and she never will. It's unfair that people can be so careless to the needs of others. Their own children, for God's sake! It infuriated me. And I got to thinking about you and Daddy... how you, you know. Got over your differences and became a family?"
Mom smiled and pulled me close; Dad draped an arm around both of us. "It was a lot of things that got us past that. Love... love is a hard thing to walk away from, no matter what the consequences. And we both realized the same thing you did. That it's unfair for someone else to dictate how you live and who you love and what you're allowed to be. So we stood up for ourselves. Together."
"It was hard, kid," Dad said seriously. "I won't lie to you. It's always hard going against what people expect. But we had each other, and you to think about. We wanted better for you and Lily."
I hugged both of my parents. "And I appreciate it. I can't imagine growing up, knowing you were just the outcome of an ill-fated hookup."
We all laughed at that and, of course, that was when the door opened and my little sister walked in, her short brown hair bobbing as she nodded to some song only she could hear. She pulled her earbuds out when she saw us all embracing on the couch, smiling and teary eyed.
Once she realized nothing was wrong she gave us a condescending look. "You guys are weird," was all she said.
We all laughed again and Dad said, "So are you, Lil Miss Sunshine. Now get over here. We're doing a group hug."
Lily smirked and then dove onto our laps, careful of Mom's baby bump. Dad tickled her and she wriggled away, laughing, until she was sitting on his other side, her legs draped across all three of us. "So what were you guys doing that made you cry?" she asked once she was situated.
"Nothing," Mom said smoothly. "We were just discussing baby names."
Dad reached over, resting a hand on her stomach. "I like Daisy," he said. "Or Violet." He shrugged, smirking much the same way Lily had when she walked in. "You know I have a thing for plant names."
"Hey!" I complained. "You didn't name me after a plant."
"No, even better," he laughed. "You got named after me. You're lucky Mom picked it. I would have named you Oleander..." He grimaced. "Or Hyacinth."
I laughed with the rest of my family, arguing over what names were perfect for the new baby, feeling lucky to have them. And not worrying about what the rest of the world thought of us.