They were arriving today.

All the students and staff from St. Basil's would be here by diner tonight. Everyone has been so frantic the past week trying to prepare the campus for our new residents. People working before the sun goes down until it came back up. Guardians working off shift. The school really pulled together.

I yawned as I threw my covers off to get dressed. Dimitri and I decided to add an extra forty-five minutes to our morning training. Since St. Basil's would be arriving today, our afternoon training would be canceled for now. Once things settled down things would go back to normal.

"I hate mornings." I groaned throwing my gym bag onto the floor next to Dimitri's, who decided to completely ignore my morning grumpiness.

"Laps." He muttered without a glance in my direction.

"Seems like I'm not the only one who hates this morning." I laughed as I continued to stretch out my legs.

I could see how stressed out he was, sitting so tensed against the wall. Through his guardian mask the worry and anticipation were seeping out.

"What's going on?" I asked, stepping right in front of him.

"It's nothing. You need to go run your laps."

"Nope. You need to tell me what's wrong." His eyes bore into mine. I can see him fighting an internal battle. Should he let me in? Should he shelter me? I know what I wanted to win out but it seemed he didn't.

I stood there for what seemed like hours. Just hovering over him waiting for a response. Any response.

"She is coming." At my confusion he continued. "I talked to Mama this morning. Victoria will be a part of the group coming here. She will be training at St. Vladimir's."

"That's great news!" Shouldn't this be great news. He was going to have family here. I know how important his family is to him. This should have him excited not worried. "Why are you acting like this?"

"I haven't seen her in years. What if I'm not what she imagines I was like. She used to look up to me. Want to be just like me. What if she comes here and I'm not the big brother she thought I was?"

Dimitri had never looked so broken before. The thought of disappointing his baby sister weighed on him so much. I crawled over to the wall next to him and took his hand.

"Dimitri your sister loves you no matter what. Nothing about you could possibly disappoint her." His eyes were fixed on his lap. "Look at me."

Slowly his eyes came to focus on my own.

"Your sister will be thrilled to see you and everything will be alright."

The silence filled the air around us. It was a comfortable silence in which Dimitri's hand found its way to my cheek. His thumb rubbing circles just above my jaw.

"I love you Roza. You see more of me than anyone has." Leaning down to me his lips brushed a kiss to my forehead. "Now laps."

"Wow. Way to ruin the moment there Comrade." I gocked.

Standing up he offered me his hand. "I'll run with you."

The sun was still in the sky as we ran together. It was something both of us had missed. Having to live on a vampiric schedule was just another thing on the list of "they come first" cons. A list of cons that, until Dimitri, I didn't care about. Now looking at the man keeping pace next to me it was all I could think about. How were we going to make this work? I know now that we are both in this with everything we have, but we still have a lot to talk about.

I sighed knowing it would have to wait until things have settled down.