Stan Alto's first thought was how beautiful Rose looked. Almost ethereal. While it wasn't a thought he allowed himself to pursue when thinking about his students, she was undeniably a beautiful girl. Woman, now, he supposed.

Lying on her jacket in the snow, her long dark hair fanned out around her, wearing a thin cotton oversized, faded workout shirt with Cyrillic writing and a pair of bike shorts. Her skin was uncharacteristically pale; her eyes closed, a ghost of a smile on her face. Her arms on either side of her as she lay on her back, she looked like a sleeping angel.

Fuck!

He lurched forward across the ward line, trying to rouse her, checking for a pulse. Nothing! There had to be something?! He'd patrolled near here fifteen minutes ago? Surely it took more than fifteen minutes for someone to strip down and freeze to death? And she was on the tarp – only her arms and her lower legs were touching the snow? She still felt warmish to the touch. Did that count for anything?!

Giving up on finding a pulse at her wrist or neck, Stan wrenched her top up and put his head against her chest. And there, oh so faintly under her crop top bra, he heard the beat of her heart.

Thank the Lord!

But then he saw three empty pill jars clutched in her cold fingers, and an empty bottle of vodka beside her.

No… This couldn't be happening! He'd seen her drinking from a bottle from a distance, but he hadn't recognized it as liquor. She'd been sitting wearing her jeans and jacket sitting on a travel tarp. She sat out here all the time, these days, so he hadn't paid too much attention, other than to note she was there.

Reaching for his lapel communicator, he activated it, barking instructions not taking the time to respond to the shocked and distressed comments and questions fired back at him. He picked Rose up, surprised by how heavy she was. She was a small thing. She couldn't weigh more than a hundred and thirty pounds, but she felt heavier. Then he remembered about 'dead weight' and how it was all to do with the center of gravity and weight distribution of an unconscious person. Prying the pill bottles from her fingers and putting them in his top pocket, he carried her bridal style across his chest, running in the most direct line to the infirmary.

He'd hoped the jostling would rouse her, but it didn't appear to have any effect. She lay in his arms, as cold and silent as the grave. He silently apologized to her as he started shouting, warning people out of the way as he ran towards the infirmary; right through the packed Commons. He knew that it really might come down to saving her dignity or saving her life. There was no way to hide something like this on a campus this small; if she lived everyone would know anyway, so he wasn't going to waste time by going the longer way skirting the commons.

At 8 am on a Sunday night, it was packed. The St Vladimir's weekly Sunday night roast dinner was in full swing, and the area was filled. Alto was vaguely conscious of startled looks and stares as he ran at full speed through the crowded area bellowing "MOVE! Medic!", Rose's hair, arms, and legs dangling loose as he ran.

Guardian Townsend had evidently caught Stan's radio call and was running towards them. "I'll take her," he said, grabbing Rose from the flagging Alto and continuing without pause onwards towards the infirmary. Alto stopped for a moment to draw a ragged breath as Alberta came towards him.

"What was it?" she asked urgently, knowing from his call Rose was unconscious and barely had a pulse.

"Pills and vodka. There's an empty liquor bottle at the site," he gasped quietly so they wouldn't be overheard, pressing the empty pill bottles into the panicked woman's hand. She nodded, taking off following Townsend post haste. While she wasn't tall and was in her fifties, Alberta could still move when she needed to.

Leaning over, his hands on his knees, Alto took deep breaths. He was in shock and still couldn't believe this had happened. Working with adolescents, depression, and suicide were not entirely unfamiliar, but he would never have picked Hathaway as at risk. Sure the Spokane thing was horrible, but Rose had always seemed to have an inner strength that set her apart from her peers. But considering it, had any other student been sitting outside the wards near the graveyard for hours at a time by themselves in the freezing weather, people would have stepped in well before now. She'd stopped talking to her friends, she wasn't attending meals, and all her routines had changed. All the signs had been there.

Brushing past the students and guardians who tried to question him about what was happening, Stan walked to the infirmary. He didn't know much about these things, but surely being unconscious wasn't a good sign?! He was halfway there when he heard the emergency signal over the PA followed by an announcement. It was Alberta's voice summoning Princess Dragomir and Lord Ivashkov to the infirmary immediately. Stan shuddered. As one of a handful of guardians on campus who'd been appraised about spirit, Lissa's healing abilities and Lord Ivashkov's purpose in visiting campus, he had an ominous feeling about why their presence was being sought so urgently right now.

As anticipated, when he arrived at the infirmary, the entrance was guarded by two guardians, no one being permitted entry. Explaining he was the person to have discovered Rose, he asked one to let Alberta know he was seeking admission. Unless Alberta needed to know the amount of vodka Rose had consumed, his presence might well be superfluous; yet he felt he needed to be here. Fortunately, Alberta shared his sentiment. He walked in to see the gray-haired woman sitting wearily on a plastic chair outside the main treatment room.

"She's still with us, but she's in a bad way," Alberta said she a shaky voice.

"You've called for Adrian and Lissa?" Stan queried.

"Yes. The pills were written out to Lissa and Adrian as well as herself. She may have stolen them. Dr. Olendzki needs to know how many were left in the bottles. But it would be good to have Lissa close." Alberta didn't need to elucidate; he got what she was saying.

"Have you called Janine?" Stan asked.

"Not yet," Alberta deflected. "It seems cruel until I have more to tell her."

"Alberta, if it's as serious as you say she needs to know as soon as possible," Stan said, looking away in embarrassment as his Captain started to weep.

"You're right," she said, mopping her eyes and reaching for her phone.

"Let me," Stan said, putting his hand on top of Alberta's and giving it a gentle squeeze. "You just focus on Rose."

The next hour was a blur. Lissa, Adrian, and Christian's panicked arrival, the very sad phone call to Janine, Alberta coming out of the treatment room to say Dr. Olendzki was performing a gastric lavage on Rose but things weren't looking great, and finally an exhausted Dr. Olendzki emerging to say things were touch and go and they'd know more in the next hour.

Alberta dispatched Christian and Stan to go to Rose's room to get some pajamas. She would have sent Lissa, but everyone understood she and Adrian needed to stay close in case they were needed. Things got even worse when Stan and Christian returned a little later with pajamas plus four letters; one for Janine, one for Lissa, one for Alberta and one addressed to Guardian Belikov. Rose had left them on her bed.

Wordlessly passing the letters to Alberta, Stan couldn't meet his Captain's eyes. Covering her mouth with her hand, she sunk into a molded plastic chair looking at the envelopes addressed with Rose's messy scrawl. Closing her eyes for a moment, Alberta opened the letter left for her.

Alberta,
Thank you for everything and for always being there for me.
I love you,
Rose

Sixteen words, but it said so very much. That Rose knew how much Alberta cared. That she'd cared, too. It was also a goodbye. Tears pouring down her cheeks, Alberta passed Lissa her letter. Lissa shook her head, not wanting to take it, so finally Christian took it.

"Do you want me to open it?" he asked as his girlfriend sat beside him crying.

She nodded, so Christian ripped open the back of the envelope, pulling out a single sheet of paper, reading it aloud.

Lissa,
You've been my best friend for as long as I can remember. I'm sorry to leave you, but I'm too tired to fight anymore. I hope you have a long wonderful life.
Love always,
Rose

Alberta sat there looking at the two final envelopes.

"Janine said she'd be here as soon as possible. Lord Szelsky is sending her on his plane," Stan muttered.

"Has anyone rung Belikov?" Adrian asked, looking at the envelope with his name on it. It was thicker than the other three envelopes put together.

"No. But I should," Alberta said, pulling her phone out of her pocket. She stood up to move somewhere private but stopped when the machinery in Rose's room started going haywire. A nurse stuck her head out of the treatment room door, asking Lissa and Adrian to step in. Alberta, Stan, and Christian waited outside. It seemed like hours, but it was probably twenty minutes later when a fatigued Dr. Olendzki came out.

"We nearly lost her for a moment or two, but Lissa and Adrian were able to heal her. We can take her off the life-support now as she can breathe on her own. Guardian Alto, could you please carry the Princess to one of the spare beds? I'll organize feeders now. Christian, can you assist Adrian?"

They followed the doctor back into Rose's room, Alberta going over to where Rose lay on her side on the bed. She'd been intubated, had tubes going down her nose, too, and there was a myriad of machines attached to her. Yet even as they spoke, Dr. Olendzki was starting to remove some of them.

"We only saw her at Church this morning," Christian said in confusion. "She was smiling. She looked happy!"

Stan just shrugged, looking away. Lissa was slumped in a chair barely awake. He lifted the Princess and carried her out of the room, placing her on a bed in an alcove across the hallway. Moments later Adrian joined them, leaning heavily on Christian.

"How is she, Adrian?" Christian asked.

"She's alive or at least her body is. Now it's up to her," Adrian said enigmatically. His brow was sweaty, and he looked manic. He'd obviously dug deep, and spirit was now exacting its payment from him.

Alberta had followed Christian and Guardian Alto from Rose's room. "Stan, can you please stay with Lissa and Adrian? Feeders will be here in a moment. I'm going to call Guardian Belikov. He and Rose were… close. He deserves to know."

She slipped outside into a secluded courtyard off the infirmary. At close to 10 am the area was sunlit, and looking out the window Christian watched as she sat on a park bench and spoke on her mobile for five minutes. Always a powerful, commanding presence about campus, Alberta appeared to have aged a decade in the last few hours. When she hung up she sat staring blankly ahead of her, tears running down her weathered face.

Roused by the ringing of her phone, she had another quick conversation before returning inside. In her absence, Adrian and Lissa had fed and were resting peacefully. Alberta came over to speak with Stan.

"It turns out Adrian rang Belikov a few days ago and told him Rose was depressed, so he made the decision to visit. He's on the road from Missoula; he'll be here in an hour. Janine has just touched down at the Academy runway and will be here any moment."

"What part does Belikov have to play in this?" Stan asked, picking up on the uncertain cadence of his Captain's speech.

She opened her mouth to answer when the doors to the infirmary burst open, five foot nothing of panicked Scottish Guardian charging in.

Stan had seen Guardian Janine Hathaway several times over the course of his career, including when Lissa and Rose had run away from campus but never had he seen her as distressed as today. A thousand questions on her lips, Alberta led the anxious mother to speak with Dr. Olendzki and to see Rose.

Christian was sitting stroking Lissa's hair, and Stan was dozing in a chair when Alberta and Janine came out of Rose's room half an hour later. Janine's eyes were red-rimmed, and there were still tears on her cheeks.

"She left a letter for you," Alberta remembered, pulling an envelope out of her pocket. "She also left ones for Lissa, Belikov and me."

Janine opened her letter, looking at the few words scrawled on a lined piece of paper torn from one of Rose's school notepads.

Mom,
I'm sorry. For everything.
Love
Rosemarie

Janine passed the letter to Alberta, Christian and Stan reading its contents over her shoulder. Pulling her letter unbidden from her pocket, Alberta passed it to Janine.

"There was no further explanation?" she asked.

"In her letter to Lissa she just said she was too tired to fight anymore," Christian said, addressing Rose's mother for the first time.

"I think we'll know more when Guardian Belikov gets here," Alberta said ominously. "Her letter to him seems to be a lot lengthier." She pulled the remaining envelope from her pocket and held it in her lap. Janine was eyeballing it, and for a moment it looked as though she was going to wrench it from Alberta's grasp and open it.

"Where is Belikov?" Janine snapped, desperate for anything that could explain Rose's actions.

"He's on his way from Missoula now. He left on a new assignment a week ago, Janine. Minneapolis. But he heard Rose was depressed, so he was already flying back to see her."

"Flying back to see Rose?" Janine asked, giving Alberta a speculative look.

Stan was watching the red-haired guardian, and he could see her putting together the pieces at the same time he was.

"Alberta was there something between them?" she whispered.

"Yes. They'd fallen in love, Janine. Someone visited me earlier in the week to let me know about it. I spoke with Belikov, and I asked him to seek a new allocation as soon as possible." Alberta dropped her eyes to the floor. "I thought I was doing the right thing."

Christian sat to one side next to where Lissa slept hearing all this. He was stunned. Of all the many things he thought he might hear, Rose being in love with Guardian Belikov hadn't been one of them. But as he thought about it, he could see it. And once he saw it he couldn't believe no one had spotted it before.

"My aunt," he whispered, surprising the three dhampir. It was as though the guardians had forgotten his presence. "He left to be a guardian for Tasha. No wonder Rose was devastated. Tasha wants to be in a relationship with Guardian Belikov. She asked him at Christmas to be her guardian but also something more."

"That's right," Janine said, thinking out loud. "He mentioned it to me. I told Belikov he should take it. That it was a good offer. No wonder Rose was so upset! How long has this been going on?"

"Not too long, I don't think," Alberta said, shaking her head sadly. "I'd hoped it was just a crush."

"Oh, it was more than just a crush. To both of them," a raspy voice said. Adrian. His eyes were open, and he was looking directly at Janine Hathaway. "I could see it in their auras. It was true love. For both of them. And then he had to leave her."

"But surely she wouldn't have tried what she did because of him?" Janine asked, dismissing the more peculiar aspect of Adrian's ramblings.

"People do a lot of stupid things because of love," Adrian said ruefully, closing his eyes and resting again.

Alberta and Janine returned to sit by Rose's bedside, her mother holding her hand and sharing words of love with her only child. There was no knowing whether Rose could hear her, but Janine needed to tell her nonetheless. And if Alberta thought it was too little too late, she kept her thoughts to herself. She knew she was hardly blameless in this situation. She'd been taken in by Tasha's act of kind-hearted benevolence. Played for a fool. She couldn't have foreseen this outcome, but nonetheless, she'd contributed to it.

Janine and Alberta were sitting in silence, lost in their regrets when Dimitri arrived. No one tried to stop him as the determined guardian walked into Rose's room, his eyes trained onto his love where she lay on her side on the bed. Dumping his duffel by the door, he walked across to her, dropping to his knees beside the metal cot; his face level with Rose's where she lay on her side.

Janine moved back, giving the man space. She had plenty to say to him, but she wasn't cruel enough to take this moment from him. From them.

Smoothing Rose's tangled hair back from her face, he was talking to her. Speaking quietly, he didn't seem to care that Alberta and Janine could hear his declarations of love. That they were witness to the gentle way he touched her or the way he covered her face with delicate kisses. Standing up, he left the room to find another chair, pulling it alongside her bed beside Janine.

"So you're in love with my daughter?" Janine asked. She'd attempted a hard edge to her voice, but it came out as a heartbroken mumble.

"I am," Dimitri said, his eyes not leaving Rose for a moment. "I should never have left her," he said with a bitter timbre.

"We will talk at some stage in the future, but right now our focus, everyone's focus needs to be Rosemarie," Janine ordered. "No negativity, no fighting. A united front of love and support. From all of us!"

Dimitri nodded.

"She left letters for Lissa, Janine, myself and one for you," Alberta said, holding out Dimitri's missive. And with a shaking hand, he took it.