Dimitri's POV

I had just wanted to take a walk around campus to clear my head with no intention of getting anywhere near Rose. In fact, I had purposely avoided passing the practice field by the gym and walked along the other side of the building. And yet, here I was again, after a group of novices had come to find me. They didn't have to tell me where to go – I already knew this had to be about Rose's class. What had she done now?

With her, nothing was unexpected, but I had absolutely no clue what I was walking into now. She was speaking to one of the novices while restraining her, and though I couldn't hear what Rose had said, I heard the girl's words clearly. "You're the reason my mother is dead!"

Now, that was something I had truly not expected. I walked up to the two of them just as Rose was moving away from the girl, just as taken aback by her accusation as I was. With a situation this emotionally charged, I knew I had to step in before either of them started attacking the other.

"What is going on here?" I demanded. When Rose turned around to face me, I saw that I was already too late to prevent them from getting hurt. There was quite a bit of blood on her face, and a bruise was forming on her nose.

Neither of them answered my question, however. The girl was still looking at Rose with hatred in her eyes while Rose appeared to be too stunned to speak still. Her silence was something I had often wished for but at the moment I would have preferred an explanation. Luckily, one of the other novices provided one.

"We were practicing some new techniques and Amy didn't have a partner so she had to spar with Guardian Hathaway," one of the boys who had come to get me said. I didn't care much about that part of the story, though, and the impatient look on my face must have told him as much. "Amy attacked her out of nowhere, basically, and then I don't know what happened. We left to get someone as soon as we saw the situation get out of hand."

I told him he'd done the right thing, which appeared to please him, before I turned to Rose again. "Can you tell me what happened?"

She had composed herself a bit by now and was just about to answer when the girl – Amy, apparently – let out a frustrated cry.

"Of course you would ask her first! You're all so—"

I interrupted her, realising there was absolutely no way to diffuse the situation here and now. "Let's take this to my office."

Thankfully, Rose did not resist as I would have expected and instead told the novices to finish up their practice as they saw fit before following me to my office. I made sure to walk between her and the girl so they would not get into another altercation but it did not escape my notice that Amy was now giving me hateful stares, too. It could have been because I had interrupted their fight, but I had a dreadful suspicion that there might have been an entirely different reason for it.

A suspicion that, unfortunately, was confirmed to be the truth when we were all sat in my office. Rose had explained to me what had happened from her point of view in a surprisingly calm manner while Amy had shouted and hurled insults at us.

"You're both horrible! I can't believe the academy would ever hire you after what you've done! If it wasn't for you, my mother would still be alive! I hate you!"

I couldn't look at her when I asked, "Was your mother… was your mother one of the guardians that fell during the mission to save Queen Vasilisa… from me?"

Rose gasped.

Amy started crying. "You should be dead. You should both be dead."

I regretted deeply every life that had been taken by me or because of me when I had been Strigoi, but I could not, for the life of me, bring myself to agree with what she said. It had been my fault, and maybe I should have died, but this was not something to be put on Rose. She had come to kill me that night, and it wouldn't have changed a thing. People still would have died. Amy's mother probably still would have died. Because of me. Not Rose.

"I understand your pain, but your anger at Guardian Hathaway is misdirected," I ventured. I had no idea what to say to the poor girl. "I'm sorry for your loss."

It was no surprise that she was not satisfied with this, but there was nothing else I could do. "Whatever."

"However, you do understand that attacking a guardian comes with consequences. You'll—"

Rose cut in right then with a shake of her head. "No. Drop it, Dimitri."

"But she must learn that her actions—" The look in Rose's eyes made me stop mid-sentence. I knew exactly what it meant and what she would have said if the girl hadn't sat right next to her.

She's already lost her mother because of us.

It wasn't like I wanted to punish her, but looking at Rose's bruised face certainly didn't help matters. I had handed her a tissue once we'd arrived here, and she had stopped the bleeding, but it still looked rather nasty. Nevertheless, she was right. The poor girl had been through too much already, and so I let her off with a warning. She did not thank me, which was to be expected, but at least she left without any more insults. Then, Rose and I were alone again.

"How's your nose?" I asked.

Rose huffed. "Fine. It's my pride that's going to suffer when word gets out that a student got the drop on me."

She was probably right about that, too, especially after I had already heard people talk about yesterday's incident. There was something else not quite fine about the entire situation, and although I should have known better than to address it, I did. "You do know that her mother's death was not your fault, right?"

"It was, though," she said firmly. "I should have—"

I knew what her next words were going to be, and I honestly did not want to hear them. Killed me. She should have killed me that night in Vegas – or, hell, even in Siberia – but she hadn't. Instead, she had chased an impossible dream to free me. It was the awful truth, but that didn't make it hurt any less. Even more so after the events of the day before.

"—been with Lissa that night."

That… was not what I had anticipated. I found myself disagreeing with the notion immediately. "No. I would have killed you."

That, I knew with terrifying certainty. If Rose had been with them that night, none of them would have survived. We had been too many. Not even Roza at her best could have taken all of us.

"You don't know that," she argued, but even she didn't believe her own words. She had been there, albeit not physically, and seen everything that had happened. She knew.

I sighed. This wasn't easy for me, either, but I had made the choice to forgive myself long ago. Falling back into that hole of guilt would not help anyone. It certainly wouldn't bring anyone back. "There is nothing we can do to change the past. All we can do is make sure not to repeat the same mistakes."

"Oh, fuck you and that zen wisdom crap. I thought we were past that," Rose groaned.

It almost made me smile. "We'll never be past that."

"Aaand that would be my cue to go then, I suppose," she said, about to get out of her chair.

"Not quite. We've forgone punishment for Novice Collins, but there's still the matter of yours."

"Punishment?" she asked incredulously. "You cannot possibly mean that. I took a punch to the face and now you want to punish me?"

She did look rather miserable, but I couldn't let people believe I was playing favourites. "You did fight a student in a way that wasn't conducive to her education, did you not?"

"I defended myself!" Rose exclaimed as she jumped out of her chair. "Did you see any injury on her? No, you didn't, because I didn't fucking hurt her."

That was technically true but I had a hard time believing that Rose had stayed entirely calm. "Rules are rules, Rose."

"No. No, to hell with that. I'm—I can't deal with that crap right now." She dashed out the door and slammed it shut behind her before I had time to stop her.

I could have followed her, but I already knew where I would likely be able to find her later. There were other things that required my attention right now. I quickly filled out an incident report about the altercation, then headed to the guardians' lounge.

Alberta's plane had finally arrived late last night, and I hadn't had the chance to speak to her yet. As expected, she was sitting at a table in the lounge.

"Was that Rose Hathaway I heard in your office?" she asked me after we'd exchanged the obligatory greetings.

She was no longer my superior, but I still had enough respect for her not to let out an exasperated sigh. "Yes. Newest addition to the team."

"If I didn't know better, I would almost think that you're not happy about that."

I sat down at the table with her, finally letting out that sigh I'd been suppressing. "I am not. She is turning out to be more irritating than ever."

"And here I thought you were the one who knew how to handle her," Alberta said with far too much amusement in her voice for my taste.

I shook my head. "Nearly a decade is more than enough time for things like that to change."

Author's Note:
Sorry about yesterday's cliffhanger lol I promise I won't do that too often ;-)
Also, I'm really really REALLY excited for the next chapter. Hope you're ready!