Disclaimer: I do not own Vampire Academy or anything surrounding it (but I do own this plot :D)

RPOV

There were several reasons I decided not to go to Avery's party, but the main one was that Killian wasn't letting me. I was still under punishment from the whole 'saving Belikov' thing and, whilst Killian had been more than lenient over our time together, he was putting his foot down at a direct breach of the 'limited recreational pursuits' clause. In all honesty, I didn't mind. I wasn't overly keen on Avery and even less keen on her 'gathering', which had managed to bloat from gathering to full-fledged party that everyone was talking about. I wasn't sure if word had reached Headmaster Lazar, but something told me that that was exactly what Avery intended by hosting the thing.

In any case, while the rest of the school was getting drunk, I had a thrilling evening planned with Killian, Father Andrew and a dusty church (such was the excitement of my Friday night). It sounded a little tragic, but I was actually looking forward to it; it gave me an excuse and an opportunity to grill the Priest further on ghosts, now with the added addition of pain. Killian didn't even bother hiding his surprise and suspicion as I willingly walked out of Stan's lesson and towards the church without much of a fight.

"I thought you wanted 'top form'?" I said, attempting to hide my smirk as I found his confusion rather amusing.

Killian continued to eye me sceptically and just hummed a: "Mhmm" as we entered the building.

I continued smirking which did little to alleviate his suspicion. Upon seeing Father Andrew, I turned my smirk into a smile and gave a little wave. "Hey, Father."

He looked up from where he stood by the altar and gave a surprised but pleasant smile. "Hello to you too, Rose." He said, giving a still highly sceptical Killian a bemused look.

"I have no idea what she's up to," Killian said.

Father Andrew chuckled whilst I placed my hands on my hips and looked between them. "What? Can I not just be in a good mood without an ulterior motive?"

"Of course, you can, Rose." Father Andrew said, still smiling. "I only hope it stays with you during our time here. I'm afraid it's not that enthralling."

I shrugged. "Sure, I'll get the broom."

His smile grew and he turned to Killian. "That, I'm afraid, leaves you on gum removal," he said, extending a pair of gloves and what looked like an ice scraper out to Killian.

I stifled my laugh.

But not well enough apparently as Killian looked up, the realization coming over his face. "Now I see."

Despite this, the session passed pleasantly; rather amusingly, the church was still quite tidy from when I was last undergoing community service, the only real new mess coming from the more recent weeks when the academy started falling back into some form of normality and the church found itself subject to its normal levels of both attendance and vandalism. I managed to sustain a relatively normal conversation for the most part as I thought it would seem a little suspicious to lead with ghosts.

"Rose, tell me: are you still interested in Vlad and Anna?" Father Andrew asked as our conversation about how my trial practice was going diminished to an end.

Sensing that this was an opportunity, I looked for a window whilst maintaining an aura of casualness. "Oh, yeah. Did you find anything else about them?"

He smiled, seemingly quite pleased. "I have indeed. I managed to procure a few more books from the Court library and one of them included a section on our patron which I thought may be of interest to you."

I nodded. "Thank you." I paused before continuing. "Hey Father, you know when I asked about ghosts, you said about the soul separating from the body after death and it lingering?"

The priest raised his head and gave me his full and curious attention. "Yes."

I pondered how to phrase it. "Do you think it is possible for certain...physical things to separate with it?"

Father Andrew frowned. "Things such as…?"

"Well, like...pain."

At this, his eyebrows rose, and he considered the question. "I don't believe so. Pain is a very sensual feeling and therefore can only really be attributed to the earthly and living world."

I frowned. "But what about hell?"

"Ah, but hell is a place, both tangible and physical - much like the earth in that respect - so physical sensations would again be possible, but I do not believe that lingering souls - if such things exist - could feel anything so...alive."

Alive.

The word shuddered through me. Mason wasn't alive. He was dead. Dead yet tortured to haunt this cursed world as a consequence of his death. I could not help the guilt I felt, which was only made worse by the fact that I longed to see him: I could not wish him gone forever, not yet at least. As selfish as it was, I still didn't feel ready to part with him, even though I knew it would bring him peace. It was a small part of me that I neither admired nor could deny but seeing him constantly in agony was becoming too much to bear.

I remained silent for the rest of the hour, finding some solace in mindlessly scrubbing down pews and pulpits. Killian, I could tell, was curious. He kept glancing over concerned, but not saying anything: I could see the conflict within him where his curiosity and his politeness clashed. He didn't want to pry but there was no doubt I had perplexed him.

In any case, I went to my slumber without further explanation.

I was up early. I had never been up early for anything in my life, yet there I was: wide awake at four o'clock with the sun still shining, having barely begun its slow collapse into the distant horizon. I tossed off the covers and was in the shower within a minute, the warm water serving only to increase my consciousness. It took me all of five minutes from the moment I awoke to the moment I left my dorm to power towards the gym. Killian wasn't even there when I arrived, which became a little more unsurprising when I worked out I was forty-five minutes early.

Even Killian had his limits.

Regardless, I shrugged off this new revelation and set about getting some practice in. I mean, I was up and there was no way I was going back to sleep so I may as well. Twenty-three laps in, I decided to shake it up and pulled out a punch bag. I could feel the set of fatigue at my early morning begin to rear its head in the fibres of my worked muscles as the weight of the bag hung in my arms and the subsequent blows sent ruptures through my flesh.

"Why was it always such a struggle to get you to do this when I was training you."

The voice took me by surprise, and I faltered: mid-strike but a mix of instinct and excitement caused me to pivot on the balls of my feet, resulting in a rather comical imbalance.

Even though he could not see, Dimitri's small smile told me he had some idea of the effect he had had.

After sorting myself out, I responded with equal light-hearted wit. "Perhaps it was because I was being forced against my will…" I suggested.

"A guardian often finds themselves in situations they do not like." He countered in full zen-master mode. "And as such must adapt accordingly."

I crossed my arms over my chest and decided to play this game. "Surely said guardian should be given some freedom for enjoyment in order to show the best skill."

"Where is the challenge in remaining in the comfort zone?" He said, inclining his head a little.

"Do you always have to be challenged?"

"Preferably."

"Come on, there must be some room for fun. Even for the hard-working guardian."

"Fun entices distraction and distraction brings danger."

"So, all distraction is bad?"

"Of course, it-" I cut him off, using - perhaps a little unfairly (and rather immorally) - his weakened sensory perception to sneak towards and then embrace him with my lips. He, understandably startled, dropped the cane he had used to guide himself to the gym independent of a living guide and froze over what to do before his baser disposition trumped his reason and he sank into the kiss, effectively diminishing the point he had just made.

He, knowing full well what I had just done, let the kiss continue for a moment longer before pulling away. "You are a cruel woman, Rose Hathaway."

I grinned. "No, just willing to find fault in perfectly sound reason."

He laughed a little, his hand reaching out to my head so that his fingers could trace their way across my hair as it rested in a ponytail. I watched as his smile grew and then faltered; he had always loved my hair. I could not see his eyes for they remained hidden under a pair of blackened glasses, masking their emotion, but I could well imagine their expression, their sorrow.

I took his wandering hand in my own and brought them together in a clasp. Bending down, I picked up the cane and tugged him into the gym. "Alright, comrade: you ready for this."

I saw the former smile ghost over his features, but he remained typically serious. "Should we not wait for Guardian O'Hara?"

"Would a Strigoi?" I said, not resisting the opportunity.

Despite himself, he shot me a look. "Rose."

"Sorry," I said, trying to suppress a laugh and most certainly not being in any way sincere. Dimitri, of course, knew this but said no more, instead opting for a more classic look of stoic indifference as he cast his fruitless and covered eyes across the room. Perhaps in an attempt to get some sort of bearing, I could not say for sure; it seemed that his emotional and physical barriers were very much up, making it difficult for me to ascertain exactly how to proceed.

"Hey, comrade: you alright there?" I said with no little timidity.

Dimitri didn't need to be Sherlock Holmes to see through that one as his head came round to face my general direction with gratefulness and patience. "I'm fine." I smiled and believed him. He certainly seemed a lot better than yesterday (and indeed any day before that) and a lot more 'in the mood' to cooperate which was good news for me given that I had very little idea as to how successful this would be. I had Googled, I had read, I had asked, inquired and done just about everything since Alberta let me do this to try and put together some sort of coherent and productive plan, but in truth, the only way I could be truly sure of productivity and indeed coherence was to try it out. It was very much an experiment and one which could either go wonderfully or disastrously wrong.

Naturally, I favoured the former, but that very much depended on a multiple-party approach.

"So, where do we start?"

We started with a jog. Really, it wasn't too challenging. Dimitri was still a little shaky by himself given the role eyesight played in balance and perception. Steps he took sometimes were followed by a stumble, but soon he got into a rhythm and was able to move and run without the use of my shoulder. He listened to the sound of my footsteps thud against the surface of the gym's floor and followed in tow, quickly becoming used to the speed and path which we followed. Things got a little tricky when Killian's footsteps were introduced as he slumbered in, shocked to discover I was actually out of bed and being productive. Dimitri lost the rhythm at the introduction of the new sound and staggered to an uneasy halt. I skidded to a stop and shifted towards him, but he brushed me off and asked to continue.

Killian respectfully sat down and didn't move for the next half an hour.

What came next proved to be more difficult. Having established that my dear comrade had not lost any of his stamina, I decided to ease him back into combat with an odd combination of a punching bag and a bell. To cut a long story short, it didn't work particularly well and really, I didn't expect it to. The bell was, for one, much too loud in the silence of the early morning condition of the gym, resulting in more discomfort and disorientation than its intended function as a competent signal for where the bag was. This made landing an actual punch very much 50:50 and even if he did manage it, there rose another problem; given that I was holding the damned thing, every time the bag moved as a result of the blow so did my arm out of the way, meaning there was no consistency and the bell was never always by the bag. Both problems were very much unanticipated and very much lowering the morale of the room and, as such, were promptly tossed aside.

It was time to leave anyway. I didn't want to go, I never did really. Mortal encounters tend to leave you with a new perspective, one which leaves life's sanctity at an elevated level. I loved Dimitri, even more than I did before, and desired nothing more than to remain locked away in that cabin for the rest of my days. Obviously, that was never going to be an option and reality had very much slapped us in the face instead, but you know what they say: when life gives you lemons… I was very much determined to make the best of this - the best fucking lemonade ever - and was delighted that Dimitri was in a similar mindset; having him fight me on this one would be a most unwelcome hindrance.

"Same time tomorrow?" I probed tentatively. We were leaving the gym, and also leaving Killian to tidy away the equipment left strewn across the floor. I made a mental note to thank for it later.

I saw the ghostly smile which accompanied the nod. "Yes." He hesitated a moment longer before continuing. "I never said thank you-"

I decided to cut him off before he dared to even think about continuing that sentence. "Don't thank me. This is the very least I could do. I don't even think it counts as courtesy."

He shook his head. "They were going cast me out."

"They were not." I scoffed. "You are the best thing to happen to this school and they know it."

I heard him sigh. "They were, Rose. Whatever ability I had is now a thing of the past."

"Bullshit. Your being blind has no bearing on the matter. Sure, it's a bit inconvenient and you have to adjust, but I certainly doesn't make you helpless. Just look at Matt Murdock."

In a most Dimitri-like way, he cocked a brow. "Daredevil?"

"Yeah," I said, somewhat surprised he got the reference.

"He's a comic book character."

"He's a fucking superhero."

He chuckled. "My point was, he's not real."

"Then make him real."

He sighed. "I wouldn't be too optimistic."

I scoffed a little. "I have to be given all the pessimism coming from you."

He sighed again. "What I mean is that there is a chance that this won't work - that it is all for nothing. And as difficult as it is to think about, I don't want you to-"

"Oh, shut up, Dimitri!" I snapped suddenly. "I mean, can you not stop wallowing for five minutes? Just shut up, shut up!"

"Rose…?"

"Can you not hear yourself? You're like a broken record, going on and on and on and on. Just shut up!"

"Rose..."

"It's like you've got nothing better to do than whine and moan…"

"Rose!"

"...and make everyone else's life a bloody misery. Do you know how selfish that makes you? 'Oh, I'm blind.' Yeah, we know: just shut up about it!"

"Roza!"

I stopped: my head slamming me to the ground. Despite his lack of sight, Dimitri caught me with elegant ease and cradled me in his arms. My voice, I hadn't realized, had grown in volume to a shout, attracting the attention of one Guardian O'Hara who had rushed over to where we were with no little concern. I could barely see him myself through the harrowing blackness that was smothering my vision and coursing through my skull.

"What's wrong with her?" A confused and positively shocked Irish accent was added to the mix in my head.

"It's not her" came the Russian reply.

I slammed my hands over my ears, trying to deafen the screams that now were racing through my head. I dared not open my eyes for fear of seeing Mason again, collapsed and broken on the ground. My headache grew as did the darkness: I felt like my mind was being torn in so many places that I didn't know what to think or do. I was helpless, broken, defeated and in pain. Oh, so, so much pain. I had never experienced anything like it: it… it…

It stopped.

Just like that, it all went away. My eyes blinked open; my hands dropped from my ears. I assessed the situation around me: Killian pacing nervously beside me as Dimitri held me tightly to his chest, whispering to me in Russian words that sounded like a lullaby. Yet mixed within it came a painful but silent cry - one I knew only too well as Lissa's.

"Rose…" Killian, seeing my eyes open, squatted down next to me and placed a hand on my shoulder. Dimitri ceased his murmurs and set me down on the ground but kept his hold on me.

I, still in a little shock over what just happened, took a moment before speaking. "I'm fine, Hazza. Worry not." I said, a little breathlessly.

Killian must have been concerned, for he didn't even blink when I called him 'Hazza'. "Rose, I think we should go to the doctor…"

I shook my head. "No, no: that won't help."

"Rose, you just collapsed!"

"Guardian O'Hara, could we have a moment." Dimitri's voice came in thick yet oddly clear.

I watched as Killian dithered: looking between the pair of us, begging to know what on earth was going on. I sent him an apologetic look and he hovered for a moment more before nodding and standing up. "Okay."

I watched him walk away as Dimitri listened and as soon as he had left, Dimitri turned to me. "What is going on?"

His brash tone told me I had frightened him. Badly. I hadn't thought it possible, well not at least to this extent after everything that had happened. And yet, I guess I was wrong... So, I told him all I could: about Mason, about the headaches and about Lissa. I felt like such a hypocrite when the words "I asked Lissa to heal you" left my mouth, but he remained remarkably passive about the whole thing. Dimitri was always very good at keeping his cool; he didn't even flinch when I brought up the ghosts again, something I knew he was still very sceptical about, in spite of Mason's aid in locating the Strigoi cave. He sat and he listened, still running his hand across the expanse of my back. His full expression remained hidden by the blacked-out glasses, but his natural inclination for stoicism told me that I wasn't missing much.

Ghosts and darkness: individually unbearable and together so much worse. It felt like my head was being ripped apart in every direction as though seized upon by ravenous wolves. It had gone so far beyond unbearable that a small part of me actually missed the slight tolerance I had built up over just seeing Mason.

"You asked her to stop?" My sweet, sweet comrade asked with no little tenderness.

"I'm not an idiot" came my less-than-tender reply. "But she's determined to heal you, and nothing gets in the way of Lissa when she has herself fixed on something," I said with a sigh.

"I can," Dimitri replied, perhaps a little more firmly than he had intended.

"You've got enough on your plate. No, I can deal with this." I said, pushing myself to my feet. Dimitri, feeling the movement, lifted his head upward and contrary to all I knew, I felt his eyes train on me as I rose. "It's really not that bad," I said, blatantly lying.

I didn't know why I bothered lying for I knew it held no merit when around Dimitri. He frowned towards me but said nothing. Instead, grunting slightly, he pushed himself up. I hurried to help him and while I felt him tense, he ditched his pride and allowed my assistance to continue. I knew he wasn't enjoying this helplessness, so I endeavoured to remove my hands as soon as I could, but he stopped me: grabbing my wrist with his hand and keeping me close.

"Tell her to stop."

It was no less than a command. I felt myself resisting it a little but nodded all the same. "I will."

"Good. Because if you do not, I shall." He warned. Before I could say anything else to that, he turned away. "I think we are done here. Guardian O'Hara?"

Out of the darkness popped the brown-haired Irishman. His distress still hadn't left him and while I was flattered for his concern, I really didn't want to deal with the inevitable fuss that would follow. We parted ways, Dimitri off to do whatever it was he did during the day and me to class. Well, firstly, to Lissa, but since she was in class, the two went together.

Despite specific instruction from me, Adrian and now Christian as I recently discovered, Lissa was not cutting back on her practicing. She was being clever about it - practising only when none of us were about - but either she had forgotten about the bond or was ignoring it because I still knew what she was up to. I could feel the darkness surge within me whenever she did use her magic, but it was never at any great magnitude. Today's was certainly an anomaly and one I really didn't fancy repeating.

I joined the swarm of teenagers attempting to enter the classroom on time. English literature: not exactly how I wanted to start the morning, but Miss Amanda Geetes' insightful tangents were certainly better than having Stan rant at me for the best part of an hour. Besides, it was Shakespeare today and if there was one thing that could keep Amanda distracted, it was the work of the Bard: she was a fan, to put it very mildly.

I scurried to my seat next to Lissa, leaving Killian to take his place by the door. I hadn't spoken to him since Dimitri left and, perhaps more unusually, he hadn't spoken to me. I could feel that there was trouble afoot, but having Killian caught up in all the shit in our lives - most of which we didn't understand ourselves - was not exactly high on the priority list.

"Hey," Lissa whispered as I sat down. "You're early."

"I'm on time."

"Exactly." she giggled a little, but I kept placid. The fatigue in her face was clear to see: the exhaustion in her eyes and in her voice coupled with the slight shortness of breath told me she had had an eventful morning, and not in the fun way (Christian being no more or less grumpy than he usually was in the morning).

"Liss, we need to talk."

I could see every muscle in her being moved at that. "Right now?" she said, writing down the date and title of the lesson as it was written on the chalkboard.

I hadn't even bothered getting my paper out. "Yes, now."

Perhaps it was the fatigue or some lingering elements of the darkness which did not sit well with my clipped tone which caused Lissa to scowl and remain unmoved. "Can't it wait?"

I scowled myself. "Lissa: you need to stop," I whispered.

"I can do it," she said as quietly as she could, her anger channelling into pressing her pen harder against the paper.

"You are killing yourself."

She stifled a scoff. "Oh, you are being melodramatic." she retorted.

"Have you seen yourself?"

"I think what Rose was trying to say…" Christian's snarly but concerned face appeared from Lissa's other side. "...is that perhaps you need to cool off for a bit."

Lissa glared between us. "You both think I can't do this: sheesh, some friends you are."

"We are doing this for you." Christian urged.

"Please, Liss," I said. "He doesn't need it. Honestly, Dimitri is fine."

At this, she snapped her head towards me. "He is blind. He is going to be fired. I will heal him."

"You are going to kill us both!" I hissed, apparently loud enough for other class members around us to look around, catching the attention of Amanda who ceased her usual ramblings.

"Rose, something to share with the class?" she said with now the entire eyes of the class, including Killian, on me.

"No, miss," I replied, deciding not to pick another fight.

Amanda, in her kindness, was always one to help a student out in a situation like this, instead of the usual method of humiliation adopted by most of the teaching community at St. Vladimir's. "Perhaps you could explain Lear's feelings about Gloucester's blindness?"

"I think he is pretty okay with it," I said directly to Lissa, with no bearing on whether that was right or not. I could see her jaw tense.

"Indeed!" Amanda said with such gleeful surprise. "It is here we get one of Lear's moments of insight and reason, as opposed to his madness: Lear recognizes how 'A man may see how this world goes with no eyes' thus showing how physical injury or seeming outward disability proves little hindrance on life, for true insight is held within."

I honestly could have hugged Amanda at that point.

But Lissa wasn't so willing to back down. "But what about Gloucester himself: he fell into complete despair, became solely reliant on his outlawed son and faded away so much that his death wasn't even on stage."

Silence followed that remark which even Amanda could not fill. It was at that point that Lissa became conscious of her mood and her temper and sank back into her chair, blushing heavily and clearing her throat.

"Yes...that is true...but….but he did die happily; in fact he died of happiness which could be read…" and suddenly Amanda was off again, but there was still a nervous chill in the air. Lissa had never had an outburst like that, not at least publicly and I think everyone had been a little shocked at the venom which had left her lips at that moment.

She remained silent for the rest of the lesson and left as soon as the bell rang, brushing off Christian's attempt to stop her and completely brushing past me. I sighed and with Christian, we gave her a moment, before even considering going after her. When we did find her, she was standing with Avery, conversing and confiding like close friends, best friends, did. She laughed; her fatigue being suppressed in favour of socializing. Christian ran after them both and, for the first time since I'd seen them together, it was Christian who was the third wheel.

Seeing Avery's happily laughing face shot me with a deep and wounding pang of jealousy, and under different circumstances, I would have acted out. But through the bond, I could feel the darkness bubbling away under the surface of her facade and suddenly my jealousies paled in comparison to my concern. She had to stop. She needed to stop. I would have to make her see and convince her. I only wished that I could, without severing our precious friendship nor causing either her or Dimitri further pain.

"Rose?" Killian's voice snapped me out of my haze, and I realized I had just been standing in the middle of the corridor which had steadily emptied itself of occupants, including Lissa, Avery and Christian. "No luck then?" he said as we started off to the next lesson.

"Not yet," I said, downtrodden but still with that spark of determination. "Not yet…"