Twisted Frame (VA Fanfic)

Nine: Contrast/ Look at the Big Pic and the Finer Details

DPOV
"Dimitri?" a voice broke through my haze, making the image I'd created disintegrate just as easily as either one of my girls' conditions could deteriorate. Just as quickly as I could lose them. But I truly hoped to god it didn't come to that... again. "Dimitri," the voice called again.
My eyes focused on the present. To find Lissa stood in front of me. "Yes, Princess?"
"Guardian Croft wishes to speak with you," she told me gently, hesitantly.
I sighed and collapsed in the first pew. "What about?" I had no energy to deal with the frequently asshole-like Head Guardian. No matter how much I respected him there was no knowing how reliable any information out of my mouth might be. All I wanted was to know Rose and Annabella were okay. I wanted to be by Rose's side with the only thing between us being our daughter in her incubator. Actually, I didn't even want that incubator in the picture, just Annabella. A healthy Annabella in Rose's arms. "Any news on Rose and Annabella?" Any good news, that is.
"Annabella?" Obviously... not.
My hands pulled through my hair yet again. Talk about a nervous habit. "My daughter. Any updates on either?" I pleaded with her gentle green eyes to give me some good news.
"Rose is stable, but still not allowed visitors. And as for... Annabella? I haven't heard a whisper either way."
"Okay then, lead me to Croft." I felt a little more sane and in control as I walked out and to Guardian HQ.. But not by much. My moment of peace achieved by imagining the wedding I wanted with Rose had been well and truly shattered.

"Thank you, Princess," Croft dismissed her and gestured for me to sit on the opposite side of his desk.
"Will you be okay, Dimitri?"
I nodded. "As okay as I can be without Rose and Annabella here, Princess."

In just 24 hours, maybe not even, it had become a natural thing to mention Rose and Annabella together. I couldn't ask about one without the other's name automatically following. I couldn't worry about one without thinking of the other. I wouldn't be complete without the both of them any more. I had once thought I only needed Rose to complete me, that she was my salvation... and she still was, but I needed our daughter with us because she too was my salvation and a necessary part of my soul.

"Do you want me to sit with Annabella? Or outside ICU?" she asked compassionately.
"Either would be great, and you should meet Annabella, so if you could do a bit of both, please?"
She smiled without showing her fangs. "Of course, Dimitri. It would be an honour."
I smiled in return. "Thank you, Princess, I'm truly grateful."

"Annabella, Belikov? Who is Annabella?" I almost wanted to roll my eyes at his first question after Lissa had left.
"How many times am I going to get asked that? She's my daughter."
That piqued his interest. "I hadn't heard Lady Ozera had been pregnant."
"That's because she wasn't. Annabella isn't an Ozera."
"Then what is she?" I ignored the objectification of my daughter, as much as it made me furious. My lips curled up in a proud, shit-eating grin.
"She's a Hathaway. Hathaway-Belikova to be precise, and she's the most perfect baby ever." Call me biased, but she's my daughter! I'm allowed to be biased.
Croft rolled his eyes. "You sound like a child with candy, Belikov."
"She's my precious daughter, so of course I'm happy and proud."
"Only Hathaway. Only Hathaway could do the impossible."
"Naturally. She is my Rose, after all."
"You're gloating, Belikov. Never in my life would I have thought the day would come when Dimitri Belikov gloated."
I shrugged. "Blame Rose." Wrong words apparently, because Croft became stiff and formal. I knew what was coming.
"Speaking of blaming Hathaway, where was she yesterday and last night?"
I swallowed away a frog in my restricting throat and blinked back tears as I willed myself to stay composed. Did he know about why she was in ICU? If he didn't I wasn't about to tell him. "She sat with me at Church-"
"Why?" If he wouldn't interrupt he'd know already.
"She came to try getting me to see I was worthy of forgiveness... and love. She was trying to get me to stop shutting her out-" Again, I was interrupted. That was always the way with these interrogations, wasn't it?
"Why were you shutting her out?"
I shuddered involuntarily. I couldn't tell him Rose's deepest secret. I couldn't reveal to him what I'd done to her. I just couldn't.
"Belikov," warned Croft, "this may save her life."
"Her life is being saved by machines, not information."
The look I received in return was far from a pretty and reassuring one.
"Fine." The images washed over me again. Revealing this, that was treason. Maybe not in their eyes, but in Rose's and mine, I was betraying her trust. It just wasn't right that Hans was demanding this. "She went to Russia to hunt me down... to kill me. She failed, obviously, but not easily. She found me, and nearly killed me more than once... but it nearly killed her in the process..."