Incomplete (A VA Fanfic One-Shots & Shorts Collection)

Karma's a Little Witch & the Girl Can't Hide It

RPOV

"Mom..." Wendy started nervously when I met her after her grad and marking ceremony. "You know Phil?"

"Phil, as in Guardian Szabo? Your now ex-mentor?"

"Yeah," she blushed lightly. She nearly always struggled to keep her face straight when mentioning him.

"What about him?" I suspected I knew. Dimitri suspected too, but he was currently occupied congratulating Wendy's twin sister,  Paulina.

"We're kinda... you know—"

"Involved?" I finished for her. "Yeah, your father and I suspected as much."

Now she outright looked guilty. "How? What made you suspect?"

I shrugged. "We know the signs, missy."

"How, Mom?"

I smiled and winked at her. "Take a guess, Wendy Belikova."

She gaped. "No! No way! Mom! That's gross!"

I laughed and pulled her into a hug to whisper in her ear, "You can talk."

"Mom!" she complained and pulled away. "Dad!" she yelled excitedly.

"Congraduation, baby." Dimitri hugged our eldest by a five minute margin. He turned to face me when he noticed her red face. "Do we have a confession?"

I nodded. "Yup. We got a confession. How do you feel about finding and interrogating that Guardian, Comrade?"

"Only if you come with me, Roza?"

"Ew! And please don't kill him, guys! He is kinda important. And please don't be hypocrites," Wendy begged.

Dimitri and I laughed. Even Paulina giggled. "Wendy," Dimitri said, still smiling, "we promise not to hurt him as long as he hasn't hurt you and promises not to. And you're not getting him out of this, so Paulina, please go get her, Cody and Selina ready for your graduation dinner."

Cody was our fourteen year old and Selina was our gorgeous and innocent nine year old.

"Don't forget Cody's Bringing Andrea Dragozera." Paulina hauled a resisting Wendy away.

Paulina loved little Andrea to bits, just as much as she loved Cody, but when it came to their relationship she couldn't handle it. To her, they were still cousins and she couldn't understand how they saw each other as anything else. Not to mention he was a year older than her.

"Szabo, you're coming with us," said a very— sexily— stern Dimitri when we noticed the young man try to slip out after our daughter. Far too obvious. He was a campus guardian so he should know that Dimitri and I were the campus's legendary mentor/ student pair. And it was just a coincidence that 19 years after my graduation I stood here with Dimitri Congraduationing our eldest daughters? Maybe people were blinder than I assumed. 

Szabo didn't miss a beat in turning around while constantly flicking his eyes back in Wendy's direction. "I'm sorry, Guardians Belikov and Belikova, I was just going—"

"Yes, we know where you were 'just going'," I finally cut him off in a voice that was far too calm. Of course we knew. Dimitri had done the same thing at my graduation. "But now you're Just Going to follow us... Then you can go congratulate her."

"If we're happy with your answers to a few burning questions we have." I had rubbed off on Dimitri over the years. Honestly, I had to hand it to him, Szabo was a very brave man for falling for our eldest daughter. With one last curious, very worried glance at the last place he'd seen Wendy he followed us back to our guest housing room. The best of the best given our Royal Guard statuses.

We sat down at the small table in the kitchenette and offered him coffee and biscuits. Yeah, I turned homely somewhere in the mess of years that was raising my kids at Court.

"Now, firstly," Dimitri began in a way that made him look and sound untouchable. Yes, Szabo had guts loving a girl with Dimitri as her adoring father, "have you slept with our oldest daughter? Of age or under? Tell us the truth now."

Szabo looked a shade paler, or was that just a cloud blocking the moon? He nodded. "Yes."

"Was she eighteen?" I demanded, my voice surprisingly dangerous. As Abe Mazur's daughter I was scary enough with the simple fact. It didn't help matters any that I'd absorbed many of his ways over the past almost two decades.

Szabo shook his head. Reluctantly. "No, Guardian Belikova. She was days from her eighteenth."

I sighed and shook my head. Like mother like daughter. Beside me Dimitri tensed. I placed my hand on his knee. "I still remember my first time. Interesting fact: I specifically remember her father's presence in one of the now renovated log cabins. I hope the circumstances surrounding hers were better than mine."   

"Were you safe? With our baby, were you safe?"

"For all you know if you weren't—"

He cracked. "Yes. I was safe with Wends. She's my world. I know she shouldn't be, but she is." He gave us one hell of a surprise when he turned things back on Dimitri. "Surely you understand it, Belikov? When she's your only student, the one who understands her duty better than many her own parents age don't understand? When she's so ready to lay down her life to protect the lives of the ones she loves? Surely you understand how impossible it is to stop yourself from falling when someone like that graces your presence for hours at a time day in and day out, Belikov, your wife was once your student, was she not?"

"Wife right here, Szabo. And yes, we were once like you and Wendy."

Dimitri was somewhere between shocked and approving of Szabo's passionate outburst. "Will you promise to protect her? Will you promise us to always protect her? Even if it cost a Moroi life?"

Szabo looked surprised at the commanding note in Dimitri's voice. Then he recomposed himself and nodded seriously. "Yes. I know I shouldn't, but I swear to you both that I will always protect Wendy, no matter if it cost my life. Even if it cost a Moroi's. She's the most important woman in our world. Of course I'll always protect her."