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

Had It Been Rose-The Ramifications

RPOV
"I can't do this any longer, Dimitri!" I screeched when I told him I was dropping out.
"Can't do what, Rose?" he asked calmly, with concern, love and fear lacing his voice.
"This! Us! Society. I can't handle it any more." I would not cry, not in front of him. If I cried and he took me into his arms I'd be lucky to make it out of the gym never mind the school.
"Wh-what do you mean, Rose? I get why dealing with society is hard. But what's wrong with us?" I could clearly see and hear his heart breaking. Mine was too, but I had to do this. For him and for me, for our futures, I had to do this. I'd thought about this for a good three, nearly four weeks now and it was now or never.
I steeled myself to tell the biggest lie of my life. The one that would break him so completely that a piece of my soul would die because of it. I met his eyes and slipped my mask in place. "I don't love you."
His composure crumbled entirely. He believed me. "You–you don't love me?" he tested out the words while searching me to see if I was lying, begging me to tell him he'd heard wrong.
I gave nothing away as I repeated the lie. "I don't love you, Guardian Belikov. I never have." I saw him flinch and recoil. It was the last, heartbreaking image I had of him for a long time.

DPOV
After all we'd been through, she walked out of my life three weeks before graduation. I collapsed against the wall of the storeroom, our storeroom, curling in a ball as sobs as bad as when I'd believed she was dead racked through me. I'd gone twenty-four hours believing she was dead, completely filled with guilt and heartbreak. The next week I'd put myself together enough to organise leave to hunt her down and kill her to free her soul, to fulfil that unspoken and vital promise. After a month of searching all over Russia (believe it or not) for her, killing a multitude of useless Strigoi in the process, she'd eventually come to me. I hadn't been able to practice what I'd preached. I'd been taken by surprise. I'd hesitated, and consequently been trapped, held hostage and used as her bloodwhore. It had taken a lot of effort to be able to beat her at her own game, to think as she always had. But I'd done it and I'd escaped her clutches. But not her attention. I had failed my most significant kill... twice.

Adrian had not been impressed to learn I'd failed her. So we'd worked together—just barely—with one of the guardians who owed me a great favour, and we'd broken Dashkov out of Tarasov. I had followed in Rose's footsteps in chasing a fairytale. All the while she'd put a bounty on my head. We'd somehow gotten in and out of Vegas without her catching us. Determined, Adrian learned how to stake a Strigoi within a week and had dragged me—and Christian oddly enough—out to find her. He'd also compelled Alberta along by way of compelling her to let Christian out.

It had taken her mere hours to find us and us mere minutes to turn her back. She collapsed in a ball and sobbed. Adrian had been first to her side. But he hadn't been allowed to stay there long.
"Dimitri!" she sobbed and shoved Adrian away. I sat beside her and pulled her onto my lap. "I'm sorry!" she cried into my chest, clinging to me for dear life. "I'm so incredibly sorry!"
"Hush now, Roza," I cooed. "Hush. It wasn't you, it wasn't you."
"I tried, Dimitri! I tried not to, but I had to, to survive. I knew you'd come for me so I had to survive. And oh god, their faces! Their terror. Your face! How are you even here? Why! I'm a monster, Dimitri! There's no way you could ever forgive me, and I'm not worthy anyway."
I kept running my hand through her hair. "That wasn't you, Roza, that wasn't you. That you can feel this, this guilt and remorse proves that wasn't you. You are not a monster, Roza. I had to keep one of my promises because I love you, Rose. There's no way to forgive because there is nothing to forgive, Rose. And you are worthy of forgiveness, everyone is—especially from loved ones. Forgiving yourself is the real challenge."
"Stop with the profound zen life crap, Dimitri, just stop." Her warm, brown and haunted eyes met mine. They held for a minute, something shifted in those gorgeous back-to-soulful brown orbs and the spark between us lit a brand new bonfire of heart, mind and soul. "I'm sick to death of your life wisdom, Dimitri Belikov. But I goddamn love you for it right now." Her lips crashed down on mine. It took all my control to remember who was around us and stop my hands from exploring everywhere I knew she needed my skin-on-skin contact.
"I love you, Roza. Forever, my precious," I whispered against her lips.
"I love you too," she returned as I moved my lips to her forehead. "I wanna go home, Dimitri."
I smiled. "Then let's get you home, huh. Put Lissa and Eddie's minds at ease, hey?" With Alberta's help I stood with a nodding Rose in my arms.