The cabin scene at the end of SK. It never made sense for me that no one came to check on Rose and Dimitri for hours. I mean, how long did it take to escort some kids to the med clinic and I know they would have wanted roses story as soon as possible. Plus when I read the line that said something like "and if anyone came and found us this way, things would certainly get ugly" I thought it would be really funny. So here it is, and I also think this would lead to a different ending to SK (YAY) but disclaimer: I own nothing but the idea, all else belongs to Richelle Mead.
My skin burned where it touched his. It seemed impossible to me that a person could contain this much passion, love and wanting without exploding because I certainly seemed on the verge of it. The only articles of clothes separating us now were our undergarments and those were quickly coming off. Lissa told me that the first time hurts like hell, but even so, I couldn't seem to find the need to be scared. What did I care when I got to be with the most amazing man in the world and the love of my life.
Dimitri ran his hands down my back and wonderful warmth followed in their wake. I clutched him closer to me, if that was possible. As our kissing picked up even more, his hands moved up to the clasp of my bra, fumbling to remove it with shaking hands. Even though all this, my brain still registered hearing the distinct sound of a door opening. My breath caught in my throat and I pulled back to look Dimitri in the eye. His face portrayed all the shock and fear that I felt.
"BELIKOV!" A voice I recognized as Alerta's rang through the tiny cabin. "What the hell is going on here?!"
I'd never heard Alberta swear before, but I guess it wasn't everyday that you walked in on a student and her mentor getting it on when they were supposed to be getting said injured student cleaned up. I let my head fall back against the pillow with a sigh of resignation, but other than that, Dimitri and I hadn't come out of out shocked stupor enough to even move off each other.
I could imagine what Alberta saw- The majority of our clothes scattered on the floor, Dimitri on top of me with my legs wrapped around his waist, and us wrapped in each others embrace. Yeah… I don't think we were gonna be talking out way out of this one. All the terror we'd had during Victors trial about getting found out and now it happens? During one of our few moments of weakness? Something Divine hated us.
I saw wheels turning behind Dimitris eyes as he quickly evaluated all our options and then, recognizing defeat, he slowly sat up. I looked at Alberta in horror. Her mouth was hanging open in shock and she looked pissed, no scratch that, she looked more than pissed. She looked furious.
This was the first time I can ever remember actually being afraid of Alberta. Sure, when I'd been in trouble I'd been afraid of her punishment, but right then with her raging up a storm, she seriously looked like she was about to kick both mine and Dimitris asses. Until I realized that her eyes were only on Dimitri and they were filled with Disgust; I suddenly understood what she was thinking. In addition to Dimtri and I completely overstepping the bounds of our relationship, she thought that Dimitri had taken advantage of me. By now, Dimitri and I had got the sense to separate and were sitting on the edge of the bed, looking an awful lot like kids caught by their parents.
I jumped up to say something in Dimitris defense, but as soon as I opened my mouth to speak, Alberta cut me off.
"Clothes Miss Hathaway, Belikov, Now!" she snapped.
I was about to ignore her and start shouting anyways until I caught Dimtris eye, warning me to stay quiet. So Dimitri and I got dressed in silence, too scared to look at each other. When we were completely dressed again, Alberta finally spoke.
"Not that I can think of a fathomable explanation for any of this, I'm going to give you a chance to explain anyways. Sit down!" There was the fair Alberta I knew. Please let her understand, I prayed as Dimitri and I went to sit back on the bed. We had barely begun to sit when Alberta reached forward with the lightening speed of a highly trained guardian and grabbed Dimitri's arm.
"I don't think so, Belikov. You sit over there!" She pointed in the direction of the chair with the abandoned first aid kit still sitting upon it. What? Did she think that just having us both sitting on a bed would ignite some sort of explosion and we wouldn't be able to keep our hands off each other? Well in all honesty, I would normally agree, but we were in some serious shit right now and I don't exactly find that a turn on.
Once we were sitting, Alberta turned, as I knew she would, to face Dimitri first.
"Do you know how many rules you've broken here, Belikov? Moral and Ethical? Rose is your student and 7 years younger than you! You were supposed to be her mentor." She looked back and forth between the two of us. "Obviously you didn't adhere to those guidelines." She added dryly. "Do you want to tell me, Belikov, What is the world were you thinking?!"
Dimitri paused before answering to glance over at me. When he turned to Alberta again, it was with a defiant expression on his face, like he had just decided something.
"I was thinking about Rose," was all Dimitri said and if it left me confused I'm sure Alberta didn't find any significant meaning in his words.
"Obviously," she snapped. Since it didn't look like Dimtri was going to expand any more, Alberta continued her questioning.
"So how many times has this happened?" She demanded, looking over at me for the first time, sitting on the rumpled bed. I didn't know what, hopefully awesome, plan Dimitri had in mind so I didn't want to say anything to mess it up. I remained silent and kept an impassive face. Apparently Dimitri decided that our two practice room kisses didn't count as "this" because he answered: "Just this once… Unless you count the night that Vasalissa was kidnapped."
I could practically hear Alberta's brain kick into over drive as she tried to piece together what Dimitri had just said. After a few seconds of complete silence, she finally asked, "What… do you mean, Belikov?"
He took a deep breath and shut his eyes, before opening them to continue. "The spell that Victor put on Rose's necklace, well, it wasn't an attack spell."
"More rule breaking?" Alberta asked, aghast. "You lied under oath?"
Dimitri simply nodded.
"Why?!" She almost shouted, clearly at a loss for words.
This time when Dimtri answered her, he was looking straight at me with such an intensity, my skin felt like it might spontaneously combust.
"To protect Roza." He whispered.
Alberta wasn't quite sure how to respond this time. It looked as if she was replaying Dimitri's words in her head when she suddenly stiffened.
"You said it wasn't an attack spell," she began slowly, "so what kind of spell was it?"
I decided it was time to make my presence known in this room, I don't like being ignored and I knew the answer to this question.
"Lust," I piped up. Alberta looked at me with a mixed expression. "No, I'm sorry Miss Hathaway, you must be mistaken," she said with confidence.
"No," Dimitri cut in, "She's right."
I could tell that Alberta couldn't decide whether he was telling the truth or not. He two views of Dimtri were currently at war with each other. On one hand, she had Guardian Belikov, one of the best guardians she'd ever seen. And one the other hand, she had Dimitri Belikov, the man she'd just caught in a very compromising situation.
"It can't be," she pleaded, clearly not wanting to admit that we could actually have had legitimate feelings for each other this whole time and no one had noticed. Well, other than Victor Dashkov obviously. "For a lust spell to work, each person must already have feelings for the other. It doesn't create love or lust, it just removes inhibitions."
This, I already knew. Victor had told me as much when I went to go see him in lock-up, asking him to break it off.
Dimitri just looked as Alberta levelly and I saw understanding dawn on her face. I was beginning to feel like a spectator in the third degree of Dimitri and I didn't like it.
"Please Guardian Petrov," I began, "it was my fault, I pushed him." I said, thinking of that time when I kissed him in the practice room, which I was now feeling particularly horrible for.
Alberta turned to me with a glare so fierce, had I been anyone other than Rose Hathaway, I would have shrank back.
"Rosemarie," out comes the full name, "I don't care if you danced naked on his bed, Guardian Belikov should have known better."
Suddenly, my control just snapped. That seemed to be happeneing a lot today. First, beating up Jesse, then completely failing at staying away from Dimitri, and now I'm yelling at Alberta. Damn Lissa's darkness.
I jumped up so that I was looking eye to eye with her.
"What?" I yelled, "you don't think I can think for myself? That I don't know the difference between right and wrong? Just because Dimitri is older than I am does not mean he has any better control over how he feels that I do… This is completely unfair."
I wasn't done with my rant, not by a long shot, but even Rose Hathaway has to breathe. When I opened my mouth to continue, Dimtri cut me off.
"Roza, Stop!" he didn't say it any louder of more forcefully than when he normally spoke, but I heard the underlying order. I glared at him, but took his advice anyways and sat myself back down.
Alberta looked like she was going to explode. She had her hands pressed tightly on either side of her face as she exhaled a breath she had been holding with a whoosh.
"It all makes sense now," she said as she looked between the two of us, sounding resigned. "The way you both act around each other, why she would only ever listen to you, why you always stuck up for her, why you never minded being to one who had to deal with her." She made me sound like some crazy rabid animal that no one wanted to touch. I wasn't that bad. "And… oh god! All those private practice sessions.!"
"Wait!" Dimitri and I said at the same time. I shut my mouth and let him continue, knowing he was thinking the same as I was.
"Those were all business and practicing!" He swore.
"Is that ture?" she asked, looking at me.
"Yes, Guardian Petrov."
"I always knew you two were close, but I never thought…" she trailed off shaking her head. "Okay," she said, suddenly business like. "Here's how this is going to work." She turned to face Dimitri. "You, Belikov, will be reassigned."
"No!" I shouted just as Dimitri jumped to his feet. This proclamation seemed to have toppled his careful hold on self control. I didn't care that Alberta was watching, I didn't care that I might possibly get expelled, all I cared about was the possibility of Dimitri getting reassigned somewhere far away from me and I ran into his open arms and buried my face in his chest. He held me close and apparently didn't care that Alberta was watching either because he kissed my hair and murmured softly in Russian. All I caught was the use of Roza, my Russian name, a couple times.
"Excuse me!" Alberta shouted. "And I speak Russian, Belikov."
Dimitri kissed one once more on the forehead before turning to face Alberta with a fierce look on his face.
"Do you think I like this situation?" he asked, his voice raised. "Its horrible! We find our soul mates and were 7 years apart and forbidden from being anything more than friends. We tried to stay away, for the rules and for the princesses sake, but it didn't always work. We love each other and nothing is going to change that."
I was probably as shocked as Alberta. My Dimitri, a man of few words, had just practically made a speech.
"Please Alberta," I begged, "you have to understand! I promise we tried, but keeping love bottled up, it hurts. It eats at you from the inside until it feels like you have nothing left!"
"Well," she said, after a long moment of silence, "This changes things."
I reached out and took Dimitris hand as she deliberated. He squeezed it gently.
Finally, Alberta spoke again. "This is what's going to happen," she repeated softly. "You can both stay."
She didn't get to finish because at that moments I rushed forward and threw my arms around her thanking her to the ends of oblivion and beyond. Then I froze as my mind caught up with my actions. I released her and backed up slowly, afraid I had made her mad again, but Alberta had a faint glimmer of a smile on her face.
"But," she continued, "All private practice sessions will be monitored by me and there will be no more of this," she paused and pointed at the bed, "until Rose graduates."
A selfish part of me wanted to whine, graduation was so far away, but in reality, these were good terms. No, these were wonderful terms. All the things Dimitri and I feared would happen, had actually happened and everything was ok. The sky didn't fall and both of us still had our careers. I was over joyed that I simply turned towards Dimitri, without thinking, and threw myself at him. He picked me up like I weighed nothing and held me to him as we kissed in celebration. When we broke apart I turned towards Alberta with a sheepsish grin on my face.
"Starting now?" I asked. At that, Alberta actually laughed.
As Dimitri and Alberta walked and I skipped back to campus, Alberta stopped being Guardian Petrov for just a moment and was just plain old Alberta, our friend. She wore a bemused expression that older people so often wore around young couples so obviously in love. I stopped my skipping and happy chatter for a moment to grab Dimitris hand and pull his head down to my level.
"Did you really mean all that, Comrade?" I whispered in his ear. He stopped walking to put his hand on my cheek and nod. Alberta had also stopped walking when she noticed that we had fallen behind, but seeing us in the middle of a whispered conversation, kept walking until she was out of earshot.
"Of course," Dimitri replied, "I hate pretending like I don't love you, Roza."
I smiled: "I love you too!"
He brought my hand up to his mouth and brushed his lips across my fingers. And just like that we slipped comfortably back into place. When we reached the Dhampir dorm, Dimitri gave me a quick peck on the cheek, earning him a disapproving look from Alberta. It was at that moment that I saw Mason, flickering in and out of focus with that same sad look on his face.
Ok in my version, since Alberta busted in and broke up rose and dimitris little romantic escapade, its a lot shorter in the cabin and theyre already back at the dorms when mason shows up and Alberta, being always prepare, has a radio. Thus the guardians are super fast at reacting and save lots of time. And when the strigoi reach the heart of campus, the guardians are ready. Therefore no hostages are taken and no rescue mission and no dimitri turned strigoi :]
My ending to shadow kiss.
Review please!
~LLM