According to a bylaw, this is technically an author's note as well and was also reported and taken down. Now, why someone would come for the explanation of a chapter written to give the story a satisfying note to end on, that's beyond me. Go police songfics and plagiarism. Leave my home-grown fic alone. But since they managed to take down this chapter before, here's another scene to appease the gods. This is, of course, the main section of the chapter. Nothing else.

P.S. Guest, if you still take so much issue with me attempting to give my friends and other readers some closure, you really, truly, unequivocally, can suck my dick.

They ate dinner in amicable silence.

"I mean, it's not much, but you can see it." Valya cleared her throat. "If you want."

The edges of Dimitri's eyes crinkled. "I'd like that very much."

"It might as well be where you're staying while we figure all of this-" Valya gestured to the air. "-out. The guest barracks are, well, nonexistent. I think they converted them into orphan dorms-" She caught herself. "Sorry, that was insensitive of me. It's just, we have so many of them. Parent's don't tend to stick around in the wild. And we never get guests. I-"

"Valya, it's fine," Dimitri cut her off.

"Sorry, I just-" She sighed, running her hands through her hair. "Things have been off ever since I got back. You can feel it, can't you? It's like... no one knows what to do with themselves anymore."

Dimitri understood. It permeated the walls of the vast concrete underground, seeping into cracks and edging it's way into the minds of the occupants. He could see them as they moved about their daily lives: it was as if they were unmoored. Dimitri thought of Josiah Hollis for a short, bitter second.

The queen is dead, long live the king.

He hadn't ruled out the possibility of Josiah killing Rose for his own personal gain. There was motive and means- from the stories others had told him, he'd practically run Corinth under Rose's watchful eye- but he wasn't sure if that conclusion was the right one. It was too easy: jealous underling kills boss to take back what's his. It wrapped itself up in a perfect little bow. Dimitri knew that life was never that clear-cut.

Regardless, the absence of what once was stood in the hearts of those Rose touched while she was alive; an ever-widening chasm that one could fall into if you weren't careful. Dimitri had Jack to thank for that. He wondered, absentmindedly, what he would have become if he'd never bothered to heal.

"I've got the key somewhere..." Valya patted the pockets of her uniform before coming up with a dark key, the fob of which was rubbed a bright silver from use. She unlocked the door to a modest unit with a dark teal colour. "Welcome to Chez Belikova."

The ceiling was low; Dimitri's hair brushed up against the layers and layers of dark grey paint that covered the interior. It was dim from lack of windows, but Valya flipped a switch to illuminate a small front room with a kitchen and two overstuffed chairs.

"We have the biggest one. Well, had." Valya caught herself. "I think it's because everyone grows up here on top of each other, but mom wasn't exactly used to that. She refused to let Pops put a third level on it, though." She pointed at a short black ladder in the corner by the chairs with her thumb.

One room off of the foyer was obviously a bathroom, but next to it there was a door covered in pieces of paper with Russian on it. Dimitri reached out and touched the edge of one of the pieces of paper.

"Her study," Valya clarified. "Our rooms are upstairs. You can stay in mine or hers, whichever you prefer. Or even stay on the couch, but there's probably not enough room for you down here."

They climbed the ladder and found themselves in a narrow hallway with two doors, one had Valya's name written in Russian around a rising sun, the brushstrokes light and practiced. The other simply said Mama over and over and over again.

"Sasha did my door," Valya said. "I did mom's when I was four or maybe even five. Sasha said it looked god-awful, but don't believe anything he says. I'm an accomplished artist."

The attempt Valya made at lightening the mood fell flat. She reached for Rose's door and gestured for Dimitri to follow her.

"You might want to see this."

Dimitri bit his lip and followed, feeling for all the world like an intruder in a place he should belong. The room itself was small, with a short double bed pushed against one corner and a heap of clothes at the base of the bed. He was glad to know that one thing never changed: Rose Hathaway was always the messiest creature in the universe. But it was what covered the walls and extended across the ceiling that made him stop in his tracks.

His face was staring back at him in ten million different forms. Him from the side, him smiling, him laughing, him in action, staking a Strigoi. Nearly every inch of Rose's room was covered in pictures of him of varying sizes and varying artistic ability. As time wore on, the pictures of him become more muddied, less distinct. They could have been anyone, but he knew.

Rose had spent the last years of her life thinking of one thing: Dimitri Belikov.

The thought should have comforted him, but an odd darkness worked its way through his heart, constricting it until he could barely breathe or think.

"She did this?" His head felt light.

"Yeah." Valya sounded breathless. "She wanted- she wanted me to know what you looked like, so when I was little she drew one. Then another and another. Eventually she just kept drawing you, and let me tell you: in the beginning she was not a very good artist."

Corinthians: How It Should Have Ended

When we last left off, we learned that Sasha killed a man in Reno, Dimitri isn't very happy about anything ever, and Valya is... as Valya does. But what happens in the last half of Corinthians?

THE CATALYST

Valya and Josiah argue. It doesn't matter about what because I hadn't figured it out yet, but she's pissed. She punches it out in the gym where Dimitri finds her, looking a lot like her mother because when doesn't she? Dimitri is tired of staying in guest quarters and wants somewhere more private and Josiah suggested he sleep in the same tiny boxcar as Valya but in Rose's room (sarcastically, of course).

Valya agrees to show Dimitri the unit. She doesn't care if someone goes into Rose's room anymore because anger is clouding her vision. We get the first look at the Belikova house: they have a kitchen and sofa downstairs, with two bedrooms upstairs. Sasha painted murals all across Valya's walls and door. Dimitri says he must really love her but Valya is too afraid to say it aloud. Rose's door is covered in scribbles Valya did when she was a child and it hasn't been changed since. Suddenly, the lock-down alarms go off and everyone is locked inside their units. As a way to pass the time, Valya shows him Rose's room where Dimitri discovers that it's covered wall-to-wall with portraits of him. After Valya falls asleep on Rose's old bed, Dimitri discovers letters Rose wrote to him from the moment she arrived in Corinth up until her death. He doesn't sleep, he can't.

When they awake, Dimitri has hidden the letters from Valya. They're private and one's kind of inappropriate so it was a good call. They discover the lock-down was because of a unit that was hit directly outside of Court that indicated a mole present in Corinthian ranks. Valya wants to go to Court to find the mole, but Josiah is still angry at her. When Dimitri volunteers to use his influence to investigate, Josiah agrees and they begin to pack for Court.

A SPLIT TWO WAYS

Valya and Dimitri both have ulterior motives when it comes to returning to Court. Valya wants to find her mother's killer and Dimitri wants to convince Valya to stay with him because he knows once she returns to Corinth, she'll be lost to him forever. They scout team members for a mission to Russia that Dimitri greenlights without the Queen's permission as a way to suss out suspects.

Valya has extended face time with Lissa, Christian, Eddie, Jill, Sydney, Adrian, and even a run-in with Mia, who is now the head of Moroi combat at Dragomir University. A family dinner at the Castile house introduces her to Leigh, Kitt, and Rory, the first three of her cousins. She bonds with Leigh and they become friends. A similar dinner at the Dragomir apartments introduces her to the twins, Rosalie and Andre. They're both incredibly awful and not the type of people she associates with.

When Adrian attempts to weasel his way onto the Ural Mountains mission, Eddie becomes exasperated and explains why that would never work and the mission is a bust. As it turns out, Court was apparently supposed to 'discover' Corinth while the Russian mission was taking place. Rose took Valya to Russia so she wouldn't be found by Court; it was a wild goose chase. They were just supposed to ride out the aftershocks of Court discovering Corinth, then return home. It was Eddie that sent the letter, but it wasn't Eddie that had her killed. They were constantly getting chatter from Russia and didn't know that the rumors were real.

SUPER COOL CAVE PEOPLE SAY SUPER COOL YEAH

The team (Dimitri, Valya, Adrian, Mia, and Eddie) set out for Russia and meet up with Ekaterina and her daughter in the town over. Valya attempts to get through to Emiliya and discovers that the last place she was attacked was the caves, but Emiliya appears to be speaking in tongues and having strange attacks. When Valya investigates the caves on her own, she's kidnapped by a group of Moroi that have sequestered themselves beneath the mountains for centuries. Their dhampir have all but died out and they need someone to kill the Strigoi in the area. At first, Valya resists. That is, until she sees the Strigoi.

They aren't normal, not by any stretch of the imagination. The Strigoi that have been killing with a single glance are possessed by the spirits of slain spirit users who have been driven insane by their powers. Valya approaches it cautiously and it speaks in the same voice that is possessing Emiliya.

Something rocks the cave; an explosion, then two. Valya sees her opportunity and escapes, meeting the rest of the team in the network of tunnels. As the walls come down around them, Valya grabs Dimitri's outstretched hand. It's the first time she's ever called him dad.

THE AFTERMATH IS ALRIGHT

They go back to Corinth bruised and battered, relaying the information that there was no mole, it was simply Eddie. The monster in the Ural Mountains wasn't killed, but it will never resurface from the collapsed tunnel system. As they're celebrating the end of a stressful course of events, Adrian notices something. Sasha looks awfully familiar and after a few questions, Adrian nearly confirms his suspicions.

Sasha's parents didn't die at all. They're Aaron and Reva Drozdov and Sasha is the heir to the Drozdov line.

CONTINUED IN: MONARCHISTS. (or at least the first 35k of it)