Disclaimer: I don't own Vampire Academy or any of its characters. Just having a bit of fun with the characters. I own nothing but the plot and the new characters

Warning: Spoilers for Vampire Academy and Bloodlines

Chapter 15: Restoration

Present

RPOV

This very second my life turned upside down. Everything had been fine seconds ago. If you looked over the fact that court had been attacked and Rose had had a setback in her recovery, my life had finally ben on the right path and I had the love of my life by my side again. I had thought that nothing could have gone wrong. After everything we'd been through we surely deserved some peace.

Wrong.

I was so very, very wrong. The second I stepped inside that interrogation room the life I had built for myself crumbled. It didn't It was more as if cracks appeared in it. It took a complete one-eighty turn and I wasn't ready for it. I was thrown off the ride in that turn and it left without me. Left in something I didn't know how to handle properly.

Ivan.

I wasn't ready for this. I had already mourned and processed his death. Something Rose had helped tremendously with. I didn't know if I could do it again. It had taken Rose and a whole lot of stubbornness from her to break down the walls I had built around myself.

Because that was what was going on, right? We were going to kill him. It was what we did to all the strigoi we capture. No exceptions were made. But on the other hand. No one had ever had a personal relationship with a strigoi we had captured before. This was the first time.

I had come into this room looking for Rose but I had found so much more than her. The ground seems to move beneath me and I instinctively reach for Rose. I needed the comfort and support only she could provide me. I saw Ivan look between us and his eyes lit with realization. This must be quite a shock to him. Me having a relationship. When he had still been a moroi and…alive, I didn't have many girlfriends or lovers. Or even flings. I had been too focused on my duty to become a guardian.

"Wait, you are…" Ivan said.

"Yes," I replied and looked down at Rose. This must be such a shock to her. I hadn't shown her many photos of him. And the ones I did show was mostly from our childhood when we were around ten. After his supposed death I had tried to focus more on the happy memories with him and it was easier to think about the time when we were nine and broke his arm trying to pick an apple for a girl he liked than to think about the weeks after he was attacked.

Most of the pictures of him and me in our teens and early twenties are at the bottom of a box in Baia. The pictures on my nightstand and albums were of us as kids.

"Yeah, I guess I never told you my full name, huh. I'm Ivan Zeklos, how can I be of service?" He said with that confident tone all strigoi seemed to have. He didn't give her any time to answer him. He simply turned his head to me and said:

"It's really nice to see you and all and I'm happy that you found someone to share your life with but can you let me go now? We both know that you're not going to kill me and I'm not going to give you any information. Dimka, you of all people should know how stubborn I can be?"

That was true. If there was anyone who could rival Rose for her stubbornness it would be Ivan. Sometimes he would refuse things just for the sake of refusing and showing everyone how stubborn he could be.

"And as much fun as it was spending those hours in that room with you Roza I need to get back. He'll kill me if I don't, you know."

What?

How was this possible? As far as I knew there was no way that Rose and Ivan could know each other. There was absolutely no way. Ivan "died" long before I even met Rose. No matter how much I thought about it I couldn't understand. And I'm not going to lie. Hearing him call me Dimka brought back so many emotions and memories I thought I had forgotten and it made it hard for me to think properly.

"I…don't…I…" I couldn't even finish my sentence and honestly, I didn't even know how to. What did I even want to know? What did I want to ask him after all this time? All I knew was that Ivan and Rose, people I associated with two completely different lives somehow knew each other. And they both were standing right in front of me having a silent conversation. One of those I only though Rose and I could have.

"She didn't tell you?"

"She didn't tell me what?"

I didn't understand a thing right now. My head snapped between Rose and Ivan trying to solve this puzzle, however unsolvable it may seem. Did Rose keep something from me? I thought she had opened up and at least told me most of what had happened in that house. At least all the major things. And I didn't know how she felt but her knowing Ivan was a pretty big thing for me.

"Don't do this Zeke, not right now"

Zeke?

My mind was filled with questions right now. Zeke had to be short for Zeklos right? I didn't have any other explanation.

"Why not? You don't think that he deserves to know? Or do you want to keep me all to yourself?"

Ivan flirting with Rose didn't surprise me at all, what on the other hand did surprise me was Rose laughing at what he said. I didn't think that it was possible but my confusion grew.

I grabbed Roses hand harder and drew her with me outside to the corridor. I needed some answers and I needed them now. All the guardians who had followed me from the meeting now followed me out from the interrogation room. I imagined that they would be at least as confused as I was, if not more. They had no idea who Ivan was. To them, he was just another strigoi. No one special. They had no idea of the relationship between Ivan and me or Ivan and Rose. Not that I had any knowledge about the latter.

"What's going on Belikov? Do you know that strigoi in there?" Croft asked.

"Wait! Roza how do you know Ivan" I asked Rose. I couldn't stand not knowing for another second.

"I…I met him…there"

And with that my worst fear came true. Ivan had been one of those who had abducted Rose and done all of those things to her. Right now I didn't care that he had once been my best friend all I wanted to do right now was drive a stake through his heart for what he had done to Rose. I guess Rose saw my demeanor change because she quickly cut off my murderous train of thoughts.

"Not like that Dimitri! He helped me, he was the reason I made it out of there alive"

And just like that all of my anger dissipated and was replaced with gratitude. If that was true I owed him so much more than my life. If that was true he was the reason I had gotten Roza back.

"Belikov, who's in there?" Hans asked again.

I sighed and turned and turned to face all the questions that they had.

"That's Ivan Zeklos. My former charge in Russia"

I heard gasps all around me. The fact that Ivan had been my former charge and how he had died was no secret. Neither was the friendship that we had had.

"Then what do we do with him? Kill him?"

I had honestly thought about that. Because in reality, did we have a choice? It wasn't like we could keep him locked away in a cell forever. We had to kill him. No matter how much I wanted him to stay. It was an impossible situation.

"NO! We can't kill him" Rose exclaimed.

"I'm sorry Rose but you don't have any authority here. You…"

"He was with me under those three years. He knows things. He can give us information"

I understood that he had been a big support to her but we couldn't just not kill him and let him go. She had to understand that. No matter how hard it would be for both of us.

"Roza, he's stubborn. He won't give us…"

"We can turn him. Turn him into a moroi again. With spirit. We'll just ask Lissa, or Sonya or Adrian.

Could we do that? Could we make an exception for Ivan? The question was if we turned Ivan back didn't we have to turn all the other strigoi we captured back too? After all, everyone was someone's sister, uncle or cousin. I raised this question to the group. Pointing out what I wanted to do, which was pretty obvious.

"He has information about the attack Dimitri, he knows what they want"

That was valuable information. If we knew what they were after we could protect it and better defend ourselves. I looked over to the others to see what they thought. This wasn't a decision I could make on my own. Hans spoke up first.

"We need to hold a meeting about this"

-(-)-

RPOV

I was pacing back and forth in our living room. It was so small that I could only really take five steps before I had to turn around. But it didn't matter. It helped me keep calm. Anything involving movements helped me calm down. After being bound to that table for so long, movements helped me realize that I wasn't there anymore. And I needed that realization to keep calm now that Dimitri wasn't here to do it. Lissa and Christian were here too, sitting on the couch beside Sonya who was visiting court.

"So let me get this straight. The strigoi the TC took in was Ivan Zeklos. Dimitri's last charge. Who was also the strigoi who captured and kidnapped you for three years? Did I get it all? No, wait! We also have to turn him back into a moroi to get information out of him." Christian said. Pretty much sums it up.

"Yeah, that's about it" I replied, looking at the clock for probably the tenth time in the past five minutes.

Lissa sighed and got up from the couch, slowly moving towards me.

"Rose, he will be back soon. The meeting has been going on for two hours, they will be back soon, he will be back soon" AT the same time as she said that she put a hand on my shoulder. I was glad she didn't do more because I wasn't ready for that. All my friends and family let me set the pace. If I was ready for a hug I hugged them and if I only managed a nod they were fine with it. But I always made sure to touch their hands. There were no exceptions with that one.

Suddenly the door busted open and Adrian ran inside.

"What's this about Ivan Zeklos being a strigoi and will be turned back?"

I didn't have the energy to explain it all again so I let Lissa do the talking. I hope that Zeke… ehh Ivan would be turned back but I didn't know if it would happen. I had no idea what the outcome of this meeting would be. There had never been a planned turning back of a strigoi before. All the other times had either been planned in secret or a spur of the moment thing, like with Sonya. Going through with this would give us a lot of problems. If we did this, what stopped us from turning back more of the strigoi that the TC captured? My inner ramblings were cut off by the door opening once again.

"They'll do it. They'll turn him back. Or one of you will turn him back but they approved it. He'll come back" Dimitri panted. This was big for him. At least if you would go by how he was rambling a second ago.

"I'll get to do it, right?" Adrian said out of nowhere, making us all look at him. "I'll get to do it because Lissa turned Dimitri back and well Sonya's been strigoi so it's only natural right?"

He looked at us with a hopeful expression, his eyes shining like a kid on Christmas morning.

"I can't believe you get so excited over this, it's not a funny experience. It's serious!" I almost shouted at him. I had been waiting anxiously in this room for over two hours and I did not want to deal with Adrian right now. I was scared of the outcome of this meeting but for the first time in months, I wasn't scared for myself. I was scared for Dimitri. If those in the meeting decided that it was best to turn Ivan back Dimitri's whole world would be turned upside down. All those years he had spent processing Ivan's death would all have been for nothing. He would have to remember every emotion and every memory from that time and I didn't know if I had the mental capability to support him through it.

Our living room had turned into a mess. Everyone had started talking at the same time and everyone had stood up and tried to walk around. Our "living room" had been crowded before Adrian came in and with Dimitri, it was almost impossible to move around at all. This was the reason we always met up at Lissas when everyone was at court. This apartment was not built to house this many people.

But even though it was tight I managed to press through and make my way over to Dimitri. I didn't say anything because really, what could I possibly say? Instead, I wrapped my arms around him to try and comfort him in any way I could. He rested his chin on the top of my head and took a deep breath.

"They're doing it in an hour, they said that there was no time to waste. I was sent to get someone to do it"

"Adrian was willing. Though I think he just wants to brag about it afterward. To be the only sprit user to have turned back a strigoi on orders from court"

Dimitri scoffed "Of course he wants to" he muttered.

"How do you feel?" I asked him.

"I don't know, I don't even know if I want him to come back. That sounds really bad but I've made this life with you and everybody else and I don't know how he can fit into it. I want him back, of course, I do but I've moved on. I've spent years processing his death and with you by my side I was almost done with it. I don't know what to do and especially knowing that you two know each other"

That last part was more phrased like a question and I didn't blame him. I would be curious too if I was in his situation.

"We don't have time to talk about it right now but let's just say that he was the reason I made it out of there alive and not crazy"

I looked around and noticed that all the others had quieted down and were now looking at us.

"Well we don't have any time to waste so let's get moving"

-(-)-

We all made our way over to the prison, of course joined by Christians and Lissa's guards. Quite a few people looked at us, which was quite understandable since it wasn't every day that you saw the queen herself walk across court with all of her friends on their way to the prison.

After the long stairs and identity checks, we were finally outside the room in which Ivan was being held. During all the way here from our apartment Dimitri hadn't let go of my hand. He needed the wordless support just as much as me at this moment. After all, I kind of knew Ivan too. All those months in that room had not been for nothing.

Taking a deep breath I pushed the door open and stepped inside, everyone else following behind me.

"What are you going to do to me? Keep me locked away in here forever?" Ivan yelled as we came inside. Once he saw us though, he quieted down.

"Are you finally here to do something? Because I'm so bored right now. It was action back at the house and most of those days I didn't do a thing"

I flinched at his words, reminding me of all those days we had sat together and "not been doing a thing". I know he had enjoyed those days, at least most of them but in the end, he was a strigoi and he could only cling so much to his humanity. Or "moroiality".

"Nice to know that I mean so much," I said back and saw a little smirk play at the corner of his lips.

"Oh Roza, you know I enjoyed our little therapy sessions together. I told you that if I remember correctly"

It was Dimitri's turn to flinch when he called me Roza but instead of dwelling on it he gave out orders.

"Do it now Adrian"

There was only seriousness in his voice when he said that but somehow Adrian managed to reply in a jokingly manner which only caused Dimitri to become more irritated than he already was.

"No need to stress Belikov and I don't even have a…" He didn't have time to finish the question before Dimitri thrust a stake in his hand.

"If you think that this is some kind of a joke you are more than welcome to leave this room but otherwise I suggest that you start by charming that stake.

While Dimitri was busy talking to Adrian I walked up to Ivan and in one shift movement ripped his shirt of.

"Well if this is what you wanted all along all you had to do was ask" He winked at me and I couldn't help but chuckle. After all, this was how I had survived for three years. But when I turned around the chuckle died in my throat. All the others were staring at me like I was crazy, which I probably was since I was laughing together with a strigoi, which went against everything we had ever been taught.

"Just aim here and push really hard" I said and pointed at a place on Ivan's chest without actually touching him. After that, I walked back to Dimitri and took his hand. He looked down at me worryingly but I didn't meet his eyes. Instead, I looked at Adrian moving towards Ivan.

Where Dimitri and Sonya had struggled during their restoration, Ivan was completely calm and didn't even move a muscle.

I saw Adrian move his arm before we all were blinded by a strong white light.

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