This is totally for all of the people that continue to read my story "Love, No Restrictions". You guys rock, and I love you all so much! Mwah:] Enjoy the one-shot huns.
I don't own any of the characters - those are Richelle Mead's!
Please review and tell me what you think:) The green button says "Come on, sexy, you know you want it."
~Ryan

"Last one to the Jacuzzi has to buy me a drink!"

Laughing and stripping off my jeans and sweatshirt as quickly as I could, I made a beeline for the Jacuzzi the Academy just had installed.

It was a chilly April evening outside, and must have been below twenty. My hands were numb icicles, and my toes were permanently curled into tight balls. But that hot tub would change it all.

Despite my advanced guardian training, Eddie made it there before me.

"Oh Rose, so close! But you were no match for me," Eddie teased as he slid further into the steaming confines of the tub.

Still trying to get used to the stark contrast of the boiling water, I snorted. "If it weren't for the fact that I was wearing more clothes than you, Eddie, I would've made it first and you know it." I reached for my drink, sitting next to my piles of clothes.

Eddie laughed. "Yeah, yeah, you keep telling yourself that, Rose."

I smiled, closing my eyes and sliding the rest of my body under the water, minus my head. Eddie did the same, and for a while we enjoyed a comfortable silence, basking in the glory of the warm hot tub working wonders on our chilling bodies.

Eventually, though, the silence had to be broken.

"Rose, since you've come back I haven't gotten much chance to talk to you. How have you been?"

I opened my eyes. He was staring intently at me, and from his gaze I knew that he honestly cared about my answer.

"I've been . . . better. I'm not going to lie. Life was a lot easier before. . . ."

"Before the attack," he finished quietly.

I nodded. "Yeah."

Holding my gaze sympathetically, he moved a little closer in the water. "And before . . . Belikov was taken away."

Of course Dimitri wasn't really "taken away". He was turned into a Strigoi, which I saw happen, and then he left for Russia to get away from me. But I knew what he meant.

Breaking his gaze and staring up into the misty sky, I answered, "Yeah." I sighed.

Always the observer, Eddie mused, "You loved him. And you still do."

I laughed humorlessly, returning my eyes to his. "I do. Kind of stupid when you think about how he's coming back to kill me and all."

Eddie slid close enough to touch me now, and he wrapped his arm around my shoulders. "No," he murmured. "It's not stupid at all. It's love." He was quiet for a moment, tracing patterns in the water, and then he said, "Rose, I know this may sound strange, but . . . I think he's still there."

I was briefly puzzled. "You mean . . . in Russia? Maybe, but I'm pretty sure he's a lot closer to the Academy by now."

"No," he said, "that's not what I meant. I mean, I think Belikov is still there. I think he's still . . . himself. You know how the other guardians are always feeding us that crap about how once someone is turned Strigoi, they're not themselves anymore and they're something purely evil-their old selves are the part that died? Well, in this case I think it's just that: crap. I think Belikov's spirit was so strong, that he was so passionate about ridding the world of Strigoi, that he never really died. I think the old him is in that body somewhere, fighting to get out, but keeps getting overcome by the selfish desires of the Strigoi. Think about it-you said he wanted to kill you so bad in Russia, but he never did. And he talked about changing you, but held back. He waited. And waited. And waited."

The entire time Eddie talked, all I could do was gape. I couldn't believe it. He thought Dimitri was still there, still alive, still occupying his body but was being smothered.

But so did I.

When he had me trapped outside of Novosibirsk in that horrible building, I had spent a lot of time with him. And so many times he had appeared so much like his old self that it tore at my heart. And that last moment with him, when I drove the stake through his chest. . . . And before he fell. . . .

That's what I was supposed to say.

Only Dimitri would've said that. I know he would've. The Strigoi would not have cared so much. But Dimitri. . . . My Dimitri. . . . He was still there, deep down.

"Rose? I knew it was a radical idea, and I'm sorry if I brought back unpleasant memories. . . . You can just forget about it."

"No, no," I said. "No, Eddie, I think you're right. I believe you. Everything you just said . . . I feel the same way. The entire time I was in Russia, and I spent time with him . . . I just knew. I knew Dimitri was still inside of that pale, red-eyed body somewhere. But I don't know how to reach him."

Eddie nodded, thinking. "Rose," he said, "you don't have to, but I still don't know everything that happened. I didn't even know you had been in Russia until a couple of days after you came back. Could you tell me?"

Just as I told Lissa, I told Eddie. I told him most of the details, from the moment I set foot in Russia, to the moment I encountered Dimitri, to the moment he fell over the bridge, to the moment I arrived back in the U.S. I told him about the people I had met, and how, by some fluke, Abe had led me to Olena Belikova and her family. And I wanted so badly to include the blood whore thing, to entrust him with everything, but in that moment my shame wouldn't let me. So I left that part out for now, just like I did with Lissa.

When I finished, Eddie wrapped both his arms around me comfortingly, in a hug. "Oh Rose. . . . I'm so sorry you had to go through this all alone. If I knew, I would've been there for you through it all. I swear."

And for some odd reason, my eyes began to sting, and I felt an undeniable urge to sniffle. My vision blurred, and water began to prick at the corners of my eyes. And then a traitor tear made it's way down my cheek, paving the road for the rest.

"I know Eddie, and I know now that I didn't have to do it all alone. I should've told someone, anyone . . . you. But I also didn't want anyone to get hurt. I couldn't lose another person, and as many times as I had come so close to the brink of being turned Strigoi. . . . Eddie, I don't know if anyone else could've made it through all of that. It got so bad. I got so bad. You just don't know."

He paused in rocking me gently back and forth to tilt my chin up, willing my eyes to meet his. "Then tell me, Rose."

I sniffled. "I was going let him do it, Eddie. I wanted to make him so happy. And I wanted to be with him forever, just like he said. He wanted to turn me, and I was going to let him do it."

Eddie pulled me back to him as the tears started fresh. "It's okay, Rose. I understand. No one's condemning you because you were tempted to spend eternity with the man you loved. What matters is that you were strong, so strong, in the end. You didn't go through with it."

I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. "No," I murmured. "I didn't. I couldn't. . . . I had asked Dimitri so many times why he wanted me there, with him. And every time, he said it was simply because he wanted me. Every. Time. And I couldn't figure out what it was that felt so off about his answer. Until I realized that the real Dimitri would've said it was because he wanted me . . . because he loved me. The Strigoi Dimitri never meant it like that. He wanted me like a possession." I said the last part in a flat, unemotional voice. The hot tub suddenly felt ten degrees cooler.

"But that wasn't Dimitri. It was the Strigoi. But Rose, now we both know that Belikov, the real one, is still there. How do we save him?"

I told him about Oksana, and her ring. I told him about how when Dimitri held it, he acted so much like his old self that it had to have been real. And then I told them about the fairy tale that her and Mark had told me, and how Robert Doru thought he restored a Strigoi to life.

"That's great!" he burst, grabbing my hand with his. "Now all we have to do is contact him!"

I shook my head. "We can't. He went crazy, can barely hold a conversation, and he's out in hiding somewhere. Only his half-brother, which is Victor Dashkov, might know where he is, and he said as long as he's locked up he'd die before giving me that type of information."

Eddie had been staring off into a corner of the Jacuzzi while I'd been talking. "So," he mused, "that basically implies that if we get him out of jail, he'll offer up the info."

"Yep. And who's to say he'll even give it to us after he's out? He can't be trusted after what he did to Lissa."

Eddie sighed through his nose, wrapping his arm back around my shoulder. "Well right now, we're in a Jacuzzi, enjoying each others' company before classes resume again on Monday, so let's not waste this time. We have tomorrow to think about the rest." He smiled at me. "I really am glad you're back, Rose. I hope you'll think about bringing me with you the next time you go on a vigilante quest though. I never get any action inside the Academy's walls."

I laughed. "Next time I run off, I promise I'll invite you along, if you still want to come with ."

We sat there in silence for a while, watching the bubbles our feet kicked up when we moved them around in the bottom of the tub, taking pleasure in the comfortableness our friendship had, and how we could sit there in each others' arms and feel totally at peace, and not awkward or like we had to add romance to make the moment complete. We were just friends, with a sister-brother bond. No romance anywhere involved.

And then a question came to mind.

"Eddie," I began. "When I came back to the Academy, you were nowhere to be found. Where were you?"

Eddie went deadly still.

I nudged him. "Eddie?" I tried to crane my neck to look up at him, but he just ducked his head and tightened his hold around me.

I began to struggle. "Eddie, I'm serious. Where were you?"

"Ah. . . ." Eddie cleared his throat. "Let's just say I had to meet some guys."

Okay, you guys may think the ending sucks, or is confusing, and I totally understand. If you haven't gone to one of Richelle's book signings for Blood Promise, I'd expect you to be lost. But I went to one with my friend about a month after it came out, and someone asked her where Eddie was in the book, because they never mentioned him. She said (and forgive me, I can't remember her exact words) something about him being involved with these Mafia-type gangster guys, and that Spirit Bound would explain everything about it. Sadly, though, this was a one-shot, so there won't be another chapter. I figured it wouldn't be wise since I wanted this to stay accurate to the book, kind of like a scene from about a week after Rose returned. I don't know what happened with Eddie and the gangsters, so that's why I ended it this way. Hope you liked :)
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