What if Dimitri didn't make it to Rose in time when she was attacked by Natalie? What if he got there too late and Rose breathed her last breath? For now. Go through what both Dimitri and Rose feel as she takes her last breath. Dimitri could have done one hundred things differently, but he knew he may already be too late to fix it all.

So far, it's a one-shot. But I might change my mind depending on how smoothly things go with how you guys like it. I'm really going to depend on you to determine this short story's fate. No pressure. (:

Anyway, this is called "What If". The beginning parts comes directly from the end of the first book, so if anything looks familiar, that's why. I changed a few things and put my own words in. By time it gets to Natalie attacking Rose, it's mostly mine.

Well, I hope you all enjoy.

What If…

Rose POV

Four days. It's been four days since I've so much as seen Dimitri since Lissa's kidnapping ordeal. His avoidance was annoying as well as very…hurtful. I wanted so bad to talk to him about what had happened that night, but I couldn't when he avoided me at every turn – cue the annoyance.

Finally, I ran into him at the gym. I came back for a gym bag and froze when I saw him, unable to speak. He started to walk past then stopped.

"Rose…" he began after several uncomfortable moments. "You need to report what happened. With us."

I'd been waiting a long time to talk with him, but this wasn't the conversation I had imagined. "I can't do that. They'll fire you. Or worse." I thought about it for a moment. "If you want them to know then it'd be your word, not mine."

"They should fire me. What I did was wrong."

"You couldn't help it. It was the spell…"

"It doesn't matter. It was wrong. And stupid."

Wrong? Stupid? I bit my lip and quickly tried to regain my composure. At the rate this talk was going I'd much rather he just punch me in the face. "Look, it's not a big deal."

"It is a big deal! I took advantage of you."

"No," I said evenly. "You didn't." I was hoping he'd pick up the hint that it wasn't just me that felt it – I know he did too.

There must have been something telling in my voice because he met my eyes with deep and serious intensity. "Rose, I'm seven years older than you. In ten years, that wouldn't mean so much, but for now, it's huge. I'm an adult. You're a child."

Ouch. I physically flinched, though I'm not sure he cared. The look on his face said it all. It would have been easier if he'd just punched me.

"You didn't seem to think I was a child when you were all over me."

Now he flinched. "Just because your body…well, that doesn't make you an adult. I've been out in the world. I've been on my own. I've killed, Rose – people, not animals. And you…you're just starting out. Your life is about homework, and chores and dances."

"You think that's all I care about?"

"No, not entirely. But it's all a part of your world. You're still growing up and figuring out who you are and what's important. You need to keep doing that. You need to be with boys your own age."

I didn't want boy my own age. I didn't say that. I didn't say anything.

"Even if you won't tell, you need to understand that it was a mistake. And it's never going to happen again," he added. "It only happened because of the spell, do you understand?"

The message – the rejection – came through loud and clear. Everything from that moment, everything that I believed so beautiful and full of meaning, turned to dust before my eyes.

Humiliated and angry, I refused to make a fool out of myself by arguing of begging. I just shrugged. "Yeah. Understood.

Taking advantage of the new found freedom Kirova granted for "good behavior", I made my way to where Victor was being held before school the next day. The Academy had honesty-to-goodness cell, complete with bars, and two guardians stood watch in the hallway nearby. It took a bit of finagling on my part to get them to let me talk to him. Even Natalie wasn't allowed in. But one of the Guardians had ridden with me in the SUV and watched me undergo Lissa's torture. I told them I needed to ask Victor about what he'd done to Lissa. It was a lie but the guardians bought it and felt sorry for me. They allowed me five minutes to speak and backed up a discrete distance down the hall where they could see but not hear.

Standing outside Victor's cell, I couldn't believe I'd felt sorry for him. Seeing his new and healthy body enraged me. He sat cross-legged on a narrow bed, reading. When he read me approach, he looked up.

"Why Rose, what a nice surprise. Your ingenuity never fails to surprise me I didn't think they'd allow me any visitors."

I crossed my arms, trying to put on a look of total guardian fierceness. "I want you to break the spell. Finish it off."

"What do you mean?"

"The spell you did on me and Dimitri."

"The spell is done. It burned itself out."

I shook my head. "No. I keep thinking about him. I keep wanting to…"

He smiled knowingly when I didn't finish. "My dear, that was already there, long before I set that up."

"I wasn't like this. Not this bad."

"Maybe no consciously. But everything else…the attraction – physical and mental – was already in you. And in him. It wouldn't have worked otherwise."

"You're lying. He said he didn't feel that way about me."

"He's lying. I tell you, the spell wouldn't have worked otherwise, and honestly, he should have known better. He had no right to let himself feel that way. You can be forgiven for a schoolgirl's crush. But him? He should have demonstrated more control in hiding his feelings."

"You're a sick bastard, doing that to me and him. And to Lissa."

"I have no regrets about what I did with her," he declared, leaning against the wall. "You've been kissed by the shadows. You've crossed into Death, into the other side, and returned. That's why you are so reckless in the things you do. You don't hold back your feels, your passion, your anger. It makes you remarkable. It makes you dangerous."

I didn't know what to say to that. I was speechless, which he seemed to like.

"It's what crated your bond, too. Most people can't pick up on what she's feeling unless she's actually directing her thoughts toward them with compulsion. You, however, have a mind sensitive to extrasensory forces – hers in particular." He eyed me. "Do you think Menneth is the only Moroi who follows me? The greatest and most powerful revolutions often start very quietly, hidden in the shadows. Remember that."

Odd sounds came from the detention center's entrance, and I glanced toward where I came in. The guardians who had let me in were gone. From around the corner, I heard a few grunts and thumps. I frowned and craned my head to get a better look.

Victor stood up. "Finally."

Fear spiked down my spine – at least until I saw Natalie round the corner. There was an unusual purpose in her movement that some part of me whispered wasn't right. She walked right up to me and – no exaggeration – launched me against the far wall. My body hit it hard, and black starbursts danced across my vision.

"What…?" I put a hand on my forehead and tried to get up.

Unconcerned about me now, Natalie unlocked Victor's cage with a set of keys I'd seen on one of the guardian's belts. I staggered to my feet, and that's when I saw it. The faint ring of red around her pupils. Skin too pale, even for a Moroi. Blood smudged on her mouth. And the most telling of all, the look in her eyes. A look so cold and so evil my heart nearly came to a standstill.

Natalie had turned Strigoi.

In spite of all the training I've received, all the lessons on Strigoi habits and how to defend against them, I'd never ever actually seen one. It was scarier than I'd expected. Feeling useless, I simply backed down the hall as she advanced on me, her movements far more graceful than they'd ever been in life.

Then, also faster than she'd ever moved in life, she leapt out, grabbed me, and slammed my head against the wall. Pain exploded in my skull, and I felt pretty sure that was blood I tasted in the back of my mouth. Frantically, I fought against her, trying to mount some kind of defense, but it was like fighting Dimitri on crack.

"My dear," murmured Victor, "try not to kill her if you don't have to. We might e able to use her later."

Natalie paused in her attack, giving me a moment to back up, but she never took her eyes off me. "I'll try not to."

"I can't believe you!" I yelled at him. "You got your own daughter to turn Strigoi?"

"A last resort. A necessary sacrifice made for the greater good. Natalie understands." He left.

"My father's a great man," she said. "He's going to save the Moroi from the Strigoi."

"Are you insane?" I asked. I was backing up again and suddenly hit the wall. MY nails dug into it, as though I could dig my way through. "You are a Strigoi."

She shrugged, almost seeming like the old Natalie. "One Strigoi to save all the Moroi. It's worth it, worth giving up the sun and the magic."

"But you'll want to kill Moroi! You won't be able to help it."

"He'll help me stay in control. If not, then they'll have to kill me." She reached out and grabbed my shoulders, and I shuddered at how casually she talked about her own death. It was almost as casual as the way she was no doubt contemplating my death.

She threw me into the wall again, and as my body collapsed in a heap on the floor, I had a feeling I wouldn't be getting up this time. Victor had told her not to kill me…but there was that look in her eyes, a look that she wanted to. She wanted to feed from me; the hunger was there. It was the Strigoi way. I shouldn't have talked to her, I realized. I'd hesitate, just like Dimitri said I would.

I had pictured this differently than what I was experiencing now. I thought – hoped, prayed – that Dimitri himself would come down the hall and save me, just like the knight in shining armor would for the damsel in distress. If you ask me, I'm not damsel, but it was quite a distress.

Suddenly, she advanced on me again, gabbing me by the front of my shirt and hoisting me over her head and into the cell door, the same cell Victor was in. I hit the bars with a sickening thud. I will say that at this point in time, I wondered why she didn't just snap my neck and get it over with. Most strigoi would have done that and moved on. I also realized that young Strigoi – meaning they had just been turned and hadn't had 'experience' in their new body – tended to get over confident and…play with their first meal.

Standing over me yet again, Natalie pressed her bare foot on my arm. I realized what she was going to do, but didn't get a chance to stop her. With the smallest turn of her ankle, her Strigoi strength was all she needed to snap my shoulder out of place. I let a horrible scream of agony escape my lips, but it hardly sounded like me at all. I never experienced the pain of the accidents I've been in because Lissa was always there to heal me, and Natalie knew this. Now, she wasn't here and Natalie wanted me to feel the pain I should have felt several times over. To feel the pain she probably felt when he forced her to change.

She kept beating on me, gripping hard around my neck to punch me in the gut. I'm pretty sure I heard a few ribs crack in the process. She continued to push me around the cell, letting me stumble for a second before picking me back up to hit me some more.

Feeling as though I wasn't hurting enough, Natalie pulled me to my feet again, this time by a chunk of my already knotted hair. The dead weight of my pained body made the pull hurt that much more. I yelped and flung my good hand to hers, trying and failing to loosen her grip.

"You will be the first obstacle to remove from my father's rode to peace," she spat, a sickening smile on her face. Her red tinted eyes showed anger and rage, all of which I expected from a Strigoi, but not from Natalie. She's not who she used to be, I had to remind myself. She will never be that sweet, shy girl that wondered the halls and that was Lissa's roommate.

He mouth grew closer and closer to my neck, making me squirm both in anticipation and fear. "You know, I never believed the rumors about Lissa drinking from you while you were among the humans. But now I see why she did." I could feel the point of her fangs on my neck. "Now I would like nothing more than to drain that beautiful fluid from you pathetic body."

Then, before I could let the scream that was built up in my throat go, her fangs plunged deep into the jugular in my neck. Though the scream was halted, a moan of pleasure erupted from my throat. I mentally slapped myself. I wasn't supposed to enjoy this. This is wrong! Come on, Rose. Fight it! But it was too much, the pure bliss was…intoxicating.

I felt darkness creep into my vision. I started to feel so weak I eventually slumped into the wall Natalie had me pinned against, my whole body going limp. I didn't feel the pleasure of the bite, or the pain from what I can assume is a concussion, a few broken ribs and a dislocated shoulder. There was nothing but that thick darkness…

Dimitri POV

"It only happened because of the spell, do you understand?" That one sentence alone felt like I was driving my own stake into my heart.

I could see the rejection and putter pain in her face as she just shrugged and said, "Yeah. Understood."

It was all lies, everything I said to her. Well, apart from the fact that it was wrong and should be reported. But I felt something, not just in the heat of the moment. Her soft skin under my rough, calloused hand felt amazing and I knew I'd never find anything to match how her body felt pressed against mine.

But she could never know any of that. I decided that was my punishment for acting like an animal to the most beautiful girl – no, woman – I'd ever seen, to act to dishonorably without cause. My punishment was to keep myself distant. To keep on eye on her, and the other on Lissa, but without her knowing.

I spent that night tossing and turning in my bed. For some reason I couldn't sleep knowing she completed everything that had to do with my life, including the empty spot perfect for her on my bed.

I pulled myself from the sheets and hit the gym. I stretched, ran a few dozen miles around the track, did cool-down stretched, lifted weights, hit the punching bags, more cool-down stretches… Nothing could get me to stop thinking about her, and that wasn't going to be a real problem when I needed to be at Lissa's guard during the school day.

I eventually showered back at my apartment, not daring enough to run the water too hot. I dressed in my usual attire – guardian uniform of dress shirt, black pants and my duster jacket. I went to breakfast, took over watch for the princess. She had asked if I'd seen Rose lately. I couldn't lie to her, so I presumed 'lately' meant within the last couple hours and said no.

I too thought it was weird that Rose wouldn't be with Lissa all day. Normally she'd be at Lissa's side before I would.

"Dimitri, do you mind if I go talk to Alberta?" Lissa asked, worry etched into her fragile-like features. "I want to talk to her about Rose."

I nodded and followed her and Eddie, who had been with Lissa when I met her at the feeders, toward Alberta's office. But before we could get half way there, Alberta came around the corner, looking in quite a hurry. I was immediately on alert when she saw me and sprinted toward us.

"Guardian Belikov." The urgency of her voice set me a little on edge. "The Guardians on duty at Victor's cell haven't checked in. All the other Guardians are taking care of protection detail. I need you to go check it out. I'll find other Guardians to send your way as soon as I can."

"Dimitri," Lissa suddenly said, worry in her voice again. "Rose…Rose might have gone down there this morning. That might be why she hasn't shown up yet."

Alberta looked from me to Lissa, and then back again. "Rose attack a fellow Guardian?"

I shook my head, though I was barely aware that I was doing it. Rose… Would she really do that? Or is she in trouble.

"I highly doubt Rose would do that, but there might be someone here. Someone that isn't welcome."

"I'll watch her," a voice came from behind Lissa. Eddie was standing and Guardian attention, looking ready for anything.

I held back a smile. He was like Rose and the complete opposite of her all at the same time.

"I'll watch Lissa and you look for Rose."

I was hesitant to accept his offer. I did want to find out where Rose was, but I also needed to stay focused on my duties. "You are not a Guardian, Castile. What if Lissa-"

"Lissa is fine," he interrupted, a hard look in her eye. "There's no danger here right now. We'll stay with Alberta and stick close. I may still be a student, but I know how to run when I need to."

Something Rose has yet to learn, I realized.

He was right. His logic was too sound; it would be stupid to argue. Lissa looked up at me with worried eyes, begging me to go.

Hesitantly, I nodded.

Alberta looked me in the eye. "Hurry to the dungeon cells; if she's there and in trouble, Dimitri…" She paused. I suddenly saw the motherly look in her eye that was ever present when she talked about Rose – in a nice way. I nodded again, promising to hurry.

I tore off down the halls as fast as I could, yelling for students and teachers alike to move out of the way. I cursed under my breath in Russian.

"Wait for me, Rose."

I turned the corner down the long staircase that lead to the holding cells. As I descended the stairs, I pictured Rose's body limp on the ground. I shook the thoughts away. As I grew closer, I could almost feel her spirit slipping away, and I couldn't think it was possible, because my Roza is strong. She had to be okay.

"Please be okay."

End.

It was supposed to be a one-shot, but I'm thinking about adding at least one more chapter. I'm going to tell you if Rose lives or not, but I'll say she's as surprised as anyone about the ending result. Dimitri may save her in time, but that'll depend on what you guys think. I like the idea of her not pulling through and meeting up with Mason and others who have died. We'll see.

Thanks For Reading! R&R

-Aly