Guardian Angel

Summary: Rose and Dimitri make eye contact right as a Strigoi attacks him. Rose has an important decision to make: to live without the love of her life or to die with him. What will happen because of that decision?

~ Chapter 1 ~

I looked back at Dimitri and our eyes briefly met. In a millisecond, we passed hundreds of things between each other. We were so close to our freedom. I knew he said we wouldn't be together until after I graduated, but if his look was anything to go off of, neither of us were going to be able to hold back our love or our relief.

That's when the Strigoi attacked. Dimitri was taken by surprise and a Strigoi bit into his neck. I stopped moving and stared in horror. The whole beautiful future I had pictured had shattered to pieces. Dimitri still tried to put up a fight, but the Strigoi had taken a surprising amount of blood in a short amount of time. Dimitri was paler than I had ever seen him and had a slightly glazed look in his eyes. The Strigoi dropped him and Dimitri fell to the cave floor too weak to stand on his own. Stan and my mother were pushing me back towards campus. I couldn't go with them. I remember the look in his eyes and I made up my mind. We were going to be together. No matter what. I broke out of their hold, which was no small feat, and ran back to the cave.

I saw the blonde Strigoi lunge for Dimitri. "DIMITRI!" I screamed. A saw a little light come to Dimitri's eyes and he rolled over just in time. I ran into the cave not caring the slightest about my well-being. Seeing Dimitri like that renewed my energy and made me dangerous. I would take on any and every Strigoi that tries to hurt him. There was no doubt in my mind that we would either both survive this or would both die in this cave.

The blonde Strigoi bared his fangs at me. His earlier threat came back to me. If possible, that made me angrier. He was trying to take away the two people who meant more to me than anything else in the world. If I lost them, either of them, my life would be meaningless. Looking at the harm he caused Dimitri and the harm he wants to cause Lissa made me deadly. We both got a few blows in on one another, but I barely recognized the pain. He snarled as I was proving to be far more difficult to take down than he had anticipated. I finally I found my opening. I staked the blonde Strigoi. As the life faded from his eyes, I resisted the temptation to stick my tongue out at him or cheer that he was gone. We weren't safe yet. I pulled out my stake alert for any other threats. I was still nauseous so I knew there were still Strigoi alive and judging by the strength of my nausea, there were a lot of Strigoi alive.

Keeping a careful eye on my surroundings, I helped Dimitri stand up. I had to support a lot of his weight, which wasn't easy, because Dimitri was heavy! As we slowly made our way to the cave exit I looked towards the setting sun and realized with a jolt we might not make it back to the Academy. The sun was almost down, and while we were momentarily safe, I knew it was temporary. We were moving at a snail's pace. Gripping my stake in my hand, I urged Dimitri to move as fast as he could. A soft moan escaped his lips. He was in pain. His eyes were half closed and a layer of sweat coated his forehead. It was taking everything he had to put one foot in front of the other.

His pain gave me strength. I was determined for both of us to get there safely. Clearly someone wanted us to be together if they got us this far. I figured they would be able to get us the remaining half mile to the Academy. Dimitri suddenly went slack and I nearly collapsed under the sudden burden of his weight. I slapped him hard. His eyes flickered and opened slightly. "You do not get to go to sleep yet," I said harshly. I was terrified that if he closed his eyes he wouldn't open them again. I began to move again, practically dragging Dimitri behind me. I suddenly felt as if Dimitri were as light as a feather. We were so close. Only a few more feet and we would be inside the wards. I was so proud of the distance we had come. I could see several guardians right inside the wards. They would not come to help us and I didn't blame them. But I was grateful that it gave me an idea of how much further I had to go.

I saw the look of horror on one of the guardian's faces before I felt the nausea. I saw a Strigoi out of the corner of my eye. Without hesitation, I let Dimitri fall to the ground. I wasn't going to be able to fight off Strigoi and support Dimitri's weight. The Strigoi wasn't expecting me to react so quickly. I dodged his punch and got in a well-aimed kick to his knee. He barely faltered and before I had a chance to dodge him, he managed to get a kick in to the side of my stomach. All of a sudden I was having difficulty breathing. I didn't know what he had done, but I knew something was undoubtedly broken.

Knowing I needed something to distract him, I did something very childish. I pointed behind him, faking a face of shock and fear, which given the circumstances wasn't that difficult. What surprised me was that he fell for it. He looked behind him, which gave me the window I needed to stake him. He turned around the split second before my stake pierced his heart, his face full of horror as he realized that I was the threat he should have never turned his back on.

"Dimitri!" I yelled. There was no patience or sympathy in my voice. Dimitri would have been nicer, but thus far being harsh has done more to motivate him to move than being nice had. "Get inside the wards! Move! You can do it!" I threw in that last bit so that I wouldn't come across as a complete bitch. He had been through a lot. Clearly being mean was the best method for reaching him as he began to slowly crawl towards the wards. There were only about thirty feet between us and the wards, but there might as well have been an entire football stadium between us. We were moving so slow. Three Strigoi suddenly appeared and my fatigue hit me. These last twenty four hours had been impossibly difficult and I could feel my body giving up. I forced myself to keep moving, blocking, and attacking despite my protesting limbs. I knew I wouldn't be able to take on all of them, so I mostly stayed on the defensive protecting both myself and Dimitri. I knew the exact moment we passed over the wards, because the Strigoi stopped following us, and the guardians swarmed towards us. We made it. We were both safe.

Dimitri was immediately rushed to the clinic, and I refused to leave his side. I don't care if anyone figured out that he was more than my mentor. After everything that just happened, something as minute as a student-teacher relationship scandal hardly mattered. What mattered is that the impossible had happened. We had both survived. I couldn't bear to leave his side. Lissa and Adrian were in the clinic, helping out where they could. I saw Adrian shoot me a relieved half-smile, but I couldn't return it. Not until I knew Dimitri was okay. Almost as if he sensed this, Adrian elbowed Lissa and motioned towards us. Lissa practically ran towards us, her eyes assessing me to look for injuries. I didn't give her the chance to ask.

"Please Liss. Please fix him…" I begged the moment she was within ear shot. I never once took my eyes off of Dimitri. I had never seen him so pale. He had lost a lot of blood.

"I'll try. But Rose there's only so much I'll be able to do. I've done a lot of healing today." She warned me. She was still clearly taking in my own injuries. I wonder what she was seeing. I had a sharp pang in my stomach and my head was a little foggy, but other than that I felt fine.

"Anything you can do. Don't worry about me, just fix him. Make his pain go away." I begged. I felt it through the bond. Pieces of the puzzle started to fall together. She realized I cared for Dimitri as more than a mentor. Several things flitted through her mind – how far had we gone? Were we in love? How long has this been going on for? I could feel that she was going to ask me about it, but I stopped her. "Later Liss. Please just help him."

She nodded at me and got to work on Dimitri. She healed his major injuries, leaving him with a sprained wrist and a lot of bruises. She turned on me. "Your turn." She told me.

At first I thought she meant that it was my turn to talk about Dimitri, but then I realized that she wanted to heal me. "Oh no, Liss. I'm fine. Don't worry about me." I put as much Rose Hathaway bravado into that statement as possible.

"Rose." Lissa said giving me a look that said quite clearly she wasn't buying it. I sighed and lay down on the cot next to Dimitri's. She scrunched up her forehead as she got to work on me. She healed my broken rib and did something that made the fogginess in my head go away. I wouldn't let her heal anything else. The bruises and cuts would be gone in no time and she didn't need to use anymore Spirit on me. I could feel through the bond that she was dying to ask me questions about it, but that she wanted to let me rest.

"We'll talk later," I promised her. After she left, I looked down at Dimitri. He had fallen asleep right after Lissa had finished healing him. He looked so peaceful asleep, like an angel… no like a god.