"Oh, Rose!" Olena exclaimed as she danced over to the dining table like Mary Poppins, two stacks of plates balanced delicately on the palms of her hands. "Paul got you, good! Did you wash up?"

Rose glanced back at the lady, reluctantly peeling her gaze from the horizon, sleeping on the other side of the glass window wall.

"Yes," she said. She counted out the plates Olena lay on the table, and then the forks, knives and spoons. Eight dishes, 24 pieces of cutlery. "Will you have guests for supper?"

Olena shook her head and smiled. "No, my dear. My son and daughter are dining with us tonight. They'll be pleased to finally meet you."

Rose attempted a smile, and turned back to the window. "I can't wait to meet them," she murmured, though she wasn't fooling anyone, least of all herself.

"Can you pass the peas, please," Sonya said, from her throne at the end of the table. Sonya, Rose had learned, was bitter, and self-righteous and closed minded- qualities that each foster parent passed had possessed, as had a majority of the girls in the homes. And Sonya was so unwelcoming, speaking not a word to Rose but the child of the house, surely with the knowledge that it would get back to Rose again. And it did.

"Hey," Sonya yapped. "Rosie. The peas, please."

Rose glanced up from her plate, and met Sonya's eyes. Big, round and brown, the eyes of the other Belikova's.

Alienating.

"Rose," Rose glared, as the slam of a front door sounded down the hall. "I don't like Rosie."

Sonya's jaw locked, and when she spoke, her words were laced with superiority.

"Fine then, Rose. There's no need to look so hostile. After all, you are a guest in our home- however was I supposed to know what name you preferred?"

Rose exhaled sharply and dropped her folk.

"Thank you for dinner, Olena," she said, ignoring the giants that now stood in the doorway- the son and daughter, possibly. "I'm not hungry."

Sonya, oblivious to the tense silence around the table, hurried to her feet as Rose did.

"So you're not going to eat the dinner my mother made for you, now? Boy, you really know how to outstay your welcome."

Rose grimaced, and tried to ignore Olena's apologetic eyes as she collected her cutlery together on her plate.

It was merely a whisper, but it was loud enough for Rose to hear as she shoved past the giants in the doorway.

"Ungrateful brat."

And Sonya hadn't been the one to say it.

Thank you to the two reviewers of chapter one!

If you're sweet and review chapter two then Dimitri will introduce himself in chapter three.

I don't own the characters, only the plot. And the dialogue etc.

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