Disclaimer: Vampire Knight belongs to Matsuri Hino. I don't claim to have come up with the chapter titles myself, either. They are borrowed from song lyrics. I'll put the credit at the end of each chapter.

A/N: *sheepish smile* Well hello there everyone... I wonder if any of you remember me. Possibly not, as it's been something like four years since I last updated this story... I thought I'd abandoned it too. But here I am! And I'm planning to actually finish the story this time around. New chapters will be coming soon(ish) but first I've made some revisions to the older chapters. I haven't changed the story in any major way so if you've read the story recently and don't fancy rereading, that's fine. I've made a few additions here and there but you won't be missing very much :)

I also wanted to note that I've rated this story 'T' for the same sort of themes that come up in the manga, which was rated for older teens. So please be aware of that. If anyone thinks the rating needs to go up then please tell me. I'll put some warnings here now just in case. If you don't want to know what's coming then feel free to skip ahead. If you're feeling cautious then please take note that this story contains references to suicidal behaviour, some description of such behaviour, some violence (though I don't think there's much), blood and bite scenes (of course) and some foul language. If I think of anything else I'll add it to the list. If you'd like to read but are concerned about any of the content then please message me and I'll tell you which chapters to watch out for.

I hope that you'll enjoy it!

And when you want to live, how do you start?

The wind was sharp and cold against Yuki's unprotected hands and legs. It turned the tip of her nose to ice and blew her hair wildly about her face and yet she barely noticed it. Had anyone been looking they might have thought her a ghost in her billowing white dress. But no one was; she was alone. She moved as if in a trance, placing one foot lightly in front of the other, not feeling that the grass was soft and wet and cold against her bare skin. Her shoes lay forgotten at the doorway of her old life.

She walked until she reached the wall. There, as if purely by instinct (for some quiet part of her knew better than to think at this stage) her legs bent and, with a powerful leap, she reached the top of the high wall. As she dropped down to the other side it occurred to her to pick up speed and she began to move swiftly between the trees. She forced herself not to look back.

Yuki's dreams weren't usually so vivid. In fact, most of her dreams were no more interesting than her real life – they would be forgotten instantly; why should she bother remembering something so incredibly dull. But... sometimes there were dreams of adventures, of faraway lands, of friendships. And she clung to them as if her very life depended on those images of forests and meadows, mountains, cities... they were everything she had ever desired and to dream of them seemed the closest she could possibly come to really feeling what it was like to be out there in the real world. But like all dreams, as her eyelids opened and reality began to pull her back into its suffocating embrace, those treasured images would begin to slip through her delicate fingers. She did what she could to hold onto them, and could sometimes lie in bed for hours after she had woken, holding on to that imagined feeling of freedom – but it never lasted.

This dream was different.

This dream had filled Yuki's mind almost entirely in the last few months. It was impossible to forget. And it had returned to her so many times... always so vivid...

Yuki lived with her brother, Kaname. The only others around were the servants and a few trusted friends who came and went. Her feelings for her brother were mixed: love, admiration… envy… resentment… The last two only reared their ugly heads at times of extreme stress, usually caused by Kaname's overprotective manner. Yuki longed to see the world, really see it, not just from behind the tinted glass of a limo as she travelled to another ball or party. She wanted to know what the stars looked like in a place where no other lights could hide them. She wanted to feel snow crunch beneath her feet, to stand under a cherry tree as it rained blossom in the wind. She wanted to laugh as the petals caught in her hair. She couldn't, she wasn't allowed.

Yuki's existence had only been known to the world for a few years now and it was in that time that she had come to develop this desire to escape. Watching everyone else come and go with complete freedom was what did it. All her life she had watched her older brother with adoring eyes as he did what he pleased while she stayed at home, surrounded by love, but locked up and under constant supervision. Yuki never questioned it; she would be able to go out when she was older.

But she was older now and had anything really changed? Though Yuki was allowed her privacy at home, any rare trip to the outside world (usually to other mansions similar to the one she was imprisoned in) was conducted under the same maddening supervision she had endured as a child. She was suddenly introduced to other people living lives that were nothing like her own. Yuki realised her imprisonment was not normal. She began to ask questions, but her brother, though her pain saddened him greatly, would not budge on the subject. She was the 'Pureblood Princess', apparently that meant something.

Every endless day was the same, with no chance of change. The monotony wore on her...

The first time Yuki had the dream she had felt guilty. It was all well and good to wish for adventures, to want to see all of the places she had read about in books, but to dream of actually running away from home seemed wrong somehow. Yuki knew Kaname would be hurt if he found out. She didn't want that.

But every time the dream returned to her, Yuki became a little more obsessed. It had felt so real; she wanted to recall that feeling always. Freedom: how wondrous it would be to know it for the first time. It was worse on the nights after she had had the dream, when she refused to leave her bed, wanting to keep the tiniest details of the wind and the trees in her mind. But there were other times too, when she would space out while eating or some other mundane task and imagine herself packing her bags and stepping out of the front door or wondering where she would go.

But she knew she wasn't brave enough to really leave – the world was too big, to hurt Kaname like that would be too awful.

Yuki often wondered if Kaname knew what she was thinking about. That made her feel guilty, but it was too much to forget about. She kept dreaming and dreaming until it became too much to hide.

Kaname had, in fact, known from the beginning that something was wrong. Yuki always denied it, but she had become so absent minded... he knew she was hiding something. When he tasted it in her blood – saw the dreams for himself – that was when Kaname knew he could not ignore the situation any longer.

He arranged for Yuki to have some time away from home. He was sending her to stay with Headmaster Kaien Cross, an old friend of his. Yuki would stay with him at Cross Academy for a few months. Though she would not attend classes (after so many years spent in darkness, to spend whole days in the sunlight would most likely be too big a change for Yuki) she would have the opportunity to meet other people and there would be large grounds for her to explore in safety. Kaname hoped that this would be enough to keep her safe while giving her some of the freedom she craved.

Yuki could barely contain her excitement.

The sun was just beginning to set as Yuki left the Kuran Manor behind, this time in the back of a car and taking with her a suitcase and Kaname's blessing. Kaname was unable to come with her at this time because he had business to attend to elsewhere, but he had assured her that he would come to see how she settled in after a few days.

Yuki felt both loneliness and excitement as she sat in the back seat by herself. The light through the windows of the car reminded her of another journey she had taken with Kaname. How the delicate countryside had flickered past in the same way as they drove. She had pressed her face against the windowpane as she watched, wishing she could melt through the glass and float off through the trees. She had let out a soft breath and drawn a heart with her finger on the glass. In the distance, framed by her dusty breath, she had watched a bird floating, black against the pink glow of the evening sky. Yuki had told Kaname that she wished she could be that bird but he had simply gazed sadly at her from behind heavy lashes and said nothing.

Was this the first step in Yuki's wish coming true? Her world was expanding before her eyes, stretching out in front of her as she rose higher and higher on soft feathery wings. She felt as if she could fall at any moment, but it only added to the thrill.

Yuki opened the window all the way and the outside air greeted her with a force that closed her sleepy eyes and swept her hair back off her face. A shy smile formed on her lips. In the yellow haze of the setting sun behind her eyelids the world was still as beautiful as ever. Yuki could hear birds and smell the trees. She could feel the soft, cool wind against her skin. She had dreamed of these things while trapped in her lonely windowless room. Now, as the car carried her further from home, those dreams seemed more and more within Yuki's reach.

A/N: (Just one last ramble before I let you get on with the next chapter...) as you may have realised, the idea for story was conceived all the way back in 2010 while the original series was still ongoing. Because of this, there are certain revelations from the end of the manga that haven't been taken into consideration at all in this story. So I just want to be clear that in this AU Kaname has never had anything to do with Zero before the start of the story. So Shizuka found some other way of escaping from her cage to take revenge on the Kiryu's. It just doesn't make sense for it to have been part of Kaname's plan here, as without Yuki at the Academy there's just no motive for it. I'm not sure if there's anything else that needs to be overlooked, but that's the main thing that comes to mind here. Feel free to ask if you have questions about anything else.

Please review! I'd love to know what you think.

(chapter title from the boy with the thorn in his side – the smiths)