The accident & the snowstorm (A VA fanfic)

Seven

RPOV
A knock on the door woke me from my slumber. Through the bond I registered Lissa's shock at who had arrived.

"Morning, Princess. Is Rose here?"
"In here, Comrade!" I sleepily called as I wrestled to escape my sheets and blankets. "Lissa, let him in," I told her when I realised she was still standing at the door, frozen.
You're still in pyjamas, she argued through the bond.
"He sees me in my workout clothes, I think he can handle a set of flannel pjs."

Dimitri looked uncomfortable at being the topic of discussion. Lissa backed down and let him in. Dimitri turned to Lissa, "Lissa, would it be possible for me to speak to Rose in private, please?"
Rose? she asked through the bond.
"I'll tell you later, Lissa," I promised. I hoped I wasn't making a mistake and had to lie to her, because I suspected Dimitri wanted to talk about... our, hmmm, personal problems.
"Be back soon," she said and left.

"I got your message," Dimitri smiled and wrapped his arms around my waist then guided me back to the bed.
"And?" I asked nervously.
"I'll do what I can to help," he swore honestly. "I was always staying and now I'm going to ensure you aren't expelled. I'm going to fight harder than before to ensure you graduate."
"But Lissa?"
"My mother came up with a few solutions to that problem."
"You told your mother!" I squeaked.
"You're carrying my child, Roza, her grandchild. I didn't register what I was doing until I heard her voice. And she did come up with some good suggestions. One is me getting reassigned after grad. The next was getting a desk job and being permanently at Court. Or I could quit to look after the two of you- don't look at me like that! Out of the two of us, if only one could be a guardian it should be you."
"But we need you," I cried into his shoulder, automatically letting the plural slip, "and you need to guard. I want you guarding Lissa. I'll guard Court, you guard her. I'll be seven months pregnant by grad!"
Dimitri's arms held me firmly to him as he ran a hand through my hair. "If that's what you want, then I'll go with it," he murmured softly into my hair. "Because I love you two so much, so, so much."
"We love you too, Daddy," I whispered into his chest and his breath caught. I could just see how great he would be as a dad and it made me love him all the more. Because I was scared shitless of becoming a Mom.

DPOV
Daddy. It was official. Rose really did want me in our baby's life as his or her father.
"Mommy," I whispered.

It was all so surreal, so fragile. Two weeks. She was only two weeks in, but we were talking as though she only had two weeks left. In our world, by two weeks gestation it was the same stage as four weeks human gestation... then it evened out to an identical rate of development. It was an evolutionary protection mechanism. It was difficult for Moroi and dhampir to fall pregnant, but once they did, nature protected itself the best it could. No one was supposed to know until three months in, but in our world, that just wasn't realistic. At the very least, Alberta and Kirova had to know. And soon.

That soon came far too soon. I didn't want to tell them, I didn't want to spill Rose's secret without her permission. But she'd put our unborn baby's life in danger, and for his or her sake, I had to. I was scared for Roza, but petrified for our baby.

"Petrov, can I speak to you in private? Now."
Alberta looked stunned at the authority in my question. She didn't look annoyed... yet. She nodded and led me to the next room over.
"We need to find them in the next 6 to 10 hours, because if they're captured that's as long as Rose can safely go without food or water."

Alberta'sPOV
What on earth had gotten into Belikov's head? And why was it only Rose that could go for such a short time without sustenance? What did he know about her that we didn't? Okay, stupid question, I knew there was a lot about her he knew that no one else did. Then I truly read the panic in his eyes. He'd been scared for Rose and the others, but now I noticed he was terrified for her... petrified even. And that told me all I needed to know. It was the look of a desperate father, the natural instinct to protect one's next generation mini-me.

"She's pregnant?" I asked, working hard to hide that I knew he was the one responsible for the fact. No matter how physically and biologically impossible it's supposed to be I knew he was the only one possibly responsible. He was radiating I'm an extremely worried lover and expectant father, and it was a wonder no one else spotted it.
He nodded. "Yes."

I had a feeling he wanted to spill more, but he valued her privacy too much... and his own arse, but this I could tell was more about her privacy. He wasn't about to tell me, his in America and her in-general mother-figure, when she'd had-illegal-sex.
"This will stay between us. For now."

I thanked god it was only two hours later Adrian Ivashkov had found the runaways. I took a moment of guilty delight at seeing Dimitri's jealousy and envy. Ahh, Rose Hathaway, you truly are fit for him... especially if you and anything about you makes him lose control of his emotions. Which tended to happen every time she ended up in the infirmary.

We found them and entered the house just as Rose was staking a male Strigoi.
Six hours after I found out she was expecting. "Rose, get here, now," Belikov bellowed the order the second she removed the stake. He didn't move from the sun while we spread through the house in a trained manner and Rose reluctantly went to him.