Hope is a Four Letter Word - Complete

Chapter Nine

Looking at the thick letter in his hand, Dimitri ran his finger across where Rose had written 'Guardian Belikov.' That, alone, spoke volumes. He would have expected 'Dimitri' or perhaps even 'Comrade.' Her use of his formal title somehow seemed significant. Maybe it was a letter filled with recrimination and bile? If it was, it was no less than he deserved. He'd told her he'd be there to help her with the darkness, and mere days later he walked away.

He'd told himself he'd left to save her career and reputation, but he knew he'd left because he was gutless; not man enough to tell everyone to go and get fucked – that he was staying with the woman he loved! It was a decision he'd regretted even as he was making it; even before he knew just how severe the repercussions would be. He could almost cope with the idea of Rose happy and living a life without him if that's the way it had to be. But this outcome was intolerable. He would never forgive himself for letting this happen.

Not knowing what to expect, or Rose's state of mind as she prepared to take her own life, he mentally prepared for the worst. Leaning back so Janine couldn't read over his shoulder, he carefully lifted the back flap of the envelope, pulling out a sheaf of three folded pages.

Comrade,
I left your letter till last because I know it will be the hardest to write. But now that it is time, I hope I can find the right words to say goodbye.

On Tuesday when you left it felt like you took a part of me with you. Because you're not just the one I love, you've become the one I share everything with. The one I trust with my hopes, thoughts, and dreams.

After you left, I thought about what you said. I've thought about it all week, and in the end, it comes back to 'we have no future together.' While I didn't understand then, and it's taken me a while to figure it out, I understand now, and you're right. To be a guardian you have to be able to devote yourself 100% to your charge, and loving each other would not allow us to do that. The prejudices of our world wouldn't let us do that. So that's why I hope in time you can grow to care for Tasha. That way you really could have it all. Love, a proper home and life in the human world, a family of your own; I want nothing less than everything for you. Because no matter how I feel about us, I want you to be happy. If anyone deserves it, you do.

I've been thinking a lot since you left. It's probably the first time I've stopped and taken any time to reflect since the crash with Lissa. It feels like I've been lurching from one disaster to another – running away, coming back, looking after Lissa, all the extra schoolwork and training, the Victor thing, Spokane, us. More than anything I'm tired. For a long time now I've done what everyone else needed me to do. I put them first. Well, I did until us.

The week we spent together was undoubtedly the best of my life. I've never known what it felt like to have someone love me so completely. So while it was short, while it had to end, I don't regret it. Not one bit. But you were right again there too. You said you had no idea how we were going to live with the knowledge of what could have been had things been different for us, and that's the thing. I can't. I don't want to.

Which leads us to here I guess.

I've been going outside the wards. It turns out I was right about Lissa's magic making darkness. Shadows I can and have been taking for her. That Newton guy said every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and he was spot on. Lissa's magic is hope and life, but the tradeoff is shadows of anger, despair and death. I think that's why they come to me – because I've been dead before.

It also turns out I can also see ghosts. I've been speaking with Mason. Now before you think I've completely lost it, I promise I haven't. I talked to Father Andrew about it, and he said spirits could stay up to forty days after the body dies, and I think that's what's happened with Mase. I was sitting outside the wards when I first saw him, and I've been visiting him every day since.