A/N: 100 reviews and 110 followers! Thank you so much guys, it's really encouraging. You guys seemed to prefer the longer chapters so I'm going to stick to that. I am very bad at doing disclaimers, so I'm gonna do one for this chapter.

You know, for someone who prefers all human VA Fanfiction, I sure write a lot of vamp ones.

*Disclaimer: All content except the plot belongs to Richelle Mead*

Chapter 20: First encounters are coming

It felt like I was waiting for days and days for my mother to contact me again, I feared every time I left the room without my phone purely because I thought I would miss a call from her. Boy, did Alto get pissed when my phone went off in the middle of his lecture about tardiness, that was the day I learnt to keep it on vibrate from then on out. But alas every time it did ring and it wasn't my mother I was left drowning in my own feeling of disappointment and fear. I guess the fear came from the overthinking this whole situation.

The after school session with Dimitri was dreading on, because apparently three hours weren't over doing it, especially after two hours in the morning and a whole eight hours of school lessons. So after a few hits I laid on the floor waiting for the world to swallow me up whole. Dramatic, I know.

"Rose" I could hear the sternness in his voice which prompted a grin on my behalf, eyes facing the ceiling "Get up"

"I kind of like it down here" I shrugged nonchalantly, Lord, if this was any other teacher I would totally be kicked out right now. I patted the side of the mat next to me "Join me"

"What's wrong Rose?" I felt his weight shift to sit down next to me "You always try really hard in these sessions, you've never slacked once"

"I hate waiting" I groaned and everything after that just blurted out "I've been waiting ages for my mom to call me back but she hasn't, I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing. Has she found my father? Does he not want to see me?" I stand up to look him dead in the eyes "What if I'm not what he wanted? Or what he expected? How can I live up to my invisible father's expectations? Not just that though, what if he's not what I expect and he's just some lame loser who doesn't even care about me?"

Those were so irrelevant to what I was thinking right now but they were the questions swarming in my head. I really hadn't given much thought on this father subject, just the potentially getting kidnapped again and possibly get my best friend killed. Somehow that seems to take priority in my head.

"I'm over thinking this, aren't I?" I sighed and buried my face in my hands.

"Just a bit" I could hear the tinge of sarcasm laced in his voice "It'll go better than you think"

"How do you know? What if he hates me?"

"Anyone should be proud to call you their daughter and if they don't then they're missing out on a lot" he said with sincerity

"You think?" I smiled gently at him and he just nodded. I jumped and wrapped my arms around him, touched by the statement, and felt him stiffen under me.

"And you said I'll never catch you off guard" I teased, my mouth in close proximity to his ear and suddenly he relaxed just slightly with a small chuckle

"Well you certainly did a good job doing so" his face turned so that he was looking at me, I glanced down at his lips for a split second and back into his eyes. He cleared his throat and moved away from me. Damn it, Rose, you missed your chance.

"I think that concludes today's session" he cleared his throat awkwardly, again.

"Right. Yes. Sure" I stumbled slightly over my words, unable to say anything more than monosyllabic words. I did an even worse job reaching to get my bag, nearly tripping over my feet just to get there.

"Oh, fuck" I cursed as I jabbed my toe in the corner of a bench and grabbed my foot as the pain started to spread, jumping around the empty room like an idiot, it hurt like a motherfuc-

And then suddenly, my phone rang.

I checked the caller ID before doing so and the call I was waiting for had finally arrive, my mother's name lit up across the phone screen. But the funny thing was, for the first time in a long time I was hesitant in picking it up, what happened to all that desperation that I had not that long ago, I was now worrying and overthinking every small step, this was unlike me.

"Hi" I answered feebly into the phone, a large part of me wishing I had now rejected the call, would I be prepared to what would happen and would it change anything?

"I have set up a meeting but I was only able to get it done in Court, which might prove to be difficult" her voice strained slightly nearer to the end of the sentence

"How so?"

My mother was never the one for small talk, she got straight to the point.

"Because the less people who know about this, the better. And if we have you randomly flown out to Court then it might look a little bit suspicious to people, but I'm not entirely certain on what else to do" she admitted and I sucked in my breath suddenly "What?"

"I think… I think I have an idea. I'm going to have to get back to you though" and hung up the phone.

What I needed now was a royal moroi was crazed about shopping, enough to get me into Court for a special shopping trip. I think Lissa is now going to be a part of this team.

"Shopping, really?" she practically squealed into my ears and jumped around the room with happiness

"As a cover, yes" I got up and placed my hands firmly on her shoulders so that she would stop jumping up and down which was starting to give me a headache. "Lissa, this is serious, I need to meet my father but I really need this shopping trip to happen which means that you are going to have to convince Kirova that you really need to shop with me" She nodded her head in response

"I have just the plan" Lissa said seriously, "I am in fact very good with fake tears and" her tone started to change "have so much to catch up on with my best friend who went missing" her fake tears started to run down her face "and I really want to spend more time with her"

"Brilliant" I gleamed and hugged her "Thank you so much"

"Any time to use my acting skills, that semester of drama really is paying off now, and you said it was a waste of time" she stuck out her tongue as she pulled me out of the hug

"Okay, okay it wasn't Oscar award winning, calm down" I rolled my eyes "Alright you go do that and I'll go prepare myself for my bit"

"I'll be back in a sec" she ran out the door but before leaving she poked her head through for one last word of advice "He's gonna love you, if he doesn't he has me to face" and she put on a faux angry face which made me double over in laughter.

I love my best friend.

A/N: I feel like a zombie right now. I so much work to do and I've only had time to write in my break at the moment since I don't have work OR school right now. This was so much shorter than I wanted it to but physically I couldn't write any more than this and what I did write was just so shit. Hopefully, I will get out of my funk sooner than later.

I was way too sarcastic in this

Anyway, Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all of my lovelies *kiss*