RPOV
I woke Jenée at two for her toilet training run. And as I suspected would happen, neither of us could return to sleep. Why'd she have to be an early-bird like her father?

Deciding now was as good a time as any I got out of bed for the day and set about setting up the computer and re-activating my email account.
"Momma?" asked a too-awake-for-two-in-the-morning Jenée. I propped her up on my knee as I followed instructions and logged in. Jenée watched me work with awe and curiosity glowing from her brown eyes.
"Momma's setting up her computer and email, baby girl. Once I'm done I'll try find some food for you- your early-bird hours are going to cause issues with your meal times here, Princess Jenée," I teased lovingly and pecked her cheek. We might just have to resort to a certain mentor of mine for help with sourcing food.

Once I'd re-activated my email I noticed I already had two. One from Lissa and one from my so-called mother. As far as I was concerned I'd been more of a mother to Jenée in the past two and a bit years than she had been to me in seventeen and a half.
I opened Lissa's email first. I read it aloud to Jenée.

Hi, Rose,
So glad we've got our emails back! Hope the Princess named Jenée Hathaway is adjusting well and behaving for her Momma.
To Jenée, Aunty Lissa loves you and will see you soon.
Later,
Lissa.

"Love you, Aunty Lissa!" squealed Jenée. I couldn't hold my giggles in, which caused her to giggle too. She was so cute and innocent and all mine. She was one thing in this cruel world that was all mine. I created her, I gave birth to her and I had raised her so far- and I intended to keep that up, because this grotty school wasn't getting their grubby hands on custody of my baby Princess.

I quickly replied to Lissa's email. I made sure to reassure her Jenée was being her usual, well-behaved, early-bird self. At the end I made sure to add Jenée's response and signed it from both of us.

With dread and resentment pulsing through my veins I opened the one from Janine Hathaway. My mother. I wish I could add quotation marks around that sadly-true fact. I didn't read this one aloud. Jenée didn't need to know what an ass her mother's mother is.

Disappointed. What you did was selfish and inexcusable.
~ Mom

Love you too, 'Mom'. I sighed before deciding to write a reply along the lines of 'get stuffed'.
"Okay, Momma?"
"Yeah, baby. Momma'll be okay. Your grandmother isn't much of a Mom."

Mom,
Mind your own business. Think before you judge- everyone has a reason behind their choices. Trust I have mine.
~ Rose (Your daughter)

I shot it off and then sent the screen to sleep. After ruffling through Jenée's and my meagre belongings I dressed her for the day and wrapped a robe around me to hide my pyjamas. With her by my side we went looking for food. Not finding any I decided to call in the big-guns. To get food this early I was going to need Dimitri's help. Apparently.

When the matron finally stopped giving me dirty looks she called Dimitri down. Five minutes later he entered and smiled at Jenée. "You need breakfast, don't you, Miss Jenée?"
"Pwease, Mr 'Mitri?" begged Jenée. Complete with puppy-eyes and quivering bottom lip.
"Are you sure she's your child, Rose?" teased Dimitri as he nodded at Jenée. "I'll see you and your Momma at training in fifteen with some food for you, Miss Jenée."
"Does she look like she isn't?" I retorted at his turning-to-retreat form.
"The gym in fifteen, Rose. Don't be late- and please be dressed appropriately." Don't be such a smug... Oh! Never mind. It's not worth it. I thanked the matron despite her original resistance and returned to my dorm.

To my surprise my mother had replied in the forty minutes it had taken me to fail sourcing an early-morning breakfast for Jenée.

What you do is my business- you're still my daughter. There's no good reason for kidnapping and endangering the last Dragomir. I'll be on campus by lunch to meet your "daughter".
~ Mom

I could just hear the venom coming off certain words. I counted to ten to stop from exploding in front of Jenée again. The image of her terrified face and clinging to Dimitri's leg yesterday popped into my head. I would not in any way make my own child scared of me ever again. She had the true monsters of nightmares to deal with in her future, her mother didn't need to be put on that list. Not when I loved her so damn much. Finally calm, I shut down the computer and got ready for training and the day. I also packed a Frozen themed back-pack full of Jenée's stuff to hand to Dimitri. Including colouring books and crayons.

"Mr 'Mitri!" squealed Jenée as she ran to where he was sprawled on the store-room floor with a book. His cowboy obsession. I teased him about it, but there was something... I don't know, something attractive and almost sexy about this renowned and worshipped battle-god's nerdy obsession. I seriously shouldn't be allowing those thoughts to invade my mind.
"Settle, Jenée. And careful with Mr 'Mitri's books." She had just sent his current re-read flying across the room while flinging herself into his arms and choking him in a hug.
A string of Russian came out of his mouth and he whispered what must have been a translation in her ear because she giggled.
"Really? Come! On! Comrade! She's my child, what gave you the idea you could teach her Russian without my permission?"
All he did was smirk at me with that earth-shatteringly sexy smirk before returning his attention to Jenée. It was at times like this when I really felt like if I wasn't careful around him- and he looked at me in any of the millions of ways that could make my heart stop and race- then I would one day be hit by traffic, because he was honestly that hot.

"What's the plan?" I asked as I dropped Jenée's bag next to him and mine across the room.
"Laps. However many you're up to." He didn't even look at me as he started the stopwatch with Jenée's help and set a breakfast out in front of her. A veritable spread of breakfast food. How on earth?
"I've lost my baby and my mentor," I muttered as I shook my head and exited the gym.

When I returned I was left to do core and strength work- alone- while Dimitri hogged Jenée. He'd fed her by now and was teaching her Russian. Maybe he didn't need a bag of stuff for babysitting her. Jenée was completely and absolutely contented and enraptured by the second language, engrossed in absorbing it. It didn't help matters that her brain was a sponge and she'd pick it up without hassles... well, without more hassles than any other Russian kid had learning their own language and English. I was going to have a bi-lingual daughter by the end of the day with the way Dimitri was going at teaching her like a bull went at a gate.

"I'm done. What next?"
Dimitri tossed me a text book. "Summarise pages 1 to 24. Then I've got a mini-quiz for you. Petrov, the Headmistress and the Councils want proof you're completing all the theory you've missed. Even if you picked it up in the real world they want to see you can follow and meet curriculum expectations. Starting back at Freshman term three."
It was too early in the morning for reading and quizzes but I forced myself to do the work; I had to prove I was worthy enough to be assigned to Lissa and graduate so I could properly support Jenée, after all. "Is that why the extra food? Group breakfast?"
Dimitri chuckled. "Nice try, Rose. Get to work." I'd forgotten how blunt and strict he could be. He was gentle about it but he didn't pull any punches when it came to anything duty related. "Grades won't bring him back, but focus will keep your girls alive, Roza." I noticed he was staring at the bangle. I went to slip it off but Dimitri's voice halted the action. "No, don't!"
"But..."
"Don't, Rose. It's safer on you. Don't remove it. He's going to live on through you... I'm making no sense..."
I brought the book with me as I chose to sit next to him. "It makes perfect sense, Dimitri. Well, at least to me. And that's all that matters." I brought my hands up to touch his cheeks and gently wiped away his tears with my thumbs. One warm hand of his encompassed my left wrist and moved it so he could play with the bangle.
"He had remarkable taste..."
I did a double take at his words. "You can't mean...?"
Dimitri shook his head. "I'll never be too sure, but the way he spoke about you after you left? I'm not so sure how purely familial his view of you was."
"That's just... awkward?"
Dimitri's sorrowful brown eyes searched mine as if looking for some kind of anchor. "If you saw what he left to you in his will, then yeah, awkward."
"Momma? Mr 'Mitri? Who 'he'?" Oh, baby girl. If only you could've met Ivan Zeklos.
"Your Uncle Ivan. He... went to heaven a couple of months ago. He was like a brother to Momma and Mr 'Mitri."
"You know how Aunty Lissa is your Momma's best friend? Well, your Uncle Ivan was mine. He was my Moroi like Aunty Lissa is your Momma's."
"Momma miss Uncle Ivan?"
"Very much so, baby girl. Very, very much so. But I think Mr 'Mitri misses him more."
"Not so much with you two girls around," admitted Dimitri with a sad smile and again choked back tears.
"Should we-"
"Don't even think about thinking about it, Rose. Back to theory or you'll be at school for another year."
"Must you know what buttons to push?"
Dimitri chose to ignore me and focus on teaching Jenée the Russian he won't teach me.

Two hours later I had knocked over three mini-quizzes and was allowed to take Jenée with me to the commons for breakfast. Dimitri had informed me he was going to keep quizzing me in the mornings until he had proof I had absorbed the theory and was ahead of my class. It meant they kept getting longer. The first one had been one multiple choice question, a short answer, and an extended paragraph: straight recall, basically. The second quiz had built on it and wanted me to link the concepts. The third had built on it again and wanted me to justify a link between the three concepts. Three questions had gone up to six, then up again to ten. The multiple choice and short response questions somehow got more complex as well. Whomever had written those quizzes was a meanie. I'm pretty sure that translated into the lone two Russian words I did know: Dimitri. Belikov. To think that was only the beginning of my torture! There was five quizzes for each term I'd lost. That was fifty quizzes minimum! Close to a month of sitting tests each morning. Yeah, he was going to make me feel the heat of missing so much specific training and school. I didn't doubt he'd be able to come up with so many different quizzes, none of which I would be able to flunk. None of them would give me easy points.

When I arrived at the door of my second period theory with Stan a stiff looking five-nothing guardian with cropped red curls stood there. I instinctively pushed Jenée behind Dimitri when I spotted her. There at the door to my theory class stood the one person I least wanted to see, the one I least wanted Jenée to meet. Janine Hathaway. My mother had made an appearance.

"Really? You couldn't help interrupting my class?"
"Hello to you too, Rosemarie. And I didn't think you cared about class seeing as you skipped two and a half years of them."
"Dimitri, take Jenée away."
"It's Guardian Belikov. Morning, by the way, and don't you dare listen to her."
"Morning, Guardian Hathaway. With all due respect, Jenée's movements are under Rose's jurisdiction." Dimitri turned and crouched to Jenée's level. "Do you want to stay with your Momma or come for a walk with me?"
Jenée looked between me, my mother and Dimitri and back again three times before deciding. She wrapped her arms around his neck. "You, Mr 'Mitri." She was far too cute sometimes. The way she had so immediately attached herself to him and how readily he had taken her under his wing made my heart ready to burst with love and joy.

"Rose?" asked Dimitri as he stood with her on his hip. She'd been practically glued there the past 24-36 hours.
"Momma?"
"Yes, Dimitri. And go on, Jen."
"Thanks, Momma."
"Ah, hold on just one second, missy." I tapped my cheek, "Where's Momma's kiss?"
She leant down and kissed my cheek. "Love you, Momma."
"Momma loves you too, Jenée." I returned the kiss on her cheek and then Dimitri led her away.

"How old is she?" Did that have to be the first question out of her mouth?
"27 months as of tomorrow. Anything else?"

I was going to put my foot into it, I could just feel it. Her next question was going to be the one I hated. Or did my mother even care? My own father seemed to be nothing more than a sperm donor and I had to wonder how 'Darwin' she'd gone when having me. She'd been twenty when I was born, and I'd thought that was old... until I'd had Jenée at fifteen while on the run. I was a child rearing a child and protecting my best friend from threats inside and outside the gates of the Academy.

"Who's her father, Rosemarie?"
"Does it matter?" It absolutely did, to me and Jenée it absolutely did. No one besides me and Lissa could know- not even her father. No one knowing mattered more than who he was in the first place. She now had her father-figure in Dimitri, even if she didn't realise it. That was enough for me... for now. I think.
"Of course it does! You're a child with a child, of course it matters!"
"So? I don't know my father!" I hissed quietly. "Nearly no dhampir does. Anyway, isn't that what we're supposed to do? Have babies to create more guardians?"
"Not without being one first. You don't have the life-experience for it!"
"Don't. You. Dare. Call. Jenée. An. It!" I growled out protectively. "In case you haven't realised, she's your granddaughter. But I can have that rectified easily enough. Just like you handed custody of me over to the Academy, I can have her connection to you dissolved. If you think she's that shameful and harmful to your career."

For once, Janine Hathaway looked taken aback. She hadn't been prepared for my verbal backlash. Honestly, I hadn't been prepared for it either. But she had completely ignored the fact Jenée; A) had a name, and B) was her own sentient being. I was an over-protective mother. I always had been and always will be. I have to be. For her well-being, I have to be this overprotective.

"You can't always coddle her, Rose."
"I'll always try. I have to always try."
"She'll be better off if you don't."
I scoffed. "You did that to me, and look what happened. Look at where we are now. Where were we when I was her age? Huh? She was born on the run and yet I've still managed to give her a childhood like Lissa had. She's only had me and Lissa until yesterday, but we've given her a sense of family despite it all." If only I could tell you about Jenée's father's family... If only I could tell her about his family. "I will always try to make sure her time with me is memorable for all the right reasons. I want her to know I love her no matter what."
"And what about when your job kills you? What happens to her then?"
"Then she has Lissa, Mason, and Eddie, even Dimitri. She'll know I loved her and did all I could to make sure she knew it."
"And what about her pain? Emotional connections are a dangerous game in the guardian life."
"Don't tell me what I already know. I know they can help or hinder. Pain is a part of life, but I'd rather she know I did my best and didn't let my age stop me from trying and loving her." Why was I even bothering trying to explain this to her? "I have class, Mom. If you want to play an active part in my and my daughter's life, stay and I'll properly introduce you two at lunch. But if you'd rather leave your reputation 'untarnished', leave, leave now and don't expect to be introduced to her if or when you return."