“Feels a little weird to be back doesn’t it?” Alec contemplated, half to himself and half to Dimitri, who stood beside him. It was a miracle that he had gotten his best friend to leave Lou’s side for even a second but he had Rowan to thank for that. “Every thing seems so different now.”

Lou couldn’t believe that she had never taken him here before. Okay well she knew why, the not-so-secret secret hookup passage was kind of gross and she had standards when it came to her hookups. But it was also private with no risk of any roomies walking in and yelling at them so it had some, if only a few benefits. There was a smell in the air that she couldn’t identify but she made the conscious choice to ignore it for now and she had to duck her head to avoid her hair getting covered in spiderwebs. A glance around told her that thankfully no one else had had the same idea for an afternoon delight. “So,” she turned to Dimitri with a smirk on her lips. “Come here often?” 

There was a purpose behind everything that Cora did and inviting Dimitri to her office for a drink had one. Was it a little unethical? Perhaps but granted that he was far over the legal drinking age in the United States and close to graduation she didn’t think that she would get a slap on the wrist from Laura over it. “What’s your drink?” she asked him, gesturing to her bar cart. She of course kept it fully stocked with only top of the line liquors. “I always prefer a whiskey neat myself.”

A miracle had happened in the fact that Alec had been able to wrangle Dimitri away from Lou for even a second and he knew that he couldn’t waste a moment that he had before his friend was running back to her side. “Should we cheers to surviving?” Alec asked as he held up his beer. Or was it an odd thing to be cheering to making it through a year of murders and Brotherhood and other various moments of chaos. “Or maybe something less dark?” 

The first Lou registered as she woke up was the pounding in her brain. It felt like someone was using it as a punching bag and because of it she couldn’t go back to sleep, no matter how much she tried. Pictures of the night before flashed through her mind: drinking, dancing, more drinking, kissing at midnight, a little more drinking, coming back to Dimitri’s dorm...And looking up Lou realized that that was where she still was. Thankfully none of roomies were in sight. “Dima?” Lou called out with a groan as she collapsed back down onto the pillow. “If you get me some coffee and some ibuprofen you can do whatever you want to me.”

In her fantasies, things went much differently. Instead of Roseville, it was somewhere exotic and beautiful like Prague or Dubrovnik. Instead of Roseville’s one little, sort of dingy Irish pub the place was sleek and modern and sexy; there was nothing sexy about this pub. And instead of being an undefined hangout, it was an actually date. But Lou would work with what she had. She nursed a glass of mulled wine as she waited for Dimitri, trying to keep her leg from bouncing too much, a nervous habit that she couldn’t get rid of.  When a familiar head of dark hair appeared in the mirror behind the bar, Lou buried down all the butterflies in her stomach and spun around on her stool, crossing one leg over another as she did (it made her legs look especially good in her skirt and tights) and drawing a smirk up onto her lips. “Good afternoon Comrade,” she said in Russian before switching back to English. “Glad you could make it.” 

It had been like this for the past few days. Every time Bash or Dimitri would look at him or when they came back to the dorm after seeing Lou or Nudge he could see the slight pity in their eyes. Yes Mimi had left and yes he was sad about it but he didn’t want his friends acting weird around him because of it, even though he knew that they meant well. “Guys I’m fine,” he insisted as they all sat down in the dining hall for something to eat after their workout. “Really I am, okay?”

It was a perfect day. So perfect that Lou almost didn’t believe it was real. The sunny was out and it was warm, but not hot, with a slight breeze in the air. It was almost the earth was saying sorry your last party sucked so here’s some great weather to make up for it. Lou closed her eyes and took a deep breath, taking in the scent of the cherry blossoms. All of this was making her dangerously soft and when she opened her eyes she looked down at Dimitri with a smile. She knew that their perfect days like this were numbered so she had to enjoy this one. “Your fingers still hurt?” she teased as she laid her down onto his chest. She had probably made him take around 500 photos, both of just her and then of the two of them in the blossoms. “And don’t you dare sneeze on me.”