Chapter Text
Though loath to use a cliché, it was the same but different. She found herself outside Yang’s doorway once more, her feet carried her here with only minimal protest this time, but the door was ajar. Yang was on her bed as before but sitting up this time tinkering with the mechanical innards of her arm in the dim light of the setting sun. Blake stood, fixed to the spot, paralyzed by guilt and hope and despair, because despite the differences it was the same and it felt so much like a second chance that she was too afraid to take, an opportunity to take control of something, perhaps everything, and she was still. Caught in the difference between not running away and moving forwards. Wondering if she could do this alone, a chorus of loved ones telling her she didn’t have to, a glimmer of gold telling her that she never did.
“You can come in Blake.” Yang didn’t look up, and for a moment Blake wondered if she’d gotten louder in her self-imposed exile, or if Yang somehow could simply sense whenever she was close. “We should talk.” Of course it sounded simple when Yang said it. Blake pushed open the door and took her place by the desk, a reflection or perhaps the photo-negative but not a repeat, not if she could just be brave this time.
Silence stretched. “Does it hurt?” Blake’s eyes were fixed on Yang’s arm, technologically marvellous and beautifully customised and utterly unnecessary if not for Blake.
Yang tensed at the question but only for a moment, “Sometimes. I get pins and needles and phantom sensations where the nerves used to be.” She sighed and flicked the open panel closed screwdriver disappearing somewhere. “Mostly it just aches where they fixed it to the bone”
“I’m s-”
“No.” Yang looked up now her eyes still lilac but filled with chaotic intensity, a swirling storm of emotion. She gestured to her prosthetic, “This is not on you. It was his attack and my decision. You don’t get to take that from me.” Blake’s breath caught but Yang continued before she could retort. “I need you to believe that Blake, there’s enough between us without misplaced guilt.”
She paused at that, she held guilt closer than secrets after all, to let go of something so intrinsic, even if it was parasitic, might just be beyond her. But she would try. For Yang. For herself. “I wanted to explain.”
“Explain what?”
Blake’s eyes bored into the floor and words dried up as the enormity of what she wanted pressed down on her. When she spoke again it was barely a whisper. “Everything.”
She drew a shaky breath. No more secrets. “I met Adam when I was young, too young, I think, to understand. I told you before that he changed slowly but the more I think about it the more I wonder if that’s really true. Right from the start he used me. He hurt me and made me feel like my only purpose was through him, like I was worthless without him. And I believed him. I thought that he was right about everything. I mistook spite for justice, anger for strength and let him isolate me from everyone else till I couldn’t leave him because I had nowhere to go.” Her vision had blurred too much to make out Yang even if she had have had the courage to look at her, so that all encompassing warmth took her by surprise. She sunk into Yang’s arms, too distraught to remember that she didn’t deserve this, and let her partner hold her as treacherous tears fell from her eyes.
“That’s who I was.” She mumbled into Yang’s shoulder, arms still hanging by her sides not daring to return affection she had no right to. “When you met be at Beacon I was just pieces, trying to be better and maybe undo some of the damage I’d let him use me to do but never hoping.” Blake pulled back meetings Yang’s eyes even as the blonde's hands ran down her arms to take her own.
“You put me back together in a way I never dreamed possible. You and Ruby and Weiss and everyone else but you most of all. And then he...” Her eyes flicked around the room avoiding Yang’s gaze, she swallowed thickly. “He took away the only safe place I had despite all the security. He beat me and taunted me and I couldn’t do anything. He hurt you. He promised to kill everyone I love and I... I’d never seen him fail. I knew I couldn’t stop him, I didn’t think anyone could, how else could I protect you.” She knew she’d been wrong, missed something in the calculation and found the wrong answer despite all the agonising thought she’d put into the decision, but even now she struggled to see how, even now saying it aloud it still seemed like the only option, the least of the evils too great for her to fight or face. “I’m so sorry. I was alone, I didn’t know what to do, or even what else I could do.” At some point Yang had gently drawn her across the room and sat her on the bed, she drew her in now resting Blake’s head in the crook of her neck and rubbing soothing circles across her back. “I just needed you to be okay.” Selfishly she curled deeper into Yang’s warmth, too weak to stop herself taking comfort she’d long lost the right to.
“It’s okay Blake.” She tried to shake her head, dark hair further obscuring her face, but a warm hand cupped her cheek and brought her up to soft lilac, blurry through her own tears but still too kind. “It is.” A breath. Deliberate. Preparing for something. “I forgive you.” Preparing for everything. “I forgive you for leaving.” Shaky but certain and yet all Blake could feel was confusion.
“You can’t...” Could she? The full scope of Blake’s own guilt warring with her faith in Yang’s honesty.
“I can.” Yang spoke with a smile defiantly shining if a little dimmed by sorrow, the turned serious. “When you left I was so angry. But more than that I was scared. Scared that the problem was with me, scared that I’d never meant anything to you at all. That I was as worthless as my mother leaving made me feel. And I’m sorry, because I judged you, and I didn’t know.”
Years of slow betrayal festered in the back of Blake’s mind, unable to accept even a gift she’d so longed for, “Things can’t just be okay?”
“Of course they’re not okay. I trusted you Blake, I thought I knew you and I didn’t.” Her voice was quiet, much softer than her words, “And I want you back in my life because despite everything you’re my partner and I still care about you, but how can I do that? I’m tired of being hurt, of being left behind.” That note of defeat was in her voice again, and Blake would do almost anything to banish it, but she wouldn’t lie.
Blake lifted her head, she had to look into those eyes, needed her to know. “I want you in my life too. I wish I could say something, find the right words, so you could trust me but I don’t. I’ll try, with all of my heart, I want to promise you that I’ll never leave but this scares me too. I don’t know if I can gather that much faith in myself.” She broke their gaze, eyes falling but staying on Yang, taking her in like it was the last chance she’d have. “I’m not as strong as you.”
“I don’t feel strong.” Yang’s voice was slow, thick with emotion as if the words were dragged out of her. “I feel weaker than ever.” Blake’s eyes fell to her partner’s hand, it was trembling and guilt rushed though her again, “I’m afraid, all of the time.”
“But you’re still here.”
Yang nodded slowly, her cheek brushing Blake’s ear. “So are you.” The words are more of a challenge than an admission, Yang’s prosthetic slips from its place on Blake’s back and pulls her closer. “You’re so much stronger than you let yourself think. I always believed that. I still do.” Those last words a whisper but Blake hears it all.
“I don’t deserve that.” She was falling, so sure this was where she needed to be but still terrified, expecting at any moment for all of this to crumble to dust.
“Maybe not. But it’s true.” She had nothing to say to that, no further argument in the face of genuine belief. Yang had nothing to add either it seemed, she simply leant into Blake her head resting atop her partner’s as time lost its hold on them.
The sun finished its decent and plunged the room into darkness, faint pale light from the shattered moon the only illumination left. Yang’s body started to slump and Blake moved to lay her down, covering her with the blanket and making to stand. A hand stopped her, fingers cautiously but insistently intertwining with her own, and a voice, barely a whisper, somewhere between a plea and a question.
“Will you be here? When I wake up? Will you stay?”
And that was the heart of it really. The final question. The one that counted. And it wasn’t fair, like dangling her every wish in front of her and telling her it was as easy as facing her fears, to facing her failures and pain, knowing that it was something she could never do alone.
But she wasn’t alone. Not until she let go of that hand. And maybe with that warmth she could face it all. Maybe she could fight not just those trivial things, a world of prejudice and a man consumed by spite, maybe she could fight her own doubts and insecurities and self loathing. Crying and screaming all the while, weak and afraid and propped up by someone who inexplicably loved her but fighting all the same. Maybe that’s what strength looked like.
She stood firm. She ran forwards. She let go and embraced the fall.
She let Yang’s gentle grip bring her down and surrendered, the whispered word on her lips a promise, the only one that mattered.
“Always.”