Chapter Text
It’s past midnight, and the floor is cold.
Weiss sighs and fidgets in her itchy blanket. Curse this snowstorm. Curse this blasted house. Curse whoever thought that Atlesian high fashion, in her one year of absence, should be changed to become some sort of thin shimmery silk synthetic.
The thick wool that Blake had draped over her shoulders provides a welcome barrier against the environmental frost, but, if Weiss is honest with herself (and she’s trying to be, she truly is) - it can only do so much against the chilling terror in her heart.
Two corpses, dead and black and cold and still, as if the entire town had fallen asleep and never got back up.
Shivering, Weiss puffs out a breath, and rubs her hands together. But she knows that the action won’t help. Much like the way just sipping hot coffee hadn’t helped whenever her father lashed out.
What she really needs right now, is some measure of emotional comfort. However, the person in her trust who usually doles out such is…otherwise preoccupied.
Frustrated, Weiss wriggles again, and imagines pressing her cold fingers into Ruby’s neck. Her partner is hiding something. Ever since they’d met up in Haven, Ruby Rose has been tight-lipped about her emotional state. Practically clammed up. A flower hung out to dry, its petals falling off one by one, slow enough that only those truly observant can notice their numerical decline.
Maybe Ruby’s constant smiles and bubbly laughs are good enough to fool Team JNR, Qrow, Oscar and even the other members of Team RWBY, but they can’t deceive her partner.
Weiss knows what it’s like to hide.
Unfortunately, the red-caped girl has been resistant to all efforts to initiate a heart-to-heart. Always dashing around, flitting from one new task to the next. The ex-heiress recognises all of this as an avoidant coping mechanism, and while she disapproves…she knows that she cannot begrudge the other girl the last bit of control that she has over her life.
So instead she waits. Plays “tag” and brings coffee heaped with blasphemous amounts of cream and sugar.
Hopefully, one day, all of this waiting will be worth it.
Grumbling, Weiss turns onto her side, expecting to see the source of her vexation sprawled over the couch, hair in her mouth and mouth trailing a stream of drool, but instead, she sees…an empty couch.
Where’s Ruby.
(More than Atlas, more than Salem, more than the hopelessness of their can’t-actually-save-the-world situation, Weiss worries about her partner.)
Jumping to her feet, the duellist scans the room.
Quickly, she spots Blake and Yang, curled up by the glowing ashes. Oscar, wrapped in a blanket cocoon. Maria, leaning over the side of an armchair, whirring mechanical eyes closed shut.
A clink, and a thud, and Weiss whirls around to see Qrow still lounging by the parlour window. The number of bottles beside his rocking chair has doubled from two to four now, and his usually sharp eyes are bloodshot and bleary. Weiss grits her teeth, and tries to resist the urge to send a propulsion glyph to sweep out his drunken feet.
Adding onto Ruby’s plate he may be, but the man is going through his own problems right now.
“Where’s Ruby.” Weiss demands, her voice clipped. If the haggard man had truly been keeping watch instead of just drowning himself, he would know where her partner is.
Blinking, Qrow jabs an unsteady thumb towards the stairs leading to the sub-basement. Weiss gives him a curt nod of thanks and turns on her heel. She tries not to wince when the smell of stale alcohol wafts past.
Even after charging down the steps, Weiss still doesn’t spot the person she wants. The area appears empty, and the lamps aren’t lit. Clutching the blanket close to herself, she draws breath to create a small illumination glyph, but a flash of movement in the wine room makes her snuff out its light.
Heart pounding, Weiss draws her rapier. The face of the corpses is once again brought to mind and they scream warning bells louder than a klaxon. Keeping her steps silent, she creeps towards the entryway and holds her blade out before her, dust chambers at the ready for-
“Ruby?”
Oh for the love of-
Her red-cloaked partner is zipping around the room, humming an Achievemen song and oblivious to Weiss’ presence. She’s using her scroll as a flashlight and her boots have been taken off, which explains why she hadn’t awoken anyone with her footsteps.
She looks well.
The ex-heiress almost relaxes, but then she spots something tall and reflective like glass in her partner’s hand. The reality of the contents of this room and the context in which Ruby’s mental state is in, the mental state and stress that they’re all in, comes crashing down.
No. Please no.
“What are you doing down here?” The Schnee barks out, fear turning her tone sharp and reprimanding to cover the trembling quaver beneath. This is too much like a familiar scene that awaits her at home, her mother scrounging between the crates and shelves, more interested in rotten grapes than her own child. Vacant and staring.
There is a pause, then blessedly
Ruby looks up and Weiss can see that her silver eyes are still bright. The shorter girl gives her partner a cheery wave, holding out what is now obviously just a large metal can.
“Oh, hiya Weiss! Did I wake you? I was just hungry and looking for some grub.”
Weiss heaves a sigh of relief, and lowers Myrtenaster. She wrinkles her nose (but this is much better) when she realises that the cylinder in Ruby’s hand is another one of those despicable cans of shrimp-flavoured beans. She crosses her arms, and watches as Ruby struggles with a multi-tool that she’d procured from Maiden-knows where and cracks off the lid with a triumphant “Aha!”
The scythe-wielder plops onto the bar counter and digs into the questionable substance enthusiastically, spooning the goop into her mouth with as much elegance as could be expected from a hungry seventeen-year old stuck in the middle of a snowstorm. Weiss shakes her head and takes a moment to light just a few of the lamps closest to them, before sitting primly beside her partner, one leg crossed over the other.
For a while, only the sounds of wet slurping fill the space around them. It is not until about half the can is gone that Ruby stops and looks up with a furrowed brow, her voice imbued with a note of concern. “Why are you up?” The red-caped girl glances down, and Weiss knows without needing corroboration that her team leader is looking at the new scar adorning her side. “Is it hurting again?”
Weiss shakes her head, and places her hands on her knees, fingertips peeking out from under the blanket. She goes for the simple answer.
“I’m cold.”
Ruby pauses, then raises the repugnant can towards her. She grins, teeth blindingly bright but lips thin and worn like the empty spaces in the moon.
“Food always makes me feel better!” Ruby quips, as if she hasn’t already made that ridiculous statement a few hours ago.
Weiss glances down at the container, then deliberately drags up her eyes to meet her partner’s gaze. Making sure that Ruby can see her next act in all its glory, Weiss rolls her eyes hard enough that they twinge in their sockets. Ruby laughs. Weiss feels the corner of her mouth twitch, and maybe that fleeting lightness is what pushes her to directly ask.
“Well…given that I refuse to ingest any such atrocity, and I’m afraid that my repertoire of culinary skills haven’t gotten any better since Beacon, how does a hug sound?”
One of the lamps flickers and throws an upturned shadow across Ruby’s face. For a moment, Weiss thinks that the other girl will agree. She’s always been the most physically affectionate of the team, and Weiss the least, so any initiation of physical contact from the heiress should warrant immediate acceptance if this were the normal case.
But, expectedly, Ruby turns away. She puts down the abominable can to draw her cloak tighter around herself.
“Maybe later.”
The mood turns sombre, and Ruby once again withdraws into silence.
Weiss bites her lip. This is what happens whenever she tries to probe Ruby into opening up. Ruby shuts off, or has something else to do, or someone to talk to. It’s like an endless game of tag, where she’s running and running and feeling the speedy girl’s cloak slip between her fingertips while Ruby runs herself ragged and Weiss keeps worrying that she’s going to run herself into the ground.
And suddenly, Weiss is too tired to chase anymore.
“Ruby, stop this,” she hisses. Ruby startles, but Weiss can feel the exasperation that’s been building up since their reunion at Haven uncoiling and a simple jump isn’t going to stop her.
“What?” Ruby asks, as if ignorant of her crime. That just makes Weiss even madder.
She shoves herself off the countertop and whips around, jabbing an accusing finger into Ruby’s corset. She raises her voice.
“You know precisely what, Ruby Rose!”
Ruby raises her hands and slides off her perch as well, speaking softly and calmly, eyes darting upwards.
“Weiss- Weiss, please, I’m sure whatever it is, we can work it out tomorrow, when everyone’s awake and we’re on our way to Argus-“
“Do you really not know what I’m talking about?” Weiss shouts, truly not caring about who hears at this point because why does nobody else care! Ruby is their leader, their friend, and the one that stupid Professor Ozpin has shucked the responsibility of taking care of the world to. Her anger is boiling over and she’s lost the energy to keep the lid shut.
“You’ve been shutting us out, you’ve been shutting me out! I’m tired of pretending like nothing happened, Ruby – you’re so bothered that you couldn’t even hug me just now!
“We’re partners, Ruby! What happened to trusting each other?”
“What, Weiss – I’m fine, I trust you, there’s nothing to talk about, you’re over-reacting!”
Weiss is furious now, and she fights the urge to lift her partner up with a Beowolf and throttle some sense of self-care into her.
“Ruby Rose you are NOT fine,” she spits. Her aura crackles.
Ruby clutches at her cloak, hands and legs trembling and eyes wide but mouth still irritatingly shut.
Rapidly losing her patience, Weiss conjures a series of glyphs behind her head and hisses “Ruby Rose you tell me this second what on earth is going through your mind or so help me I will fix you to the ceiling and-“
“You almost died!” Ruby screams.
Weiss freezes. The glyphs go out.
Ruby takes in a deep breath. One hand reaches across her chest to touch her emblem and brush against the red cloth to which it is attached.
“Those…people, upstairs. You looked just like them, Weiss. Back at Haven. Before Jaune activated his semblance, you were so, so cold and still. You weren’t breathing. Ren couldn’t feel a pulse. I- I thought you died.
“And when I saw you on the floor, scared out of your mind and right next to those bodies – I just saw you there again. Not moving. And I-“ Ruby cuts herself off, fingers tightly grasping metal and bottom lip quivering.
“I didn’t want to hurt anyone.” Ruby whispers, soft enough that the sound echoes in the space left by her previous shout. Weiss forces herself not to look away. And she’s glad she didn’t, because in the next moment, a fat teardrop rolls down her partner’s cheek.
“But instead…I ended up hurting everyone.”
Weiss gasps, and her fingers reach out – so close, yet so far from the sobbing girl.
“Ruby…”
Her partner is full-on blubbering now, face red and blotchy with salt and tears. The young leader is furiously rubbing at her eyes with the heels of both palms, mouth twisted in a painful half-grimace and breaths crawling up halfway before being swallowed back down – as if even now, she’s trying to stop herself from breaking down, from feeling.
“I- I-“ Ruby chokes, and Weiss rushes forward, but a storm of rose petals whips past to the other side of the room. Weiss almost trips on the displaced air, but catches herself at the last moment, planting one platform down as a pivot. For a second it’s just like sparring practice at Beacon again, when Ruby Rose catches her off guard with her damned speed semblance and they’re laughing and dancing and that memory is so far from what’s happening now that it’s not even worth a joke.
“I don’t know why we’re going to Atlas,” Ruby gasps out, the words sharp and splintered and making Weiss’ heart ache. “I’ve already made so many mistakes; chasing after Mercury, not realising about Penny, being too slow for Pyrrha, for Yang, for you. I thought not asking Professor Ozpin anything was the right thing to do, because I thought we could trust him but that turns out to be a mistake too!”
Ruby lowers her hands from her face for a moment, and Weiss sees dark shadows under her eyes that are never there in daylight. When she’s facing others and trying to be strong.
“I don’t know what else we can do. Everything I do is a mistake. I just want to keep moving forward.”
Please, let’s not go to Atlas. Let’s go back to Haven, or to Mistral, or Menagerie, or even Vacuo – please, just anywhere but back there. The plea feels heavy on her tongue, but Weiss holds it back, knowing that this isn’t the time and she isn’t the focus right now. Now, the focus is Ruby.
So Weiss instead unwraps the warm blanket around her. It’s toasty inside, body heat trapped from hours of trembling in fear.
She quietly steps to Ruby’s side and throws it over her partner. Ruby looks up, silver eyes tinged red and still watery. Weiss clasps the younger girl’s hands between her own. She’s probably leaching warmth from them, given her poor circulation, but isn’t ice what we always apply to open wounds?
“Ruby,” Weiss begins, keeping her voice soft but firm, compelling (nay – begging) her partner to listen, “none of those were your mistakes.”
Ruby hiccups, but doesn’t remove her hands.
“Then why has so much blood been shed?”
Weiss- Weiss doesn’t have a reply to that. She’s wondered that every day, and increasingly so since Jin’s revelation. Blood. So much blood. Blood with no answers and no end in sight. She wishes she had a magic salve. Could snap her fingers and whisk them back to Beacon as if this were just one long and terrible dream.
She doesn’t have such power.
But what she does have is herself, and a promise to be there for her partner. To share her burdens and give her all the support she deserves.
“Before we got onto the train in Haven…you told me that Team RWBY will be by my side, always.
“Let us be here for you too.”
Ruby stares at Weiss, jaw clenching and unclenching as she looks at the girl who has bled for her family, bled for her friends, and is now bleeding her heart out for her. Looks at the ex-heiress who has given up her name, her life and is now trusting her to see that she doesn’t lose her new freedom too.
Weiss exhales, and opens her arms, giving Ruby the same invitation that the other girl has given her countless times before.
“Come here.”
And Ruby falls into her partner’s arms – and this, this isn’t a mistake.