Archive of Our Own

Ruby looked every which way around the interior of the Bullhead, the silence as it took to the air absolutely crushing her. She hoped to find some sort of salvation, but it didn't seem as though any was coming. Weiss sat at a distance from everyone else, arms crossed and seemingly attempting to glare a hole into the side of the ship's hull. Blake averted Ruby's gaze, preferring to keep watch over her unconscious teammate, or otherwise look anywhere else. Even the normally talkative Professor Port kept quiet.

The Bullhead sliced through the evening sky, the gentle hum of its engine the only soundtrack to Ruby's misery. After several minutes of this, she could stand it no longer.

"Hey, guys, the mission was a success! W-Why are you all acting so gloomy?" Ruby said, slipping a bit as Weiss, Blake, and Port turned to face her simultaneously.

"...Well, you're half right," Port began, "you girls did indeed destroy the Deathstalker nest. However, huntsmen don't usually consider an outcome like this a 'success.'" Port said, gesturing to Yang, who was currently out like a light.

The price of completing the morning's mission had been a great one. Though gifted as they were, team RWBY didn't yet have the training needed to deal with the surprisingly labyrinthian system of caves they had found themselves in, and were quickly surrounded upon setting fire to the nest. Ruby had no idea what they would have done had Yang not charged straight on into the Deathstalker pack, the distraction giving the rest of the team a safe way to the surface.

Blake had managed to fish her out of there by some miracle, but by that point she'd already been grievously injured, with lacerations coating most of her body, particularly her arms. She came out of the cave mouth barely able to walk, and had fallen unconscious before the team could finish their trek back to the Bullhead.

"...But..." Ruby protested meekly, unable to find any real response.

"But what?!" Weiss interjected.

"Um, I, uh-"

"You almost got us all killed," Weiss began, standing from her seat, "and you're seriously going to sit there and try to make up some stupid excuse?!" Weiss was now walking towards Ruby.

"I just wanted us to get more experience-"

"'More experience?' Are we supposed to learn something from being skewered to death?!"

Ruby backed herself against the wall, trying to make herself small.

"That's not-"

"Of course it isn't! You sign us up for missions we have zero business doing because you think it will make you look like some sort of great leader or something when we make it back."

Weiss moved her face directly in front of Ruby's as she spoke, her cool blue eyes contrasting with the most frightening rage Ruby had seen out of her yet.

"Well, guess what, Ruby? All it makes you look like is a selfish, childish MORON!"

Ruby's eyes frantically darted over to Blake.

"...Blake?" Ruby squeaked, more begging her friend for help than inquiring about her opinion.

"I'm, um, sorry, Ruby... This mission was a mistake. All of it was a mistake." Unable to meet her leader in the eye as she spoke, Blake turned back to Yang partway through, squeezing her hand.

Feeling more utterly defeated than she had in her entire life, Ruby tried to find some words, anything to say to her teammates to try and make this right - but none came.

"Never pull something like this again." Weiss said, tone dripping with venom.

Ruby tried to respond, but was unable to speak. She opted to nod her head instead, upon which Weiss turned on her heels and walked back to her seat.

Ruby pulled her legs up onto the seat, curling herself into a ball, giving her best effort not to let tears show. Weiss and Blake stared into opposite corners of the ship, avoiding the tension which had only grown thicker yet after Weiss' outburst.

"Well, miss Rose, sometimes these things just happen! You can't win them all, and dealing with the failures is part of being a leader."

Professor Port tried to help, but none of the girls really felt like listening to advice at the moment, least of all Ruby.

"Why, this reminds me of when I was your age, leading my own ragtag band of huntsmen-in-training! There we were, deep in the Emerald Forest, our fists our only remaining weapons against what must have been at least a dozen King Taijitus..."

Port launched into some long-winded story that Ruby, Weiss, and Blake were too tired to even pretend to listen to as they finished the journey back to Beacon.

The rest of the team had, of course, headed straight to the infirmary upon landing to inquire about Yang's condition. As it turned out, her wounds looked a lot worse than they were - her Aura would be powerful enough to get her back up and about within the next couple of days, the nurse figured.

Upon hearing the news, Weiss opted to return to the dorm for the evening, and neither Ruby nor Blake felt up to objecting. Left alone, an awkward silence between the two was interrupted only briefly by stilted attempts to pass the time with meaningless small talk. The two had to wait another hour or so before the nurse let them see Yang.

"Yang, are you really alright?" Ruby asked the moment she burst into the room.

"Oh, I dunno," Yang began, voice an exaggerated croak. "Doc says they're gonna have to amputate my arm." She weakly lifted her heavily bandaged right arm before letting it drop back down onto her bed.

Yang couldn't keep her composure as Ruby and Blake's expressions rapidly turned sour. Her raucous laughter filled the room for a moment, but she was quickly forced to stop by the sharp pain in her cracked ribs.

"I'm sorry, guys. Just, please don't make me laugh like that again or I might actually die!"

Blake smirked.

"The instant justice was satisfying. You're forgiven, Yang."

"Y-Yang?" Ruby interjected, "I'm so sorry. I insisted on taking us on that dumb mission, and I got us all into danger. I almost got my big sister killed..." Her voice grew weaker and weaker as she spoke.

"No." Yang responded bluntly.

Ruby looked back up to meet her eyes.

"It was my dumb idea to jump into a pack of Deathstalkers on my own without a plan - you had nothing to do with this, Ruby. Besides, you think that this is enough to almost kill me? Have you seen me?" Yang briefly made a pathetic attempt to flex her injured left bicep before giving up in a huff.

Blake laughed at her antics, but Ruby didn't seem at all convinced by what she said.

"That's not true at all, Yang. I was the one who signed us up for a mission we weren't ready for, I led us straight into that nest, and I was the one who couldn't think of a better plan to get us out of that mess! It's absolutely my fault!" A tear rolled down her cheek as she spoke.

"Ruby..." Yang was at a loss as to how to comfort her.

The atmosphere of the room chilled almost instantly. One could hear a pin drop over the silence that ensued.

"I, um, I should go." Ruby was out of her seat and running out the door the moment she finished speaking.

"Ruby, wait!" Yang reached her arm out to her ineffectually as she left.

Blake motioned to go after her, but quickly surmised that trying to catch up with Ruby was a fool's errand. She'd probably be back by next morning at the latest, anyways.

"Did I... say something wrong, Blake?" Yang asked, face awash with guilt.

"I don't think so. Maybe Ruby just needs some space?"

"Maybe. I dunno." Yang's expression looked distant.

"I just want to be certain she's alright, Blake. I hate seeing that girl cry. More than anything in the world."

Blake hummed in agreement. Seeing Ruby so upset was miserable, but the thought of Yang being upset felt just as bad.

Although it was getting late, she chose to keep Yang company just a bit longer.

Ruby ran out into the campus, now shrouded in night. She had absolutely no idea where she was going or why, she just needed to get away. Beacon's blend of elegant architecture and greenery rushed on by in a blur, Ruby losing all sense of direction as she moved. Faster, and faster, and faster she ran, giving her 110% into outrunning responsibility.

A handful of students were still out and about, making their way back to their dorms for the night. Several turned their heads in confusion as Ruby ran by, not sure what to make of the lone girl running laps about the place. Ruby felt their reactions somewhat cruel; the way that these people could go about ordinary lives without a care in the world so soon after she had nearly lost so much was just unfair.

Finally, Ruby came to a stop, propping herself up against a large tree as she caught her breath. The impromptu exercise had allowed her to let off some steam, but Ruby really just needed a place to think about things. She walked over to a nearby gazebo, now recognizing where she was when she saw it.

She and Jaune had ended up wandering over this way on their first day at Beacon, walking about aimlessly in an effort to get to the school's main hall for orientation. It was something of a nice little hiding place, hidden away in a remote corner of the campus with the surrounding patch of greenery being the only other object of note. The dim fluorescent ceiling light inside provided a soft source of light for the nook the gazebo had been placed in.

Ruby practically fell into one of the seats inside, collapsing onto the wooden table in front of her with a deep sigh. The exhaustion from the morning's disastrous mission finally caught up with her, the faint buzzing of the light threatening to lull her to sleep. Her thoughts wandered as she lay still.

What if Weiss was right? Ruby had been so gung-ho about being the team leader going in to the job, but she hadn't really considered the big picture; this whole day had been a giant emotional gut punch that she was totally unprepared for. Maybe she really wasn't cut out to be a leader after all?

Yang's words rang throughout her head, juxtaposed over the image of her unconscious and badly beaten which had burned itself into her memory that afternoon. Of course Yang would try and play the whole thing off - she'd do anything to make Ruby feel better about herself. Ruby had seen firsthand how narrowly Yang had cheated death, due to one stupid, stupid choice Ruby had made without even consulting with the rest of her team.

Ruby's vision once again blurred with tears. She so desperately wanted her thoughts to leave her alone, but they remained relentless, beating her over the head with her mistakes again and again. Her mind ran through this loop more times than Ruby was willing to count, before finally fading into blackness, then into dreams.

"What, are you just going to sit there and cry?"

Yang and Ruby had been traversing the wilderness surrounding their home in Patch for hours, now far away from the comforts of home. Yang had suddenly wanted to take Ruby on an early morning trip out into the woods before their dad woke up, and Ruby had been too meek to object and risk upsetting her big sister.

She had been following close behind Yang, intimidated by the soundtrack of unusual noises and scents that the forest provided. Unfortunately, Yang's eagerness to keep going led her to severely misjudge a drop-off that blocked their path, and they both went tumbling down to the bottom of a steep slope of dirt.

Ruby was stuck on the ground where she landed, cradling her knee. She'd scraped it against some sort of rock as she fell, and the cut ended up being deeper than she'd expected. Ruby's breathing grew loud and ragged as she choked back sobs at the sight of blood oozing out from a gash across her knee.

"Ruby, you'll be fine! I get cuts way bigger than that one all the time, and I turn out fine every time!" Yang attempted to reason with her, but Ruby didn't seem to listen.

Annoyed, Yang knelt down in front of Ruby, forcefully grabbing her cheeks in her hands and pulling her head to face her.

"Ruby, do you want to find Mom or not? We'll never get to see her if you just sit here all day."

Ruby took a second to find her words.

"...Y-Yang... I don't want to do this anymore. Can we please go back home?"

Yang's expression morphed from stunned, to hurt, to angry in the span of a few seconds as she processed what her sister had asked her. Tears starting to well in her eyes, she turned to face away from Ruby, deeper into the woods.

"FINE! I'll go find her by myself, if I have to! You stay here and keep crying like a baby, we'll just come find you after I meet her!"

Yang started to walk away and leave Ruby alone, out in the middle of nowhere.

"Wait, Yang, no!" Ruby shouted, running after her sister. "Don't leave me here..."

Ruby firmly latched herself to her sister's back, staunchly resisting any attempts by Yang to pull her off. Yang gave a resigned sigh, accepting her fate.

"...You sure your knee's okay? You need me to carry you for a bit?"

Ruby forcefully shook her head no against her back, which Yang seemed to understand.

"Okay." Yang turned around to face her. "You ready to keep going now, Ruby?"

Yang extended her hand, her face now stained with just as many tears as Ruby's.

Hands firmly interlocked, the pair wandered even deeper into the unknown together.

"Hey, uh, you alright, Ruby?"

Ruby startled awake at the sudden noise from just behind her, snapping into an upright position. She flailed her arms about wildly, struggling to right herself and avoid toppling out of her seat.

"Sorry about that." Jaune said, chuckling at the sight.

It was still dark out, and she still felt pretty terrible, so Ruby figured that she couldn't have been asleep for very long.

"It's fine. Why are you out here, Jaune?"

"Oh, Pyrrha makes me run a lap around the campus a couple nights a week before our nighttime training sessions, and I just happened to notice you out here."

"I, uh, see. Good for you, Jaune!" Ruby tried and failed at not sounding patronizing.

Ruby's eyes were visibly red, and her voice somewhat shaky. Jaune took a seat next to her, seeming to pick up on this.

"Is everything okay, Ruby?" Jaune asked, voice softer than before.

Ruby tried to think of some sort of lie, but she couldn't keep her feelings bottled up any longer.

"No, everything is not okay!" Ruby hunched over the table, cupping her temples in her hands. Jaune turned to face her, ready to listen to her troubles.

"So I signed my team up for this advanced mission without really telling them what it was about first, but it was all going okay until we got ambushed by Grimm and almost got killed, then Yang got hurt really bad and we had to carry her out of there, and before we could even take a break or anything Weiss was all up in my face and super mad about it andshetoldmeiwasabadleaderandistartedthinkingaboutitandmystupidchoicesalmostkilledmysistersomaybeshe'srightandIjustdon'tknowwhattodonow... you know?"

Jaune sat there for a moment, stupefied.

"Umm... I'm sorry, I... don't really follow."

Ruby groaned in frustration before sitting up straight once again.

"I guess, it's just... Sometimes I feel like I'm not really as good at anything as I think I am, you know? Like, some days I just mess everything up and I feel like I shouldn't have bothered trying in the first place." Ruby shut her eyes. "I feel like I'm just a burden to everyone."

Jaune considered his response for a second before a grin crept across his face.

"Nope." He said, with utmost confidence.

Ruby looked at him for a moment, utterly baffled by the response, before realizing he was turning her words against her. Jaune laughed as Ruby punched him in the upper arm, annoyed.

"But seriously, Ruby, you remember who you're talking to? I find new and exciting ways to mess things up every day, and here I am, doing just fine."

Being compared to Jaune didn't exactly fill Ruby with confidence, and it showed on her face.

Jaune gave an irate sigh before continuing.

"I think that making mistakes like this and learning to live with them is just part of the job. I mean, the professors were all students once too, right? They must have racked up a whole boatload of failures when they were our age!"

The thought seemed to blunt the storm raging in Ruby's head, if only slightly. Maybe he had a point.

"Yeah, I guess so..."

Jaune placed a hand on her shoulder.

"Well, that's just what I think, anyways. All I know for sure is that sitting around and moping about how you messed something up isn't going to help anything - you taught me that." Jaune stood up and began walking out of the gazebo.

"Sorry, Ruby, I promised Pyrrha I'd meet up with her for some sparring in..." Jaune stopped to check his Scroll. "Crap, ten minutes! I've really gotta get going!" Jaune said, running off into the dark of night before Ruby could respond.

Ruby was once again alone with her thoughts. Just as she started considering whether it was okay to go back to her dorm and face her teammates yet, she felt her own Scroll vibrate in her pocket.

Blake: Hey, are you planning on coming back to our room tonight?
Blake: Weiss is asleep already, if you were wondering.
Blake: so it's safe to come back now

Exhaustion hit Ruby like a truck as she moved to stand up, and spending the night outside didn't appeal to her in the slightest.

Ruby: ok. omw

Ruby set off into the dark, ambling about to her dorm. It was only a few minutes walk away from where she was, if she remembered right.

The soft streetlights were her only source of light as she slowly made her way to her destination. The already thin spattering of students she had encountered on her way to the gazebo had vanished, probably because the night had since entered into full swing. Most of the rest of the school had likely either headed to sleep, or otherwise turned in for the night.

Another notification buzzed on Ruby's Scroll.

Blake: I'm sorry about what happened on the ride back to Beacon earlier. Weiss hasn't said anything, but I think she's sorry too.

After the way she'd absolutely exploded at her that evening, Ruby figured she'd believe Weiss was sorry when she heard the words out of the girl's mouth.

She couldn't help but feel a little better anyways, though.

Ruby made it back to her dorm and up to her floor some time after all signs of life inside had stopped, the empty common areas illuminated only by moonlight. She'd used the bathroom on the ground floor of the building, hoping to avoid waking her roommates with the sound of the toilet flushing. She just wanted to slip straight into bed, without causing any more trouble for anyone.

Ruby gingerly grasped the doorknob leading to her team's room, holding onto it for a moment before beginning to slowly turn it. She pushed the door open just wide enough to fit herself through, trying to avoid the noise of the bottom brushing across the carpet. Shutting the door behind her with just as much care, she noticed that Blake was still up, sitting upright in her bed.

She had been reading some book whose title Ruby couldn't identify, apparently putting that Faunus night vision they'd learned about to good use. She gently closed it shut in both hands, waving to Ruby as she put it away somewhere that Ruby couldn't see. Blake had already draped covers over herself by the time Ruby waved back, eager to get to sleep. Ruby couldn't exactly blame her.

Ruby climbed up to her bed, muttering under her breath as the ropes affixing it to the ceiling swayed with her weight. Fortunately, the sound didn't seem to wake Weiss up, or she at least kept quiet if it had.

Finally on her bed, Ruby plopped face down onto her pillow, lacking the energy to change out of her clothes or even get under the covers. The warmth seemed to dismantle all of her remaining emotional barriers; tears flowed freely onto the pillowcase, Ruby shuddering as she tried her hardest to keep her crying quiet.

Her thoughts seemed to attack her almost immediately, with full force.

Blake was right, of course. She was a saint to be able to remain so polite about it after all that had happened.

Ruby would be sure to give Weiss some sort of proper apology in the morning. It wasn't like she didn't have a point.

A lie, no matter which way you cut it. This was her responsibility either way.

It occurred to Ruby that Professor Port had been right all along. This whole day was terrible, and she hated it, and she wished it hadn't happened; but it did, and she had to deal with the consequences herself. That's her job.

Empty of tears, Ruby was able to think about the situation a bit more clearly. Her mind no longer racing, Ruby finally began to drift off to sleep.

She'd deal with everything tomorrow. She had to.