Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Pyrrha dragged herself, painfully, over to Ruby’s motionless form. She didn’t know what that silver light that Ruby used was, but the Wyvern had been turned to stone and Cinder was in a crumpled heap, clutching the place where her arm used to be.

“R-ruby?” she called weakly.

Was she dead? Ruby felt so far away, Pyrrha couldn’t tell if she was breathing.

Her leg was in agony as she half crawled toward the edge of the tower. Eventually she made it and was able to check for a pulse. It was slow and steady.

She breathed a sigh of relief as she pulled Ruby into a protective embrace. She knew she couldn’t get her to safety, but she would do her best to keep her safe until help arrived. Pulling her scroll from her belt pouch, she tried calling Jaune.

It rang… and rang… and went straight to his voicemail. She frowned. Jaune had never intentionally missed a call from her before. She tried again, but got the same result.

“Where are you, Jaune?!” she whispered.

She swiped through her contacts, finding Weiss’s picture.

“Pyrrha?! What’s going on? Are you and Ruby alright?” Weiss asked.

Pyrrha sighed, “My leg is hurt and Ruby’s unconscious, but otherwise we’re fine. Can you send someone up here?”

“Of course.”

“And if you find Jaune… Let him know we’re okay.”

Putting her scroll away, she heard a screech as a Griffon swept through the air, taking the unconscious Cinder in its talons, and flying off.

Good riddance, she thought.

Exhausted, both physically and emotionally, Pyrrha let herself pass out, Ruby secured safely in her embrace.

Chapter Text

Pyrrha slowly came to, her consciousness seemingly rising lazily from the depths of unconsciousness. There seemed to be a bass rumbling, interspersed with mechanical beeping. She could tell there was light where she was, even with her eyes closed, but there was a deep seated exhaustion that seemed to hold her down. She had never felt like this, even after her third tournament win. She had always been in control of her body, but now it seemed to want to betray her.

She couldn’t let that continue.

With a supreme force of will, she forced her eyes open and quickly shut them just as quickly. The harsh brightness of the light had been more than she had thought.

Nothing to it but to let them adjust, she thought, as she slowly opened her eyes and allowed them to adjust to the light.

After a few moments of blindness and disorientation (almost similar to that time when Nora had tried to use Hard Light Dust to create a new grenade… inside the dormroom, to disastrous results), Pyrrha was able to make out where she was. 

She was laying down in a bed. White walls surrounded her, capped off by a white ceiling and several light fixtures. They were off, with the light coming from the window set in the wall to her right. She idly noted that the sun was low enough to be almost at eye level for her, indicating that it was early morning.

Or early evening, came an idle thought.

To her left was a device she had seen many times in Beacon’s infirmary, due to Jaune’s many trips to the ward-a vital signs monitor. She idly noted that there were electrodes attached to various parts of her body, but no IV’s.

Good, she thought, no needles .

For some reason, the idea of needles had always made the young woman nervous.

Beyond the monitor attached to her was another bed, this one holding the body of a sleeping Rose. Whoever found them had managed to get them both help! 

With luck, they’d both be back on their feet soon.

Then she noticed the chair pulled up next to her bed, in between her and Ruby’s bed. On it was a hoodie with an adorable bunny mascot. With a jolt of recognition, she realized that it was Jaune’s hoodie that he had taken pride in getting, mainly because his sisters liked it. Wherever his hoodie was, he wasn’t too far away. She wondered where he was.

As she pondered where her adorkable partner and crush was, she noticed that there were some voices outside of the room. Almost without thinking, she tried to throw off her sheets, only to find out with some degree of surprise and shock that she was only in a medical smock. Her breathing picked up as the door opened to Jaune walking in with the dark haired man who had been in Ozpin’s office that-

Suddenly memories of what had happened came back to her, and her breathing picked up. The tournament, the reveal from the Headmaster about the Maidens and how magic was real, Amber, the accident with Penny, the Kiss, Cinder-

She had lost. Not just a fight, but a fight that needed to be won. She’d failed. She’d failed the Headmaster, humanity as a whole, her team…Jaune…

Not to mention what would happen now. She had killed Penny. A young girl who had turned out to be some kind of…robot? Gynoid? She wasn’t sure, but still. She had killed! She was a murderer! She-

She was being held.

As reality came rushing back to her as her memories let go, she felt Jaune holding her comfortingly.

He was whispering “It’s okay, it’s okay” gently.

It came to her then that she was being held up, his arms around her back and shoulders as he rubbed his hand up and down her back. Looking up she noticed that his expression was grave, yet his eyes shone with unshed tears and genuine concern.

“Jaune?” she asked unsteadily, unsure of what she was going to say.

He pulled back slightly, enough to ensure he could look her in the eye yet still be close enough to hold her. Before everything had happened, she would have killed to be in this position. Now? She was just glad that he was nearby and able to keep her grounded in reality instead of being lost in her memories.

“Pyr, it’s okay. You-we-have been through a lot. Just take it easy, ok?” Jaune said, his voice barely above a whisper.

Despite the lack of volume, she hadn’t missed the emphasis he had put on the “we”. Clearly he was holding something back, having lived with him for 8 months or so had clued her into that, but whatever it was he wasn’t sharing.

The sound of someone clearing their throat caused Jaune’s face to morph slightly into a grimace before settling. Looking over his shoulder Pyrrha noticed the same red-eyed man who had been in the Headmaster’s office that day when Pyrrha had been introduced into a darker and scarier world. His clothes were more rumpled and dirtier than before, and his eyes were tired. Come to think of it, Jaune seemed tired as well.

“I know you’re recovering, but I thought you ought to know-we’re on an airship bound to Patch, to take Ruby and Yang to safety so they can recover. You too, since Blondie here insisted on it.” the man said, his gruff voice somehow perfectly matching his appearance. He then sighed. “And that man there is my brother in all but blood, Tai. Yang and Ruby’s father.” He pointed to a muscular blonde man of middle age sitting next to Ruby’s bed that Pyrrha hadn’t noticed. “You’ll be staying with him for your recovery.”

The way the man spoke gave off the impression that she actually needed to recover. A good night’s sleep was usually all she had needed, seeing as her body was in a condition that most Hunters could only dream about. She would have laughed at his word choice had she been more arrogant. Instead, she shook her head slightly.

“I’m fine,” she insisted, “and I feel like normal now.”

With that, she tried to swing her legs out so she could stand. If she kept the wall to her back, she could ensure her dignity would be spared. The only one she would show anything to was currently on the same side of the room as the other two men!

“Pyrrha, wait!” Jaune quickly interspersed, trying to hold her down. She looked at him in shock, as she froze. “Why don’t you rest some more? It’s…ah…a little too early for you to be up. I can get you some water and we can let you know what is happening.”

A touch of asperity coursed through her. She was not an invalid, she was fine!

“I’m fine, Jaune! Really! See?” With a surge that quickly overcame any resistance he had initially put out, she moved quickly to get her legs out.

“Pyr-” She swung out her left leg and then her right- “-rha…” Jaune trailed off.

Pyrrha couldn’t say anything. All she felt was a leaden weight in her stomach and a crushing in her heart.

“The…the doctors said there was no other choice. The muscles and bones had been so thoroughly burned and damaged by the arrow from that woman that…they had to amputate. In cutting it off, they saved your life,” Jaune slowly said.

His voice was grave and quiet, dead even. As if he had prepared those words carefully, and knew how much the truth would hurt her.

Her right foot was… it was gone.

As she tried to process the shock, the red-eyed man spoke up again.

“That’s why you’re on this airship, we need to get you out of Vale. partly because it’s still dangerous there, but also because there are some people who blame you for the whole thing. Like you single-handedly brought the kingdom to ruin. I know you didn’t, the kid here knows you didn’t, but many people lost their lives, and the people need a scapegoat. It doesn’t help that the damned Wyvern on top of Beacon Tower is still seemingly drawing Grimm to itself, and they’re fortifying the damned place. Parts of Vale are still rubble, and we have no idea when the Scrollnet will be up and running again. In other words, it’s a nightmare.”

At this Jaune glared at the man, causing the older man to raise his hands in submission.

“Ren and Nora are fine, and they’re on Patch as well, coordinating with the local defense patrols and helping out as an extra pair of hands with Valean refugees. As for Ruby, well…” At this, he turned around to look at the Reaperette. “...she’s been unconscious since the Fall, and Yang is in another room.” Pyrrha blinked as what he said got through the haze of shock and guilt.

“What about Weiss and Blake?” she asked quietly, her voice trembling slightly.

Jaune turned back to her and tightened his hold on her.

“Weiss’ dad came by a couple of days ago and took her back to Atlas, but not before remonstrating her for ‘helping animals and other unfavorable actions as the Heiress to the SDC’.”

Pyrrha could almost feel the anger bleeding off of Jaune, and felt almost as he did. The blancette had once told her how she wanted to save the company her grandfather had created from the actions of her father. It seemed that Wiess had failed to mention exactly how horrid her father truly was.

“As for Blake, she…left. Remember Sun, Sun Wukong? Of team SSSN?” Upon her slight nod as recognition flared in her eyes, he continued. “He tried following her, thinking she may be trying to attack the White Fang alone again, but turns out she had destroyed her scroll and seemed to have boarded a ship going to Menagerie and Mistral. I have no idea where he is now, or if he’s okay. He did tell his team to meet him in Haven in a couple of months, though, so maybe he does know what he’s doing.”

Pyrrha leaned into Jaune, her emotions and thoughts racing like a caffeinated Ruby. Was all this because she hadn’t accepted the Maiden’s power as soon as they offered it? Was everything her fault?

Once again, it was Jaune who brought Pyrrha out of her self-deprecating thoughts. Nuzzling into his shoulder, she allowed him to rub her back.

“And Yang? Where’s she at?” She half expected to see the blonde Dragoness walk in, concerned about her sister.

“...she got into a fight with someone she should never have fought,” Jaune stated. “Adam Taurus, leader of the Valean branch of the White Fang, was about to finish off Blake when Yang tried to intervene. Her..” Jaune took a second to take a deep breath at this, “...her arm was cut off.”

He then looked off to the side towards the older man who was currently leaning against the wall.

“Then again, fighting people who we shouldn’t have fought was a recurring thing the other night, wasn’t it?” he declared angrily, hostility naked in both his voice and face.

The older man shrugged helplessly, though his shoulders almost seemed to sag lower than they had before.

“In any case, you’re more or less caught up. If you really have to get up, you have crutches next to you. I’ll go let Glynda know you’re up.” The ashen-haired man paused for a second at this. “And before I forget, I’m Qrow. Qrow Branwen.”

Pyrrha watched him walk off as her thoughts once again took over.

Jaune watched as Pyrrha’s eyes glazed over and her face dropped, and sighed as he held her closer. Ever since he had entered the room earlier with Qrow, Pyrrha had kept receiving shock after shock, and seemed to be haunted by what had happened. Looking out the window, he briefly wondered why this had to happen to them. A sniffle caught his attention and he looked down, seeing Pyrrha starting to cry. Holding her close, he let her cry into his shoulder, even as he held his own tears.

And his fears.

His own thoughts kept running right back to that moment in front of the tower, when she had kissed him - Him! - before pushing him into the rocket locker and sending him away. Did she do that because she loved him, as a woman does a man, like his heart said? They had been getting closer ever since the dance, when she had seemingly confessed to him (and he had promptly proved that his family motto was not empty). 

And yet a small, traitorous part of his mind kept insisting that the kiss was because she knew that she was going to die, and she only did it as a way to keep him from resisting her effectively. It had worked well, after all, and he had been so caught up in the kiss he hadn’t realized that she had begun to use her semblance on his armor. 

He kept quiet about it, and about everything else, as he comforted Pyrrha. Now was not the time to confront her about it, they both needed time to recover mentally and emotionally before either of them were ready to talk about it. But he swore to himself, right then and there, he would get the truth of what happened below the Tower, and the reason for the kiss. And an Arc always kept their word.