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“I want to show you something,” Penny had said one night after knocking on Team RWBY’s dorm room door. Without hesitation, Ruby smiled and followed. She had led her through winding hallways, down stairs and taking ‘shortcuts’ Ruby was pretty sure they shouldn’t be going through, smiling all the way with that neverending enthusiasm of hers. It was utterly contagious, and Ruby, as she oh so often did in Penny’s presence, found herself smiling and laughing along.
Their destination had turned out to be an indoor garden. Glass walls and ceilings framed a variety of plants from around Remnant, the environment perfectly crafted for them to flourish. Small ponds adorned the floors among the patterned brick paths. Penny expertly navigated the miniature landscape, her hand in Ruby’s so she would follow close behind. (She needn’t have had to. Ruby would follow her anywhere.) Finally, she slowed as she turned a corner to reveal a small clearing in the middle of the garden.
Letting go of Ruby’s hand, she stood in the center and did a little twirl.
“Taa-daa!” The exclamation was emphasized by jazz hands and a wide, blinding smile. As if waiting for her signal, it was then that Ruby saw them: the fireflies. Just like their few nights together stargazing at Beacon.
Ruby slowly turned, taking in the view of the night sky and wildlife.
“Penny, this is beautiful!”
“I’m glad you like it, Ruby!”
Penny sat on the grass and patted the spot beside her, Ruby taking her place at her side. Together they laid on the ground and took in the sky, the vast mystery of infinity. The silence was content, easy. Penny was the first to break it.
“I came here a lot. After I woke up again.” She paused, holding out her hand and letting a stray firefly land on her finger. “Winter showed it to me. Besides her and Dad, no one really talked to me. So I came here a lot, especially at night.”
She turned her head to look at Ruby and extended her hand. Ruby reached out her own arm and let the firefly land on her finger.
“It comforted me. Because, somewhere, I knew you were looking at the same sky.”
Ruby remembered far too many sleepless nights spent staring at the stars, alone and afraid.
“When I was on the road with Team RNJR, I stargazed a lot when I couldn’t sleep. I guess it made me feel less alone.” She sighed, a wistful sheen fogging her silver eyes. “Yang told me once that each star is a person watching over someone they left behind. She said my mom was one, and after Beacon I pretended that you and Pyrrha were up there, too.”
Penny only smiled a sad smile, one Ruby mirrored back. They turned their gazes back up to the sky.
“She’s up there. I’m sure of it.”
“Yeah. She is.”
Neither of them mentioned how Ruby’s voice had suddenly gotten thick and her eyes grew misty with unshed tears. If Penny could cry, she knew she would be in a similar state.
“...Did I ever tell you of my wish, Ruby?”
Ruby rolled to her side with a shake of her head. “Nope.”
Penny copied her and for just a moment was awestruck at the picture she found; Ruby on her side, gazing at her with that look; a soft, curious smile on her face and a slight blush dusting her cheeks. She was beautiful. Penny had not realized until this moment just how much her heart had ached without Ruby by her side. Right now, in this moment, she knew that she had never felt this right - this alive. It was so simple, a conversation under the stars with a person you loved, but it meant everything to the girls who had once thought that the other had drifted away before they could catch their hand and hold on tight.
Penny blinked. Hard. Back on track.
“Before I came to Beacon and met you, my father told me about an old belief. He said that some people believe that if you wish upon a star, your wish will come true if it is your heart’s desire.”
Ruby smiled. Such a thing seemed so innocent now, to both of them, after all they had seen and done.
“The night before I left for Beacon, I made a single wish. I wished for someone kind, someone real who would see me for who I am. Someone who would show me what it means to be alive and someone to truly live by my side.”
She reached out to boop Ruby’s nose, memorizing the way she giggled and blushed as she slightly pulled back.
“And a few days later, my wish came true.” She took a second to look her in the eyes. “I met you.”
The moonlit garden became their secret spot, sneaking away every other night or so even though the others were fully aware of what they were doing and where they were going. After so much time apart, the two were often content to just lay on the grass in silence, bodies pressed together as they watched the stars above. Each night felt new and exhilarating with the promise of something they had not so long ago thought was gone forever: a lifetime by each other’s side.
***
Ruby traced her thumb across the freckles scattered across Penny’s nose.
“You have stars,” she whispered. She said it so softly and delicately as if it were a secret meant for only the two of them, not even the night itself worthy of the revelation. That was the night that the precious something they had between them changed.
“Maybe you should make a wish.”
Ruby hummed. “No. It already came true.” She kissed Penny’s nose and caressed her cheeks.
And that was that.
They didn’t talk of the different air between them, the way everything had changed with a simple action and a few words. They had time.
***
“Hey Penny?”
Ruby’s head was cushioned on Penny’s chest, the other girl’s fingers running through her short hair.
“Yes?”
“What was death like?”
The hand stilled in her hair.
Ruby shot up, apologies already spilling from her lips. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked just forget I even said anything I’m sorry-”
Penny followed her and silenced her with a finger on her lips.
“Ruby, it is alright. I was just surprised.” She hesitated before continuing, almost afraid of the answer she might receive. “Why did you ask?”
She knew all too well the burden Ruby had on her shoulders. She just hadn’t thought it haunted her this much. The thought would have brought her to tears if she had been capable.
Ruby’s eyebrows scrunched before her eyes widened as she realized Penny’s train of thought.
“Oh! Oh, Penny, it’s not that. I promise it’s not, I was just...I was just wondering what you were going through while I was away.”
Penny relaxed ever so slightly. “Ah. I see.”
She extended an arm, a silent invitation for Ruby to curl up underneath it. She wrapped her arm around her shoulder and held her tight. Ruby patiently waited for her to speak, knowing that she needed time to say exactly what she wanted to.
“...Picture a wave in the ocean. You can see it, measure its height, you can see the way the sunlight refracts when it passes through. It’s there, you can see it, you know what it is. It’s a wave.”
Ruby closed her eyes as Penny rubbed her shoulder.
“And then, it crashes on the shore and it’s gone. But the water is still there. The wave was just a different way for the water to be for a while. The wave returns to the ocean.”
She glanced down at Ruby and smiled. “Where it came from, and where it’s supposed to be. In my case, another wave swept me up. In the time in between, I was back in the ocean from which we all came.”
Ruby opened her eyes and met her girlfriend’s gaze with a sad smile gracing her lips. Penny giggled.
“Though, I’ve never actually been to the ocean. I sure would like to see it one day.”
Ruby straightened and took her hands.
“I’ll take you one day.” They all knew well and good that promises in the lives they led were dangerous gambles. But for Penny, Ruby was willing to take the risk with a smile on her face. “I grew up on an island, you know. There’s plenty of ocean for you to see there. I’ll bring you home one day, and you can meet my dad and you can see the ocean and the beach.”
Penny positively beamed. “That sounds delightful! I cannot wait to see it with you!”
They squeezed each other’s hands in their grasp, the promise locked and sealed.
“Me too, Penny.”
There, safe as could be in Atlas, warm despite the cold, Ruby couldn’t help but look at Penny in awe. The sight of her bathed in the soft glow of fireflies and starlight was breathtaking. She never wanted to look away. Distantly, she wondered what Penny would look like on the beach, the ocean breeze in her hair and her eyes wide as she took in the vast beauty of the endless waters.
She decided she couldn’t wait.
When she had fallen, the last thing Ruby had expected to happen was to wake up. As she fell, she thought of Penny’s description of death, and decided that perhaps it wasn’t all so bad. She would return to the ocean.
But she wasn’t quite expecting it to be literal.
She and Blake had quite literally landed in an ocean. The cold water was welcome compared to the hot climate of this...island, apparently where they landed. Wherever this was. They had found Yang pretty quickly. Apparently if you fall from the sky screaming, people just might notice. Weiss had fallen shortly after, a haunted look on her eyes and dried tears on her cheeks. Despite their many efforts, she hadn’t spoken a word since she landed. Instead, she latched onto them and didn’t let go, as if she was afraid that they would disappear the second she let go.
Naively, they chalked it up to that. She was just shaken up after thinking all of her team died and left her alone. It was perfectly understandable.
But then Jaune fell.
A bloody Crocea Mors in his grasp.
And Penny’s name on his lips.
“Penny?” Ruby looked to the others in apprehension. “Jaune, what about her? Is she okay?”
He frantically shook his head as he stood and looked around, trying to find something.
“No, I - she. Follow me.” Without any further running, he took off down the beach. The others were quick to follow. All too soon, night fell. Jaune and Weiss avoided all questions, leaving the others with a question they weren’t all too sure they wanted the answer to. What happened up there?
Ruby saw it first - the shock of red hair spread across the sand, pale, too pale skin, and a green dress.
Blood.
A lot of blood.
“No.” She breathed it like a prayer. A promise. Because surely, surely, the gods couldn’t be that cruel. They had already taken so much. They weren’t allowed to take Penny too, not again. Not now.
In a blink she was at her side, gently picking her up and cradling her in shaking arms. She didn’t register the shadows of the others coming to her side, their own tears stacking upon her own. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from the blood coating her chest, how it matched the shade of her cloak and skirt and scythe, how Penny had loved the color red because it had been hers.
Slowly, her eyes drifted up to her face and cradled her cheek with her hand. Her lips were curled in a smile. She barely recognizes that she’s screaming herself hoarse, the gentle hands on her shoulders as she leans heavily on whoever’s behind her, Penny still locked in her iron grip. One of her hands found Penny’s and squeezed, praying she’d squeeze back. It never came.
She was cold. Do hugs always make you feel this warm inside, Penny had asked not even an hour ago, and Ruby had foolishly answered with a yes. Now, she held her freezing corpse with a desperation only the broken could display, as if her touch alone could bring back the warmth in the body Penny hadn’t had for even a day. An hour. A lifetime.
Time fell apart. Her legs grew numb and her arms stiff, the night still dark, not daring to mock her just yet with the light of the sun.
Through the incoherent and frantic mantra in her mind, a single, clear thought broke through.
She never got to see the ocean.
(...And yet.)
Numbly, almost robotically, Ruby stood. She shifted Penny in her grip to hold her in her arms. The others only watched as she made her way down the shore with her body and knelt in the cool waters. A gentle wave greeted them and splashed over her knees.
“Look, Penny,” she whispered. Her voice was almost gone from grief. Gently, she shifted Penny in her arms, angling her towards the ocean. “You made it. You can see it now.”
She held her tight as the waves broke around them. She tasted salt.
“You can see the ocean.”
They buried her that night.
Under the stars and sea, back to the ocean from which she came.
Though she knew it would only plunge the knife deeper into her heart, she couldn’t help herself. Ruby tilted her head and looked at the stars.
Perhaps Penny would have made a wish. But Penny was in the ground and Ruby was not. And Ruby no longer believed in miracles or wishes. Not after tonight.
A single constellation is visible. It forms the pattern of Penny’s freckles that Ruby had long ago committed to memory. Three stars shine the brightest.
“You have stars,” she had told her a lifetime ago.
And despite it all, Ruby smiled.
Penny always did have that effect on her.