Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Yang wakes up in the middle of the desert, squinting against the bright sunlight, her head pounding. It's not just her head—her entire body feels stiff and sore, as if she'd done a really intense workout. Or, as if she'd been fighting for her life.

With a jolt, she realizes that she has no idea where she is—or how she got here. She jumps to her feet, holding onto the tall rock next to her to steady herself as she sways slightly on her feet. Standing up makes her headache worse, but after a minute she manages to find her balance. Glancing around, she doesn't see any sign of her sister or teammates, or any of her friends. Just a bunch of rocks and sand.

What happened last night? Did she drink too much and black out? That doesn't seem likely. Although Yang loves a good party, she's always careful when she drinks, mindful not to drink too much or too often. She doesn't want to be like her uncle, at least not in that respect. Did someone spike her drink?

But no, the more she thinks about it, the less likely that seems. Slowly, scattered, vague memories are surfacing from the night before. She'[d been on a mission, she remembers. Team RWBY had been assigned to hunt down a Grimm that had been terrorizing the locals. She remembers hiking out into the desert to look for it, gloating about the awesome tan she was going to have and teasing Weiss as she complained about sand getting everywhere.

And then—nothing. She strains to try to remember anything else, but all that does is make her head hurt worse. What happened? And where is the rest of her team?

Well, standing around here isn't going to help. Might as well start looking around.

The hills of sand surrounding her seem endless, and the swift breeze whistling through the rocks means that there's no traces of footsteps for her to follow or even to give her some sort of hint of what happened. Her anxiety grows with every minute that passes without any sign of another person nearby, but Yang refuses to let herself panic. She's been in worse situations before, she reminds herself.

As she boosts herself on top of a rock, attempting to get a better look at her surroundings, she almost can't believe her eyes when she spots her partner. She blinks slowly, convinced that she must be seeing some sort of mirage, but Blake doesn't disappear. And better yet, she responds when Yang shouts her name. "Blake!"

"Yang!" It's hard to remember the last time she felt so relieved to hear her partner's voice. She scrambles down from the rock, relief giving her a burst of energy, and makes her way to where she saw Blake as fast as she can.

"Yang!" Blake calls again, rushing forward to hug Yang tightly as soon as she's within reach. "I'm so glad I finally found you!"

"Me too." Yang returns the hug with equal enthusiasm, pulling Blake close and savoring her presence. For a long moment, it's like nothing else in the world exists besides the two of them. But eventually, reluctantly, they pull apart.

Time to face reality. They need to figure out what kind of situation they've gotten into.

"Do you—" she begins, before being cut off by Blake simultaneously asking the same question.

"Do you remember what happened?" She frowns when Yang shakes her head.

"I was hoping you did."

Blake sighs, running a hand through her hair. "I remember little bits and pieces, mostly just us hiking out here and trying to track down the Grimm. But after that, nothing."

"Yeah, same here." Yang grimaces. They've really gotten themselves into a mess here. "Have you seen—"

"Blake! Yang!" she's cut off by a familiar voice shouting their names. Both of them whip their heads around just in time to Weiss hurrying in their direction, her expression full of relief. "I'm so glad I found you guys!"

She flings her arms around them both, causing them to stumble back a few steps. "I've been looking for you everywhere!"

Weiss appears to be in the same shape as her and Blake: exhausted and worried, with a few scrapes and bruises, but otherwise okay. "Well, you found us," Yang jokes lightly. Weiss rolls her eyes.

"It's good to see you, Weiss," Blake says warmly, smiling at their teammate.

"I thought I'd be stuck wandering around in this gross sand forever," Weiss sighs, before her expression turns serious. "Do either of you remember what happened? All I can remember are little flashes of us hiking out her, but after that, I'm drawing a complete break."

"No," Yang and Blake chorus. Weiss frowns.

"I'm afraid we're both in the same boat as you," Blake explains.

"Of course." Weiss' shoulders slump. "Because that would be too easy, if any of us remembered."

"Unfortunately, it seems that we're all in the dark," Blake agrees.

Weiss' frown deepens, and she tilts her head, looking thoughtful. "Speaking of being in the dark," she begins. "Where's Ruby?"

Chapter Text

"Where's Ruby?"

Weiss' heart sinks when Blake and Yang look just as clueless as she feels about where her partner might be. "We haven't seen her," Blake admits with a frown.

"I was hoping you would have stumbled into her," Yang says. "I've got no clue where she is."

Biting her lip, Weiss shakes her head. "I haven't seen any sign of her around here. Who knows where she might have ended up?" Before running into her teammates, Weiss had been frantically scanning her surroundings for any sign of a familiar face as she walked. It felt like she'd been wandering through the desert for hours, with not so much of a glimpse of anything or anyone that she recognized. "This desert is huge. She could be anywhere!"

Before Weiss can get herself too worked up, Blake places a hand on her shoulder, indicating that she should calm down. "Hey, we all ended up pretty close together," Yang points out, although she looks a bit worried as well. "And Ruby was with us before. She's probably somewhere nearby, right? We'll just have to keep looking."

It's a comforting thought, but Weiss can't bring herself to fully believe it. She and Blake exchange a skeptical glance. They'd all been extensively informed about the dangers of becoming stranded in the desert territory surrounding Vacuo, of how vast and inhospitable the seemingly endless hills of sand are. And just because Ruby was with them the last time they remember seeing her doesn't mean that she necessarily ended up where they did—it's not like any of them really remember what happened, after all.

But despite the odds not being in their favor, Yang's suggestion has its merits. It won't hurt to do a little more searching for Ruby before they have to head back to Vacuo and get reinforcements. "You're right," she admits, trying to force herself to calm down a bit. "We shouldn't assume the worst right now. If Ruby is nearby, we should try to find her before we do anything else."

Although it would help them cover more ground, none of them are particularly eager to split up again so soon after reuniting, so the three of them stick together as they check for any signs of their missing leader and friend. Weiss is less than optimistic that their search will turn up anything. After all, the haven't seen so much as a trace of Ruby so far, and the desert is treacherous. Weiss isn't going to get her hopes up.

And then, unbelievably, after slipping between two sand dunes through a passage so narrow that they're forced to pass through it single file, they finally spot her. "Ruby!" Weiss shouts, filled with joy and relief at the sight of her partner. She immediately takes off running, eager to reunited with her friend.

At the sound of Weiss' voice, Ruby's head jerks up. She almost seems alarmed at seeing the three of them, her eyes going wide and her body tensing. Clearly she's trying to hide from something—the area she's holed up in is a perfect place to take cover in, concealed on all sides by massive hills of sand. But what could have scared her like that?

Ruby doesn't relax as the three of them approach; if anything, she seems to become even more tense as they grow closer. Even Yang's call of "Ruby, it's us!" doesn't seem to reassure her. Weiss frowns. Something is definitely wrong—besides all the other things that are obviously off about this situation.

And then she stops short, stunned and horrified, as she finally gets a closer look at her partner. "What happened to you?"

Because Ruby is obviously in bad shape. Her hunting gear is noticeably damaged and torn, and her visible skin is littered with various bruises and wounds. One of her eyes is obviously swollen and black, and she's holding herself stiffly, awkwardly, like she's in pain. Compared to the rest of them, with only minor scrapes and bruises, it's especially alarming to find her looking so beaten up.

But Ruby, for her part, just sighs, finally seeming to relax a bit. "The mission didn't go as planned," she replies, sounding as casual as if they're just talking over lunch. She gives a half-shrug, seemingly careful to avoid moving one of her shoulders. There's a burn on her right wrist that almost seems to be shaped like a handprint, but Weiss doesn't get a very good look at it before Ruby notices her staring and tucks her arm up against her body. "What else is new?"

"Ruby, you look a whole lot worse than just a mission gone wrong," Yang says, her frown deepening as she takes a step towards her sister only for Ruby to flinch away slightly. "And none of us really remember what happened. So please, tell us what's going on."

But Ruby doesn't relent. "Like I said, the mission didn't go as planned," she says again with a sigh. "Anyway, I'm hungry. Can we get out of here already?"

Chapter Text

The trip through the desert back to Vacuo goes much quicker than Blake had expected. Even though she generally prides herself on having a great sense of direction, she'd had no idea where they were or how they'd ended up there, or even where to start in order to start trekking back towards civilization. She'd been dreading a seemingly endless journey under the hot sun, or expecting that they might end up having to call for help after getting lost.

But that's not what happens, since Ruby, even though Yang has always teased her sister relentlessly for having no sense of direction, someone seems to know her way around the endless stretch of sand dunes. After humoring their injured leader and following her suggestions for a few minutes (since they're already lost as is and Ruby seems to be the only one on the team with an idea of where they are), the city of Vacuo slowly comes into view on the horizon.

"Since when can you navigate your way out of a paper bag?" Yang teases her sister. Ruby just gives her a half-shrug in response, careful not to move her injured shoulder. She's been oddly quiet as they make their way back to Vacuo, only really speaking up to give directions. It could be because she's in pain, but that usually doesn't stop the younger girl from being a cheerful chatterbox and putting on a brave face for everyone else.

Nothing about this feels right. And it's not just the fact that Ruby suddenly knows her way around the desert outside Vacuo, but also all the other little pieces that don't quite fit. Why can't any of them remember what happened? How did Ruby end up with such severe injuries when the rest of them only have minor scratches and bruises? And, most importantly, if Ruby remembers what happened, why is she not telling the rest of them?

Everything about the situation feels off. Blake has always prided herself on her ability to be logical and think things through, carefully weighing the evidence before coming to a conclusion. But in this case, the pieces are too scattered and broken to fit together and complete the puzzle. She just doesn't know enough to try to puzzle out what happened to any satisfying extent.

The only thing she can be absolutely sure of is that something bad happened to Ruby. All the more reason that she needs to figure it out. Ruby Rose is tough as nails, more than capable of holding her own in a fight. It would take a truly formidable opponent to injure her this severely. So what—or who—was she fighting?

"Ruby, what happened to you?" Blake asks, ducking her head slightly in an attempt to meet the younger girl's eyes. "We're all struggling to remember anything that happened on this mission, and you seem to be less out of the loop than the rest of us. Could you fill us in on what you know?"

Ruby's gaze is fixed on the apparently fascinating sand beneath their feet. She's clearly avoiding making eye contact with Blake. "I really don't want to talk about it right now," she says quietly. "Like I said before, the mission didn't go the way we planned it, things went sideways, but that's nothing new. Anyway, none of that really matters now. We took out the Grimm, so mission complete. Nothing to worry about anymore."

"Except for the fact that you look like someone tried to kill you," Yang points out incredulously.

"Yeah," Weiss agrees, frowning suspiciously. "How did you get so beaten up while the rest of us just have a few bruises?"

Clearly Blake isn't the only one who's picked up on that discrepancy.

"Guess I just got unlucky." Ruby keeps her face carefully blank, still refusing to make eye contact with any of them. When she does bring her eyes up, she keeps her gaze on the horizon. "I'm just glad that you guys are okay." Her attempt at a smile is a parody of her usual cheer.

"I can't believe that you're worrying about us when you can barely walk," Weiss replies, her frown deepening.

They've reached the outskirts of Vacuo. "We should get you to the hospital, sis," Yang says, hoisting Ruby a bit higher in her arms. "You need to get patched up, and I don't want to be messing around with these kind of injuries."

For once, Ruby doesn't protest the idea, a sign of just how much pain she must be in. Blake feels her worry tick up another notch. But at least they're back in Vacuo now, she tries to reassure herself. Ruby can be taken care of. They can all have a chance to rest and regroup before they try to get to the bottom of things.

Because none of the members of team RWBY are truly going to be able to relax until they know the full story of what happened out in the desert.

Chapter Text

The sun will be rising soon.

Ruby clings to that fact like a protective talisman as she moves as quickly as she can through the darkened desert. It's childish, but some part of her, hidden deep down, truly believes that if she can just hold out until sunrise, everything will be okay. This long nightmare of a night will finally be over, just another bad memory.

The sound of her pursuers reminds Ruby that it doesn't work like that. This is real life, not one of the fairy tales that Yang used to read to her when they were little. The light of day won't magically defeat this evil. No, it's up to Ruby to finally end this.

Even if she's exhausted and battered, with adrenaline and determination being the only things keeping her on her feet, that doesn't matter. She's a licensed huntress. It's her job to protect the people of Remnant, no matter what.

A burning hand brushes her arm, making a grab for her wrist. Ruby wrenches herself free, using a quick burst from her semblance to put some distance between her and her attacker. The skin around her wrist stings when she rubs at it absently. Ouch.

It's been a long time since Ruby was sloppy enough to let that happen to her. She needs to end this, and soon, before she's put out of commission for good. All the resolve and determination in the world won't help her if her body gives out on her in the middle of a fight. Ruby is getting weaker by the minute, running out of energy and draining what's left of her aura, while her opponent only grows stronger. Grimm feed on negative emotions, after all, and Ruby isn't feeling particularly chipper right now.

Gathering what's left of her resolve, Ruby does her best to focus on the meditation techniques she's learned from Ren and Ms. Calavera, shoving down her stress and anxiety and exhaustion and replacing them with determination. It's high time she ended this.

Time to make her final stand.

"Miss Rose, are you awake? How are you feeling?"

Ruby wakes with a jolt upon hearing her name. She opens her eyes and groans internally when she sees the stark white walls and harsh light shining down on her. It really shouldn't be a surprise that she's ended up in the hospital again, but that doesn't mean that she has to be happy about it.

"Oh good, you're awake!" the nurse exclaims, smiling brightly. "How are you feeling, dear?"

Ruby blinks at her, feeling far too groggy and out of it to try for her normal cheer. "I've been better," she replies, since her usual response of "I'm fine" probably won't go over well right now.

"Well, with any luck we'll have you healed up and feeling better in no time!" the nurse reassures her. Ruby should probably ask for her name, but she's still trying to shake off the grogginess that painkillers always leave her with. "If there's anything you need, please don't hesitate to let me know."

"Thank you. I will." Ruby even manages to try for an attempt at her usual "you don't need to worry about me" smile.

"Oh, and Miss Rose?"

"Please just call me Ruby."

"Very well. Well, Ruby, I know that you just woke up, but there's someone here who would like to see you right away, if you're feeling up for visitors."

"Sure!" Ruby replies, even as her heart sinks. She was hoping for a little more time to regroup and pull herself together before having to face her teammates, who undoubtedly would insist on fussing over her and asking a bunch of questions that Ruby really doesn't want to answer right now. But she's not about to hide from her friends, especially when they're worried about her. "You can send them in."

But to her surprise, the person who walks through the door isn't a member of team RWBY. They're not even one of her other friends, or her uncle. The woman standing in front of Ruby is a total stranger.

"I'm so sorry to bother you while you're recovering, Miss Rose," she says kindly. "But seeing that the Grimm that team RWBY was dispatched to eliminate is considered extremely dangerous, it is vital to the security of Vacuo to confirm that it will no longer be a threat to our citizens. To that end, I was hoping to take down your account of what happened on the mission, if you're feeling up to it."

"Of course, I understand. I can tell you about what happened," Ruby reassures her with a smile. It's actually a relief to be talking about it with a complete stranger, who just wants the facts, rather than one of her friends or teammates.

One thing that a lot of aspiring huntresses don't realize (including Weiss, surprisingly enough), is that being a professional huntress requires filling out a lot of boring forms and paperwork. Killing Grimm seems like all fun and games until you realize that you have to fill out a detailed mission report afterwards. Paperwork—and keeping good records—was serious business when it came to hunting

An example of this is that in the aftermath of a team mission, each member of the team was to be interviewed separately about the events of the mission, and their accounts were to be kept classified until they could be checked against one another and confirmed. This means that Ruby can tell all the details of what happened out in the desert right now, but she still has some time to come up with what she's going to tell her team.

Because she can't tell the rest of team RWBY the truth. At least, not right now. Things have been so fragile and tense between them since they narrowly escaped from Atlas. She doesn't want this to be the thing that tears them apart, not after everything they've been through.

If keeping what happened to herself will keep the peace and keep them together, then Ruby will happily carry this burden alone.

Chapter Text

“So, you’re telling me that you don’t remember anything from the mission?” the woman sitting across from Yang asks, her voice sharp. She’s dressed neatly in a gray pantsuit, her hair short and neat, in contrast to Yang, who’s still wearing her clothes from when she headed out the night before, rumpled and dirty from trekking through the desert.

She swears she brought back half the desert with her in her boots.

“I remember heading out on the mission and tracking the Grimm,” she replies, running a hand through her messy hair in frustration. “But at a certain point it just all goes blank, and I don’t remember anything past that until waking up in the middle of the desert this morning.”

“I see,” the woman replies, making a note on the clipboard in front of her. Her calm professionalism only adds to Yang’s building frustration. She hates everything about this situation. “Well, it’s fairly common for those who have been in contact with the Grimm in question and survived to experience some memory loss. So long as at least one person from your team can confirm that the Grimm is no longer a threat, there shouldn’t be a problem.”

Yang nods tiredly. “Well, unless you can think of any other information that you can tell me about the events of the mission, I think that we’re done here.” Yang shakes her head. “Very well, then, Miss Xiao Long. Thank you for your time.”

It’s a relief to step out the door of the office and into the evening air. Yang lets out a long sigh and leans against the sun-warmed brick, letting her head hit the wall behind her with a soft thunk. Now that the post-mission paperwork is taken care of, she finds herself at a loss for what to do next.

Taking care of paperwork had never been Yang’s favorite thing to do under the best of circumstances, and now is far from the best of circumstances, but at least it had been something to do besides pacing around the waiting room waiting for news on how her sister is doing. It hadn’t taken long for them to patch Yang up—and the fact that whatever had happened left had left Ruby in such bad shape but had left the rest of them with only scratches and bruises makes no sense—and Ruby had been swiftly whisked away for treatment upon their arrival at the hospital, leaving the rest of her team to wait in the dark.

The hospitals in Vacuo have had issues with overcrowding since the arrival of the refugees from Atlas and Mantle, so the three of them had quickly decided that it would be best for everyone if they waited somewhere else. Weiss had been the one to suggest that they fill out their mission reports, since they didn’t really have anything else to do, so after stopping for a late lunch, the three of them had decided to do just that.

In hindsight, Yang finds herself wishing that she’d made a stop by the dorms first to take a shower and change her clothes, since their hadn’t really been any need to rush. But she’d been hoping that having to discuss what went down on the mission would somehow trigger some king of memory of what had happened in the desert last night. Unfortunately, so far that’s appearing to not be the case.
She should check on Ruby. Yang doesn’t remember consciously making the choice to head back to the hospital, but she finds herself heading back that way, as if by instinct. Weiss and Blake must have had the same idea; Yang runs into the two of them just outside the hospital. Both of them seem relieved to see her again, to be back together again. They’re all feeling unsettled after what happened on their last mission, even if none of them can remember exactly what went wrong.

Yang hates the not knowing, the uncertainty, of having such a big gap in her memory. It feels so far beyond her control, and she hates not feeling in control. Sure, Yang loves to create some chaos, but that chaos is under her control. Everything about this mess is completely out of her control.

“We’re here to see Ruby Rose,” Weiss tells the receptionist at the hospital’s front desk. “She’s our teammate.”

“And my little sister,” Yang adds.

“I’m sorry,” the receptionist, a young man not much older than the three of them, replies kindly. “But I’m afraid that visiting hours are over for today. You’ll have to come back tomorrow to visit your friend.”

“Oh come on, it’s not even that late.” Yang protests.

“I’m sorry, but the rules are the rules. I’m sure that your friend needs her rest to help her heal.”

“Can you at least tell us how she’s doing?” Blake cuts Yang off before her partner can continue to argue. “We just need to know that she’s okay.”

“Of course,” he replies, typing something into the computer at the desk in front of him. A few clicks of the mouse, and he looks up at the three of them with a smile. “Good news, your friend is resting and in stable condition. She should be able to be discharged within a few days, if everything goes well.”

“Thank you.” Weiss says with a tired smile.

“You’re very welcome,” he tells her. “I’m sure Miss Rose will be happy to see you tomorrow. Our visiting hours start at 9 am.”

Chapter Text

Although she’s exhausted, Weiss can’t sleep.

After turning over in her bed for what feels like the hundredth time that night, she opens her eyes and stares up at the bottom of the empty bunk above her. She remembers how excited Ruby had been upon discovering that they would be sleeping in bunk beds in the dorms, and naturally had claimed the bed above Weiss. “Just like old times,” Ruby had said, grinning widely.

It was nice to see Ruby acting so young and cheerful, despite everything that’s happened since their days at Beacon Academy. It feels wrong to not have her snoring in the bunk above hers. Without Ruby here, their dorm room feels cold and lonely.

And since she’s unable to sleep, Weiss is left to dwell on her thoughts. Once again, she finds herself frustrated by the complete blank where her memories of the mission should be. She remembers being assigned the mission, reading over the files they were given, and preparing to leave. She remembers leaving Vacuo and hiking out into the desert and then suddenly, nothing. What happened?

Weiss really doesn’t have a good feeling about any of this. She needs to know what happened. It’s going to bother her until she knows the truth. But her teammates seem just as lost as she is on what exactly took place during the mission.

Well, except Ruby. But whatever Ruby knows, she doesn’t seem to want to talk about it. It’s unusual for her partner to be so closed off about anything, especially when it involves one of their missions as a team. Usually, when it comes to their work as huntresses, so long as it’s not something that they’re supposed to keep secret, Ruby will talk about every detail to anyone who will listen.

Being a huntress is important to Ruby. It’s an essential part of who she is.

But Ruby’s been a bit different since they arrived in Vacuo. Her partner hadn’t said anything about it, but it was pretty obvious to Weiss that the events that took place in Atlas, on top of everything else that they’ve been through, are weighing heavily on her. Weiss doesn’t want to grill her friend for information when it’s clear that she’s already struggling.

Especially now that Ruby’s injured and in recovery. No, definitely not. While Weiss isn’t too proud to admit that she’s not the most tactful person out there, she’s gotten a lot better than she was back when she attended Beacon. She’ll let Ruby heal in peace.

Even if that means it’s going to be much harder to find the answers that she’s looking for.

Chapter Text

It’s been a long time since Blake could be considered anywhere close to naive. Despite having been the same age as the rest of her peers when she’d started at Beacon Academy (minus Ruby of course), she’d been well ahead of the majority of them in terms of life experience. She’s never been someone who’s easy to fool, and she’s learned by now not to lie to herself.

So she’s not even going to try to pretend that something isn’t terribly wrong here. Walking up with almost no memories from the night before. Finding Yang and Weiss and discovering that they were in the same situation. Finding Ruby like that, skittish and beat up and much worse for wear than the rest of them. The extreme discrepancy between Ruby’s injuries and her own. The fact that Ruby seems to know what happened but won’t talk about it at all beyond a vague “things didn’t go as planned.”

There aren’t enough pieces yet to add up to the whole picture yet, but the ones she can put together don’t look like they’re part of anything good. There’s an unfortunately familiar sinking feeling in her stomach that she recognizes from other times when things didn’t add up. When what was happening wasn’t what it seemed to be.

She’d had the same uneasy feeling when the cracks first started to show in her relationship with Adam, when the things she was seeing with her own eyes were being contradicted by the person she trusted most. And when Emerald’s illusion had made it seem like Yang had attacked Mercury with no provocation during the Vytal Festival Tournament. Both times, someone had been messing with the way she perceived things in order to trick her into doing something bad, and both times, the results had been disastrous.

But this time, Blake can’t quite shake the feeling that it’s too late, that she’s already done something terrible-and the worst part is, she can’t quite put her finger on just what that horrible thing is. Because she can’t remember what happened. And even though she doesn’t remember what it was or what she did, that doesn’t mean that she gets to escape with no consequences.

Chapter Text

Despite her exhaustion and the large amount of pain meds that they’d given her, Ruby spends a long, restless night in the hospital. For one thing, the room is way too quiet. She’s used to sharing a room with the rest of her team, with the steady breathing of her teammates in the background as a kind of soothing lullaby. The only company she has here is the nurses coming in to check on her, which is far from comforting. Every time she hears the door to her room opening, no matter how quiet they try to be, Ruby finds herself jerking awake, a surge of terror running through her.

And then there’s the nightmares. When she does manage to fall asleep, her dreams are a combination of terrifying memories and horrifying what-ifs. It’s hard to tell exactly where the reality of what happened ends and what is being added by her imagination. Describing the events for the mission report yesterday just seems to have made everything seem more fresh and real and vivid.

But still, Ruby won’t allow herself to complain. As illustrated by her nightmares, things could have gone so much worse than they did. They all made it out alive, and although Ruby herself is a little worse for wear, she’ll recover in time. She’ll take the bad memories from this mission and bury them deep in her mind along with the rest of the things she prefers not to think about.

What’s important is that her team is okay and that they’re still together. Ruby can deal with the rest.

So when morning comes and her teammates arrive for visiting hours, Ruby paints a bright smile on her face and forces herself to be cheerful. No, she’s not in that much pain, really, she’s feeling a lot better now that she’s gotten some sleep. She’s just eager to get out of here, after all.

That last part is even completely true! Ruby has never really liked hospitals. Then again, who does?

When the doctors have finally given her permission to be discharged, she breathes a heavy sigh of relief. Surely being out of the hospital will make things seem a lot better, even if she is supposed to be resting once she gets back to the dorms.

Everything is going to be fine, Ruby is sure of it. If she tells herself that enough times, it’ll come true.

Chapter Text

While it’s true that Yang loves her little sister more than anything or anyone else in Remnant, sometimes, like any other pair of siblings, Ruby frustrates her so much that it makes Yang want to strangle her.

Case in point, ever since they brought her home from the hospital, Ruby has been all smiles and happiness, acting like a parody of her normal cheerful self. It’s so obviously fake that it practically hurts. Yang doesn’t buy it for a second.

Seriously, does Ruby really think that she’s convincing anyone with her ridiculous “everything is fine” act? Surely she realizes that her team knows her better than that. Surely she’s aware that Yang isn’t going to fall for this kind of front.

But Ruby refuses to budge, insisting that she has no idea what Yang is talking about when she tries to call her on her crap. Her sister is stubborn, Yang will give her that. She’s the most determined person that Yang has ever met. It’s a trait that she usually admires about her sister.

Except for in cases like this, when it makes her want to scream. Trying to confront Ruby when she’s like this feels like banging her head against Jaune’s newly upgraded shield. It doesn’t get her anywhere and all it really does is leave her frustrated and with a headache.

“Really, Yang, I’m fine, quit hovering already. You don’t need to fuss,” Ruby insists, with an attempt at one of her usual cheerful grins. It’d be much more convincing if her smile actually made it all the way to her eyes. “You heard the doctors, I just need a few more days of rest and I’ll be good as new. You don’t need to worry, really.”

And when had Ruby gotten so comfortable at lying right to her sister’s face like this? Sure, she’s not good at it; Yang can still see right through her without even trying. But still, Yang swears she remembers a time when Ruby would have felt way too guilty to even attempt pulling something like this.

“That’s not what I’m talking about, and you know it,” Yang tells her, trying to keep her frustration from leaking into her voice. Ruby just blinks innocently at her. “C’mon, Ruby, it doesn’t take a genius to see that something’s bothering you. I’m just trying to help here.” She represses a sigh. “You’re the one always trying to get the rest of us to talk about stuff with you. Now it’s your turn to talk to us.”

She’s sure that reminding Ruby of how she’s always there to listen to them will be the thing that breaks through her sister’s stubbornness, but no such luck. Apparently Ruby’s whole “you can talk to me about your problems instead of bottling things up” applies to everyone except herself. Her sister shakes her head. “There’s nothing to talk about, Yang. It’s just a mission that didn’t go as planned. It happens. No need to dwell on it.”

“You’re a terrible liar, you know that, right?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” It’s a weak reply and they both know it, but Ruby turns away from Yang and grabs a comic from the pile sitting next to her, indicating that the conversation is over. For now, anyway. Yang doesn’t miss the slight tremble in Ruby’s hands as she picks up her book.

“Fine, you don’t have to talk about what’s bugging you right this second,” Yang concedes. “But you know you can’t keep doing this forever. You’re the one always reminding me about what happens when you try to ignore things instead of talking about them.”

Ruby doesn’t respond, and Yang bites back another sigh. Ruby can’t keep playing this game forever. Eventually, something’s going to give. And the longer Ruby keeps pushing this off, the worse it’s going to be when she can’t ignore it anymore.

Chapter Text

Weiss is worried. Things can’t go on like this forever. No matter how hard Ruby is trying to pretend that everything is fine, she isn’t fooling any of them. Anyone who knows Ruby at all could see through her act in a second.

But pushing at the matter doesn’t seem to be getting them anywhere, if Yang’s attempts are anything to go by. So instead, since Weiss isn’t the type to just sit around fretting about things, she’s been going over the previous reports about the Grimm they’d been hunting when everything went sideways, looking for any clues to what might have happened.

Even splitting the files with Blake, it’s a lot of work to go through. On each page she scans for details that only stand out in hindsight, that she might have dismissed as insignificant the first time she read them. It’s essentially looking for a needle in a field of haystacks, but Weiss isn’t going to give up. Not if the information she’s going over might help fix whatever went wrong with Ruby.

An unnerving trend that Weiss can’t help but notice in the reports from the witnesses (at least in the cases where there were survivors) is that they inevitably bring up either the unusual behavior of someone close to them “like they weren’t themselves, like they were being controlled” or they say that they can’t remember large chunks of time surrounding the attack. The pieces aren’t quite falling into place yet, but Weiss is getting a bad feeling about whatever answer the clues are pointing to.

Exchanging a glance with Blake, Weiss can tell that the other girl is on edge as well. As much as she needs to know what happened, Weiss can’t help but feel like when she does find the answers, it’s not going to be good.

But they can’t keep going like this. Something’s going to have to change.

Chapter Text

With Ruby back from the hospital, they’re once again back to the four of them sharing a dorm room. It’s the way things should be. So, one would hope that things would be back to normal. Ruby is still healing from her injuries, but she’s on the mend. She’ll bounce back quickly.

But things aren’t back to normal. Despite Ruby’s best efforts to pretend to be her normal cheerful self and insistence that everything is fine, it’s very clear that something isn’t right. But no amount of pushing seems to be enough to get her to talk about what’s wrong. Blake wishes that there was something she could do to help.

Which is why she’s spent most of the day helping Weiss sort through the files from their last mission, looking for any kind of clues as to what might have happened out in the desert. Since their last mission seems to have been when everything went wrong and none of them remember what happened-except Ruby, but she’s refusing to talk about it-the files are their best resource for trying to put the pieces together.

But despite spending most of the day poring over reports, they haven’t been able to establish anything concrete. They’ve noticed a few disturbing trends and Blake has her suspicions as to what might have happened, but they still have some more work to do by the time they decide to call it a night. The feeling that had haunted Blake last night, the sense of dread that she might have done something horrible without even knowing it, is stronger than ever.

It’s not the kind of ambiance that’s conducive to a good night’s sleep. Despite team RWBY having been reunited, there’s an uneasy feeling hovering over the room. Blake finds herself still wide awake long after they’ve all turned in for the night.

She’s just starting to drift off at last when she hears someone screaming. Blake sits bolt upright, almost knocking her head on the bottom of the bunk above her. It’s Ruby.

Upon realizing that it’s Ruby screaming, the three of them are awake and at her side in a flash. It’s almost as if the three of them have borrowed their leader’s speed semblance.

Their presence doesn’t seem to be very reassuring to Ruby, though. She flinches back slightly when she realizes how close they are. Although it’s subtle, it makes Blake’s heart hurt at the idea of Ruby being afraid of her teammates.

It also makes something click in her mind.

“Ruby, are you okay? Are you hurt?” Yang asks quietly.

“I’m not hurt,” Ruby reassures them. “It was just a bad dream. I’m fine, really. You guys can go back to bed.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Weiss asks. Ruby quickly shakes her head. “Ruby, we want to help. Please, just tell us what’s wrong.”

“It was us, wasn’t it.” Blake realizes that she should probably clarify what she’s talking about. “We’re the ones who hurt you.”

Chapter Text

Pretending that everything is fine is exhausting.

And apparently Ruby isn’t that great at it, since Yang keeps pestering her trying to get her to talk. Or maybe her sister just knows her too well. Either way, since when does Yang like to talk about her feelings? Usually whenever Ruby tries to get her sister to talk about something that’s bothering her, she’s brushed off immediately.

Of course Yang would pick now to be all interested in sharing and caring. The time when Ruby wants nothing more than to just forget about what happened and put it all behind her. Right now everything is too fresh for her to really think about. Maybe someday, when it’s far in the past, she can take the time to process it.

But not now. Can’t Yang take the hint and stop prying?

She rereads the same page in the comic book she’s been trying to read, but it’s difficult to focus on it when she can feel her sister’s eyes on her. Doesn’t Yang have anything better to do right now?

Also she’s pretty sure that Blake and Weiss are up to something, but she’s too exhausted and distracted by her sister to try to get to the bottom of it. The two of them have stopped asking Ruby questions, but that doesn’t make her feel any more at ease. They’ve spent most of the day huddled around the small table in their dorm room, reading over some kind of files.

Maybe it’s not related to what happened on their last mission. Maybe Blake and Weiss have just found a project that they want to work on and they’re researching for something like that.

But Ruby doubts that. She’s rarely that lucky.

By the time the sun is setting, Ruby is completely worn out. She’s made absolutely no progress on reading her comic even though she’s been staring at it for hours. She just wants this day to be over already.

Luckily, one of the few benefits of recovering from her injuries is that she’s supposed to be resting, so no one questions it when she gets ready for bed much earlier than usual. Unlike last night in the hospital, she finds herself drifting off almost immediately.

Unluckily, she once again finds herself unable to escape her nightmares. Familiar faces twisted with hate, as she flees from the ones who usually have her back and keep her safe. It’s not their fault, she reminds herself. They’re not in control.

If she can just take out the Grimm, maybe she can finally end this living nightmare.

Yet again, Ruby wakes up screaming, unfortunately, this time she’s not alone when she wakes up. She’s still groggy, still only half-awake and not fully in control of herself. She doesn’t mean to flinch away from her team when they’re only trying to help, but she’s still trying to sort out what was just her dreams and what was reality.

Ruby isn’t prepared to deal with any of this right now, especially with her team standing so close, watching her every move. Especially not when Blake says softly, “It was us, wasn’t it.”

With those words, Ruby’s great wall of denial feels like it’s beginning to crack. So much for pretending that everything is fine.

Chapter Text

“We’re the ones who hurt you.”

At Blake’s words, Yang feels like her heart has frozen in her chest. “What?” Sure, things haven’t been adding up since whatever went down on their last mission, and sure, she’s felt uneasy about what happened that she can’t remember, and yeah, Ruby’s been acting very strange and jumpy around them. But the idea that they-that she-might have been the ones to hurt her sister like that? It’s completely unthinkable.

There must be something else going on, some other explanation.

The worst part is that there’s no fervent denial from Ruby, no insistence from her sister that something else had happened and that Blake had jumped to the wrong conclusion. No, Ruby looks trapped, a pained look on her face. She almost looks guilty.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Ruby finally says, weakly, but Yang doesn’t really hear her. Instead, remembering something she had seen earlier, she gently but firmly grabs Ruby’s right hand and before her sister can react, she slips the bandage around her forearm up just far enough to be able to see the injury hiding underneath. Yang’s heart drops.

Even in the darkness of their dorm room, the burn in the shape of a handprint is obvious. It’s the exact size and shape of Yang’s hand, obviously from her grabbing roughly at Ruby’s arm while her semblance was active. She wants to throw up.

When she was first trying to figure out her semblance, Yang had learned the hard way that if she wasn’t careful, she could burn people. It had taken some time and effort, but eventually Yang had gained enough control over her powers to avoid that side effect. Besides one training accident from when they were much younger, she had always been incredibly careful to avoid doing that to Ruby.

Until now. Yang is horrified. She replaces the bandage on Ruby’s arm and lets go as if she was the one burned, swallowing hard. What else did she do to her sister that she can’t even remember?

And why?

Chapter Text

“We’re the ones who hurt you.”

It sounds so much worse when Blake says it out loud. Obviously, Weiss wasn’t completely oblivious to the possibility. It had started to become clear as she and Blake had read through the reports, uncovering the pattern of memory loss and sudden attacks on the victims by the people around them. Weiss is smart enough that she had started to put the pieces together.

Still, though, a part of her had been in denial, hoping that there was another explanation. One that didn’t involve Ruby being attacked by her own teammates. One where Weiss didn’t hurt her own partner.

No wonder Ruby is a mess, and has hardly been able to look at them since they found her. How do you come back from that?

As if reading her mind, Ruby finally lifts her head. “It wasn’t you,” she says in a hoarse voice.

“That’s not how it looks from where I’m standing.” Weiss bites her lip. “We attacked you, Ruby.”

“You weren’t in control,” Ruby insists, clearing her throat. “It was the Grimm. I don’t know exactly what it did, but it was controlling you guys somehow. You guys never would have done that if you hadn’t been under its spell. I know that.” She laughs, a bit shakily. “I just need to keep reminding myself of that fact.”

“Ruby-“ Yang’s voice is tight with pain.

“How did you avoid being manipulated by it then?” Weiss asks, genuinely curious.

And then finally, Blake asks the question that’s on all of their minds. “And why didn’t you just tell us what happened from the start?”

Chapter Text

“And why didn’t you just tell us from the start?” Blake asks. It would have saved them all so much stress and heartache if they’d known what had happened from the beginning. And it couldn’t have been easy for Ruby either, hiding the truth from her teammates.”

“I’m not sure how I avoided getting caught up in its control,” Ruby replies to Weiss, neatly dodging Blake’s question. “Maybe it’s just luck, or maybe it’s a silver eyes thing, I don’t know.” She gives a little half-shrug, careful with her injured shoulder.

“Interesting,” Weiss muses thoughtfully. But Ruby’s distraction doesn’t work on all of them.

“So why not just tell us the truth, Ruby?” Yang bursts out, her frustration and worry coming across as anger. She winces when Ruby flinches. “I’m sorry, I’m not trying to yell at you. I just-we’ve been worried sick, and none of us could remember what happened, and you weren’t saying anything. And clearly you haven’t been handling it well. We’re not blind, Ruby.”

“You can come to us with this kind of thing, you know that, right, Ruby?” Weiss adds anxiously.

“Of course I know that,” Ruby says softly. “I trust you guys. What happened doesn’t change that.”

“Then why didn’t you tell us, Ruby?” Blake asks again. “Why keep it a secret?”

“Because I knew you guys would react like this!”

Chapter Text

“Because I knew you guys would react like this!”

So much for Ruby’s attempts to hide the truth from the rest of her team. It figures that they would know her well enough to see right through her, and they’re smart enough to keep digging until they get to the bottom of things. And Ruby is too tired to keep trying to lie to them.

“I knew you guys would freak out and blame yourselves,” she continues, softening her voice a bit. “Even though it’s completely not your fault. I wanted to keep you guys from having to go through that. Especially after everything that we’ve been through lately, in Atlas and then coming here. I figured I could handle it on my own. There’s already been enough blame and mistrust that we’ve had to deal with.”

“Right, because you were dealing with it so well,” her sister says, raising an eyebrow. Ruby feels herself flush slightly.

“And because you keeping stuff from us and trying to handle stuff on your own always works out so well,” Weiss chimes in, giving Ruby a pointed look.

Her blush deepens. “Ok, yeah, it was a bad idea. You guys don’t have to rub it in my face, jeez.”

“We’ll let it go,” Blake offers. Ruby turns to her. “Both your poor planning and the fact that you tried to hide something this big from us. We’ll even try not to blame ourselves too much for what happened, although I can’t completely promise that. On one condition.”

“Okay,” Ruby replies, curious but wary. It sounds too good to be true. “What’s the condition?”

“That you don’t keep this kind of thing from us ever again!” Yang bursts out. “Right, Blake?”

“Yes,” her partner agrees with a heavy sigh. “Do we have a deal?”

“Yes,” Ruby confirms, breathing her own sigh of relief.

“You know we’re not going anywhere, right, Ruby?” Weiss asks, looking serious. “Sure we’ve had our ups and downs, but we’ve come through them as strong as ever. Don’t ever think that something like this will change that.”

“I know that,” Ruby assures her.

“And it’s our job to protect you just as much as the other way around,” Yang reminds her. “You gotta let us do our jobs too.”

“I can do that,” Ruby laughs wetly, wiping under her eyes. “You guys are gonna make me cry.”

“You know we love you, right, Ruby?” Blake asks softly.

“I know.” Ruby swallows past the sudden lump in her throat. “I love you guys too.”

When she eventually drifts off to sleep again, wedged in the middle of a team cuddle pile on her sister’s bed, it’s the safest Ruby has felt since their mission. And if she has night about what happened, well, those are just dreams. In the waking world, she knows what’s real.