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If someone had asked Weiss what she thought of her teammates at the start of her first year at Beacon, she’d probably have gone on a long tirade full of inane complaints and childish gripes. Yang’s laugh was far too loud for how often it happened, Blake was a master of dodging questions and wasn’t entirely trustworthy, and Ruby was…well, childish. Impulsive. Brash. Incompetent. A myriad of things that weren’t remotely true. Ruby Rose was one of the most capable people Weiss had ever known, and making her team leader was probably the best decision Ozpin had ever made.
Weiss doesn’t hide the way her gaze drifts over to her partner and team leader, still staring at the case that contained Crescent Rose. Weiss had expected her to be excited about the reunion with something as intrinsically valuable as a huntress’s weapon, but if anything she seemed…uncomfortable. Disturbed, maybe. Of course, it had been abundantly clear to all three of them that Ruby was struggling with recent events, but to shun her own weapon was…concerning to say the least. Weiss can’t imagine being anything but ecstatic to hold Myrtenaster again after so long apart. She can still remember Blake’s heavy sigh of relief when they repaired Gambol Shroud in Atlas.
Whatever the reason was, Ruby was not eager at all to see Crescent Rose again, and yet somehow that was the least concerning part of her demeanor. Ruby had always been a positive girl, always quick to find a silver lining, or make one if there was none to be found. Weiss liked to think they were quite close after everything, but she was ashamed to admit that she wasn’t quite sure how to help. Even Yang, who had known Ruby her entire life, seemed to be struggling with how to approach her.
Speaking of which, the childish giggling was starting to grate on her. She pointedly clears her throat and shoots Blake and Yang a look, brow raised. They blush and quiet down, though they still share in hushed giggles and ridiculous grins and hardly subtle touches. Weiss is happy for them, really she is, but do they have to be so obnoxious? She had thought that the longing sighs and wishful stares were bad, but this was definitely worse. Well, worse for her. Better, overall. She really is happy for them.
“We should all head to bed. I’ve got the feeling that tomorrow is going to be pretty exhausting.” Jaune says as he gathers a few spare blankets and passes them out. Weiss notices that she and Ruby were handed their own individual blankets, while Blake and Yang were handed only one. Judging from the suspicious look Blake gave him, she hadn’t failed to notice either.
“Hey, ever since we’ve gotten here we fought a Jabberwalker, a bunch of living game pieces, ran away from the royal guard, confronted hallucinations of our younger selves, and fought the Jabberwalker again.” Yang recalls playfully, listing the instances off on her fingers. “How can tomorrow be any worse?” Ruby immediately groans and Blake softly smacks her shoulder in gentle admonishment. “What?” Yang shrugs, as if entirely unaware of the concept of jinxing.
“Don’t forget the storm that physically manifests wordplay.” Weiss reminds her with an amused smile. “I’m surprised you weren’t more excited about the idea.”
“What? No way! When was that?” Yang glances between Ruby and Weiss, her brows furrowing with confusion. Weiss can’t help but be surprised. What actually happened to them? Was their experience with the storm really that different?
“Yang.” Blake’s gentle voice captures her full attention instantly. She settles a hand on Yang’s prosthetic and lilac eyes drop to it, widening as she begins to realize. “You do realize that whole time, we were trying to take the next step?” Blake asks her gently, ears tilting sideways ever so slightly as an amused look lights up her face. Weiss isn’t sure she’ll ever grow accustomed to it, just how open and expressive Blake is now. Part of her doesn’t want to, wants to always remember just how meaningful it is.
“Oh. Oh my—never let me open my mouth again.” Yang groans as she leans forward to hide her face against Blake’s shoulder. The faunus laughs and drops her head to whisper something that makes Yang’s face turn red, all the way up to her ears. Weiss doesn’t even want to know what it was.
“What about you three?” Blake asks, as if Yang’s current position isn’t anything new or novel. As if this is how they always are. It’s not exactly wrong, though. “We haven’t really talked about it yet. What we all experienced in the punderstorm.”
“Mirrors.” Jaune mutters from his place by the door. He’s been lurking there for a few minutes, arms crossed as he silently broods. Weiss might have found it attractive if she wasn’t so worried about him. Not that she found Jaune attractive. Of course not. Especially not when he’s now old enough to be her father. That would just be—
No. Absolutely not.
“I saw Atlas.” Weiss admits quietly. She shakes her head as if it might dislodge the memories and relieve her of her grief. Atlas is gone and she can’t do anything about it now. All she can do is try to get back home, and hope with all her heart that her mother and siblings are okay. Brothers, she hopes Winter is okay. She probably thinks they’re all dead.
Poor Winter…
I know how it feels, to believe your sister is dead, Weiss thinks as she watches Yang press a quick kiss to Blake’s cheek in a futile attempt to be sneaky about it.
“We can’t trust the Cat anymore.” Ruby speaks up from the table. Her head is cradled in her hands, but she speaks with as much conviction as she ever has before. “We don’t know how this world works, and we can’t just assume that everyone here will help us.”
“What about Little?” Yang asks hesitantly, because the mouse is currently fast asleep against the back of Ruby’s neck and completely unawares. They can’t exactly speak their own defense at the moment.
“I…I don’t know. They’ve helped us so far, and they seem good-natured, but…”
“Ruby.” Weiss’s tone may have been harsher than she intended, if the way Ruby visibly flinches is any indicator. “I know everything is a little…crazy, right now, but you know as well as I do that we wouldn’t have come this far without Little’s help.” Ruby at least has the decency to look guilty for the distrust.
“Or the cat’s.” Blake boldly interjects. “They saved us from the Red Prince, and the Herbalist, and went out of their way to help us return to normal size.” Jaune’s expression hardens and Weiss feels herself bristle. This isn’t the Jaune she knows, and they need to stop treating him like he is. They know as well as anyone how much the years can change someone. For better or worse.
“Yeah, if the Cat hadn’t helped us we’d probably be dead by now.” Yang agrees, though she instantly withers when she sees the way Ruby’s shoulders shake. “I mean, maybe we can’t totally trust them, but they did help us.”
“I just…” Ruby takes in a shaky breath before bolting out of her seat. “I need some air.” Jaune instantly steps aside to let her out, even as Weiss reaches out to her. She knows she should probably let her go, let her decompress a bit, but something tells her that leaving Ruby alone is the absolute last thing she should be doing right now.
The door slams, shaking a bit of dust from the frame. Jaune sighs heavily and rubs the bridge of his nose before heading deeper into the cottage towards his bedroom. “Spare room is right there, but there’s only one bed.” He grumbles before shutting his door and disappearing for the night. Yang and Blake turn to Weiss, as if she might have any answers for what just happened.
“Are we going to draw sticks?” Yang suggests with a stupid smile, one of her fake ones. Weiss can easily tell the difference by now.
“You two can have it.” Weiss decides, already knowing that it would end up that way anyway with the mood Ruby is in. “I’m not sure…” She doesn’t want to throw her partner under the bus, doesn’t want to be frank about what she sees even though she knows the others can see it too. Ruby has never been one to open up about hard feelings. “I don’t think all of us are going to sleep well tonight regardless.”
“I’m really worried about her.” Yang admits, her voice softer and more vulnerable. She stands from her seat by the fire and comes closer. Weiss looks up at her, for just a moment wondering if she ate just a bit too much Growgurt Parfait. Has Yang always been this tall? “It’s not like I expect her to be all sunshine and rainbows when we’re stuck in a magical dimension while Salem has two relics, but…” Yang sighs and anxiously rubs her neck. “…I’ve seen her sad, obviously, but never like this.”
“Because of Penny, you think?” She asks cautiously, hesitant. Yang shrugs and looks down at the floor.
“I don’t know. Maybe combined with everything else? She wasn’t even like this after Beacon fell, when Penny and Pyrrha…” Yang trails off, a guilty look on her face. A few seconds later, Weiss realizes where the guilt suddenly came from. “Not that I paid too much attention to her then. Jaune would know better than I would.”
“That wasn’t entirely your fault.” Weiss reassures her. “She ran off to Mistral without you, and you had your own…” She hesitates, and instantly regrets it. Yang’s nose scrunches up in distaste.
“Don’t do that. It’s not like it’s some skeleton in the closet.” She grumbles.
“The skeleton being me?” Blake asks with a wry smile and a playful wiggle of her ears. Shoot. Sometimes Weiss still forgets just how well Blake can hear.
“No way! You aren’t exactly boney.” Yang seems to quickly realize that it isn’t quite a compliment. “Uh, I mean, cuz you…you know…you’ve got…” She gestures frantically with her hands, her face flushing as she moves them in a vertical wave. Blake giggles and purposefully angles her body to accentuate the curves that Yang seems to be having trouble acknowledging.
”I’m not in any closet either.” Blake adds with a wink.
”Y-Yeah!” Yang smiles through the frankly unhealthy color on her face. “Besides, I’m pretty sure she was talking about the arm!” Yang laughs and playfully wiggles her metal fingers in Blake’s direction. The gesture causes Blake to smile, and Weiss is amazed that they can joke about both things so easily.
“How do you do that?” Yang turns back to her, expression genuinely confused. “Just…joke about it so easily. All of it. Doesn’t it still hurt, even a little?” Weiss looks away, can’t stand to see the look on Yang’s face when she realizes what Weiss is really asking. How can I do that too?
“Well, I’m never going to get my arm back. Even if this prosthetic is pretty close to the real thing.” Yang shrugs as she looks down at her right hand. “Plus I’ve already decided that it was worth it, that I wouldn’t go back and make any other choice. I would have given an arm and a leg.” She jokes, but the delivery is weak and nobody laughs. In fact, when Weiss glances at Blake, she’s pretty sure she sees tears in her eyes. Whether from guilt or simply being touched, Weiss isn’t sure. If she had to guess, though, she’d say the latter.
“We all have our scars.” Blake adds, voice thick with emotion as she quickly stands and slips beside Yang.
Weiss remembers seeing Blake’s, back in Atlas in the showers after training. Yang and Ruby had decided to go an extra round, to work up the younger girl’s hand-to-hand, so they had been alone when she’d first noticed the scar on Blake’s hip. She vaguely remembered Blake being injured the night Beacon fell, but had been so concerned with the much more gravely injured Yang that it had slipped her mind ever since.
Blake hadn’t been ashamed or embarrassed of it. In fact, she seemed proud, almost. It was a physical reminder of what she’d had the courage to escape, what she’d endured. Proof that she was better than she was. Weiss shared her own scar. It was hard to hide in the showers, after all. A small mark along her midriff, only a few inches long. The spot where she’d been impaled by Cinder Fall’s spear. “Now you have two battle scars.” Blake had told her with a smile, as though it were good news to have been injured so gravely. Although, it was good news that she’d survived.
It was a good memory.
“It’s not that I’m over it, exactly. It still hurts, but I also know that being sad about it never got me anywhere.” Yang tries to explain with an awkward shrug. It’s obvious that she’s never had to put it into words before. “I got over myself and put the prosthetic on, and that was when I started getting better, you know?”
“You bit the bullet and took the plunge.” Blake assists, a curl to her lips that Weiss recognizes as admiration.
“Yeah.” Yang agrees with a small nod. “That was how I started to heal from losing my arm. By putting in the effort and getting back into it.” She grins and raises her fists, shooting a couple playful jabs at Weiss’s shoulders. She easily bats them away with a small laugh.
“I suppose that’s understandable.” Weiss relents, deciding it might be best if she avoids provoking any memories of Blake’s departure. “All of this is so much different, though. People died. It was Beacon all over again, but this time it was my own city, my…” She cuts herself off before she starts crying. “Gods, I don’t even like Atlas, but it was still my home!”
She’s pulled into a hug before she can protest, four arms wrapping around her in gentle support. She realizes a little too late that she hadn’t succeeded in stopping the tears, as they run hot down her cheeks. Her shoulders shake, but fingers of firm unyielding steel stroke her back in sweeping motions and she lets her breathing slow.
“I can’t imagine how it must feel, Weiss.” Blake whispers beside her head. “If I saw something like that happen to Menagerie…” She trails off, not wanting to think of such a thing for any longer than the sentiment requires. “I’m sorry. I wish we could have stopped it. I wish we’d had a choice.”
“That’s the thing, though. We don’t have a choice. In any of this.” Yang says with sudden conviction. “We’re fighting an ancient evil, something that predates humanity and faunus alike! Something like that means making hard calls, it means…” Yang trails off and looks towards the door. “Idiot.”
“Who?” Blake asks, a confused tilt to her ears.
“My sister.” Yang groans and throws her hands over her head. “And me, for not realizing sooner.”
“What do you mean?” Weiss asks, something inside instinctively wanting to leap to Ruby’s defense.
“Ruby is our team leader. She’s always taken that responsibility super seriously.” Yang starts, earning a couple nods of agreement from the others. “And she has silver eyes.” Yang waits a beat, eyes expectant like she expects them to pick up on something. Weiss has a horrible feeling she’s starting to see the picture. “Using the relic was her plan.” Yang adds, and the pieces fall into place.
“Our team has the weight of the world on our shoulders, and the three of us aren’t bearing enough of it.” It figures that Blake would voice it first.
“Then I’ll talk to her.” Weiss suggests with a determined nod. “Hopefully make her see that she isn’t alone.”
“You think?” Yang asks her with a raised brow. Weiss flinches, fully aware of the underlying question. Are you sure you should be the one?
“She’s my partner. If she doesn’t think she can rely on me, then that’s a problem that I have to address.” She declares, far more confident than she really feels. Ruby is in an incredibly vulnerable state right now, and Weiss doesn’t have the first clue what to say to her.
“Okay. Then…we’ll head to bed?” Blake says, a touch too hesitant as she glances to Yang with pink cheeks. The blonde wraps an arm around her shoulders and spins them around to head towards the spare bedroom. Weiss catches them kiss before the door closes behind them, and honestly, she really is happy for them.
But now isn’t the time for celebrations.