Archive of Our Own ^beta

The night was cold. Numbingly so. But, despite the twilight’s bitter nip, he stood still, staring upward. The vast, seemingly empty, space was filled with glittering, diamond-like pinpoints of light. Jaune had never noticed how lovely the darkened sky was. Not until he saw it every night. Not until she was gone. Each twinkling star seemed to be in it’s proper place, filling empty spaces. Shadowy, ribbon-like clouds flowed seamlessly around the shattered moon. It was perfect.

Except it wasn’t.

“Hey Pyrrha.”

Jaune settled down on the coarse grass, fallen leaves crunching with his movements. He absentmindedly began to fiddle with the smooth petals of the single, pure white rose in his hands as he lowered his gaze from the sky to the plain cross that had been staked into the dirt. Nora and Ruby had sat together for hours, weaving a wreath of golden and red leaves that now adorned their memorial. She deserved more, but leaving Patch at the moment wasn’t a good idea.

“Hope you like the view,” he started, as he always did. “It’s not much right now, but we’ll be getting you home soon enough. We can build something better there. Something that’ll last,” Jaune sighed heavily, briefly shutting his eyes and looking away. “Ren told me I’ll probably have to be the one to tell your family. What am I supposed to say, Pyrrha? I don’t even know who they are. You never told me. Did you have any siblings? Brothers? Sisters, like me? What will they think when a strange boy tells them their sister is… gone?”

Swallowing past the lump in his throat, Jaune blinked back the prickling sensation plaguing his eyes and shifted, bringing one leg up to his chest and resting his arm on the raised knee, “Anyways… Ruby’s on the mend. She’s been grumbling about getting out of the house for weeks, and I think her father might actually let her go for a walk tomorrow. She still blames herself, you know. ‘I should’ve been faster,’ she says. ‘I could’ve saved her.’ But she knows you would tell her that’s ridiculous - that she did everything she could.”

Craning back, he took to watching the stars once more, “We finally heard from Weiss the other day - the CCT network is still down, so she sent a letter. She and her sister are attempting to help General Ironwood organize things in Atlas. Things… aren’t good there. After the Atlesian Knights turned on everyone, people’s trust in Atlas was broken. If any effort to take back Beacon is going to happen, it won’t be for a while.”

“Blake’s still missing,” he continued, “and Yang’s… still having a tough time with all this. I don't think I've seen her leave her room yet. Nora’s… Nora. But she misses you. It’s difficult to catch, but she zones out sometimes. Just stares off at nothing. I figure that’s when she’s thinking about you. About what happened. And Ren’s coping, in his own way. We’ve only talked about it once. Never thought I’d see him, of all people, cry.”

Jaune shuffled up onto his knees and placed a soft hand on the temporary grave marker, “I could’ve helped you, you know,” he said gently. The first few times, he’d been angry - with himself, with her, with everything. He’d screamed, and cursed, and even kicked the cross over, twice. But now he knew there was little point. “I thought you trusted me more than that. I didn’t need you to save me. I didn’t want to be saved. I don’t want to be the one left behind. They need you, not me. You would know what to do.”

A tear escaped and slipped soundlessly down his cheek, dripping quietly to the ground below. An icy wind rose, tossing the late autumn leaves about. Giving his head a slight shake, he set the flower among the multitude of others - white, magenta, pink, red, and one golden - and shoved himself upright. Stuffing his hands in his pockets, he stared at the cross for a long moment, then turned aside and retreated into the warmth of the homestead.