Chapter Text
TWO MONTHS AGO
As if carved from a tree trunk, Ruby’s frame made entirely from wood. Her eyes were closed, as if she were in peace, and more of the tree grew from her. Yang’s stomach lurched at the sight and she ran up to her. She dabs her hands over the curves of her face, pressing theirs close together. Her skin was cold, and hard. Frantically, she started tearing the branches that grew from her hair and shoulders, then the leaves from her skirt and legs, but she still wasn’t Ruby.
Her heart pounded in fear, and when a hand touched her on the shoulder, she almost jumped out of her skin. She turned her head and snapped “We have to get her out!”
It’s Jaune she’s yelling at again. He shakes his head. “It won’t work like that.”
“Well, we can’t do nothing.” She remains, returning to her task, no idea what else to do but tear at the leaves and twigs adorning her sister. “I can’t do nothing.” She realizes she’s scraping at the bark now, nothing left to grasp. She grunts angrily, shooting to her feet to stare evenly with the carving. “Why did she drink that stupid tea? The Cat told us about ascension. The paper pleasers told us about it too. Why did she think this was a good idea? Did Neo make her do it? Why didn’t she just come to me about it?”
She’s spitting fire, she knows it, it’s boiling her blood and simmering behind her eyes until her vision goes blurry. “She always has, she’s always supposed to. I could’ve helped her. She didn’t have to do anything, I could’ve taken the problem from her, I could’ve fixed it. That’s how it’s always been. Why is she shutting me out?! Why’d she…?” her voice is breaking, and she can’t hold herself upright. She tips forward, burying her face in the shoulder of the carving. “Why…?”
“Maybe… that is the reason she couldn’t come to us for help.” Weiss wondered aloud. Yang gingerly lifted herself off the tree, and faced her teammate, hesitant to let anyone see her crumbling. Weiss looked at her with concern, but not pity, and so Yang welcomed it hesitantly.
“If you spent your entire childhood raising Ruby by helping her this way— you know, solving her problems for her, dealing with the consequences of her actions so she doesn’t have to, that means she didn’t have any experiences dealing with stress, failure, and consequences as a kid. She just learned to depend on you entirely for it. If she never had to fail, she never got to learn from it. She never learned to manage loss, or the stress of responsibility over herself and her actions. If she never learned that… it might mean she’s been struggling this whole time with… everything she’s had to do since the Fall of Beacon. Dealing with seeing Pyrrha… you know. With coming up with our plans of action at Haven, Mistral, Atlas, and dealing with the aftermath, and guilt for everything that went wrong. Especially now, after Atlas, and…” Weiss breaks off, like even the mention of her kingdom is painful. “Penny died. A whole kingdom fell. I don’t think she knows how to handle that. How to feel, or how to deal with those feelings. She’s never had to before, and certainly not to this magnitude. She’s just been pushing them aside, and eventually, she exploded at us.”
Yang follows along numbly, taking it in. “You…” she murmured. “You think it’s my fault?”
Guilt slices through her like a knife. She’d never thought of it that way. Sure she knew Ruby used to be dependent on her for things, but the farthest she thought it went was socialization. Once she saw Ruby and Weiss learn to get along on their first week at Beacon without Yang’s involvement whatsoever, she started to lay back more and more, hoping this was Ruby maturing. And maybe the social aspect, but… Weiss was right. Yang had stunted her development.
She’s the one that put those stories of heroes and happy endings in her head, who made her believe them. She’s the one who hid the proof that spoke otherwise from her. She’s the one that made Ruby think the world could be saved, then shut down when it actually needed saving, leaving Ruby to deal with it on her own. It was Yang.
And then Blake was there, at her side, a hand on her arm, then the other on her collarbone as if to keep her in place and grounded. “She’s not saying that.” She assured her, her voice steady. “You were a kid too Yang, you were just a kid. You shouldn’t have even had to be there for Ruby like that, but you did it anyway, the best you knew how to. How could you have possibly known the best way to raise a child two years younger than you? Be kind to yourself.”
It hits hard enough that Yang’s choking back tears. Not because no one’s told her this before. She’s gotten it from her teachers who knew, her dad, Qrow. But when they did it (especially when her dad tried it), she pushed back at them. (“I’m not a kid.” She’d tell them. “I haven’t been a kid in years. Don’t treat me like one. Don’t pity me, I can take care of myself.”) No, this hits this hard because it’s the first time she lets it. She lets herself feel the weight of all those years she spent as a grown up child, and it hurts. She feels loss like an actual grief at that sacrifice of her childhood. She’s never felt it like this before.
As she feels herself close to tears, she turns away on instinct, ready to force it back inside and deal with it when she’s on her own, but Blake grabs her face by the cheek and pulls her back, face to face. And Yang lets herself fall apart, collapse into Blake, tears shedding down her cheeks and Blake catches them, bringing their faces together to rest gently on one another, by the forehead. Yang is reminded of waterfalls and Blake’s sobs. Now the sobs are her own.
“It’s not your fault, Yang.” Weiss agrees. “If it’s anyone’s fault for not catching what Ruby was going through, it’s mine. I’m her partner, I’m supposed to be there for her. Look at you two! You always know how to be there for one another, especially recently. If either one of you were going through something like this, the other one would’ve caught on immediately. And I know Ruby and I don’t exactly have the same… relationship, but…” her voice breaks, and she looks away, as if ashamed of herself. “I promised her, back at Beacon, that I’d be the best teammate she could ever have. And I failed her.”
Jaune moved to stand in front of her. “No, Weiss, it goes beyond that. Ozpin once told her, and then she told me, that being a leader means putting your teammates first, and yourself second. That you don’t have the luxury to fail, because you’d be failing your teammates too. That’s how I’ve been seeing myself, as a shield and sword for Ren and Nora. Then, for Alyx and Luis, and the paper pleasers. I have no doubt that’s what Ruby’s been struggling with too. You couldn’t have known that, I should’ve been able to catch it. But instead of helping, I made it worse, yelling at her. I’m sorry.”
Blake runs her thumb along Yang’s cheek, and Yang leans into the touch.
“There’s nothing you could have done. There’s nothing any of us could’ve done. I’d know.” Blake addressed them all. Yang opened her eyes, moving to separate their faces but not moving to dry her tears, holding Blake’s wrist in place. “Where Ruby is now, is where I was when you met me. I started out with so much hope. Reading fairytales, believing I could make the world a better place if I just worked at it, I could be a hero for the Faunus. But the more I worked, the more I saw of the world, the more helpless the whole thing seemed. It was so big, and it can make you feel small. Like nothing you do could be good enough. When you don’t feel good enough for the thing you wanted to be, what you thought you had to be, it’s hard to even know who you are anymore.”
Blake took a deep breath, and Yang rubbed at her wrist in what she hoped was a comforting gesture. “That’s where Ruby is right now. And I can swear to you, nothing anyone could’ve said or done would’ve kept me fighting in the White Fang at the moment I left it. I felt alone, and overwhelmed. But then I met you all, and you showed me the little victories. Inspired me to keep going. We couldn’t have predicted what was going to happen to Ruby, we couldn’t have known because she didn’t tell us. All we can do for Ruby now is be there.”
Jaune nodded, stepping closer into the space, into a ray of sun that shone through the canopy of leaves above. “I think I get it. This is why the tree brought us here. Acceptance.” He said.
“We did everything we can. Now it’s up to Ruby.” Weiss agreed. “Whatever happens next, we have to welcome that.”
Yang knew what the others were saying, but it only deepened the pit of dread she felt. Ruby was in the tree now, in the process of ascension. Not death, but rebirth. And Yang had to accept what Jaune had accepted— you can’t try so hard to save someone that doesn’t need it anymore. She was just holding Ruby back, stunting her growth, at the end. She had to learn to let go, to accept Ruby’s struggles and let her decide how she wanted to move past them. Let her learn how to handle leadership and grief and stress and failure. On her own.
“But what if she isn’t Ruby anymore when she comes back out?” She croaks anyway. Because at her core, Yang isn’t just an older sister, she’s a mom. And she doesn’t know who she is without Ruby. She just doesn’t.
Blake brings her head back in so their foreheads can rest against one another again, and she feels cradled and protected in a way that doesn’t make her feel guilty for wanting it.
Then there’s a loud crack from somewhere nearby and they all jolt apart to look for the source. It’s the bug, the caterpillar the Cat had sent to ascend. His form was carved into the tree too, and he breaks out of it like a chrysalis. He spreads big, beautiful butterfly wings wide as he crawls out of it, the light catching through the colorful wings, making the ground around them dance with rainbows. He takes off into the sky, leaving them behind.
Blake directs Yang’s head back to herself, and Yang finds a hard stare greeting her. “That’s not for us to decide.”
Yang’s heart stutters along like it’s dragging a broken leg to walk. The idea of Ruby leaving her feels unacceptable, Yang couldn’t just… let her go, could she? After she gave up her life to raise and protect her? Who would she be, if she did?
Her sister. Yang tells herself. You’d be her sister, instead of her anchor, holding her down. Let her do it. Don’t do it for her.
She squeezes her eyes shut, and lets Blake wipe at her tears. She’s never been good with loss, and people leaving. She probably never will be.
After a little while of letting herself feel it, the feeling of… all of it, starts to settle into her skin, and she stops crying. That’s about when they hear banging coming from farther down the tree. Going to investigate, they find a huge set of doors, a white light shining beyond them. Neo Cat is throwing themselves against it again and again, unable to leave because, to quote them, Neo has nothing tying her to Remnant, so she can’t go back.
They talk about Alyx, who’d promised to bring the Cat with them to Remnant, but had a sudden change of heart and wanted to stay in the Ever After to fix what she broke, so Lewis left, and the Cat… they exacted revenge on her for it.
When they spot Ruby, they attempt to charge toward her and take over her body in order to get home, but Yang steps up to stand in the way. “No. Whatever happens to Ruby is up to her. Not to you, or anyone else.”
They attack anyway, of course, utilizing Neo’s semblance to taunt them with images of Ruby that only serve to make Yang want to punch harder. And Yang has fought Neo before, but this is decidedly not Neo. They don’t move with Neo’s fluidity, they hit hard and double back. There’s no strategy, just brute strength.
That would be indefinitely easier to deal with if they had a strategy. But Ruby isn’t here, so they don’t.
Just as Yang feels herself losing ground and being pushed back, Jaune counters with suggesting they burn the leaves, which causes the smoke dust that bug had gotten them all high with self reflection on. It doesn’t affect the Cat, but it affects Neo, launching the Cat out of her.
When the Cat’s free, they stretch their form wider and larger than they’d been before, where they go to attack even more, with even more brute force. But all they have to do is hold the line, keep the Cat away from their leader.
This is about when Yang hears a loud crack sounding from the forest, and a bright white light. And when Yang turns around, Ruby’s there, brandishing Crescent Rose with a confident grin like nothing happened. She charges in, and with silent instruction, they follow the path of Weiss’s time dilation glyphs and they all attack from above together.
It only takes Yang a second to regain her breath afterward and then she’s closing the gap between herself and her sister, reaching out and pulling her close to her chest, hugging her as tight as she can. “You’re here! You’re you!” She hated how easy it was for her to imagine Ruby leaving, choosing to leave, if only because it happened so many times before. But having her here felt like a relief she’s never known. She doesn’t want to let her go.
“Ah, Yang…” Ruby murmurs, sounding strangled.
Yang realizes her mistake— she can’t hold onto Ruby forever. She feels tears well in her eyes, she can’t tell if they’re happy or bittersweet. But she lets Ruby go anyway, taking a step back. “Sorry. I’ll let you go.” She chuckles, using a hand to wipe at her eyes.
Ruby, to her surprise, laughs. And Yang thinks it’s been too long since she’s heard that sound. “No! No, Yang, I like bear hugs. Just… a little less tight, please?”
Then Yang’s laughing too, and gingerly, she reaches out and pulls her back it, loose in her embrace. It takes a second, but Ruby fits into her, and Yang relaxes into the hug. It’s a new way of falling together, but Yang thinks she can manage this shift. Ruby’s bigger now, stronger under her. Not a frail little girl that needs her mom. And Yang doesn’t have to hold her like she’s falling apart, because she isn’t. She’s more present then Yang’s ever seen her.
The others are right behind Yang— Weiss, Blake, Jaune, joining the hug.
“You scared us!” Weiss exclaimed. “I’ll be a better partner, just don’t ever do that again!”
Blake nuzzled her face in closer adorably. “Next time someone offers you a strange drink, talk to your team first. I promise we’ll understand.”
“And I promise we’ll actually be understanding.” Jaune added in. “We’re your friends, really. You can trust us, or at least trust that we love you.”
Ruby hadn’t stopped laughing. If anything, the sound had gotten louder and more joyous. Yang kinda gets it, each person sounded more frantic than the last, like everyone has spiraled into a panic because Ruby left them for ten minutes. The hug starts to fall apart and Weiss pouts at her. Full bottom lip out pout. “Hey, this isn’t funny. We were worried we’d lost you.”
Ruby wipes at her eyes, clearing away the tears caught there, stifling her remaining giggles. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Don’t freak out, I’m okay.”
Yang can’t help the instinct, she reaches out and wipes away a tear in her cheek, one that she had missed. “Well, good. We’d miss you if you weren’t… uh, you.”
Ruby sniffles, past the wide smile on her face. She tells them she saw Summer in the tree, that she had lied to them before she left that day. Ozpin had sent her on a mission, and she left… with Raven. Ruby said she seemed to already know she wouldn’t come back.
Yang knew that must’ve been hard to take in. Ruby idealized Summer. And for the longest time, based her identity as a huntress around who she believed to be an infallible moral code of a hero. But now, Ruby seemed to realize no one was infallible. Not Summer, not Yang, and not herself. Ruby is the only person she can be, the only person she should be believing in so unwaveringly. Yang learned the opposite, to rely on others. She thinks they’re both going to be more open to their team.
When they crossed over into Remnant again, Yang could feel it. They were more united now than ever. And they’d need that, for the fight ahead.
NOW
“Come on! We gotta hide!”
As the King Tijutu burrowed its way out of the sand, Yang threw the little girl over her shoulder and grabbed the girl's father by the arm and broke into a full sprint back toward their cargo truck.
She heard Gambol Shroud firing in her wake— Blake was giving her cover fire so she could get them to cover.
Problem was— there’s no such thing as “cover” in the Vacuan desert. It’s just sand. The occasional large sand dune or valley could be helpful when hiding away, but it wasn’t what Yang would constitute as “cover.” Nonetheless, Yang got the girl and the dad over to their truck, where they were at least a little less vulnerable to the fight at hand.
“Are you guys okay?” She asked.
The two Vacuan nomads panted for breath, sweat dripping off their foreheads. “We are.” Said the father. “But I don’t know how much more the truck can take. The city needs these supplies.”
Yang gave them a (hopefully) self assured and confident nod. “Don’t worry, sir. We’ll get you and the cargo truck out of here safely.”
There was a brief moment when the duo smiled as if relieved, before Yang heard a Weiss-like yell and saw a wall of ice erect in the sand just a touch too close to the van for comfort.
Yang stood to full height and saw the massive white Grimm snake break through the ice with a powerful yell. Yang leapt over the truck to race to Weiss and Blake’s aid, but Ruby had gotten there first. Crescent Rose fired off a distance away, at the black end of the Tijitu, making the white end hiss and turn its attention back to Ruby, a far distance back the way they’d came.
Yang skidded to a stop when she realized that Ruby hadn’t joined them when earlier, she’d been the one to tell her team to fall back.
“Did Ruby stay back to go after the other head alone?!” Yang asked.
“I guess?” Weiss answered, equally as lost.
The white end of the snake was now rapidly approaching where Ruby was attacking the black end of it, both heads now focused on her little sister.
“Ruby!” Yang exclaimed, rushing to catch up to where her sister was taking on both of the King Tijitu’s heads.
But by the time Yang, Weiss, and Blake arrived, Ruby had already turned the snake to Grimm dust.
She looked triumphantly over her shoulder to the rest of her team.
Yang clenched her fists.
…
Team RWBY escorted the cargo truck and its passengers back to Vacuo city, where it was safely received by the market traders who needed to restock their wares. Their scrolls logged this mission as “complete” on the mission board, compensated them, and they followed Ruby to a nearby inn to stay the night before returning to the Academy the next morning.
“I feel amazing!” Ruby exclaimed triumphantly, kicking open the door to their shared motel room and slipping inside.
“How about we head down Rockaway Pass tomorrow?” She offered, taking out her scroll and sitting down in one of the chairs in the room. “There’s plenty of missions on the board over there.”
“Aren’t Grimm blocking the road?” Blake asked, coming in after her.
“It wouldn’t take long to go around.” Weiss added.
“Or we smash right through!” Ruby countered enthusiastically. “Take out the Grimm and reach our next stop on patrol even faster. Win-win!”
The door suddenly snapped shut with a loud SLAM. Weiss flinched at the noise, and she saw Blake do the same.
Yang was emanating fury as she strode into the room. “Ruby. You can’t keep doing this.” She spoke in a firm and deep voice.
The tone put Weiss immediately on edge, like frost had crept its way into the room and the mere existence of her friend’s anger meant that she was in danger. The reaction happened so quickly, with just the slam of a door, Weiss wasn’t able to clock it. Yang stood in the center of the room fuming, and Weiss was suddenly tense and alert.
Ruby scoffed without looking up from her scroll. “Do what? Have an awesome plan that works exactly how it’s supposed to?”
“You just told us to take the civilians and run for cover, you didn’t say you’d be staying back.” Yang argued.
“Yeah, ‘cause I knew you wouldn’t listen to me if I did.” Ruby replied. “That plan worked. You guys got the family and the cargo to a safe distance, and I was able to draw the Tijitu’s attention far enough away from them to engage in a full scale fight without having to worry about hurting those people or the truck. And it worked! I beat it in like ten seconds!”
“No one is saying it wasn’t a good plan.” Yang corrected, furious. “But you have to communicate with your team on the field when you wanna do something like that. Someone should’ve stayed back with you, you shouldn’t have had to take it on alone.”
“I handled that perfectly fine on my own. And anyway, communication only works when you actually listen to me and trust the plans I come up with.” Ruby retaliated.
“When have I ever not listened to you?!” Yang yelled.
Ruby looked up over her scroll to roll her eyes at her sister. The show of blatant disrespect at a furious parental figure made Weiss tense up more, as if preparing for impact. “Last mission when we were clearing out the Death Stalkers from that abandoned mine, you followed me back in after I told you to lead the Grimm outside.”
“Because you were planning on drawing the rest of them out by yourself.” Yang defended. “By creating noise. With gunshots. In a dust mine.”
“An abandoned dust mine. The kind that’s been totally cleaned out of dust, Yang. I was fine, I know what I’m doing.” Ruby said dismissively, returning to her scroll, scrolling down the mission board.
Weiss saw Yang’s back muscles move and knew Yang was about to move her arm forward, and Weiss flinched, her eyes snapping closed.
“Wha— hey!” Ruby exclaimed.
When Weiss’s eyes opened, Yang had snatched Ruby’s scroll from her hands and tossed it onto a bed nearby.
“Oh no, guess you have to pay attention now.” Yang seethed sarcastically.
Ruby furrowed her brow. “What’s the deal with you lately?”
“The deal with me?!” Yang exclaimed. “Every mission we’ve gone on, you’ve put more and more effort into taking on the enemy alone. I don’t know what you think you’re trying to prove, but enough is enough. Today it was a King Tijitu. Yesterday, it was a pack of Sulfur Fish. And before that—“
“Ravagers.” Blake supplemented.
“Right. How could I forget ravagers.” Yang replied. She sighed, letting her shoulders sag. “Ruby, since we’ve got back, you’ve been very… driven. Confident, even. And we’re all happy that you’ve gotten your conviction back, okay? We are. But lately you’re just throwing yourself into danger. If you’re going to take every opportunity to jump into battle, can you at least give us a heads up?”
“Why, so you can stop me? Get in my way again? Talk me out of it?” Ruby replied tensely. “I know you think I’m just a kid, that I’m being reckless and idiotic, but I know exactly what I’m doing. I don’t need your input, and I don’t need you to ‘save’ me.”
Yang glared down at her for a moment, an icy cold moment that stretched on forever. “I know there’s something going on with you. You’ve always liked combat, but this is different. So spit it out already. Whatever it is, whatever you’re trying to prove, we can deal with it together. Stop throwing yourself into fights like they’re in limited supply, just talk to me.”
For the first time in this conversation, Ruby looks more than annoyed. The question seems to make her… panic? Almost? Whatever the initial reaction is, it quickly turns to anger. “I’m ready to get back out there. There isn’t anything going on, I’m just… I’m doing everything I can for Vacuo before Salem makes her next move. I want to do this, okay? I need to do this.”
“Do what, get yourself killed?” Yang hissed. “Because that’s all this is gonna do. Don’t you care about the future?”
“Of course I do.” Ruby flopped back down in her seat and turned away from her sister, pouting. “As long as we save Remnant, what else is there?”
“The fight for Remnant is bigger than Rockaway Pass.” Blake says, timidly inserting herself into their argument. “When Salem gets here, we need to save our strength so we can save Remnant. What’s left of it, anyway.”
“Exactly.” Yang agreed. “Vacuo is our last hope. We can’t have a repeat of Atlas!”
Weiss’s heart began to beat at triple time at the mere mention of her lost home. It’s so sudden, it makes her dizzy. Before she even knows what she’s doing, Weiss has turned and fled the room, jogging down the hallway.
She hears Ruby call out her name, but she doesn’t turn around.
Weiss makes it to the mostly-deserted entrance area and sits down on one of the couches, wondering if she was having a sun stroke finally. The dizziness only adds to her disorientation, as if she’s existing outside her body, like she’s trying to escape its confines and hide somewhere else. As if—
As if I’m not safe.
Weiss takes another few steadying breaths, tapping against her sternum to try and match her heartbeat. As she’s able to slow herself back down, she’s able to recognize what’s going on.
Her father has been dead for months now, but her body doesn’t seem convinced of that. It’s so strange— even when he was alive, she didn’t feel this way. Growing up, she was his golden child. His prize trophy that he showed off whenever he got the chance. He held the resentment she felt towards him close to her chest, and that made her feel safe. If she wasn’t angry with him, if she stayed on his side and did what he wanted, then he couldn’t be angry with her. Then, she was safe.
When she’d gone to Beacon three or four years ago, however long ago it was now, she’d been able to experience a whole new worldview, and wasn’t able to hide from the anger she felt toward her father. Toward his treatment of the Faunus and the citizens of Mantle, his treatment of the company and their family name. His treatment of her. Once that was unburied, she wasn’t able to hide it again.
When she returned home after the fall of Beacon, things didn’t return to the way they were before. Weiss had seen more of the world, and she could no longer turn a blind eye to her father’s misdeeds, even for the sake of her own comfort. Which meant that Weiss was unsafe in her own home, so long as he was there.
When Weiss left, she thought that being with her sister, being with her teammates, would make her feel safe again. And it did. So why was it that now that he was dead, she felt this way? Like she couldn’t convince her body that he was really gone for good? That it was just too good to be true, and her body was all tensed and ready to spring for when he returned? Why was she waiting for the other shoe to drop?
Klein had told her that she was just adjusting to the absence of the authority figure that had once ruled her life. It would be a big adjustment, but she wasn’t going through it alone. Her mom and siblings were in it too.
It’s just… she can’t think of Atlas without seeing him. Klein says it’s a manifestation of guilt, but Weiss isn’t sure. She’d idolized him once as a child, but at the end, she held nothing but contempt for him. He tainted her memories and experiences of Atlas, all of them. She can’t picture the place without seeing his face.
So why does she miss Atlas? Why does she wake up every morning hoping it was all just a dream? Why can she not even fathom a world without her home kingdom in it? She thought she had detached herself from her identity as a wealthy socialite, as the heir to the company, but now that she was without it…
She misses it. She had wanted to use the Schnee wealth and influence to make a change in the world. She had so many ideas. What does it say about her that she was so attached to her wealth and status, even after she knew how it was earned through Faunus labor and worker exhortation? What does it say about her that she misses the comforts of that wealth? Does it really make a difference if her reasoning for wanting it was to have the power needed to make things better? She still wanted it, just like Jacques had wanted it. He’d had all the power her whole life, and now Weiss craves that power. She wants to be the one who has control instead of him, so that she can feel in control, so that she can feel safe.
Jacques is gone, but his influence still breathes down her neck. Maybe it is guilt, or maybe it’s just fear of being like him. Maybe he’s haunting her, maybe that’s why she can’t feel safe.
A mother with her two children sit at the table on the other side of the room from her, staring as Weiss’s breathing slows. They look at her like she doesn’t belong. Even in her Vacuan attire (made for the heat and sand), she knows that they’re right. She doesn’t belong here.
Hot shame washes over her as she realizes she had just ran away from her friends like her dress was on fire. She sighs into her palms, feeling ridiculous.
She opens her scroll and dials Klein on reflex. Just as soon as she hits the call button, she regrets it. It’s the middle of the day, he’s probably busy right now. She goes to hang up—
“Miss Schnee.”
“Oh! Klein!” Weiss startles, as her mentor’s image shows up on the screen. “I didn’t think you’d pick up. It’s so good to see you. How are things in the city?”
“Same as ever.” He sighed. “People don’t like accepting help from the Schnees, as you can imagine.” She tenses. “You father’s reputation—“
“I don’t want to talk about him.” Weiss says quickly.
Klein’s eyes flashed pink. “Miss— Miss Schnee,”
“He watched it all fall from a prison cell.” She spat, unable to keep the venom from her voice. “But he abandoned everyone long before that. Atlas, our home, it fell apart. And he didn’t care.”
“…Do you really mean Atlas?” Klein asked, his eyes a honey brown. Always understand her. “Do you mean your family? You?”
Weiss swallowed, her throat dry. She looked up. The family that had been seated across from her were gone. They’d probably left the moment Klein did her name.
“He only cared about himself.”
Klein eyes shifted red. “True. That’s what he did.” He agreed. His eyes turned brown again. “If you need time away, that’s fine. But make sure you’re not pushing away those that love you. You are not him. You are not Atlas. You are more.”
Weiss’s lungs constrict. He always seems to know exactly what’s going on.
“I hope not.” She agreed. “I just… I wish he’d stop hanging over me. That his name doesn’t haunt me wherever I go. He’s dead, why can’t I escape him?”
“It’s not always that easy.” Klein said sympathetically. “Your brother is similarly conflicted. It doesn’t matter that you and he didn’t see eye to eye, it doesn’t matter how terrible of a person he was. He was part of your life. The sudden removal of something so large out of your life will leave you to reconcile with its absence, even if it is for the best.”
“He’s right.”
Weiss jumped as Blake settled down to sit next to her on the couch. She’s always managing to sneak up on them.
“Hello Miss Belladonna.” Klein greeted, recognizing her voice.
“Hey, Klein.” She replied. She turned to Weiss and put a gentle hand over hers, the one not currently holding up her scroll. “I know this is hard. You’re better off without him, but that doesn’t erase the huge hole he left in your life by leaving it. You’re allowed to hate him and miss him. We wouldn’t think less of you for that.”
Weiss closes her eyes, and slumps against Blake’s side. “I don’t want to miss him. I don’t want to even have to think about him anymore.”
“I know.” Blake replies, shifting their hands so that they would be holding one another. “It’s going to be okay, one day.”
“Is it okay for you?” Weiss asks. “Now that Adam’s gone?”
Blake takes a moment to answer. “…Yes.” She said. Weiss pulls back to study Blake’s face. It’s grown soft. Weiss can tell she’s thinking about Yang. Weiss grins.
“I couldn’t have said it better myself.” Klein’s voice comes from the scroll. “I see you’re in good hands, Miss Schnee. How about we call later?”
Weiss smiled at him. “Yeah, okay. Thanks for picking up, Klein.”
“Always.” He says as the line goes dead.
Weiss sighs, leaning against Blake again. “Sorry for running out like that.”
“It’s okay, I get it.” Blake said. “Anger can be suffocating, but… Yang isn’t scary, not even when she’s mad. She never has been.”
Weiss snorted. “Says you. Her eyes glow red.”
Blake giggled into Weiss’s fringe. “They’re done fighting, by the way. If you were ready to head back. No rush, obviously.”
“Yeah.” Weiss commented. “So… um... About Yang and Ruby.”
“Yeah?”
“They… they don’t normally fight like this, do they?” Weiss hesitates to ask. It had been on her mind for a while, but it’s not like they started fighting out of nowhere. It built up over the last couple months, to the point where she wasn’t even sure if it was all in her head or not. “I mean, they would have tiffs back at Beacon and stuff, like over who’s turn it was to walk Zwei, or when Yang would get on Ruby’s case about grades. But… this is different, right?”
Blake sighed. “Yeah.”
“What do we do?”
Blake shrugged, Weiss could feel it against her shoulder. “Nothing, really. They’re going through a rough patch right now, but it’s not because they’re mad at each other. Yang is worried, and Ruby is working through some stuff. They love each other a lot, they’ll be okay.”
Weiss closed her eyes. “Okay.”
…
Blake gave a quick sigh, then an “I’ll go after her.” before leaving the room. Leaving Ruby alone with her sister.
The silence suffocated them for a moment. Ruby hugged her knees to her chest, waiting for Yang to break it.
After a minute or so, Yang walked over to sit on the armrest of the chair Ruby was in.
“I’m sorry for yelling.” She said, in a pout-ish tone Ruby knew she was faking to lighten the situation. “I do trust you. You’re an adult, and you’re our team leader. I’m sorry if I came off like I don’t. I know you’re capable. You’re strong, and you know what you’re doing. You’re a tough cookie.”
Ruby says nothing, because she has nothing to say. It clogges in her throat, its noise in her head.
“I’m not mad at you.” She continued. “I’m just… worried, I guess. I don’t want anything bad to happen to you, that’s all.”
“I’m sorry.” Ruby murmured.
“You’re fine, Rubes. Yang chuckled. Then, “I know you’re struggling with something.” She continues. “And you’ve gotta deal with it on your own. You gotta do a little self discovery. I get it.” She puts a hand on Ruby’s shoulder. “I’m not going to take it from you to try and fix it myself, okay? I promise. But just because you want to handle this on your own, doesn’t mean you’re alone in it. You can come to me if you need me. I’ll always be there.”
“I know, Yang.”
Yang’s voice drops an octave, suddenly losing its humor. “…You know you can talk to me about anything, right?”
Ruby nodded without looking up at her.
Yang doesn’t say anything else, and the silence threatens to suffocate her again. The noise in her head grows louder. Ruby throws herself out of her seat. “Uuuuaaaghh.” She groans playfully. “It’s not that I don’t want to, it’s just… ugh! I don’t know!” She complains, staring at the floor. “I don’t know what’s going on, alright? I don’t know how to talk about it.”
Yang giggled and stood up. “That’s okay too, Rubes. You’re not on a schedule. If you wanna keep going on missions, if it’s helping you sort through… whatever’s going on, I’m right behind you.”
Ruby looked up at her. “Yeah?”
Yang nodded.
Ruby skipped over to the bed and fetched her scroll, opening it back up to where she had been at previously. “Okay, because this is at the top of the mission board right now.” She handed her phone to her sister. “There’s a tribe that needs a huntsmen escort back to the city because people in their group keep going missing.” She described. “They’re nearby, and they really need our help.”
Yang hummed, reading the mission description. Ruby crosses her fingers and her toes. Her team doesn’t blindly follow her, and Ruby doesn’t want to force them into anything that can’t be agreed unanimously. But Ruby needs this. She can’t put an exact explanation on why, she just does.
Yang purses her lips, and Ruby realizes she’s just staring at it for extra long just to be annoying.
“Yaaaaang!” Ruby groans.
Yang laughs and hands Ruby’s phone back to her. “Sounds good to me. But can we leave in the morning? I’m exhausted.”
“Ugh, me too.” Ruby agreed.
“Me three.” Came Blake's voice as she walked into the room, Weiss right behind her.
Ruby took a hop forward to catch Weiss’s eye. But in her expression, Ruby could tell that she was letting Ruby know she was okay. Ruby sighed, relaxed. She’d been worried she’d done something to upset Weiss.
“Okay team, we’ve got a new mission tomorrow!” Ruby announced, and careens radiating off her in waves. “So get a good night's sleep, cause in the morning, we’re headed back out into the desert!”