Chapter Text
Remnant was in a state of permanent, pure panic.
It would have been funny- watching everybody run around like a chicken without its head- if the reason for this wasn’t so sad. They had lost their silver-eyed warrior to the enemy; Salem had swooped in on her giant whale like a storm cloud, decimating entire districts of Atlas and Mantle with nothing more than a flick of her wrist and an entourage of Grimm unlike any other.
Lightning came in the form of creatures of darkness faster than anybody could even blink- tearing civilians and huntsmen and huntresses limb by limb in the span of a few seconds. The cries of the dead and dying had been the thunder, consistent and rolling and loud. Everything had been so damn loud.
The torrential winds had come in the form of Atlas falling- quite literally. The whale had latched onto the cables and had pulled the giant rock in the sky, destroying the mines and buildings of Mantle down below so only the very edges of the city remained relatively untouched. Everyone and everything had lost its balance, off-kilter and scrambling for purchase and some sort of sense.
The rain had come in the form of everyone being split apart by rotten luck and a misguided sense of protection. One would think they would have learned to stick together after the fall of Beacon, but old habits die hard and this one refused to be killed so easily. It had put up one hell of a fight, and it had won in the end.
The ice came in the aftermath. When the clouds had parted and Salem had mercifully retreated… No, that wasn’t right.
Salem had been winning, there had not been any reason for her to leave without absolutely destroying all of Atlas and all of its people. But she did, and at first, everyone had been too grateful to consider asking why. Everyone but Weiss, who had been the only one to see the devil up close.
Salem’s goal had not been to decimate Atlas and leave it in ruins. This was all a game to her, after all, and the game would be boring if she won so easily.
She had left because she had arrived for one thing and one thing only. Not for the Lamp of Knowledge or the Staff of Creation, like they thought she was after, but perhaps the only trump card they didn’t even know they had.
A trump card that came in the form of one silver-eyed warrior with a red cloak.
Ruby had been taken, and when the clouds had parted to reveal the aftermath, everyone was lost without their beacon of hope.
Their world had been destroyed, and the remainder of team RWBY had been left behind to pick up the pieces.
…
Weiss was running.
She didn’t know exactly where she was running to, just that she had to run. She had to run because everything was falling apart, people were dying, Salem was here, and in the chaos, they had evidently lost sight of Ruby. Yang and Blake and the others had obviously freaked out, even more so when every single one of their attempts to call her using their scrolls failed. If they had to guess, Ruby’s scroll must have been broken sometime during this horrible night.
They had all tried looking for her together, but with the night wearing on and the darkness only getting darker, the Grimm only getting stronger, faster, deadlier; they had more pressing matters at hand.
So Weiss, doing her darndest to actually be the best partner ever, had volunteered to keep looking. On her own, using her Glyphs to protect her and propel her away from any Grimm that chased her even as every instinct in her body urged her to dispose of them. She wasn’t doing her job as a huntress if she didn’t kill the Grimm…
She wouldn’t be doing her job as a partner if she did.
To her, partner beat huntress, and so she ran.
Winded and exhausted, she kept running. When she didn’t think she could breathe, she kept running. When she didn’t think she could take another step, she kept running.
When she didn’t think she could run, she kept running, because Ruby was more important than her body’s signals to get her to stop to catch her breath. (Finding Ruby was more important than breathing.)
So, choking and perhaps naught but a few seconds away from passing out due to lack of oxygen, Weiss ran.
She ran and ran and ran until she didn’t think she could keep going and ran still.
The streets of Atlas and the hallways of Atlas Academy were all a blur of silver and white really, every color exactly the same and all she was hoping for was just that splash of red.
Red like roses. Red like blood.
Red like Ruby.
Perhaps it was more rotten luck or cruel faith that Weiss finally did stop running, arriving at the end of one of the many long hallways of the school that stretched on for miles and miles and miles.
A courtyard opened up to her at the end, and she saw more grey and white and silver, but she also saw red.
Ruby was here.
And she also saw black.
Salem was here, too.
The courtyard was littered with petals that had yet to fade, the spiral of Ruby’s semblance flashing from point A to point B so quickly it almost looked like she was teleporting. Ruby was a blur of constant movement, Crescent Rose swinging wildly and curved blade glistening in the silver moonlight, and she appeared to be dodging what looked like shadows given life. Darkness, not unlike the Grimm, given command; puppets pulled on strings and Salem was the puppet master at the center of it all.
Unlike Ruby, Salem was stationary. Only her arms lifted, pointing this way and that like a conductor in an orchestra and directing the long shadows to wherever Ruby was. They stretched like tendrils along the ground, gliding against the space between them and reaching like clawed fingers to the girl in red.
It was hauntingly beautiful to witness. Dark shadows cleaved into smithereens by a crimson scythe, the huntress in the scarlet cloak dashing and disappearing in a flurry of red petals to escape their reach each and every time.
Weiss could only stand to watch for so long, taking two steps into the courtyard and immediately regretting it because the metronome movements of this puppet show were disturbed almost instantaneously.
One look, a fraction of a second where Ruby’s focus had been disturbed to look towards Weiss- That was what ruined her.
Because Ruby had shifted her attention away and had failed to notice the tendrils wrapping around her ankle- failed to notice it until it was too late and its grip on her was secure and it tugged her off balance. Ruby landed with a solid thud against the ground, so much so Weiss winced and wondered just how bruised and broken Ruby would be after this, and the rest of the shadows had torn Crescent Rose from her hands. The scythe landed helplessly a ways away from its master, nothing more than a block of red-painted steel instead of the killing instrument it had been in Ruby’s hands.
Ruby immediately scrambled for purchase, moving this way and that and attempting but failing to kick the shadows away as she rolled onto her stomach. They were dragging her across the ground, straight to the outstretched and waiting hands of Salem who had a terrifyingly triumphant look on her face.
The world darkened around them and Weiss didn’t know why she was frozen in place, didn’t know why she didn’t immediately run out to help her partner because damn it- she was supposed to help! Why wasn’t she moving?!
Weiss stretched out her arms and willed her legs to move but while her arms lifted, her feet stayed firmly planted in place. She uselessly tried reaching towards her partner, her leader, her friend: hoping that the distance between them would magically disappear and she could hold Ruby and pull her from the shadows.
But they were consuming her, and Ruby was being dragged farther and farther away despite her blunt nails digging into the stone ground. When it became obvious that neither could do nothing but accept the inevitable, silver eyes found desperate blue.
Ruby… Ruby had looked so scared. Terrified, and… and hopeless.
Weiss had never seen her like that before.
Ruby was always the brave one. Even when she was scared, she didn’t show it and instead kept on keeping on for the sake of the others. She was so full of hope and light and Weiss and everyone else selfishly fed off of her radiance.
And Salem snuffed out that light with nothing more than a flick of her wrist.
Tears fell from Ruby’s eyes, and just as the world and her vision completely faded into darkness, she could see Ruby’s lips move with one single word, one single plea and it echoed like a shout in Weiss’s mind.
“Help…”
…
~:Breath, should I take a deep?:~
Weiss woke up choking on her scream, breathless.
No matter how many times in the past few months- Months? Days? Weeks? She was too aware and not aware at all of how much time had passed- she woke up like this, every night was just as bad as the last. A nightly occurrence that she could not get used to no matter what. She didn’t know if that was a good or a bad thing- getting used to it.
She couldn’t breathe, and though Blake had taught her some breathing exercises to do on occasions like this, she couldn’t seem to remember any of them. She couldn’t remember because the echoes of what she had seen, what she had heard that dreaded night, were so damn loud in her head. Weiss couldn’t even hear her own panicked, choked breaths through all the noise.
She had failed.
That night, she had so horribly, terribly, and undoubtedly failed at the one thing she had committed herself to be: a partner. Being a partner was the only thing she could identify herself with recently, ever since the whole fiasco with her father’s falling out and the fate of the SDC hanging in the balance, and everyone- including herself- was wondering whether or not she would actually accept the title of CEO. Everything with that had been confusing, so Weiss had decided that- in the face of, you know, trying to save the world- she would unpack it later.
Being a partner was no less confusing, but to her, it had made sense, in an innate type of way.
And now, she had fucked it up.
She had been the only one to find Ruby, she had been the only one there to help, and she…
Failed.
Ruby was gone and everyone had lost hope and Blake- funnily enough- was doing her best to keep everyone together and Yang either depressedly stayed in her room all day or spent the entire day at the training room destroying simulation after simulation- it flipped from time to time and every day was a gamble and horrible game of Russian roulette with her- and the others were half-heartedly trying to help in any way they can and didn’t know where to even start coming up with a plan and Weiss…
Weiss…
Weiss woke up in the middle of the night screaming or choking on her scream, so… It’s safe to say she wasn’t doing too good either. She tried, Gods did she try, to keep going, to rack her brain and the brains of the others together to try and come up with some sort of game plan but most of the time she was just…
Just so tired. And broken.
Broken was a nice word- Well, not a nice word, but the right one.
Broken broken broken…
Weiss could hear something like a dying whine and it took her a lot longer than it should have to realize it had come from her mouth, from her chest. The memories were still loud and still so fresh she was afraid of closing her eyes, or even blinking because she could still see Ruby’s teary silver eyes and Salem’s triumphant red ones and the blackness of the shadows and- It hurt to blink.
The sobs escaped her lips before she could stop them, and really, the effort she made to stop them was so weak it was downright pitiful. If Weiss could look at herself now, could leave her body, and just look at her from an outsider’s perspective, the sight would have made her thoroughly embarrassed. Such a prideful girl she had been, so assured of herself…
Reduced to nothing more than a shivering mess of tears and heartache.
Another cry escaped her but it was muffled as she placed a hand to her mouth, trying to stop it and catch the sound before it could fully escape because it was night which meant people were sleeping and it would be quite rude of her to wake them up with her nightmares. Some nights, she can’t help it, can’t catch the sounds because there’s too many of them and she’s downright hysterical with her sobs that threaten to tear her apart from the inside out. On those nights, the worst ones, Blake comes in- having heard her loud and clear two rooms down from where they were stationed in this weird military base that acted as a makeshift refugee for the survivors of Atlas and Mantle- she’s always rushing and enters without knocking which scares Weiss more sometimes and her ears are drooping with expressive sorrow even as her face holds a frown.
It’s a miracle any of them could continue standing on their own two feet after it all happened, but Blake was a survivor of many hardships and it was showing now more than ever. Honestly, she’s the only one holding everybody together, and some days Weiss feels bad for making it worse and other times she’s almost offended because how dare anybody stay put together after Ruby’s disappearance? But Blake does, and on the nights where she hears Weiss crying, she wordlessly strolls over and sits on the space the too-large-for-one-person bed has and hugs her.
The first few times, Blake had tried getting Weiss to talk- about her nightmares and everything- but Weiss never did. So now, she just… holds Weiss.
She doesn’t even speak, just rubs her hands on Weiss’s back, up and down and comforting and her grip is tight and unwavering and Weiss is grateful… She’s grateful because it feels like, if only for a moment, the broken pieces of her are fitted together for however long Blake hugs her. But then, when Weiss has stopped crying and she’s thoroughly exhausted, Blake releases her, helps her lay back down, and leaves and Weiss spends the rest of the night crying silently instead.
Tonight would not be one of those nights, surprisingly so, so she guesses it's an improvement of sorts. That doesn’t mean tonight doesn’t hurt any less than the others. Pain has just been a constant thing lately and hurt is the only word she could describe herself as (other than broken).
Tonight, Weiss would have to hold herself together until it subsides, and for half a moment she just wants to lay back down and accept it, let the pain destroy her completely because at least then it would finally end. But she doesn’t do that, because that would be admitting defeat and though Weiss was broken- nay, shattered: that was the better word- she was still stubborn.
So, slowly, ever so slowly and with more effort than it really should have, Weiss curls her knees towards herself, close enough for her to hug them as she folds into herself, hiding her face from the world and just… crying. Her body is shaking and it has nothing to do with the cold but that’s not surprising because the blanket she has is thick and the military base is surprisingly well-heated.
She still can’t breathe properly, but at least it doesn’t feel like she’s choking so that’s an improvement in a way.
Weiss doesn’t know how much longer she could take of this, really. She doesn’t know how much longer any of them could take of this. The pain and the hurt and the brokenness only climbs higher and higher the longer time passes and she wonders which one of them would quit first. (Perhaps it’s some sick, twisted game all of them don’t even know they’re playing together- trying to beat the others by not being the first to quit. In a way, this sick, twisted game is the only thing keeping all of them alive and here.)
The memories flash in her mind, relentless and killing a piece of her every time, but she holds onto them desperately.
It may be one of the last things she has of Ruby…
And it's one of the only things keeping her going. One of the only things that make taking the next breath after this one and the next breath after that and the next and so forth possible.
One day, she would be strong enough to push past the pain and actually take initiative and lead the others…
But for now?
For now, Weiss holds herself together and cries.
…
~:Faith, should I take a leap?:~
It’s hard being the optimist, and Blake knows now more than ever why she was never one before. It’s hard to keep the faith and believe in faith when faith was the one thing that always seemed to screw them over in the end.
But because Yang has been slipping through the cracks and the ever-present shine she always exuded is disappearing like a candle flame in a maelstrom and Weiss spends most of her days and nights wailing and her heart is doing a better job at killing her than Salem ever would… Well…
Someone has to stay put together. Someone has to keep fighting and stay hopeful and not fall apart.
Someone has to keep the faith.
And perhaps it was even more twisted faith, she convinces herself it’s a sick game the Gods are playing with their lives, that she is the one that has to be the person to do that. Out of everyone.
If Ruby was here, the role would go to her.
But, she isn’t so…
It’s Blake’s job.
She takes it with stride, doing her best to be in all places at once and picking up the pieces of everybody as they slowly chip and fall apart and she keeps those pieces close to herself and guards it with her very being- keeping them safe for whenever everybody is ready to be pieced back together. It’s taxing and exhausting and where Weiss and Yang spend more time sleeping the days away and Nora idly wanders like a lost soul and Jaune stares off into the distance like an answer will magically appear out of nowhere if he stares long and hard enough... Blake works even harder than before. She’s not alone, not entirely. Ren has grown ferocious as the two of them make efforts to put together everything they know about Salem and the Grimm and the continents and where Ruby could be and silver-eyed warriors and what the devil could possibly be doing to her at any moment.
They don’t find anything concrete. Only speculation after speculation after speculation and if anything, that is the part that hurts more for Blake. To work so hard and still not come up with anything solid enough to garner focus. Ren is frustrated, and just like Blake, he, too, spends a lot of his time picking up the pieces of his teammates and sheltering them within his own broken shell.
Blake had always hated coffee, she just preferred the soothing taste of tea, but nowadays, she can’t exactly survive off of such little caffeine anymore. She knows, she knows it’s bad for her to pull multiple all-nighters in a row and for her to keep going and going and going and never once taking a rest… but she doesn’t have the privilege to stop. If she stops to rest for a day, then that’s a day wasted where she could’ve been looking for more info, searching searching searching endlessly, and holding Weiss and Yang together enough for them to continue taking in their next breath.
“Tomorrow is a new day,” she and Ren have taken up to saying when the moon draws near every time and they split off to research on their own while simultaneously checking in on their teammates. Tomorrow is a new day.
Maybe they’ll find something tomorrow.
Or the next...
Or the next...
...Or the next...
Blake blows out a heavy sigh from where she sits on a rooftop somewhere back in Argus. Her research leads her far from the military base in Atlas, farther than she likes sometimes if she’s been honest; the one good thing that came out of that disaster of a night was the launching of the communication tower. With communications back on, it was easy to tell the whole world what happened and what was to come. Panic was inevitable, and it wasn’t too far from the truth to say that the very world was waiting on bated breath for the final battle that was to come eventually.
Time was running out, and yet, nothing. Blake is half-convinced that Ozpin knows where Salem’s realm could be, hiding the truth out of fear or selfishness yet again, but she’s honestly too tired to fight that battle with him alone. So, she resorts to the next best thing- using her connection to the new White Fang led by her parents to extend the reach of her eyes and ears. Her spies are everywhere, constantly searching just like her, and it would have brought her some comfort in her head if they didn’t fail. Just like her, they could never find anything, and every time Blake is to meet with one of them here in Argus, the cracks in her soul splinter wider and wider and she wonders just how long it was going to take for her to start falling apart as well.
She’s exhausted. The bags underneath her eyes are a permanent part of her face now and it’s worse than when she had been obsessed with finding Torchwick in what feels like a different lifetime altogether. (Except this time, Yang isn’t there to get her to stop and rest because Yang doesn’t know how to get going anymore.) There’s a deep ache in her muscles, her bones, her heart, and it’s going to take an eternity of rest for her to ever feel energized again. She’s aware she looks like a wreck, but today is a particularly hard day for her to stay optimistic.
Running a hand down her face, she takes a moment to rest her eyes shut, only a moment. Fuck, she’s so damn tired…
If only she could close her eyes and finally… just… rest...
Blake shakes her head quickly, disoriented and dizzy as her fingers grip into the wood beneath her and she thinks one of her nails cracked with the suddenness of it all because she almost fell straight off the roof just now falling asleep. A deep inhale of the sharp wintery air hurts her lungs, but the cold pricks and pokes at her body and her senses to wake up a bit so it’s something. It’s something.
Beneath her on the streets below, the people are tense as they move around like they’re running from something but they don’t know which direction is safe anymore. Soldiers in uniform are in constant patrol as well- meant to symbolize strength and protection, Ironwood had said, but, to Blake at least, it only puts people more on edge- and she knows without having to see them that there are huntsmen and huntresses at the borders of Argus. Maybe fighting Grimm that have grown antsier and more dangerous nowadays, or maybe just scouting for them.
She knows it’ll only be so long before she’d have to join them, and honestly, she doesn’t know how well she would fare even seeing a Grimm right now. Just the thought of them makes her stomach churn and makes her heart clench and throat squeeze, because thinking about the Grimm made her think about that night, and thinking about that night made her want to curl up into a ball and never lift her head again. So much loss... so much loss, and so little gain.
How much more can we lose?
A muted thump behind her alerts her senses, one cat ear swiveling back as the silent footsteps came ever closer on the roof with the balance of someone who spent most of their time walking on precarious edges. Blake let out another sigh before making the herculean effort to stand, running a hand through her hair to try and make herself a little bit more well put together. She turns around, walking a few steps to lose sight of the crowd, and comes face-to-face with a frowning Ilia. Her friend was perhaps the one that searched the hardest, always the one to deliver the news, and a small part of her is grateful because the news is never good and Ilia delivers the sucker punch to her gut as gently as she could each time.
Ilia is worried about her, Blake could see it in the way her eyes roam over Blake’s body and the way her brows pinch together and lips curl downward in a frown. She looks like she’s in pain, and Blake almost feels like apologizing for making her worry so much. But she doesn’t, she can’t apologize because it’s useless.
The first few times they started these meetings, Blake always took the time to catch up with Ilia and her friend indulged her, the two just talking for a few moments and keeping their mind off of the inevitable bad news one had to hear and the other had to deliver. Those moments became shorter until it became just pleasantries between the two, maybe an occasional hug or two or three, and even then, it waned ever smaller.
So, now, they merely share a look in greeting, eyes meeting, and then Ilia…
Ilia shakes her head, regretful. Her frown deepens and her eyes are apologetic.
And Blake…
Blake sighs, understanding. No information. No findings.
Nothing.
She had been expecting that, yet still… Still, it hurts and Blake is honestly a bit impressed that it could still hurt. No matter how much preparation she does to hear the fated bad news, it doesn’t change anything.
It hurts, it hurts and it hurts and oh Gods she’s tired, she’s tired and tired and-
“Thank you,” Blake manages to say even though her throat feels clogged and her eyes sting. She says it because it’s the right thing to do; it would help nobody for her to get angry with Ilia because it’s not Ilia’s fault nobody could find Ruby and it’s not Ilia’s fault that Ruby is gone in the first place. So, she stores her anger- her anger and her sorrow and her cracks and desperation for a later time. Preferably when they finally came across Salem, then she’d release it all there. (If they ever came across Salem.)
Blake turns to walk away, not caring that they were on a roof, and only stops when Ilia makes to grab at her wrist, pulling her to a halt. Blake stiffens immediately.
“Blake,” Ilia says, and Blake could hear the pain in her voice, the unsaid sorry’s. There are about a million other things she might want to say as well, but she doesn’t, she doesn’t go on that tirade and instead, all Ilia says is, “You should get some rest.”
Blake snickers, because it’s funny.
It’s funny because she wants to snap back and say, “I wish,” but that wouldn’t be fair to Ilia so she bites her tongue instead. It’s funny because Ilia says it as if it’s that easy as simply laying down and closing her eyes, and again, Blake wants to say, “I wish,” because it isn’t that easy. She tried, fuck did she try, but she could never.
It’s funny because here she is: trying and trying and trying to keep everything together, herself and her teammates and her friends and the hope and the faith, while simultaneously failing and failing and failing to find anything that could point them in the right direction to where Ruby or Salem or both could be. It’s funny because she’s over here, being the optimist when that was supposed to be Ruby’s job because Ruby was gone because they failed to protect her and suddenly it’s not so funny anymore.
It’s sad.
Blake feels the cracks in her soul, her very being, grow ever wider, span ever farther, dig ever deeper… and she starts to chip.
“Yeah,” Blake says so quietly it’s hard even for herself to hear, “thanks.”
And she pulls her wrist from Ilia’s gentle grip, not even turning around to face her friend because she knew that if she did, she’d fall apart and she couldn’t exactly have that now.
An optimist never got to rest, after all.
Blake stares off into the distance, off to one side where she imagines there to be some huntsmen or huntress out there in the wild fighting for their life against the Grimm and then off to the other where a ship would take her back to the military base her friends and her teammates and her family are too busy falling apart to truly notice her missing for the moment. She looks up towards the sky, to the sun covered by dark clouds to paint the picture of a gloomy day reflecting everybody's current mood. Perhaps the world, too, was sad for their loss.
Ilia doesn’t try to stop her or say anything else anymore. She would go back to her assignment and hope and beg and pray that the next time they met, she would have better news. (She knows, deep down, that she wouldn’t.)
Blake draws in a deep breath, the cold air aching and stabbing at her lungs and she relishes in the sting because it wakes her up and makes her a bit more alert. She couldn’t afford to stop and rest now. Not with Ruby still missing and everybody else falling apart before her eyes.
She is the optimist, she has to be the optimist, so it’s her duty to keep it together.
Blake takes off at a run on her next breath, leaping off of the roof and enjoying the feeling of weightlessness- if only for a moment- because recently, the weight on her shoulders is crushing. She’s not afraid of falling like this; as tired as she is, she always lands on her feet. Maybe unsteady and wobbly, but she does.
Tomorrow is a new day…
Hopefully, tomorrow will be better.
…
~:Taste, what a bittersweet:~
Yang thought she knew what being broken felt like after Beacon fell and Blake left and she lost her arm.
That had hurt, no doubt about it, but she had managed to pick herself up again (mostly by herself, her dad and Zwei helped a bit too). She had done it because back then, she had hope- and sure, maybe it was silly to think about and say that faith and hope had kept her alive and pulled her to her feet, but they had.
Now, faith and hope had been the ones to knock her down.
She thought she knew what broken felt like, but it was nothing to what she felt now. That had been mere child’s play in comparison. This was the real deal.
This was what being broken felt like.
The days and nights bleed together and the plates of uneaten food stack together and start to rot from where they were placed on the nightstand. Her body feels heavy, every inch of her weighing a ton and the amount of effort it takes to even open her eyes is monumental and the amount it takes to breathe is tiring. So tiring, she sometimes wonders if it’s worth the effort. She’s numb from being in one position for so long and Yang knows she’ll have bed sores but she doesn’t care.
She doesn’t care about a lot of things anymore. And a part of her is indignant like a whining child because physically, she was fine. The battle that night had been tough, sure, and she probably had a few new scars here and there, but other than that, she was fine. Nothing life-threatening or life-changing. All things considered, compared to a lot of other people, she was one of the lucky ones.
She was fine, alive, so she didn’t deserve to mope around like this. She had no right while other people were dying and fighting and pushing on and on and on.
Yang felt like slapping that child in the face because she didn’t care.
Ruby was gone. Probably dead and it honestly annoyed her that anybody was still looking because she was dead and looking only gave her hope and hope had ultimately beat her heart to a pulp so badly she couldn’t bring herself to move and breathe most days.
When Ruby had left home after the Fall of Beacon in search of some answers, in search of people who needed help, at least Yang still had something to look forward to. She knew Ruby was alive and where she was going and who she was with, and she had wanted to protect her so she put herself back together and set out after her.
But now…
Now Ruby was nowhere to be found, falling off the face of Remnant altogether, and she was with Salem. The devil herself had taken Ruby. Yang didn’t know if she wanted to find out what happened to her because, honestly, she was scared of what she would find. The weeks mixed together and she didn’t know how long it truly took for her to actually get out of bed for once, to move and open a curtain and try. The look on Blake’s face when she had walked in on Yang standing by the window had been pricelessly funny and devastatingly heartbreaking at the same time because Blake looked so relieved and hopeful.
So, Yang tried.
For Ruby. For Weiss. For Blake.
She thinks maybe she started trying for herself too, but mostly for Blake and Ruby and Weiss.
She’s impressed how well Blake has been trying for this long without falling apart, all alone except for a surprisingly fierce Ren, and Yang feels like apologizing to her and thanking her because she gave up but Blake didn’t. But she’s trying now, and honestly, she doesn’t really know why she is or what urged her out of bed in the first place.
She does, though, eventually and slowly, and that’s all that matters.
At least Yang leaves her room now sometimes, and even if she spends that time sitting in one place anyway and staring at nothing, at least it’s outside with the chill of the air and the sunlight on her face instead of holed up in a dark room. Weiss always joins her, taking up the seat beside her without a word and copying her staring contest against the world and the memories and thoughts. Neither says a word to each other, but then again, Yang doesn’t think they need to.
The grief Weiss feels is as strong as the one Yang feels and it makes them kindred in a way. Weiss, at least, understands in her own way. So, Yang tries and Weiss tries and Blake never stopped trying.
Yang sits at a dinner table, not really knowing how she got there in the first place and half-aware of everything around her as Blake moves around to serve both her and Weiss food because they sit motionless like statues anyway. The table is small, just enough for four people, and the empty chair sets a pang of hurt into her chest every time she chances a glance at it so she grips her fork and stares at that instead.
Blake is talking, trying to get some semblance of conversation going, but neither Weiss nor Yang are willing participants and Yang only feels even worse for making it so hard for her partner. Her brave and strong partner who was not giving up on any of them: not Ruby, not Weiss, not Yang. She’s aware of the bags underneath Blake’s eyes and the heaviness she moves with sometimes and knows Blake hasn’t gotten any rest because she’s been trying this whole time.
A part of Yang wants to get her to stop, if only for a moment, but she knows how dangerous that could be. If Blake stopped now, any and all progress they made would have been for nothing.
So, Blake speaks for all three of them- all four of them- about anything that came to mind. She steers clear of anything having to do with Grimm or fighting or the going on in the world and it’s an admirable effort because there’s very little else to talk about, but Blake finds a way.
The food in Yang’s mouth is tasteless. It’s some sort of chicken, maybe, or maybe it’s pork. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t care, and if it weren’t for the concern in Blake’s eyes every time Yang or Weiss go more than five minutes without putting a forkful of food in their mouth she wouldn’t eat it at all. But she does, for Blake. For Blake.
Her eyes are drawn to the empty chair like a magnet pointed North and she curses at her own body for wanting to torture itself like this. That chair shouldn’t be empty. There, in that chair, should be a bouncing bubbly huntress in a red cloak with hair always askew and smile always bright. The food turns bitter in her mouth now and she feels like spitting it back out, but she swallows and almost chokes on it and takes a sip of what she thinks might be lemonade. It’s sweet and sharp.
Her eyes remain on the chair, and it takes her a second to realize that Weiss had been staring at it this whole time, her resistances even weaker than Yang’s. It takes a moment of complete silence for her to notice that Blake is looking at it as well, finally stopping her one-sided conversation.
The three of them are quiet. Deathly so.
Ruby is gone. Yang feels the weight on her body again and she takes in a slow, deep breath to keep herself breathing because she would stop if she didn’t focus on it.
Her eyes close and her bleeding heart lets out a pitiful, mournful whine as she thinks about her sister. An image pops in her head of a time not so long ago, when they were all happy, healthy…
Together.
...
~:All my, all my life:~
She pictures it so clearly. Sometime during their time here in Atlas before everything went to shit and they first stuck close together; the first time they had dinner together, just the four of them.
They sat similar to how they sit now. The table is small and round and just enough for the four of them. The perfect size. Their family is small, but it is theirs.
Ruby and Yang are tossing- well, trying to toss- food into each other’s mouths across the table, a boisterous laugh coming from Yang as the spoon of mashed potatoes that she had flipped quite stylishly landed on Ruby’s forehead instead of her mouth. Looks like she put too much power into it. The cloaked girl grimaced, letting out a whining groan of her name and Yang is too busy laughing to hear the scolding words coming from Weiss.
Ruby turns her head towards Weiss as her partner moved her chair closer, grabbing one of their napkins and gingerly tilting Ruby’s head her way to clean the mess up. Yang’s cheeks hurt from her smiling and her stomach hurts from her laughs. There’s a smile on Ruby’s face, eyes bright and shining as though their secret power had been activated just by Weiss’s touch alone.
Instinctively, Yang turns to look towards Blake, who's watching the others and generally everything going on with fond exasperation and a shake of her head. If Yang listened closely enough, she thinks she could hear Blake’s subtle purring, cat ears on her head relaxed and Yang is grateful because after everything they went through trying to get here to Atlas, at least now, they could finally relax. If only for tonight.
Blake’s eyes turn towards her and there’s a twinkle in them as the smile blossoms on her face and Yang feels breathless for another reason entirely.
She’s just about to say something when she feels something wet and slimy smash into her temple, no doubt getting in her hair, and Ruby’s sharp and victorious laugh echoes through the air. Yang grimaces, turning a faux glare toward her sister who is hiding her giggles behind a hand.
Yang gives a hearty declaration of war, wiping the potatoes on her face and flicking it back across the table, and just like that, Ruby and she are tossing things at each other even more fervently and Weiss and Blake could only scoot as far away as possible to avoid being caught in the crossfire. She hears Weiss scolding them, but there’s hardly any heat in her words, and she hears Blake laughing and that sends a victorious warmth throughout her body.
It’s a miracle they could laugh right now, considering everything that has happened, but at least they have this moment.
...At least, they had that moment.
Yang blinks, and suddenly, she’s back in the present she doesn’t want to be in. There’s no laughter or chides or war cries or food fights. Instead, there’s silence.
There’s sorrow.
There’s pain.
Yang’s gaze blurs as she stares at the empty chair, and suddenly- there’s tears.
She doesn’t need to look at Blake or Weiss to know that they, too, are crying as well.
What Yang would give… to have just a second of that moment back.
To have her sister here.
To hear laughter in place of cries and see fondness in eyes instead of pain.
She thinks she would give up everything. She thinks she would give up herself.
And it hurts knowing that, in reality, Ruby would not want them to sacrifice themselves for her. Her sister was too selfless like that, even if she was in pain or trouble or suffering. It hurts.
Yang doesn’t know why she started trying again, but she wonders if it’ll ever be worth it anymore.