"Can we talk, Blake?"

"Fine." Ruby had to admit she was a little annoyed when Blake only gave a small nod and a half-hearted response, not even looking up from the computer terminal, it only took me two hours to find you…

Ruby had spent the better part of that time agonizing over what exactly to say to her distant teammate, how to convince her to stop being so isolated. In the end, she'd decided to not do any complicated plan or the like, but go with the most direct approach. "What um, what's been going on with you? You… haven't been around the dorm much. Or classes… or our team."

"I've been busy trying to figure out how to stop Torchwick." Blake mumbled, her eyes still glued to the screen. "All else is secondary to that."

"That's, uh, not good…" Ruby muttered as her frown deepened.

Amber eyes peeled themselves from the monitor before focusing in on Ruby, heavy circles under her eyes. Although perhaps the word 'focus' was a misnomer considering how unfocused they were from lack of sleep or food, Blake squinting hard at Ruby. "Why?"

"Huh? What do you mean, 'why'?"

"What could be more important?" Blake was staring at Ruby with an intensity that was borderline hostile – something that the redhead had never felt before from her teammate... it scared her. "What could be more important than stopping Torchwick?"

"You." The words came without hesitation to Ruby's mouth as Blake's bow twitched. "You're barely sleeping… or eating… and you've pushed us all away." Ruby didn't even try and keep the hurt out of her voice as she hugged herself. "You're hurting yourself."

The amber eyes lost some of their intensity before looking down. "No, I haven't…"

"Yes. Yes you have." A hard edge had entered Ruby's voice, surprising not only Blake but herself. "You've been pushing all of us away." The smaller teen's voice adopted a tremble to her tone. "Why-"

"No I haven't!" Blake was no longer sitting, standing, and looming over Ruby – albeit with a very shaky wobble in her stance. "I haven't pushed any of you away, you just haven't decided to help me!"

"You're wrong. Yang tried." Ruby mumbled after a moment. "B-but you didn't listen to her. Or Weiss." Ruby's silver eyes focused on the ground as she fidgeted with the hem of her sleeves. "We tried to help you at first, but after we fought the Paladin you wouldn't let us try."

"…" Blake said nothing and when Ruby looked up, the tall teen had turned her back to her and was looking back at the screen. "It's not like its hurting Yang, or Weiss or you, why should you care?"

Ruby felt anger started to cloud her mind at the question. "Because I care about you!"

"If you did, then you'd let me keep working on this." Squinting amber eyes flicked back to her. "Do you have any idea how much this matters to me? How much more important it is than going to class, or getting sleep?"

"That doesn't change the fact that you're hurting yourself!" Ruby felt like she just kept repeating herself. "You don't sleep or eat anymore, and it's not just yourself that you're hurting…"

The ears underneath the bow twitched as Blake's head tilted. "Huh?"

"Yang can't talk to you anymore, she misses her partner… and Weiss, well, Weiss misses you whether you believe it or not… and I…" Tears started to well up in Ruby's eyes as silver stared into amber.

"I thought you hated me."

"…" Silence greeted Ruby again, although this time, it wasn't that Blake had nothing to say, as Ruby could work out the black-haired teen's mouth trying to form words.

Ruby gave her a sad smile. "I thought I was the reason you wouldn't let us help you. That I was a failure of a team leader."

"…That's not it…" Blake finally managed to get out, her voice choked full of emotion. "That's not how it is at all, Ruby… I don't hate you at all…"

"T-then how come you won't talk to your friends, to me, anymore?" Ruby moved closer to Blake until they were nearly nose to nose. "Do you remember your promise from last semester? That you wouldn't run away again." Ruby's sad smile drooped into an even sadder frown. "Then how come you are running away from your teammates, from your friends?"

Ruby knew her tone was no longer gentle, in fact it had become flat out accusatory, but it was the truth. Blake promised me that she wouldn't run away again. She promised! "…I guess it's because I'm scared? Or maybe I just forget I have friends…" Blake's bow sagged in way that reminded Ruby of a sad cat. "But I can't stop-"

"We don't want you to stop." Ruby gave a small, genuine, smile as she put a comforting hand on Blake's arm. "We just want to help."

"…how?" Blake asked after a moment before wiping away something from her eyes - tears. "How can everyone help?"

"If we discuss it as a team, I'm sure we can figure out a way!"

"Okay, let's… let's give it a try."

AU: THEY FINALLY TALKED! STUFF IS HAPPENING!

Slowly we are getting through the drama!

Right-o, another ten reviews, another chapter! Sorry about the update not going up on Tuesday, stuff came up.

Considering the amount riding on the chapter, I had MapleLeafLink and Gorsouul look over and edit this before publishing, so there was someone (two actually) who was involved in the writing process.

One of the things I wanted to do was show that Blake's actions do actually hurt others, mostly Ruby in the context of the story, but in canon it's her whole team (as well as Ruby). So yeah. That was a thing.

For those who read Acceptance, I'm up to 2,000 words for chapter 21 at this point and will have the first draft done within a week!

Thank you for reading and I hope everyone has a wonderful day! :D