"About the kiss." Ruby said.

"I know." Jaune didn't break eye contact. Truth be told there was a sense of relief washing through him, that he hadn't been the one to initiate conversation.

"And clear up all this," Ruby gestured wildly, as if indicating to something tangible. "Awkwardness between us."

Jaune nodded. "So where do you want to start?"

"You're taking this oddly well for someone who agreed to never speak about this again," Ruby said narrowing her eyes. "I mean, that's not bad-"

"But you expected me to resist the conversation, right?" Jaune asked. "I expected the same of you, but I've had it drilled into me that it doesn't help to not talk about them."

"Yang called you too."

"Ren punched it into me," Jaune said with a smile. "And he was right. There are things we need to talk about."

A pause hung in the air between them as they both mustered up the strength to say what those emotions were. Both steeling themselves for possible reactions.

It was Ruby who broke the silence. "The kiss brought to the front a lot of emotions I'd been trying to ignore. You know how Yang says, 'influenced actions, sober thoughts'? This was that. So, if you want to move out now because it's too awkward, I get that. But I thought you should know. the kiss didn't just happen because we weren't sober, there was a bit of 'I really want to kiss him' in there too."

Jaune nodded along solemnly. "Good to know I wasn't alone in the emotions thing. That would have sucked."

Ruby gave him a withering look.

"I've been wondering since the kiss why I had felt so awkward about it, and why I hadn't just let it go," Jaune said. "after a bit of soul searching I think I was afraid to lose you. As a friend or anything else. And not being close to you, emotionally - and I guess physically? We haven't hugged so much - over the past month has hurt. It's like I'm missing out on a thing I didn't know I had."

Ruby reached across the table and grabbed his hand.

"Yeah, it's been things like this I missed." He said as he laced their fingers together.

They both sat there for a long while, fingers laced together, enjoying a sense of closeness they had both missed. drawing strength and comfort from each other.

"But I'm not ready for a relationship." Ruby said as she pulled her hand away, watching as Jaune's face remained impassive. "Not after Weiss. Being in a relationship with a friend . . . That's scary. You can be hurt so badly. I don't want to be hurt again."

"Yeah, I understand that." Jaune said, staring into the middle-distance. "I guess a large part of why I was distant was fear. A combination of that and feeling like I've betrayed Pyrrha. That still, I don't know what to think about that ever. it's been six years. It messes me up."

"She was your partner, there was something there and you didn't get to explore it," Ruby said. "You don't have to have all the answers for it. Shit, I don't have answers for anything I've been involved in."

"But, I don't want you to be another regret or missed opportunity." Jaune continued. "If that makes any sense."

"It does." Ruby assured him. "We don't want to lose what we had and we're both scared of any progression from that. How about we go back to what we were. We stop being awkward about the kiss - it's taken up too much of our brain space as is - and we just see where we go. If we stay just friends, that's all well and good. If we do eventually progress on from here, then hey, we did it. and we can know we'd regret the things we didn't do more than the things we did."

"I was kind of hoping you would say something like that." Jaune leaned back in his chair, smiling. "I've missed having you as a friend."

"I was still your friend." Ruby said.

"Oh you know what I mean." Jaune said.

"Yeah, but I wasn't there for you if you needed me, and you weren't there for me because we're both so damn stupid. I wasn't opening up to you like I had been." Ruby fiddled with the cuff of her shirt. "God I missed being able to talk to you."

"We can now If you want to."

"It's the first time we've said more than three words to each other in a month, I'm not ruining it by telling you the details of my therapy sessions." Ruby said. "But I will take you up on that at some point."

Jaune nodded. "So you continued with those?"

Ruby nodded. "It's been harder alone, but I still think it's helping."

"I'm proud of you."

"Hm?"

Jaune smiled at her. "You went it alone. When I shouldn't have left you alone to it."

"I'm used to dealing with this alone." Ruby said shrugging. "Though, you being there, that has helped."

"Well, I look forward to being there to help you again." Jaune said.

"Thanks."

"Anyway, non-awkward celebratory pizza?" Jaune pulled out his scroll. "that really nice Mistrali place is having 2 for 1 Tuesday, so we can get the good shit, not the chain restaurant crap."

"Only if we can talk about 301's fucking dogs while we eat." Ruby said. "I'm seriously barely sleeping because of them.'

"They're the worst!" Jaune said as he opened an app on his scroll. "Ham and pineapple still, right?"

Ruby rolled her eyes. "Of course, I didn't turn into a heathen while we weren't talking. Also, do you want to watch 'Vacuo Winds'? I haven't been keeping up, it's not as fun without you to rip into it with me."

"Don't lie, you want to know if it was Roark or Mause that happened."

"That too," Ruby admitted. "But you have to admit, Roark is an amazing ship."

"Mause for life."

Ruby shook her head, looking deeply disappointed. "You truly do have shit taste."

Ruby enjoyed the next few weeks as she slowly grew closer to Jaune again, relishing in the renewed closeness in their relationship. She relaxed as they began to hang out together again, Ruby maintaining Crescent Rose in the living room while watching television with Jaune. Or cooking dinner together. Yelled conversations across the hall became their norm again. Long conversations with the television muted, where they talked about everything, from the show they just watched, to the groceries they needed, to each of their latest therapy sessions.

She was happy. It was like her heart sung while she was around him. Like his very presence was a calming force in her life. And rather than fighting it and trying to ignore it as she had been, she just allowed it to be. Allowed it to grow and flourish.

Though while they have begun to grow closer emotionally again, physical intimacy was still something they held back on. There were few touches, and none of the hugs they had both become accustomed to. Until Ruby broke that barrier down before she and Jaune set off on separate missions. Her's taking her to Vacuo and its desert. An escort mission for a group of archaeologists looking for evidence of previous settlement in the Vacuo desert. His taking him to Atlas for guest lecturing at the academy, and to help in clearing some ice golems.

"You look after yourself," Jaune said. "The desert around Vacuo is deceptive."

"I'll be fine, it's hardly my first time." Ruby rolled her eyes while she fiddled with the strap of her pack. She understood his concern, the mission she had accepted was likely to go for at least two months, possibly three. "I will. You be careful in Atlas. Stay warm, it's fucking cold up there."

"I will," Jaune smile. His mission was shorter, a month at the most. "I've got all my super heavy duty winter gear packed, and I'll buy anything I need."

"Good." Ruby said, shuffling her feet and avoiding Jaune's eyes.

"Are you okay?" Jaune asked.

There was a pause while Ruby mulled over her answer. "Yes. No. I don't know."

Jaune sighed softly. "Do you want to elaborate?"

"I just got you back," Ruby said. "It's going to suck to be without you again. Scroll service is shitty where I'm going. I guess I'm going to miss you."

Jaune placed a hand on her shoulder, unsure of the emotions swirling in his chest. He was going to miss her sure, he always did. But this time felt different. "It'll be three months at most." Jaune said. "And we can still try to get messages through to each other."

"Yeah." Ruby said, still not meeting his eyes. Turmoil brewed inside her and she hated it. Why couldn't her emotions be easy? She mused before taking a deep breath and hugging him. "We can"

The hug took him by surprise at first, but he instinctively wrapped his arms around her, pulling her closer. Trying to ignore the warm, fuzzy feeling growing in his chest he glanced up at the terminal's boarding screen. "Your ship is starting to board."

"I know." Ruby said, pulling out of the hug.

"You need to get going."

"I know that too." Ruby said. "Just promise to stay safe."

"Only if you do too." Jaune said. "I'll see you later Ruby."

"I guess you will." Ruby said, giving him a thumbs up as she headed to her boarding gate.

"You know, I looked up your assignment. You weren't meant to come to Mistral."

"Hey Thetis." Jaune said. He was sitting on Pyrrha's veranda, staring across the yard at her memorial stone.

Thetis sighed as she sat down beside him. "Why are you here Jaune?"

"It's soothing."

"You are more on edge than I've ever seen you." Thetis said as she reached into her skirt pocket and pulled out a packet of cigarettes. "You don't mind if I light up do you?'

"I thought you quit?" Jaune said. "Bad your lungs."

"I'm nearing 60, the love of my life is showing his age and my only child is dead." Thetis said as she lit her cigarette. "The only people who visit us are yourself, Ruby, Ren, and Nora. Sometimes I wonder what it is I have to live for."

Jaune grunted in agreement. "Can I bum a smoke?"

"I thought you quit?" Thetis echoed. "Bad for your lungs."

"I'm feeling melancholy. Smoking seems appropriate." Jaune said.

"I'm not going to give you a smoke, more out of selfishness than any concern for your health," Thetis said. "But I am here to talk if you need it."

"I'm not sure it's something I can talk to you about."

"Hit me." Thetis said, pushing wisps of graying hair out of her eyes. "You're the closest thing I have to a child And I know you still aren't having much contact with your parents - you need to fix that by the way - and sometimes it helps to talk things out with an old fart like me."

Jaune looked over at her, anger flitting across his face. "They didn't understand why I didn't come home, and when I tried to explain everything they didn't even try. It's a two-way street. They don't want to see me as broken by the war, they just want to see the hero. And I can't be that."

Silence hung in the air as Thetis blew smoke rings. "Parents don't like to think of their kids as anything less than perfect. I was that parent. I pretended like Pyrrha was so perfect there could never be anything wrong with her. I didn't realise how lonely she was until she talked about 'this boy who's never heard of her and just wants to be her friend'. And even then, I really didn't want to face it. So I can't blame your parents. You should try for some kind of a relationship, you still talk to Rouge, right? She might be able to help."

"She kinda gets it." Jaune smiled weakly thinking about his oldest sister. "Knows I need the space but still tries to include me. She's good."

"I know she is, she's in contact with you," Thetis said. "But seriously, why are you here, why are you feeling melancholy?"

"It's about Ruby."

"What about her?"

"I think I'm falling for her." Jaune felt a weight lift in his chest with each word.

"And you feel guilty about my daughter, right?'

There was a noncommittal grunt from Jaune

Thetis was quiet for a moment as she watched her latest smoke ring float out of the yard. "You know, I learned to blow smoke rings to impress the first man I fell for. This was the days when everyone smoked, our teachers did it in class. I didn't end up with that man obviously. He passed away three weeks after we graduated, and two weeks after we decided to go steady," Thetis paused, eyes far away with memory. "Eventually I had to move on. It was hard, I felt like I was betraying everything he had been to me. But I needed to. I had to realise that he wanted me to be happy more than anything else. And that Just because he was gone didn't mean I had to stop doing normal things."

"It's a bit weird being told to go after a girl by the mother of someone who liked you." Jaune said with a slight smile.

"Well it's true. You don't have to be unhappy because of some misplaced honour." Thetis took a long drag of her cigarette. "It's stupid how people do that. I suppose the other source of advice on this would have been Taiyang, but his advice would be to sleep with everyone. Not something you would have wanted to hear from Ruby's father."

"Not particularly no." Jaune gave a wry smile. "He'd probably start giving advice, realise who I was asking advice on, then try to kill me."

"Have you told Ruby you're in love with her?"

"I've told her I have feelings for her that I'm not sure about." Jaune said, twisting his fingers together.

"And what did she say?"

"It's mutual," Jaune sighed. "But with Wiess being so recent -"

"She doesn't want anything?"

"We decided to see where it goes." Jaune said, the weight settling in his chest again.

"Ouch."

"It's not that bad Thetis." Jaune rolled his eyes. "I mean, I'm not really up for dating either"

"Except that for you two it wouldn't be dating, but rather calling a spade a spade rather than a hoe." Thetis said before taking a long drag of her cigarette.

Jaune looked at her out of the corner of his eye. "Did you just call Ruby a whore?"

"That is not what I meant and you know it." Thetis lightly hit Jaune's shoulder. "The only thing you two don't do is have sex."

"Nora told you about the kiss?"

"Nora told everyone about the kiss. You give that girl a cup of tea and half a biscuit and she'll start spewing gossip like a volcano does lava." Thetis smiled, thinking about Nora's most recent visit. She loved when Ren and Nora dropped in, usually unannounced, because it meant her kitchen was filled with laughter and Ren did the dishes before he left.

Jaune shook his head. "I guess the chat I had with her about not telling everyone everything needs to be re-done."

"Oh leave her be, she doesn't tell people who you wouldn't want to know." Thetis said. "Are you staying for dinner?"

Jaune nodded. "I will be." He said as he stood up. "Thanks for this Thetis."

"Anytime kiddo." She said as she followed him into the house. Promise me you'll get in contact with your family."

"I'll try." Jaune said.

Hours later, as he waited at the airship docks for the last ship of the day, Jaune's thumb hung over the call button on his scroll, and the screen showed a familiar number, the first one he had memorised when he was 4 years old and going to a friend's sleepover birthday. Even though the number was saved on his scroll, he could dial it by muscle memory alone. Taking a deep breath, he hit the button and raised the scroll to his ear.

"Hey Mom." Jaune said, willing his voice not to crack. "Yeah, it's me. Yes, it's been a long time. I'm sorry. I'm doing better now, yes. I just wanted to call to check up on you all. I've missed you too Mom. Do you mind if I talk to you about something? Awesome. No, I'm not doing anything, just about to get on an airship. So, I wanted to ask you . . ."

Hi guys, thanks for sticking with me, My flat's internet completely shat itself, so uploading hasn't been a thing I can do. I'm doing alright, uni is back and looking good. Massive thanks to Bryce for beta reading, as per usual. This story would not be what it is without his help.