This chapter is dedicated to Monty Oum.

Hey all. This is an important message for anyone in the RWBY community. Monty Oum, beloved creator and the inspiration to all RWBY fic writers and fan artists was recently hospitalised. It is unknown whether or not he will recover. There is a support drive for Monty and his wife, so if you have the means a donation would be greatly appreciated. The community has created an outpour of well wishes, and we can only hope for the best.

Heres to Monty, let us hope he gets well soon.

Cheers.

Chapter 21

Shades

Blake watched Rose closely as she sidled into the room, making as little noise as possible as a matter of instinct and habit. The older woman looked bored, twirling her messy red-tipped black locks in her fingers, gazing up at the ceiling. Her hand was tapping an even tempo on the rail of the infirmary bed and she was humming lightly. Blake recognised it as 'Red like Roses', a song released not long ago that Ruby loved to death. It seemed like it was a lasting favourite.

"Hey." Blake greeted, lifting a hand and shifting her carry bag off her shoulder. Rose blinked lightly, sitting up in bed and staring at Blake oddly. "What?" The cat faunus asked unsurely.

"You're so quiet." Rose murmured, still staring.

"Does my team really rub off on me that much, that I am not so in the future?" Blake joked lightly, with a hint of trepidation.

Rose snorted, waving her off, a humorous sparkle in her sterling silver eye. "No. Most definitely not, if anything you get quieter once we learn to understand your little hums and shrugs."

Blake herself was slightly startled. She understood she was not the most social of people, and generally kept herself to herself. She was fully capable of holding a conversation, and she enjoyed them, truly she did. But she was often times just as happy keeping her peace, and found talking for the mere sake of talking draining. The thought of her growing even more quiet was slightly discomfiting, however, as even she knew that she was barely a few steps above a recluse at this point.

Rose realised that Blake seemed unsure of how to take her statement, and decided to clarify her earlier appraisal. "You've always been the sneaky one of the group, I just never realised just how good you were already."

Blake pinked slightly at the assessment, which was practically blatant praise. Her stealth was a point of pride for her, and had found that compliments paid to her skill at subterfuge effected her more than most others. "Practice." She offered, half out of humbleness and half to provide some truth.

"I know." Rose said casually, and Blake felt briefly uncomfortable in that she probably did know, being who she was. "It's one thing to know something is true, and another to see it for yourself. It's just a tad surprising, I'm generally not an easy woman to get the drop on."

Blake could believe that. Rose was a highly alert person; Blake had seen it more than once. She was scanning constantly, always aware. Blake noticed the times that Rose would take subtle, battle ready stances at the loud noises or in the face of unknowns. She wasn't the most trusting of women, no doubt because of the treacherous nature of the war she'd survived; hunter against hunter. And she was a demon with a scythe.

She'd endured a grand total of one afternoon sparring against the older woman, and she swore the only thing more bruised than her body was her pride. Team RWBY had been thoroughly trounced, more times than she would like to count. It was an eye opening experience to be confronted with an opponent that RWBY couldn't beat together on their best day. Even if Rose was completely unarmed, she beat the daylights out of her younger counter part and her subordinates.

So yes, seeing as the woman was a hunter with a level of skill Blake had never seen the likes of before – at least personally – she believed that catching her off-guard was something of a victory.

Blake realised that she had been staring at Rose as she had been thinking, and the silence in the room was rather oppressive. Rose herself was propped up, giving the younger ravenette a bemused look.

"Like what you see, Blake?" Rose teased.

'Yes.' Blake thought immediately, raking her eyes over – in her opinion – the strikingly beautiful adult Ruby. The cat faunus was not naïve; she recognised that she found Rose very attractive, even if it had taken her a few days to come to terms with it. "Hmm." Blake made a noncommittal sound, the one she often used when given a question she'd rather not answer (and didn't want her lack of answer to be made a deal out of).

Unfortunately, Rose knew that hum. She hadn't been lying when she said she knew how to read Blake extraordinarily well. She'd developed the skill even more than her sister and Weiss, what with her… fascination with the previously older girl. And she most certainly didn't miss how Blake tensed a little, and then proceeded to (quickly) check her out. Rose felt suddenly very uncomfortable, torn between queasiness and excitement.

Blake wasn't slow. She might not have Weiss' highly impressive mental capacity, but she wasn't any less intellectual, not really. She just functioned differently. Whereas Weiss was highly logical, able to deduct much through the use of incredible reasoning and her near-eidetic memory, Blake was a quick thinker. Unnaturally quick, if she really considered it. Her thought process were much more prone to flaws than Weiss, but she could follow them at speeds that left the heiress dizzy, and everyone else baffled.

She realised her mistake as soon as she made it. Hadn't Rose just commented on her ability to read her? Why in the world had she replied like that? She was tempting fate, obviously. It was these kind of slips that could get her into trouble. And given the myriad of emotions fluttering across Rose' face, she could see her time travelling teammate had picked up on something.

"I brought you a book." Blake cut in suddenly, walking toward a chair next to the bed.

Rose halted her train of thought, recognising that she'd been treading dangerous territory without fully realising it. She was perfectly happy to join her crush in dancing around the tension that had risen in the last few seconds. "Which one?" Rose asked, grasping the proverbial olive branch.

"You mentioned that you liked fairy tales…" Blake trailed off, half questioning. She was unsure if that had changed in the intervening years.

Rose smiled at the thoughtful choice. "Still do." She confirmed for the faintly uncertain Blake. A thought occurred to Rose, and inwardly she smiled mischievously. "Why not one of your favourites?"

"Ah, well I didn't know you liked my kind of book." Blake replied honestly. She hadn't ever seen Ruby read anything except weapons manuals and fairy tails, so she had simply been following what she knew.

"I like 'The Bakers Dozen'." Rose told her, and was happy to see Blake regard her with a slightly widening smile.

"That is a good one." Blake agreed, warming up the idea of Rose the literature enthusiast.

"If I remember, you were pretty taken with 'Shirking Scowls'."

Blake's smile widened again, and she reached into her bag, pulling out a book with a tab a quarter way in it. "I have been enjoying it a lot it so far."

"You get started on 'Innerman's Deal' yet?" Rose questioned.

"Not yet, but it's on my list."

"You should, it's a fantastic trilogy. You recommended them."

"Good to know." Blake cocked her head to the side slightly. "Did I ever read 'Marching Toward the Pleasant Sun'?"

"Now that is a god-awful book. Don't bother, you hate it." Rose replied with a barely hidden grimace.

"Also good to know. Have you looked at the 'Tin Triumphant'?" Blake asked, a hint of excitement coming through at the opportunity to finally discuss books with someone.

"S'okay, but the author's sort of racist, I don't think you'd appreciate his views on faunus." Rose answered with a frown.

"Ah, I didn't know that." Blake told her, minutely disappointed that such a well regarded book still held such awful opinions.

"I know you love the 'Castaway's Cairn', though." Rose offered, and Blake perked up.

"Really? I've read a little, but it hasn't done much for me."

"Stick with, you'll see."

"Will do." Blake said warmly, shifting in her seat to lean more toward Rose to engage more in their conversation. "Did I mention any other favourites?"

"One or two." Rose said airily, and Blake almost pouted when she didn't elaborate.

What a tease Rose could be.

"Well?" She prompted, unwilling to give in so easy.

"I remember this one series," Rose said, frowning slightly in faux heavy-thought.

"Yes?" Blake asked with a hint of excitement in her tone.

"You really liked this stuff, I think you read every single book, and it was like sixteen novels!" Rose exclaimed.

Blake was practically salivating at the thought of a series that could keep her captive for that long. She usually avoided them because she was prone to lose interest. For it to stick with her it must be something really special. "Uh-huh."

"You were impossible to deal with whenever you got one, you'd lock yourself in the dorm all day, ignoring all the classes and everything!"

"What was it?" Blake asked outright, unable to stop herself. Anything that could get her away from classes, and cause her to willingly endure Weiss' inevitable lecture on truancy must be her ambrosia.

"Wait! I remember! I think it was…" Blake leaned in as Rose lifted the finger that had been tapped her lip in a classic 'eureka!' pose. "Ninjas of love." Rose said with a sly smile.

Blake froze. She could feel a blush creeping up her neck, and going all the way down to her toes. She had no doubt she was bright red, as she was absolutely mortified. 'Ninjas of love' was her guilty, perverse pleasure. And going by the knowing smirk on Rose's face, the older woman knew it too.

"I don't know what you are talking about." Blake said coolly, leaning back into her seat. Unfortunately, the way her voice cracked in the middle of her sentence – dust damn Rose and her gorgeous, smug face – made this rather unconvincing.

"Really?" Rose said disbelievingly, before shrugging. "Fair enough, it's nothing special. I mean, apart from the fact that the main characters relationship is completely trashy. Everyone who has read it knows that Hinata is the one for Naruto."

"How can you say that?! Sasuke and Naruto are perfect for each other!" Blake disagreed vehemently, scowling at Rose. How dare she insinuate that such an inferior shi- wait…

Dust damn it!

Rose's smile radiated smugness on what could only be an interstellar level, no doubt aliens would picking up waves it from thousands of light years away. "So, 'I don't know what you are talking about', huh?"

"You fiend!" Blake muttered in accusation, before she groaned. "How did you find out?" She asked weakly, conceding defeat.

"You quite literally leave it with the rest of your books, at this point it's only a matter of time." Rose pointed out with a snort.

"But no one even goes through those!" Blake said uneasily.

"Weiss does already, Ruby will."

Blake paled. "Weiss has looked through the books?"

"No doubt she's seen it already." Rose confirmed with a nod. "Either she's being discrete or she's burned the memory of it from her mind, and is studiously ignoring it."

"Oh thank Oum." Blake mumbled, extremely glad she wouldn't ever be in the situation where the irritable heiress confronted the faunus over her smutty reading habits.

"Ruby does find it." Rose said to Blake, who then stiffened in panic. "But she doesn't read past the first couple of pages, she finds it too boring." Blake releases another sigh of relief, she hadn't provided porn to a minor. Always a plus. "That doesn't stop her from recommending it to Yang, however…"

"I'd never hear the end of it." Blake said, horrified at the thought.

"You never do." Rose assured her with a smirk.

"How did I survive? I'm pretty sure Weiss would kill me and Yang if she found us reading smut."

Rose snorted. "Weiss wasn't complaining, not with all the ideas it gave Yang."

"What do you..?" It took all of three seconds for Blake's eyes to widen in recognition. "No! It can't be."

"What can't be?" Rose asked, confused.

"Yang and Weiss? Weiss Schnee, master of the straight and narrow, is whom your promiscuous, downright rebellious sister ends up with?" Blake asks disbelievingly.

Rose swore in slight panic, eye going wide when she realised what she had done. "Not a word!" She hissed.

Blake gaped a little. "You cannot be serious."

"You can't tell anyone, Blake." Rose told her firmly.

"Yang and Weiss? That actually happens?" Blake suddenly looked even more stunned. "That actually works?"

"What do you mean 'works'? I haven't told you how it turns out between them." Rose pointed out.

"Oh please." Blake rolled her eyes. "You wouldn't let them go out if you knew it ended badly the first time."

"Maybe it brings them closer together, eventually?" Rose reasoned.

"The only way their relationship would end on good terms is if the victor attended the funeral of the loser of the inevitable battle to the death constituting their breakup." Blake commented sardonically.

Rose stifled her bark of laughter into her pillow at the entirely too apt description of her sister and her partner's relationship. "You're too clever for your own good, Blakey." She said once she had calmed a little, wiping tears of mirth from her eye.

"Mm." Blake hummed calmly, but Rose could see the slight quirk to the bookish girl's lips.

"Anyway," Rose started, shaking her head slightly. "Why don't you take the bow off, your contacts too if you feel like it, and we can just read some."

"You know about my contacts?" Blake asked in surprise (seriously, is Rose incapable of not constantly surprising her?).

"You stopped wearing them after we graduated, but I found out in third year."

"Right." Blake accepted that with a nod, before pursing her lips, then nodding once more. "Well, ok. I'm just going to get a glass of water."

"Sure, sure." Rose said agreeably, turning to her book, 'The Definitive Collection of Traditional Fairy Tales'. She spent some moments leafing through it, trying to find a new story or an old favourite to catch her attention. She looked up when she heard Blake settle into the chair next to her bed.

Blake's bow was undone, and her dark purple cat's ears flicked perkily atop her head of black tresses. Her eyes had changed due to the lack of contacts. Whereas before they had been nothing more notable than any other human's, even with their golden coloration, they were now distinctly faunus in nature. Bluntly put, Blake had cat's eyes, with slits for pupils. It wasn't surprising, since Blake had the most prominent faunus blood Ruby had ever seen. Blake shared a connection with her animalistic counterpart that was vastly deeper than the average faunus. It was only made more apparent when Blake's natural eyes were revealed to the world.

Honestly, despite herself, Rose had always found Blake's eyes a little intimidating. They gave her features a primal, predatory beauty that had often left her dry mouthed.

"There's the Blake we know and love." Rose said, absentmindedly turning back to her book, trying to rid herself of the her previous thoughts.

She missed when Blake snapped her head up to stare Rose, rather shocked. It was a common enough expression, and she might be reading too much into it... but the way Rose had said it, soft and true, struck a cord with Blake. The now revealed cat faunus gave her attention to her books once more, a growing part of her becoming more aware of Rose and the things she said.

Time passed surprisingly quickly between the two of them. Besides a small break where Blake went and found a late afternoon snack for them, they barely talked. Not that either minded really, as they were both just appreciating the company. Rose had learned to savour quite moments of peaceful companionship like this, having become all too rare when she was fighting on the front lines. Blake had always been content in situations like this and it suited her perfectly to read in the company of a good friend.

And hadn't that been a surprise. It wasn't long after she'd left for food that she realised that was exactly what Rose was to her, a good friend. The closest friend she boasted aside from Rose would be Yang, and even then she hadn't known the girl long, so who could blame her for not having shared much? It was startling just how quickly she'd come to accept Rose. She hadn't even talked to the woman much, outside of a few brief conversations and one session of heartfelt advice. If she was being entirely honest she'd been fairly content to ogle Rose from afar until she'd gained a better grasp of her personality.

The lengthy conversation they had this afternoon followed by their reading session had been revealing on that front. There was no doubt that at the core Rose was Ruby, the young leader she was growing to respect and care for, but there were hints of more to Rose. She was a complicated person with a dark history, and Blake could empathise on some level with her but she didn't delude herself into thinking she understood the magnitude of the horrors Rose had faced in her war. Things like that change people, often irrevocably, yet Blake could see how the Ruby she knew became the Rose she was moulded into.

Rose could be an intensely serious, commanding woman when she wanted to be. Some of that must have been from her instinctive grasp of leadership (something Blake had seen at initiation), some would be her experience in leading military forces in combat situations, and Blake had no doubt that Weiss had hammered more than a few of her quirks into the awkward girl's head. Her time-travelling comrade could also be crude, and crack a joke with the best of them. She had a sharp mind, and an even sharper (salacious) tongue. This easygoing, irreverent, boisterously humorous side was almost certainly a reflection of Yang in her younger sister.

And then there was the reserved, insightful side of Rose. Blake couldn't hold a claim to that entirely, because she knew that Ruby could be perceptive and wise far beyond her years. But spending an afternoon reading in silence, perfectly comfortable in their mutual activity? Blake had yet to see Ruby sit still for more than half an hour, even when reading. The girl was a veritable maelstrom of energy and pep. Rose had obviously learnt the value of patience and restraint.

Blake could see her touch in that. Rose had admitted Blake had been extremely important to her, to all of team RWBY, really. So she didn't feel as if it were unreasonable to assume that Blake had a hand in the person Rose had come to be. In fact, she'd be shocked if Ruby had learnt to do this sort of thing on her own.

Pleasantly shocked, mind you, but shocked nonetheless. So yes, Blake could actually see some of herself in Rose. The woman seemed entirely comfortable with her; her heritage, her personality, really all of who she was. She knew that Rose was aware of much of her past, she in fact suspected that Rose knew her entire life story and then some - literally. It was this woman whom also seemed one hundred percent at ease with their current situation, just some simple reading between friends.

Blake felt a pleasant warmth in her chest at the thought that she had someone like Rose to share moments like this with. That another had come close enough that they'd learned to take joy in the same things Blake did.

"Are you purring?" Rose asked, a little astonished.

Blake focused on the present, and with a small blush realised yes, she was in fact purring. "Ah, thing is," She said uncomfortably, the warm feeling rapidly dwindling in her uncomfortable, slightly distressed state.

"No, no!" Rose exclaimed, waving her hands in front of her, looking entirely apologetic. If anything, this would no doubt prove her as a dead ringer for Ruby. "It's ok, really! I just... well, the first time I heard you actually purr was on accident in third year! Just before you showed me your contacts, actually."

"Ok..." Blake said unsurely, not completely understanding what Rose was getting at.

"What I'm trying to say is 'wow, thanks for trusting me so much', you know?" Rose told her quickly, gesturing wildly. "I know that it isn't something you just do around other people."

Blake took a moment to consider that. Once again, the depths of her feelings regarding Rose unsettled her. She really did trust the more experienced Hunter. Maybe it had to do with the fact that Rose was fighting so hard for a future where Blake could thrive? Sure, it wasn't solely for her, but Blake wasn't that selfish or egotistical. And Rose had admitted to being her friend for eight years, far longer than she could have hoped for any one to stick around, ever. That certainty, that surety that someone more experienced, more capable was looking after and caring for Blake, ensuring her happiness made the pleasant warmth come back in a rush.

With a soft smile Blake looked at Rose, before she started purring lowly in contentment once more. The tender look she received for her efforts reassured her that she had made the right choice.

She was briefly startled when Rose reached up and rubbed her eye with a fist. Surely she didn't drive the woman to shed tears with a purr? But no, she could see now that Rose's eye seemed a little red, obviously irritated.

"Is your eye ok?" Blake asked worriedly. She wouldn't be this worried about something as simple as an irritated eye normally, but Rose didn't exactly have a spare.

"Yeah, it's fine. Just with all this reading, and the concussion from yesterday." Rose shook her head. "Just made it a bit achey, really."

Blake didn't like the sound of that. She made a snap decision, then and there. Rose had done her more than a few favours, making headway into forming and solidifying the bonds of trust and friendship in team RWBY among other things. This little something was just some mild repayment, in the grand scheme of things.

Rose was a bit stunned when Blake stood up right after she'd explained, walked over, and then promptly took the book right of her hands.

"Where were you up to?" Blake asked bluntly.

"Err, I just started the story of the Vacuan prince that dressed as a courtesan in order to seduce the Atlas Knight-Commander." Rose told her with a hint of confusion.

"Pretty progressive for a fairy tale." Blake mused as she scanned the pages.

"A lot of fairy tales from Vacuo are like that. They've been banging each other silly since before the Grimm." Rose replied lightheartedly. "Uh, Blake, what are you doing, exactly?" She asked.

"You mentioned that you liked it when Yang used to read you stories." Blake said with a smile, her ears flicking a bit.

'Yang told me that she used to read you these all the time. Would you like me to?' She asked with a comforting smile, her bow twitching in that inexplicable way that Ruby couldn't yet understand. Ruby smiled shyly, but gave a small nod as she scooted up in her hospital bed. Her bandaged ribs twanged painfully in protest, but she ignored in favour of listening to Blake's soft words, savouring this new dimension to their growing friendship.

Rose quashed the almost painful surge of emotions, forcibly repressing the parallel memory to this one; a memory that spoke of simpler times when life still seemed irredeemably wondrous. "Sure." She settled, doing her utmost to keep her voice level. "I'd like that." She managed, her calm reply belying the turmoil of love and guilt just under her duplicitous smile.

"Once upon a time in a land far, far away..."

Blake would have been convinced that Rose had fallen asleep during the first ten minutes of the story if she hadn't been watching the woman's face. Various expression flitted across her serene features. They were muted by her obvious calm but they matched the appropriate parts of the tale. Joy, sorrow, anger, humour, and satisfaction. It was fascinating, looking at the way those just-bitten red lips twisted into a variety of expressions. How her brow managed to express her emotions just as well her - now closed - eye.

Blake watched her as she told her story, and she came to one conclusion.

Rose was the most stunningly beautiful person she had ever seen.

The thought didn't leave her mind even as she left the room, her story finished and curfew fast approaching. She felt full and warm, her mind full of soft smiles and a tender, silver gaze.

"Once upon a time..." Rose murmured as she watched Blake leave. The soft click of the door announced her departure, and Rose was again in solitude.

Her breath caught as everything she'd been fighting down during the story rose up at once. She was elated, she was depressed. She was ecstatic, she was afraid. She was celebrating, she was mourning.

She lifted a trembling hand to her mouth as tears pooled at the corner of her eye. A sob racked her body, echoing slightly in the darkening room. Her breath caught as she cried, desperately losing her composure because life just wasn't fair. She cried and she raged, thrashing about, cracking her hands against the side of the beds, railing against the world.

The woman she loved was dead. Lost to a future that would never be. All those years she had spent, hoping and wondering if they could ever, ever be something. She knew they could, deep down, knew they would. Once the war was over...

Once the war was over. But it was the wrong war, it was the wrong time, she was the wrong love. This Blake wasn't hers, she never would be. She had Ruby, just like Yang, Weiss, and her father.

Who was she? She was everything Ruby was, but not. She had everything had, except for the things that really mattered.

It was all so fucking unfair, to have everything so close but in reality so completely unreachable.

The woman she loved was dead, so how could she be falling in love with her all over again?

Was the world really so cruel?

"Once upon a time." Rose cried, staring after the woman she was falling for, had loved and mourned, and now could only watch as she would learn to live with and love another. Another so close to her, so much like she was, who was everything she was.

Because Ruby was everything she was and so much more.

Rose was numb, unfeeling. She was used to it. A part of her revelled in it.

She'd felt like this often in the war, when having to feel would leave her shattered, useless.

But she was numb, and she would continue, even if for now she chose not to feel.

Once upon a time...

"Thank you for joining me, we have much discuss." Ozpin said levelly.

"Course'." Tai-Yang said agreeably. "Things got pretty crazy."

"That's underselling it." Qrow muttered, shifting in his seat.

"Of course, Ozpin." Glynda said levelly, flicking concerned eyes at the completely blank faced Rose, with her unnerving, emotionless eye.

"Now, what's up? You wouldn't have called us all in for a debrief at once if it wasn't something heavy." Tai-Yang prompted. Ozpin nodded slowly, and gestured toward Rose.

Rose nodded, walking over and putting the file on the centre of the desk. The others stood to approach, in order to read it's contents with her. With a deft hand she flipped open the cover, reading the print that greeted her with large, blocky black letters.

"This file contains the plans for the White Fang's operation designation 'Maskfall'." Rose told the others, her voice perfectly placid.

"So? What is it?" Qrow asked, leaning over curiously."

"The plans for the assassination of Raven Branwen."

FAVOURITE~REVIEW~FOLLOW!

A long'un, this one. But I like it. I don't really have much to say other than thank you for your time. I'd also like to remind you to keep up your support for Based-God Monty.

I wish him and his family the best.