Ruby rolled around in her bed, trying to get comfortable. She had just said goodnight to Weiss, and was now unable to fall asleep. She replayed the scene over, and over, and over again in her mind. The bottle. Weiss closing her eyes. Moving just the right way so Ruby ended up kissing her lips instead of her forehead.

Ruby shivered a little at the memory. She had felt so happy. But at the same time…she didn't want Weiss thinking anything weird. Weiss even made sure that Ruby didn't mean anything by the kiss.

Letting out a huge sigh, Ruby rolled onto her back, and decided to just lay there. About twenty minutes passed before she heard a thunk of a door closing across the hall, and a similar one as her door opened and closed.

"Hi Blake." Ruby said dully.

"Unghhhh." Came the response, as the brunette fell face-first onto her bed, not even bothering to change. Ruby closed her eyes and decided to just forget about it for now. They'd talk tomorrow. Right?

…

"Wakey wakey Blakey! It's a beautiful morning out and shouldn't be wasted!" Ruby said in a loud voice, shaking Blake back and forth on her bed.

"Ah…Ruby…no…my head…." Blake muttered, clutching her head in her hands. "Feels like someone wrapped wool around my brain…"

"That's what you get for getting all drunk on me!" Ruby said, crossing her arms. "So as punishment, we're going for a walk! At six o clock in the morning."

Blake blinked and checked her watch. Ruby wasn't lying. It really was six. Blake groaned. "Rubyyyy…have mercyyyyyy…."

Ruby grinned. "Nope! C'mon Blake, we have some jogging to do!" Ruby pulled Blake out of bed and threw some clothes at her.

"Nooooo….please don't make meeeee…" Blake said, putting the clothes down. "I just…wanna sleeeep."

"Blake. Are you going to dress yourself, or do I have to do it for you?" Ruby said in a mischievous voice. That got Blake to wake up a bit as her eyes widened.

"You wouldn't." she said, although the look on her face showed she didn't really believe it.

"Try me." Ruby stated, her arms crossed and her smile wide.

Blake blanched and raced into the bathroom to change. Ruby giggled and texted Weiss.

Operation: Hangover Punishment is go over here, what's your situation?

Yang = zombie.

Ruby laughed. That sounded about right.

Need any assistance?

Possibly. I'll let you know.

Ruby pocketed her phone as Blake slowly emerged from the bathroom. "Can we just get this over with so I can get back to bed?" Blake muttered. "It's a Sunday. Have some kindness…"

Ruby shook her head. "Nope! Now come on, I think Weiss needs a bit of help."

The realization hit Blake as they walked across the hall. "You two planned this!" she said, with a very insulted look on her face.

Ruby giggled, but didn't answer. Instead she rapped on the door. "Weeeiss! You doing okay in there?"

At first they didn't hear anything. Then they heard a thud followed by Weiss screaming various vulgarities.

Ruby opened the door to find Yang passed out on top of Weiss, who was straining to push her off.

"Don't just stand there, help me!" Weiss snapped. Ruby smiled and began tugging Yang off of Weiss.

As soon as she was free, Weiss huffed and straightened out her clothes. "For god's sake, she's impossible!"

Blake stumbled over and said; "Hold on, I got it." She whispered something in Yangs ear, which caused quite the interesting reaction.

"I'm up! I'm awake! Stop talking! No! I'm awake!" Yang shouted as she jumped up and hugged Blake, trapping her face in her chest, leading to muffled half-protests from Blake.

Weiss and Ruby looked at each other, and then giggled. "Come on you two. Run!" Weiss said, pushing them out the door with Ruby's help.

The two hung over girls half walked half jogged about three feet in front of the other two, who were ready with swift attacks of tickling, poking, and a mini-air horn to keep them moving. The air horn had yet to be used, but Weiss was just begging Ruby to give it to her.

"Weiss, no. I don't trust you with this. You'll just use it to torment Yang!" Ruby said laughing, holding it at arm's reach away from a struggling Weiss.

"Oh come on pleeease! I just wanna do it once! Just once!" Weiss was currently trying to grab the air horn, but was being blocked by Ruby, who was quite adept at keeping it away from her.

"No! Stop! Don't make me tickle you!" Ruby said, laughing. Then she saw the look Weiss got in her eyes. "NOOOO!" she said, running. Weiss tore off after her, holding her hands out menacingly.

Blake and Yang dully observed them running off and decided now was a good time to slump back against the walls of the buildings and take a nap. Soon enough, they were dozing off side by side, with Blake using Yangs shoulder as a pillow.

…

"Gonna getchu!" Weiss said, as the two girls ran circles around a large tree.

"No! I'm too fast!" Ruby said, doing her best to keep away from Weiss's threatening fingers.

"Ruby. I promise I won't tickle you if you give me the air horn, now come on."

"Liar! You'll just take it then do it anyway!"

Weiss smiled. That was a good idea, actually. "Ruuuuby….please?" Weiss said in a very pitiful voice, doing her best to emulate Ruby's puppy dog eyes.

Ruby stopped and stared at Weiss, indecision raging in her eyes. She looked at Weiss, wheels turning. If I give it to her, she'll probably betray me. But she's so cute! But evil. Very evil….but god damn is she cute.

After debating internally for a moment, Ruby said "Weiss, I will give you the horn on one condition."

"What's that then?" Weiss asked, knowing she'd won.

"It's the end of September, right?" Ruby asked, smiling.

"Yes…" Weiss said slowly, not sure where this was going.

"What's in one month?" Ruby giggled as she said this, and Weiss suddenly was very apprehensive.

"….Halloween?" Weiss really didn't like where this was headed.

"Yup! And we're gonna hold a party. A costume party. You, me, Yang, and Blake! I got the other two to agree, so now you gotta do it too!"

"What's the catch?" Weiss was suspicious now. Ruby wasn't just going to ask her to host the party, there was definitely a catch.

"No catch! You just have to dress up and have fun." Ruby said.

Weiss shrugged. "Alright. But you didn't need to bargain with me for that, you could have just asked. Dolt." Ruby giggled as she handed Weiss the air horn.

"I had to make sure!" She said, her hand darting out and grasping Weiss's. "Now come on, wanna bet those two are sleeping?"

Weiss smiled as Ruby led her to where Blake and Yang were passed out. A Halloween party, eh? This will be a perfect opportunity…

…to tell her! Ruby thought, as she dragged Weiss along. If I can't do it incognito, I can't do it at all!

…

Two weeks passed by and the four girls had planned out their Halloween party. Turns out Ren lived off-campus in a rather spacious house with a few friends, who all agreed to using the place for the party. Of the eight people setting it up, there were four teams. Each team had a job. Yang and Pyrrha were in charge of invitations and making sure people showed up. Ren and Blake were in charge of setting up the house, decorating and making sure tables and such were available. Along with hiding valuables and fragile items.

Ruby and Weiss teamed up and were in charge of the costume contest they were holding. They needed to appoint judges, criteria, prizes, and other various things. Nora and Jaune were in charge of food and drink, which Nora took very seriously.

The house was already filling up with stuff, with Ren and Blake's decorations occupying a sitting room, Nora and Jaune's refreshments filling up the kitchen, and all the costume contest planning took up most of the living room.

Ruby and Weiss had settled on ten different categories. Your typical 'Scariest', 'Most Realistic', 'Silliest', 'Cutest', and 'Funniest'. Then the two girls came up with five other categories to throw people through a loop. There was 'Most Half-Assed', 'Most Random', 'Fuzziest', 'Best Sci-Fi Costume', and of course, 'Weiss's Favorite'.

Oddly enough, it was Ruby who had suggested the last one. "You're head judge, so you get a favorite! That's just how it works."

Weiss wasn't going to protest, so they went on with discussing prizes…

Meanwhile, Blake was setting up fake spider webs in the entry hall while Ren was setting up a plastic skeleton by the tables Nora had set up.

The kitchen was full, with Nora having purchased ingredients for sugar cookies and a cake mix, along with large bags of various chocolates, candies, gummies, and other various treats that would reduce your dentist into an incoherent mess.

Yang and Pyrrha had been asking around, and figured that the house could fit around fifty people. So, with some persuasion, they managed to get forty people to come and about half those people would most likely bring a date. "We can always use the front lawn, right?" Yang said to Pyrrha, who shrugged.

Late in the evening, three days before Halloween, the eight met up at the house to go over final details.

"Alright guys, so here's the deal." Weiss said, her voice cutting through the various discussions going on. "For the costume contest, the judges will be myself as head judge, Yang, Ren, and Velvet, a classmate of mine who agreed to do this. All of us will be in costume, of course. Nora, Jaune, what's our food situation?"

Nora cleared her throat and bounced up. "Well, I baked cookies. They're just plain old sugar cookies in Halloweeny shapes, so that should be good. We also have a really big cake I got from the bakery, should feed everyone. We also have a shitload of candy." She then sat back down.

Weiss sighed. "What about actual food?" she asked with a less-than-patient tone to her voice. Jaune decided to answer that one.

"I know a guy at the local pizza place; he's getting us ten medium pizzas for a really good price. Two cheese, two pepperoni, two everything, two sausage, and two veggie. He said they're usually open all night on Halloween, so if we run out we can call him up. As for drinks, the fridge is currently stocked with cola, beer, and a few other assorted sodas."

Weiss nodded. "Good. Any options for non-pizza people?" she asked. Not that she could imagine any non-pizza people.

"We're assuming we'll have to order another round of food, so we'll be going around getting custom orders for grinders and such."

"Yang, Pyrrha, how many people are we expecting?"

"Somewhere in between fifty and seventy. We're not sure." Yang said, scratching her head. "I set up a few extra tables outside in the back, is that cool Ren?" Ren nodded and Yang continued. "We got forty definite yes's, five maybes. And we're pretty sure about half of those people are bringing a date."

"Well, the place looks amazing. Good job Ren and Blake. So I guess we're all good?" Weiss asked. Everyone nodded their affirmatives, and Weiss ended their little meeting. "Alright! We'll meet up here around five on Halloween, yes? We're starting at six and probably going all night. So get some rest!"

The group trickled out of the house, saying goodbye to Ren and his housemates as they drove back to the college. Ruby, Yang, Blake, and Weiss were in one car with Pyrrha, Jaune, and Nora in another.

"This is gonna be fun! What're you going to dress up as?" Ruby asked no one in particular.

"I'm making Blake dress up as a full-on catgirl." Yang said, grinning. "I'm going as Athena, warrior goddess!"

Blake blushed and rolled her eyes a little. "I still hate that idea."

Yang kissed her quickly and grinned wider. "Yeah, you keep telling yourself that."

"Weiss, what about you?" Ruby asked, turning to the girl next to her.

"I hadn't really thought about it yet." Weiss said. She was telling the truth, actually. She hadn't thought about it at all.

"I'm going as a butler. Blake had the idea after we watched this cool anime called Black Butler. She said I'd make a cool looking female Sebastian."

Weiss pictured Ruby in a butlers outfit holding glasses of champagne on a platter, one hand behind her back. She leaned back into her seat and was oblivious to her surroundings for a few moments.

"Weiss? Are you okay?" Ruby asked, as Weiss had gotten a funny look on her face.

"Shush. Trying to concentrate…" Weiss said as she closed her eyes…

…

The day of the party arrived and Weiss had yet to decide on a costume. Luckily, Yang had a brainwave.

"You should totally be Elsa!" She said, smiling.

"Who?" Weiss said, not understanding.

"You know? Frozen? That Disney movie everyone's going nuts about? You'd make an awesome Elsa."

Weiss remembered Ruby showing her that movie not too long ago. She had thought it was pretty good, although she was never good with names of characters. She thought about it for a minute.

"Alright. I'll do it." She said, smiling. "I gotta get a dress or something though…" she muttered, thinking.

"Don't worry about that, I know a guy. Hold on, I'll be right back."

An hour later, Weiss was dressed in a sparkly, icy-blue dress. Her hair was done in a braid and she spun around a few times in front of the mirror. Yang was practically drooling.

"You look freaking awesome. I cannot wait to see Ruby's reaction to this." Weiss glared at her, feeling her face redden.

"I guess I do look pretty good." She acquiesced after looking at herself a bit more. "Now come on, we only have two hours left. Costume up!"

"Yikes! You're right! Where's my sword…?"

Meanwhile, across the hall…

"Blake! You look adorable!" Ruby was squealing as Blake emerged from the bathroom fully dressed up. She was in a one-piece costume, a slim-fitting furry black cat costume. It had a white belly and was slightly fuzzy. It also had a long tail, and Blake had gotten bigger ears for her normal cat-eared headband. She had also drawn whiskers on her face and made her nose black.

She blushed. "Really? It looks silly…" she muttered as she sat down and pulled her knees up to her chest.

"Really. You look really cute. Now help me with this coat, it's being really fussy." Ruby tried to get her costume on correctly, but kept getting stuck. Blake stood up and straightened it all out for her, then stood back and looked. "What do you think?"

Ruby was wearing jet-black pants with black shoes. She had a white shirt on with a black vest, and over that was a long black coat. Topping it all off was a black tie on her chest and white silk gloves.

"Very handsome. Weiss will blow a gasket." Blake said, smiling. Ruby grinned triumphantly.

"I have a good feeling about tonight." Ruby said, adjusting her gloves. "Let's go. They'll be waiting."

They crossed the hall and knocked on the door, to be greeted by an in-costume Yang. She wore a white, flowing dress with a snugly fitting breastplate, pauldrons, and an Athenian helmet. She even had a sword strapped to her waist.

Yang squealed at the sight of Blake. "Oh my goood! You look so cute! I just wanna eat you up!" She wrapped up her girlfriend in a hug, then removed her helmet and kissed her.

"Yang…" Blake said, and then hesitated. Then she sighed. "Thanks. And you look great too. Where's Weiss?"

"Coming!" they heard from inside the room. A few moments later, Weiss emerged after putting the finishing touches on their costumes.

Ruby and Weiss saw each other and both fell silent. They stared for a few moments, not exchanging a single word. Ruby was the first to break the silence after a minute.

"You're…Elsa." She commented. Weiss nodded. "You…look awesome. Wow." Ruby smiled and twirled. "What do you think of mine?"

In answer, Weiss gave Ruby a hug. "You look beautiful and handsome at the same time. It's weird."

Ruby giggled as she hugged Weiss back. "Thanks. Now come one, we're gonna be late."

They arrived at the house five minutes late and found Ren waiting with the door open. He was dressed as a ninja, and he waved them in. "Hey, you made it! Nora is already here, we're just waiting on Jaune and Pyrrha."

Nora was wearing silvery armor with red cloth, and she had a winged helmet on. She was carrying a big plastic hammer. "Hey guys!" she said, waving as they came in. "Guess who I am!"

"Thor?" Yang asked, grinning.

"Yep! Whaddya think?" Nora bounced happily.

"You look good Nora!" Ruby said, bouncing over to hug her friend. "Guess mine!"

Nora held Ruby at arm's length and stared, thinking hard. "Hmm….Black Butler?"

"Yeah! I'm Sebastian!" Ruby smiled. "But didya see Weiss's costume? And Blakes?"

As Nora squealed over Blake and admired Weiss, Jaune and Pyrrha arrived. Pyrrha was in a pink dress looking a little less than happy, while Jaune was dressed in red with blue overalls, with a big M on the front. He also wore a weird-looking hat.

"Jaune…Pyrrha…are you two…Mario and Peach?" Yang asked, giggling. "That…that is freaking fantastic. I need a picture of this." Digging out her cell, she snapped a picture.

Pyrrha grumbled. "This is embarrassing. I wanted to be Catwoman, but noooo. We had to match."

Jaune grinned. "Nothing like a little nostalgia to make a Halloween! So, are we all here?"

Everyone confirmed they were here, and they performed last minute setup. Jaune went to grab the pizza, Nora set up the desserts, Blake and Ren double and triple-checked the decorations and Yang sat around and made sure she wasn't going to break anything with her sword.

Ruby sat down discreetly next to Yang as she was getting comfortable.

"What's up Ruby?" she asked, looking around.

"We good to go for Operation: White Rose?" Ruby asked discreetly, making sure Weiss wasn't around.

Yang smiled. "Yup! Me and Ren are gonna fudge some of the results, and make sure that you get picked as Weiss's Favorite. Assuming she doesn't pick you anyway."

"And Velvet?" Ruby asked.

"She's the only wildcard. But don't worry, we got this! We got this." Yang clapped her sister's shoulder and shook it gently. "Are you ready?" she asked.

"I think so. I feel like I have butterflies in my tummy and my heart is going Mach 4, but I'm doing okay." Ruby said, giggling a little.

Yang grinned. "Awesome. Good luck sis."

Ruby nodded. She was gonna need it.

Meanwhile, Weiss was talking to Blake. "Are you sure it'll work?"

"Don't worry. Project Ice Flower is guaranteed to work." Blake said as she looked around the room. "Do you want to run over it again?"

Weiss nodded. "So, after the judging of the contest, your friend Sun is going to spill a drink on me and act like a douche about it. But we need to make sure Ruby is around for it. Then, hopefully, she volunteers to help me out. Then…"

"Then you make your magic. Cool? You ready? Nervous?" Blake asked, smiling.

Weiss nodded sheepishly. "I feel like puking. But it'll be worth it. Right?"

Blake nodded reassuringly. "Of course! Now shush, she's coming over here."

Ruby grabbed Weiss's shoulder and pulled her off to the side. "Hey, come on! People are arriving; you need to get a good look at all the costumes! You are head judge after all."

Weiss gulped and took a deep breath, as did Ruby. But both of them were so absorbed in their own thoughts neither noticed the other was doing the exact same.

As people arrived and started talking and starting the party, the two girls stood next to each other watching and thinking the same thing.

Tonight is the night. Tonight is the night I say it.

I love you.

Author's Note

Oh I'm just cruel aren't I? Giving you a two-part chapter for some serious squee. So, Halloween party! Fun, right? I hope so. And I wish good luck to the two of them; let's see if their so-called 'foolproof' plans work out! Mua ha ha.

And I wish you guys good luck too! Make sure your hearts don't explode reading this. I'd be very sad if you died of frustration/squee/anticipation/potato.

Also, this is the second chapter that ends with them both thinking 'I love you.' Don't worry, soon they'll be saying to each other! Along with lots of other things ;)

As always, remember to review! Detailed reviews make for a happy Spike! And a happy Spike makes for speedy chapters! And the faster your chapters come the sooner you get your squee. So, leaving a detailed review is a win-win situation!

Please, enjoy Chapter Ten – The Fateful Party, Pt. 1, and have a wonderful day.

Spike