So this guy is out just a little bit faster than previous chapters. Yay for not letting procrastination get to me!

Anyways, apologies in advance for some segments of this chapter. There are a couple points I'm not completely proud of, and there's a strong likelihood part of this chapter will feel slightly OoC.

As usual leave any reviews for your thoughts/advice after reading, and I hope you enjoy.

Yang gave a deep sigh as she continued to gaze out the window from her bedroom. This was the way things had consistently been ever since she had been brought to Patch when it had be determined she would survive her encounter with the red-haired man with the katana. Regardless of how much her father or Ruby had protested, she just felt no drive to try and reach any of their friends from Beacon. What help would she even be, in her current state? She was dead weight; and if even her own partner could see that then what was the point in even offering any assistance? I'm a complete waste, they're better off without me. Yang thought darkly to herself as she narrowed her eyes for a moment before continuing to just stare out the window.

Yang would continue to think along these lines, not noticing when there was a sharp knocking on the door to the house when Frost and Neo arrived and eventually moved to the kitchen to speak with Taiyang. So engrossed in her own thoughts as she was, it was only with the sharp crack of knuckles on her own door that Yang was jarred into shock for a brief moment, her eyes whirling to face her door as a voice came from beyond. One that she wasn't in the least expecting to hear from given what she had just been saying to herself.

"Yang? Can we come in? We came to see how you were doing?" The telltale voice of Frost carried through the door. But who was this "we" he was referring to? Had Ruby gone off to find someone and happened to find him of all people closest to their home? Or was it someone else entirely?

Her curiosity peaked, Yang responded to the request after a few moments deliberation. "Sure, come on in." She winced even as the words came out of her mouth. She had tried to make that sound more like her usual self from when they were at Beacon, but she could instantly tell that it fell short. Hopefully whoever was on the other side didn't pick up on it.

As the door opened, she was unsurprised to see Frost there, as it WAS his voice she had heard from the other side. However, it was the person that was with him that caused her eyes to bug out in shock. For standing across from her bed, in her own bedroom, was none other than Neopolitan- the girl who had nearly killed her aboard the train beneath Mountain Glenn had it not been for the timely intervention of her own mother. Clearly, Neo had noticed Yang's sudden shift in expression upon noticing her, as she raised a hand and gave a nervous wave with an awkward smile to match. Were it not for the clearly different wardrobe and hair, Yang would have thought she was looking at her sister for a moment before being snapped out of her thoughts once again by Frost's voice.

"So…how have you been?" Frost asked blandly after spending a few moments scratching the back of his head, probably deliberating on what to open with.

Yang rolled her eyes for a moment at the dumb question before trying to put on a half-smile for her visitors. "Oh, I'm doing alright. Just sitting here at home recovering from having my arm sliced off while protecting my partner." Yang tried, but she couldn't help but hiss at the last word as she turned her head to look at the bandaged stump where her arm used to be.

"Yeah…I heard about that. But listen." Frost's expression shifted to something more serious as he regained his composure before continuing to speak. "You need to get out of this funk, Yang. You're not the only one that got caught up in everything out there. Ruby, Weiss, Blake-"

"DON'T YOU DARE SAY HER NAME!"

Frost and Neo both reeled back in shock at the outburst from Yang, before regaining themselves even as Yang seethed through clenched teeth. Neo turned to look up at Frost with a pitying expression, to which Frost shook his head lightly before speaking up once more.

"Look Yang, I know you don't like what happened. But everyone has their reasons for the things they do. I'm sure she-"

"Sure that she, what?!" Yang interrupted once more with a barely controlled yell. "That she had some grand purpose for ditching her entire team after watching Beacon fall to Cinder and the White Fang?! The same group that she ran from once before to come to Beacon in the first place?" Yang's expression turned cold as she leveled a glare at the two in her room. "If all you two came here for is to start a pity party where we all cry out our feelings and make up then you'll be disappointed."

Yang turned her face to the window once again as she leveled a look of cold, uncaring indifference outside. "Now, get out."

Neo gave a brief sigh as she put one hand on Frost's jacket sleeve to lead him out, their presence clearly not welcome at this point in time. However, she turned back in confusion when her pull was met with resistance. When she looked back she saw Frost, his face unreadable as he simply looked at the broken girl in the room with them. She opened her mouth to berate him, when it was cut off by his own voice speaking up.

"So that's it, huh?" It was barely a whisper, but Neo heard it, and so did Yang judging by the way her head turned somewhat at the words spoken. His voice then got somewhat louder as he continued to speak. "Yang Xiao Long. The blonde brawler from Beacon that never let anything get her down, gives up at the first sign of defeat. Never thought I'd see the day." His voice is cold and emotionless as his head is turned in a way that neither Neo nor Yang can see his eyes.

Neo reaches out to pull harder on Frost's sleeve, worried now for what had just been started as she sees Yang's expression twist with unbridled rage and frustration at his words. Whether or not he had intended to work her up like this, she was not happy. They had to leave, NOW.

"How dare you…" Yang hissed out as Frost turned his expressionless gaze to meet hers. "How dare you say that to me…when everyone I know has abandoned me…my mother…my sister…my partner…they all left without a word…" Her expression does not change even as the tears begin to fall unhindered down her face.

Neo whirls with a look of scorn on her face to reprimand Frost, but is stopped short when she sees his face. The expression is still the cold, emotionless mask she has seen him wear numerous times as they grew up, but tears are also falling from his own eyes as he continues to watch Yang fall apart in front of them. She lets her hand fall from his sleeve in shock as she looks between the two of them, unable to speak for a moment even as the others silently weep in front of her. After a moment of thought she decides that now is as good a time as any as she turns to face Yang fully. Yang notices this, and turns her gaze to weakly face Neo, her eyes still leaking tears every few seconds.

"Yang…I'm sorry." Neo spoke simply, even as the blonde gaped in surprise, unable to respond in kind. "I never had the chance to say this earlier, with everything going on and us being on opposite sides of the battle for months. What happened on the train…I never meant for it to go that far." Neo tensed her shoulders with fear and disdain as memories of the incident flooded her mind. Moments later however she felt a warm presence touch her shoulder as Frost reached over a hand to gently place on her shoulder for encouragement as his other arm reached up to rub the tears from his face. Neo smiled in thanks as she took a deep breath before continuing. "All I intended was just to knock you out and teleport you safely off the train to somewhere else in Vale right before the crash. But a part of me enjoyed the rush of battle so much that it wanted to go all the way and deliver the killing blow. It took that dark-haired woman showing up to snap me out of it and leave before I could make any more mistakes."

The room was silent for a few moments after Neo finished speaking. The only sounds they could hear were the sounds of the wind and snow outside, as well as the occasional tapping from tree branches on the window. Yang turned to look out the window as she raised her arm to wipe the tears from her own eyes with a sad expression on her face.

"You know…that was a whole lot more pleasant of a third encounter with you than I anticipated." Yang said with a hollow laugh. "Kinda figured you'd just show up and gut me next time around after everything that happened. Almost welcomed it to. But then I'd miss my chance to eventually go out and find Blake before knocking some sense into that kitty skull of hers again." Frost and Neo both heaved a sigh of relief at the small joke. Her expression became more serious as she turned to face the others once more. "That doesn't change the fact that I don't appreciate you bringing it up in the first place."

"Yeah, didn't really think that one through a whole lot." Frost stated as Neo punched him in the arm, his face twisting in pain for a moment before he continued, rubbing his now bruised arm with his free hand. "But I do promise you this- while we're out finding answers of our own, if we see Blake we'll give her a good punch for you and then tie her to a chair before giving you a call so you two can catch up. How's that sound."

Yang gave Frost a look of bewilderment before shaking her head as she laughed again, her arm reaching over to her bedside table to grab her Scroll. "I hope you've got something planned for making sure she can't use her Semblance to get out of their if you do manage to get the drop on her. Can't imagine she'd come willingly."

"Meh. Personally I'm hoping that once she sees us, if we can get her talking we'll be set then. She cares about the three of you, you know that. Look at how worried she was about your reactions when you found out she was part of the White Fang. I'm willing to be that whatever she's off doing it's to protect you…in some dumb "I'm not going to let you help and risk yourselves" kind of way." Frost finished with a shrug of her shoulders. "I bet if we can get Ruby, Weiss, and Team JNPR in on it we'd find her in no time. Heck, even if Weiss is stuck in Atlas; with Ruby, Jaune, Ren, and Nora off towards Haven, and Pyrrha out in Mistral we've got all of Remnant covered." Frost missed when Yang's face twisted in shock and confusion at his words while Neo did not, now looking very concerned as Frost continued to ramble off unawares. "…just need a few tons of catnip, lots of balls of yarn, maybe some fish every once in a while as a trail almost. Damn, that's gonna be expensive…"

Yang shook her head with surprise as she interrupted Frost's ramblings. "Dude, the cat jokes are fine and all, but Pyrrha? What happened to you out there that made you into such an insensitive prick?"

Frost turned with a look of confusion at Yang's statement. "Pyrrha jokes? The heck are you talking about, Yang? I just assumed since the others went with Ruby it was because Pyrrha wanted to check on her family in Mistral and told the others to go ahead of her. Weird choice if you ask me, though considering how much longer that'll take for her unless she has some method of transport we don't know about."

"Dude, you've got to be joking right now. Off in Mistral? I know I've been in a funk but at least I'm not making stuff up to hide the truth when it's right in front of me."

"Hiding the truth? Joking?" Frost gave Yang a serious look as he continued, just as perplexed as he first was when the conversation took this turn.

"Frost…Pyrrha was killed by Cinder, remember?"

He couldn't believe it. Pyrrha Nikos? The Invincible Girl? Dead? By Cinder? She was the most talented person he had ever seen fight short of the teachers at Beacon themselves. To hear the words "Pyrrha" and "dead" in the same sentence didn't make any sense. And to Cinder? That was even stranger. Realistically speaking she did have those weird flames and her bow, but Pyrrha had easily dispatched tougher opponents then that in some of their excursions to fight Grimm while taking classes.

The more he thought about it, the more it left an oddly painful sensation in the back of Frost's head, as though the overthinking was now giving him a headache combined with the stress of everything that had happened in recent days just catching up to him. That, and he was feeling very nauseous all of a sudden. It was with that that Frost's body started to move almost like a zombie towards the window as his face paled.

Yang looked at Frost with an expression of worry and confusion at his movements, while Neo recognized the telltale signs before teleporting across Yang's bed with a quick flash and unhinged and opened the window, letting in a sudden chilly breeze, just as Frost reached the opening and stuck his head out the window while firmly grasping the bottom of the windowsill with his hands flashing briefly and a sharp crack of wood as the retching sounds began.

Yang looked at the two of them in shock, now realizing what was going on. "What the heck, man?! Thanks for using the outdoors, but a little warning next time would be appreciated, for Oums sake!"

Neo grimaced in apology as Frost continued to vomit out the window as she stepped away slightly. "Sorry about that. It doesn't happen often, but if he starts to over process things and stress out too much it makes him nauseous. While he's busy praying to the outdoors though, let me get your number in case we split up anywhere and have to contact you since he's the only one with your Scroll number at the moment."

Yang nodded dumbly at Neo's practiced explanation as she handed over her Scroll. She then shook her head before replying to Neo while Frost leaned back inside with a deep breath before wincing at the damage his grip on the windowsill had caused. "And this never happened while he was stuck at Beacon with the rest of us? What the hell?"

"Like I said, it's a combination of stress and overthinking things. It was probably because he had the four of you constantly checking on him and bringing him back down from his freak-outs that it never got this bad. That and he hasn't talked much about the actual events of the city lately, mostly just brief jokes to let the conversation pass I guess. Something we'll need to work on-" Neo said while delivering another whack of her hand to Frost's arm, which he winced at with a nonplussed expression before shuffling over to sit at an empty chair occupying the room. "-while we're out looking for the others in that case."

Frost gave Neo a tired look as he hunched over in his seat. "Yes, mom."

Yang couldn't help but chuckle at the antics of the two in their kitchen as they gathered up their things while Taiyang and her watched. While she was by no means okay with everything going on, she at least had been snapped out of the dark funk she had been and come to the realization that there were still those that cared about her despite what had happened. Didn't mean she wasn't going to enjoy scolding Blake though. She reached over to give her father a gentle one-armed hug to which he reacted with surprise for a moment before he put one arm around her shoulders as they turned to face the other two, their gear now firmly in place as they stood by the open door to the house.

"Thank you again for giving us the chance to rest our feet for a bit." Neo said with a slight bow.

"The offer to stay the night and rest is still open, you know." Taiyang stated even as the two shook their heads politely.

"While we appreciate the offer," Frost began. "The sooner we get back to the city and finding a lead, the sooner we can preferably catch up to someone. Preferably Blake or Ruby, but if all else fails we can always try a jailbreak with Weiss in Atlas to keep things exciting."

"Well if it gets to that, best of luck with the robots." Taiyang said with a laugh.

"I'm sure they'll be fine." Yang said with a wink towards the two as they turned to leave, the door gently shutting behind them.

The two continued to stand with arms around the other for a few more moments before Taiyang turned to place both hands on Yang's shoulders with a serious expression on his face. "Are you sure you'll be okay, Yang?"

Yang's expression saddened before she walked over to one of the windows to see Frost and Neo as they shifted aside some brush to continue on their way. "No, probably not for a while. After everything that's happened, okay is the least thing from my mind." Her expression lifted somewhat as she turned to face her father again, much to his relief. "But I know I've got friends out there that will help me if things get down. So there is that at least."

She looked outside once more as her father stood beside her with a hand on her shoulder. "They'll be fine, sweetheart."

"I hope so."