It was quiet.

The stillness of the apartment was suffocating. Jaune was in his room, Yang had returned to the hotel, and Pyrrha and Ruby were perfectly still. Blake could hear each breath snake into each of their lungs, pause for a moment, and then get squeezed out. She was hyper aware of her own breathing, and she could vividly imagine that if she breathed out, the air would never return.

Since Qrow had left with the scroll, the world had been a strange sort of purgatory. Nothing moved. No one spoke.

Shifting her attention from the whisper-like breathing, Blake began to listen closely to her own pulse. The funny thing about having two sets of ears is that she could listen to the blood in one set of extremities with the other.

At some point, she would have to admit the crippling worry for her teammate that was gnawing away at her insides, but for now, she ignored the world. She stayed still, alongside it, and waited.

The waiting was the worst part. As of now, nothing could be done.

So she sat, and she listened.

She listened to nothing.

Because it was quiet.

The cyclicity of it nauseating.

Or maybe she just felt sick.

She closed her eyes and focused, seeing if she could hear Ruby and Pyrrha's hearts, but her attention kept getting drawn back to their breath. In, out, in, out…

The urge to hit something flared up in her, but she forced it back down, nothing more than a quick tense giving her away. Ruby and Pyrrha's eyes snapped to her, but it had not been the first time one of them had made a minute movement, and their attention faded away, inwards, back to their worries.

The table in the middle of the room, a crystal top on oaken legs, held three crystal glasses full of water. Blake could see the bright reflection of the moon on their long since stilled surfaces. When she had sat down, they had been reflecting the sun.

"We should go to bed." Blake winced as she spoke, Ruby jumped. Her own words seemed to be a cacophony after the hours of silence.

"But when Qrow-"

"When Qrow comes back, we will be here.." Blake cut Pyrrha off. "He may not be back for days. When he arrives, we should be rested."

She made eye contact with Pyrrha, and she could see the edge of fear in them. Pyrrha was not just waiting to hear of Weiss, she was avoiding going to her room, where Jaune slept. There was a storm brewing. Blake could hear it in every breath. Here, they waited, before the storm, but not without the pain.

The two stood, leaving Ruby where she was. Blake left through the door, and Pyrrha returned to her room. The night air was brisk and cold, nipping at her skin, but she hardly noticed it.

Blake had a feeling Ruby would not be able to rest, even if she wanted to. To wake up and find out she had been dead, and then told her lover was missing…

Blake did not understand her pain, but she could sympathize. The state of her fragile mind now rested in the hands of fate, or whichever one Weiss had crafted.

There was no guarantee that Weiss was alright, either. All her days, Blake had seen the consequences of actions. The oppression of the faunus leading to their violent uprising, leading to fear, leading to hate, leading to slavery, dehumanization, more fear… The cyclic futility of being a faunus was not lost on her, but it was the actions of the involved parties that had led to the world in which she lived.

As a child, she had been taught that to live, she may have to kill. Life and death, equal prices.

Ruby had been dead.

Now, she was alive.

There were things in the world that Blake hardly understood, and this almost mystical act led to larger questions than Blake had ever thought she would have to confront. She knew she would die someday. It was inevitable. It was a fact of life. There was no changing it…

But Weiss had changed it somehow. Typical of the heiress to scatter the rules and forge her own, defying reason, defying the very foundations of the world. Blake was left scrambling, chasing invisible scraps of the rules, trying to catch one and understand it. But whatever new world Weiss had moulded to bring Ruby back - for Blake had little doubt this was all the heiress' doing - was shrouded in darkness and mysteries.

These thoughts did her little good. Perhaps someday she might understand what had happened here. For now, she was blind. Rationality had broken down, and when reason was gone, they had nothing left to guide them but their hearts. So until they figured all of this out, that's exactly what she would follow.

Blake found her hand upon a door, and looked up to see herself outside of Yang's hotel, about to enter.

"Oh," She said dumbly.

Ruby numbly heard Blake say something, but without hearing Weiss' name, she lost interest, returning to the cloudy haze that had muddled her mind all day. She was vaguely aware she was alone now. In truth, she had been all day. Blake and Pyrrha had been by her side, but none of them had been there for one another. Each had their worries, each had their fears. They were no more together than Ruby and Weiss right now.

Ruby stood, a thought entering her mind. Something vague and only half-complete. She walked over to the corner of the room where Crescent Rose was standing at an odd slant against the wall. She was intimately familiar with the tool - and it was a tool, not a weapon. Qrow had once told her why he chose the scythe rather than more traditional weapons.

A sword had been designed as a weapon. They hurt people, they were designed for humans. Wars were not as uncommon as one might expect in Remnant, what with the constant threat of the grimm, and one thing people excelled at was learning how to hurt each other.

A scythe, though, was a farmer's tool. It was used to nurture the earth and civilization. It cut down wheat, certainly, but that death allowed for the growth of mankind throughout the world. No one would deny the humble origins of a scythe. It was unwieldy, it was perhaps not the most practical tool, but it was functional. She destroyed the grimm, cut them down like stalks of wheat, and in their absence, civilization could flourish. It was the fundamental reason for huntresses to exist.

Even when Qrow had come back one day, after Summer had gone, with his scythe now able to transform into a sword and advising Ruby to do the same, she had refused. She knew not all people were good, but she refused to accept the vulgar tool that was designed purely as the most efficient form of murdering others. She wished to offer salvation, not destruction.

She had added a gun though.

That was just because sniper rifles were awesome!

She found herself sitting once more, Crescent Rose lain across her lap. She pressed the button that extended the scythe down halfway, and then slid a into its hole halfway down the button. It would hold it in that position, allowing Ruby to manipulate the limbs of the tool without the pistons extending it forcibly. She swung the blade open, examining the smooth edge of the blade, noting how a few spots of brown rust colored the otherwise pure silver. She caught a reflection of her eye in the polished surface, but quickly looked away.

She grabbed a whetstone from Crescent Rose's case first, running it over the blade to hone the edge and scrape off the residual rust. The movement was calming, allowing Ruby to lose her mind in the repetitive work. She made sure to get the inside as well as the outer edges of the twin blades that ran down the length of Crescent Rose.

Next she checked the hinges, collapsing and re-extending the blade, focusing on each joint's movement, pinpointing the creakiest and slowest parts of it. On the hunt earlier, she had not tried to extended it into its war-scythe setting, and was now glad she hadn't. The joints had not been oiled in years, and had they tried to fully extend, they may well have jammed.

For ease of access during field repairs, huntsmen and huntresses used special bolts that one could pull outwards, twist, and then push back in to make them pop off. Performing this down the length of the blade, Ruby disassembled Crescent Rose, checking each piece as it came off. The paint had warded off most of the rust that wasn't on the actual blade, and Ruby figured she may have to replace the steel sometime if the oxidization spread too far, but for now it didn't seem too damning. She pulled out a rag and some oil, coating the sections of her scythe that the bolts slid into with a thin layer of grease. She repeated the process on the bolts themselves, and then wiped off the excess. Before sliding the scythe together again, leaving the extended arm unattached from the snaith.

She checked the various widgets and gears housed within the main body of Crescent Rose, but they seemed to have all held up well to the wear and tear of time. Without use, the coatings of the gears hadn't worn down and so no rust had appeared. A little more oil, and the scythe was ready to be reattached.

Next, she came to the part that had failed her during the hunt. The gun had jammed, something uncommon amongst hunters. She should have thought to checked over Crescent Rose before leaving, but had been so caught up in the excitement of a hunt that she had completely forgotten. It had not been fatal this time, but in the future, such a mistake could cost her her life.

Again.

Ruby hissed as her finger's skin opened up, having slipped onto the blade due to her distraction. She cursed, sucking the sanguine liquid trickling out into her mouth, tasting the coppery tang. She briefly wondered how much of it she had lost when she had died. She wondered where this blood had come from.

Pushing the thoughts from her mind, Ruby returned to the task. She disassembled the rifle, checking the barrel first, though she figured the issue wouldn't be there. It would be closer to the base, probably the trigger itself.

Assured that the barrel was fine, she cleaned it quickly, then set it aside. The trigger seemed to be functioning perfectly well, so Ruby turned her attention to the hammer. Looking at it, she found a bunch of dust clogging up the mechanism. She frowned as she looked at it, noticing how different hues were mixed together. It looked like she had been using ice dust when she had fought the death stalkers, and after her death, it had begun to recrystallize. When she had shot with the red round, the hammer got stuck on the solid icy mass, restricting its movement.

Ruby snapped off the ice, holding the crystal in front of her. She pulsed her aura, and it shattered.

"Hey kiddo," A rough voice sounded through the fields of thorns that blanketed her dreams, and Ruby blinked, eyes opening to find herself slumped awkwardly in the couch with a half assembled Crescent Rose sitting on her lap. Shaking her shoulder was Qrow, grey clothes blending in with the early twilight shades outside. Wait… The window in her room faced west. It was the evening already.

He held a scroll out to her. Ruby took it gratefully, one of the infinite knots in her stomach releasing.

Behind him Pyrrha, Blake and Yang stood in a semi-circle. They had let her sleep as long as possible. Jaune was not with them.

"Winter used a bunch of technical words, but it basically sums up to this: Those letters you've been getting were pre-written." Qrow sat down beside her with a heavy sigh, hands clasped in front of him as though he were praying and head bowed. She could see the shame in his shoulders. "Ruby… I'm sorry, but-"

"We don't know anything yet." Yang interrupted, cutting her uncle off and stepping forward. Blake put her hand on her partner's shoulder and squeezed it reassuringly. "What else was there."

Qrow looked up to meet his nieces eyes, and Ruby wanted to cry. She could see him holding back on finishing what he was going to say. Ruby could feel the tears stinging her eyes as the room's silent consensus finally settled in. No one would dare say it though. They all held onto the hope that they were wrong, because the alternative was too horrifying.

"There was almost nothing left on the scroll. It's been wiped almost completely. No business deals, no messages, no call histories… All we could find were the letters already on there, and a few of the scroll's extraneous data. Things that aren't generally accessible. And the unreleased letters are highly encrypted. Maybe if we had a few weeks or months we could crack it, but by then, I get the feeling…

"Weiss spent most of her time at the SDC according to the scroll's tracking history. She made a two week long trip six months before Ruby returned, but other than that just a few infrequent visits to various restaurants, probably for client meetings. There were a few other… Unsavoury locations. I don't know if that's too far back to mean anything. Even if it's not then it means there's probably more further back we missed, but we could only go that far back. The memories on the scrolls aren't great, and by all rights it shouldn't even have stored that data. That's what Winter said anyways…

"The trip," Ruby mumbled, trying to fight back the waves of fear and anxiety crashing over her. "Where was it." Qrow shrugged.

"Dunno. I don't even know if was a trip actually. Her scroll just went dark for two weeks, turned off or left behind. We don't have a location."

"What about the… Unsavoury places?" Yang piped up. "What are we talking about?"

"Seems that the snowflake was getting lonely. A couple adult clubs here in Vale, that's it."

"What?" Ruby asked, quaking minutely.

"Look, I know she meant a lot to you, but the truth is that after a certain amount of time… People can't always be virtuous." Qrow said with a shrug.

"No!" Ruby said, the slightest of smiles curling her lip. "Weiss wouldn't ever go to a place like that. She hated anything like that. There has to be something about it."

Qrow looked at her doubtfully. Ruby watched as he turned to look to the rest of the gathered party for support. Yang was biting her lip the way she did when she was nervous, and Blake's eyes were cast at the ground.

"Ruby," Yang walked forward quietly. "Weiss is a good person. I know it, but even the best of us…" She trailed off for a moment, a tear in her eye that Ruby didn't understand. "Sometimes people lose it Ruby. They lose their way. Grief and pain are the worst demons, and they can drive someone to do things they never would otherwise…"

"Yang," Ruby begged, looking up at her older sister's lilac eyes, her shining hair, her glowing skin… Warm arms wrapped around her, and Ruby buried her face into her sister's shoulder. The same shoulder she had cried on the day Summer died. The same shoulder she had hugged every time she had a nightmare or someone was mean to her at school. She had known Yang her whole life, and Ruby couldn't think of a time when Yang had ever faltered. She knew that even if the world came crashing down, Yang would stand proud and strong.

Right now though, she was wrong.

Yang, of all people should understand. If she could stand so strong all the time, how could she think Weiss wouldn't?

"You don't have to come with me," Ruby growled, a determined steel the foundation of her voice. "But I'm going."

"And what?" Blake asked, but not discouragingly. She just wanted the plan.

"I don't know. I'll talk to people, ask if they've seen her. Someone has to recognize her, right?" Ruby urged, the fire of hope igniting deep inside her.

"Alright," Jaune said with a silly grin, walking up and grabbing Pyrrha's hand. "Who wants to go to a strip club?"

There was a chorus of agreements, though Ruby caught a nervous look between Yang and Blake. Everyone began filing out to their respective rooms to get ready. When everyone else had gone and only Qrow remained, he took a deep breath and turned to Ruby.

"Look kid, even if we find anything, there's still a serious chance that-"

"I know." Ruby held up her hand and smiled at him. He was just trying to be realistic, but she already knew.

The thought terrified her. It made her want to crawl into a ball and fall back into whatever abyss she had come from. It made her insides squirm as if a thousand bugs were nibbling on her insides. It didn't matter though. There was a chance that Ruby could see Weiss, and she would give anything for that. If it cost her her life over again, she wouldn't mind. All that mattered was Weiss.

Even if Weiss was probably dead.

A/N:

No.1: BUZZ BUZZ

Ahem, excuse the outburst. I've had a few inquiries pertaining to the pairings in the story… Most of them were obvious right away, but redemption and resilience are two huge themes in this. I'll leave it at that.

I also feel like I've neglected my audience somewhat, so I'll try and answer some common questions that don't involve spoilers to make up for the long wait. Also, anyone still reading, you're awesome and I appreciate it so much!

. First, Warden of Lore pointed out that Ruby is a white walker. That was somewhat of an inside joke for me as I wrote, and I love that it got pointed out. Ruby's eyes are significant, but white walkers are what gave me the idea initially.

Next, I love the theories. I wasn't expecting people to be scrambling to figure it out so fast, and most of the hints I've dropped have been picked up. There are a few things no one's brought up quite yet, but all will be revealed in time…

Also, Cipher and Clown, are you the same person O.o (honestly, do you say things outside of interesting? Lolol XD)

Concerning Crescent Rose: Initially there were plans to modify the design to reflect how Ruby has changed. I have scrapped that idea, as all the thematic work I needed for Crescent Rose I did in this chapter. I know, cleaning isn't entirely interesting to read, but there's meaning to it.

The flashback during the fight: Think PTSD. Ruby did die after all…

Winter and Qrow involvement: They filled roles that were initially going to be OC's. I'm really glad I got to use them, as it saved me work and I really hate using OC's.

Ruby's age: I hope I answered this in the first two chapters, but I will prevent answering because watching people run amok with different theories is fun and this is a key point for some of them XD

Again, I want to thank all of you. Writing this has pushed me to grow in so many ways as an author. The monologues, letters, interactions… This chapter was not particularly poetic, but the other day I went back and read chapters 5 and 10 (my personal faves, aside from the letters) and then reread some of By Year's End and… Whoo. Big difference. And it's really thanks to this community. So thank you all.

I hope this chapter was worth the wait, and if it wasn't, well, I should be making up for it in the next few chapters. Thanks for reading!

Cheers,

Unjax