They were gathered in a small room with a semi-circle of plush couches. A false fireplace mock-crackled in the center of the wall opposite them as they sat attentively, waiting for Pyrrha to speak. Ruby could not help but notice the dark circles under the woman's otherwise beautiful eyes. There was a sadness in that face that Ruby wished she could eradicate, and yet she understood it was not her place. She… Wished that she could turn back the arms of the clock to when Pyrrha was simply laughing and watching movies with Jaune, but she had come now. She had already done the damage. Now, all she could do for her friend was do her best to help Pyrrha.

"Jaune had a visitor last night." Next to Ruby, Yang tensed, her hands crushing into fists.

"He did what?" She snarled, and then Pyrrha let out a little laugh.

"No, not like that." Yang settled down, slightly embarrassed.

"You could check your phrasing…"

"Winter Schnee came to see him." The room was quiet for a moment. Ruby stomach churned uneasily. There could be no coincidence. If Winter had come, it was undoubtedly related to Weiss somehow, and even the ghost of anything to do with Weiss brought the abyss back to Ruby. That eternal, empty, nothing that possessed the world without the woman she loved.

"Winter? Why would Winter come to Vale?" Blake mused, simultaneously encouraging the scarlet-haired huntress to continue.

"Have… Have any of you tried to contact Weiss since Ruby's return?"

"Yeah, I sent her a message when we got to Vale. I thought she'd be the first to come over and rip Ruby a new one for going and dying on us." Blake's brow was creasing, already a step ahead of the conversation.

"Jaune said he had tried to get in touch with her too." Yang chirped in. The burden on Pyrrha's shoulders seemed to get heavier when she heard that. Apparently, he had not felt the need to share that with her. "He figured if anyone could, she could make sense of this."

"Well, we know why she didn't answer." Pyrrha gave a tight smile.

"Winter was searching for her missing sister, wasn't she?" Blake's suspicion was confirmed by a sharp nod from Pyrrha.

"But why would she come to your apartment?" Yang asked. "Wouldn't it make more sense for her to be over in Atlas or something? She's been there for years… I can't imagine why she'd come back to Vale."

"She was tracking Weiss scroll." Pyrrha said with a long sigh. "Apparently it showed up around our apartment recently, and knowing us to be friends of hers from Beacon, Winter immediately assumed she had come to visit us."

"But why would she go to your-"

"Ruby?" Blake interrupted Yang, giving the younger woman a cold stare.

Everyone turned to look at her. Ruby wanted to fade into the shadows. Weiss was missing.

She was missing.

Not Weiss… No, Ruby had to be able to find her. She had to see her partner again.

"I…" Ruby struggled with the words. It was the one thing Weiss had asked of her. Don't tell them, it would be simpler that way. But if Weiss was missing… She had asked Ruby to forget her. To remember what they had been, not allow her to be a hindrance on her new life. Ruby couldn't afford to listen to her.

"I… " Deep breath. The air filled her lungs as she closed her eyes, trying to restrain the veritable hurricane of emotions screaming inside of her. She breathed it out, tried to relax, regained her composure. "There's something I don't think any of you ever knew."

She took a moment. No one had ever known. Ruby could imagine herself in this position, years ago, bubbling with excitement, wanting to proclaim to the world that she and Weiss were so much more than just partners, but keeping quiet for Weiss' sake. Because she had been asked to. But no longer.

"Weiss and I… We were in love."

Ruby squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn't even bear to look at her friends' reactions. She couldn't do this anymore. She couldn't keep it together.

The years of fear and pain… Perhaps she couldn't remember the dates or the events, but it was all there. She felt it all. All the love for Weiss, the pain of her slowly being ripped away, the fear that those beautiful blue eyes would harden into ice once more, the incomparable warmth and joy of seeing her face, of touching her, the blooming of butterflies in her stomach as soft lips met, trembling in excited anxiety, passionately, without restraint or refrain and-

A sob wracked her body. She couldn't stop it as a tear slid out of her eye and down her face. She couldn't hold it back anymore. She needed Weiss right now. Amidst the confusion, the anonymity, the twisted and incomprehensible labyrinth of her new existence, she needed Weiss. She needed her so much right now. Just a touch. Just a hand holding hers as she ate ice cream contentedly on a Friday night with not a care in the world and no preoccupation but the sheer, invincible happiness that accompanied existence with Weiss by her side.

She covered her face. Not in shame for coming out to her friends, but in fear. Fear of a life where she would never again see her…

Why wasn't she here?

Suddenly there was a warm embrace around her. The smell of a warm summer breeze drifting through fields of tall grass washed over Ruby, offering a reprieve from the hell of her mind. It wasn't Weiss. It wasn't what her heart ached for, but there was a familiar comfort to it.

Ruby reached around and hugged Yang back, letting the sobs ravage her frame as the tidal wave of pain crashed and washed her into the infinite sea. She clung to Yang as a the dying did to their loved ones. It could not save them, could not give them what their existence so eagerly craved.

But it was comforting. It was a measure of salvation in oblivion.

"Shh," Yang whispered in her ear, rubbing small circles in her back. Ruby hugged her harder as the storm inside her swelled and crashed in time to the waves. The continuity of life broke, and Ruby knew not how long she stayed like that, desperately holding her last life-line. Eventually though, she regained her composure. The tears slowly dried, the sobs devolved into slight hics.

When Yang finally pulled away, though not without one final squeeze, and Ruby opened her eyes, she saw smiling faces. She almost laughed. Blake squeezed her hand and Pyrrha came forward to give her a quick hug.

She wondered if she could tell them what their support meant in some way, but she trusted they knew. This is what her team always was.

Ruby reached into her pocket and withdrew the scroll Weiss had left to her, the heiress' own. She lay it before them as the little green light blinked away at them; there was still an unread letter.

"I don't know what's happening any more than you do. When I woke up though, Weiss had left this scroll for me. There… Was a letter on it. It wasn't very clear and it didn't make much sense, but it told me how to find Pyrrha and Jaune's apartment." Ruby took a deep breath. "She said you would help me get back on my feet." Pyrrha gave her a bright smile.

"Of course we would."

"But… She keeps talking about how she was a burden to me." Ruby couldn't help the tremble that crept into her voice. "She… She said she didn't want to interfere with my life anymore, that this time it was mine to live."

"And now she's missing," Blake finished gravely. Nothing more was said, nothing else had to be. None of them were particularly dense, they all knew the possibilities.

"We'll find her." It was Yang. Ruby smiled at her, thin, but grateful. "We're not going to let this be the worst break up ever, of all time." Yang beamed at her, as she always did when the world turned grey, igniting the light once more. Ruby hugged her again, and got a strong squeeze in return.

"You have a new message," Pyrrha observed, looking at the little green light blinking away incessantly. "I assume they're… somewhat private. I think it's best if we give Ruby some space." Ruby nodded gratefully to Pyrrha. The other huntress all filed out of the room, Yang last. She stopped on her way out the door.

"I'll see you in the morning Rubes." Yang said, smiling brightly at her.

Rose:

This is a letter I've been dreading to write. I've wanted to focus on the good times. I want you to remember the beauty of what we had, but I can hardly deny the pain and torment I introduced to us. It is not something for which I am proud, yet I owe it to you to speak the truth, the whole truth.

The day I left, and the day you did.

I…

I'm glad that these scrolls do not remember the stain of tears. Funny that, I thought I had none left to give.

We had been fighting. Our paradise was coming to an end. You, you helplessly hopeful fool, were trying to save me. You never gave up. And I hated you for it, or at least, that was what I thought. More than anything, I hated myself. I hated who I was becoming, hated that the devil was welcoming into his cold embrace, and I was going willingly. I did not understand what was happening. I was confused, terrified, looking for help, and cutting down that which was offered.

I told you I hated you. I screamed it at you even as I collapsed, sobbing in your arms. And you would hold me, comfort me, as the pain came back out. I cannot help but feel I was a poisoned fruit. You saw me, and the beauty of me, and you gave me everything. You showed me the world, the mountain valleys and the lush forestry of the land. You showed me creation's beauty.

You asked me to come with you to live there forever. Escape from the mechanical clockwork world I was headed for. But I could not give up. I thought it was my lot in life, thought I hadn't a choice. I thought that, at the end of everything, you and I could never be together. Someday, I would be alone behind a desk, a mask pretending to be who I had once been with you. You would go back to your paradise, without me, enjoying the unadulterated beauty of it all.

It had been happening for months. I remember the first time I thought I had lost you. I thought you were already gone, for all intents and purposes. You were horrified at the notion that you would ever leave me. You said you never could, and so long as your breaths held true, I suppose you were right.

I had not hunted in almost a year when you came to my office. It is a somewhat foreign place. It holds platinum and marble, beautifully constructed most would say. But it had not the organic beauty of the world you saw. My garden is more beautiful, even now, as dead and dried as it is.

You came with one last attempt to save me. You pleaded. You appealed to my love for you, that I come with you, if for no other reason than to be with you. You were treating the slaughtering of monsters as though it were a vacation. And I suppose that if a vacation is to escape the cold world in favor of some form of happiness, you would perhaps be right. I did miss hunting. Few things had ever felt right in my life, and truly I believe it to only be two. The time I spent in your arms, and when I was out destroying the Grimm. Arguably, I was best at the latter.

But I could not go. Something I thought was so important had come up. I could not say what it is anymore. I had told you I would accompany you on your next outing, but whatever it had been, I thought it was too important to pass up. You pleaded with me to ignore work, and at the time the notion seemed so absurd to me. The time I spent with you was salvation, but it must be second to my true reason in life, working for the SDC. A man-made creation with no inherent worth.

I pity the fool who believes that, and there has been no bigger fool than I. I… I guess in someway I should be thankful. That I've realized it.

When you came to me, I told you to leave. I told you that I could not afford this childish dream of being a huntress. But was it not more childish to submit myself to this fate I had chosen? To lie down, to cowardly hide? One of the greatest ironies, I believe, is that those trying to play at being adults and socially responsible are those who have never progressed to the point where they can think for themselves. They roll over, and do what they are told.

All the training to become a huntress I underwent… One would have thought it had taught me better. The paragons of virtue… It makes sense why I was never suited to be one, not in the ways it mattered. I could kill the Grimm - I was very adept at that - but in the ways of the heart and mind of a huntress, I was lost.

Much of that day was spent arguing. Senseless arguments. You were almost in tears more than once. I hated myself for making you cry, but I could not care for my compassion. I was so broken already…

I'll never forget the last words you spoke to me, when your silver eyes were downcast and you were halfway through the door. You asked if you would see me when you returned. I didn't answer.

Dust, I couldn't even answer that. Of course I wanted to see you when you came back from the hunt. Obviously, you would be alive and well. You would never be killed by something so trivial as the Grimm. You would come back, and then we could talk and think and waste all the time in the world.

But the time was up.

That was the day I left. That was when I told you, without a world, that I didn't not think I belonged in the world you had opened my eyes to.

And now, it is with a heavy heart that I must tell you about the day that you left.

The day you died.

I… I still have issues with remembering it. It… I…

The world without you, Rose… It was barren. I have wandered deserts, but even they could ill be likened to the void of dust that consumed my life, if one would even call it that. My very soul… It…

I'm sorry,

I can't do it…

Even now. Even as close as I have come to kissing that sweet phantom who stole you so long ago, I cannot bear to face that day, the darkest of my life. I would prefer to lie my body down, still and quiet, forever more than to breathe in the faintest wisp of that memory. I very nearly did. I suppose I very nearly am.

And now it is a deal with the devil I make. I just hope I can find my soul to sell Him before the time comes.

I'm…

I'm so sorry Rose.

I-

…

-Weiss Schnee

"That… That was good, Yang." Blake commented, a little dryly and a little warmly, as she leaned back against the wall of her headboard, across from Yang's own bed. That was by Yang's request, though she had asked that Blake not tell Pyrrha or Ruby. There were only two rooms, each with two beds. Blake supposed the pain was too fresh for Yang to see her little sister for the full night… But the way Yang had just acted…

It was like she was before. The bright, cheery, sunny woman that brought the summer to the coldest days of winter. The same one who had picked them up, Weiss, Ruby, Blake, a thousand times and dusted them off, cheered them up. When Blake stumbled, that woman had always been there to catch her fall.

The same woman Blake had been so sure had died. She was still alive. Buried under years of self-hate, pain, and fear. There nonetheless.

"I…" Yang trailed off. She looked like she had just been dropped off a mountain. Shock and pain made her blanche.

Blake got up and walked over to Yang's bed. She was hesitant, the sting of their fallout so recently still cut deep, but Yang needed someone right now. She was trying to keep the shattered remnants of her being together for her sister, and she needed help.

Blake sat down beside Yang, put her hand over her ex-partners. There was an intimacy to the touch, the kind that had been left unspoken for years before Ruby's death. The kind that neither of them had ever spoken of. It was an understanding, of sorts.

"I'm sorry," Yang whispered, her golden locks cascading around her face, hiding its beauty in shadows. Blake squeezed her hand a little. "You followed me. When I went. You came after me to try and save me, and I just spat in your face. I… Why did you come?"

Blake didn't answer, she just squeezed Yang's hand a little.

"It's hard." Yang murmured, to no one in particular. "Trying to be alive again."

"The world's hard, but every once in awhile, you get a glimpse. And that makes it worth it."

"A glimpse… I don't know if I can see those anymore. Everything just… It's all so bleak Blake. Even now… I want to comfort her. I want to make sure she doesn't hurt, but I know I can't protect her. Not forever. Even if it's not the Grimm, someday…"

Even the brightest lights flicker, and eventually fade. Blake thought morosely. She thought of the flames she herself had snuffed out. She knew, had been acutely aware, that someday it would be her time. Someday, she would pay for the sins she had worked so long to redeem. She would accept it when it came.

But when she thought of losing others? When Ruby had gone, dust, even seeing Yang waste away as she had… Blake couldn't help but mirror the despair she saw in those lilac irises.

"I know," Blake whispered back.

"Then what's the point?"

"I don't know."

An uncomfortable silence.

"But we have to try." Blake finally added. "I have to try and make up for what I've done… I owe it to everyone I've wronged."

"How do you know when you've reached it?"

"Reached what?"

"The point of forgiveness. Or redemption, or whatever. How do you know you're there? How do we know when we can stop?"

"I don't know if we ever actually can. But, I'm hoping that someday I'll wake up and know I've done all I can. I hope it just all makes sense someday."

"Yeah…"

Blake gave Yang one more comforting squeeze on her hand, then got up.

"Blake?" She turned to face the blonde. "Thanks," Blake just smiled.

"I'll see you in the morning."

Aaaand we're back on track!

Short letter, I know. But I think you can understand why Weiss wouldn't be able to finish it. The next one should be more akin to the first few. I think you can also see why I saved the letter until after we started to see the fallout between Jaune and Pyrrha as well as the pain that Ruby's death caused them. I wanted to save this one until after we had a good understand of what it had done to everyone else. I think it makes it easier to imagine where Weiss must have been after.

Super excited for the reunion with Qrow that will eventually pop up. Also enjoying the interactions between Blake and Yang. This whole story is a bit more explicit in its thematic content than I had originally intended, but I'm kind of liking it. For Yang's planned character arc, this conversation kind of needs to happen.

Also thanks to everyone who's been supporting this! So long as you're all reading, I'll do my best to keep writing. Classes are getting rough, but I'll keep trying to make time for y'all!

Cheers,

-Unjax