"Weiss! Blake!" Ruby saw her friends as soon as they entered the room and a miniature red tornado jumped to hug Weiss, the sudden impact almost making her fall. She had gotten used to hugs with Blake, but she still didn't like them when they came from someone else and tensed up. She didn't push Ruby back however, her friend liked hugs, she could let her have one once in a while.

Ruby let Weiss go and went to give Blake her welcome back hug while Yang simply waved the two girls and said hello. She wasn't sure what the situation was between Weiss and Blake and wanted to avoid any action that could revive existing tensions before learning everything.

"Why are you back so soon? I thought you'd stay longer than three days." Weiss was a little sad her time alone with Blake had come to an end, but seeing her friends again wasn't so bad.

"Dad was called by Ozpin for an urgent mission." Ruby clearly was disappointed by this turn of event. "We came back with him and he went straight to see the headmaster."

"Woof!"

Weiss and Blake jumped, just now noticing that Zwei had come back with the sisters. He got close to Blake and sniffed, not recognizing the smell. Blake had grabbed Weiss' hand and was doing her best not to move. She knew her perfume would hide the fact she was a Faunus, she knew Zwei wouldn't attack her, but she still hated having him so close.

Yang grabbed Zwei, taking him away from the visibly uncomfortable Faunus. "Stop that boy, Blake doesn't like it."

"Wait." Blake let go of Weiss' hand and put it in front of her. "I—I'd like to try to pet him." Weiss loved the ball of fur and it was enough for Blake to at least want to try and get used to him.

Blake slowly moved her hand closer to the dog while Yang was holding him, making sure he wouldn't move. She presented the top of her hand to his nose, allowing him to get to know her — at least when she was wearing her perfume — so as to not surprise him.

Zwei sniffed the hand and licked it, happy to make a new friend. Blake jumped and let out a small cry before running to the bathroom to clean her hand. It was too much, how could Weiss enjoy something so sticky and unsanitary?

Weiss joined her in the bathroom while the two sisters went back to unpacking. "Are you alright?"

Blake stopped rubbing her hand, the spot where Zwei had licked her a little red. "I don't think I'll ever like dogs." She turned toward her girlfriend, a small smile on her lips. "No cute doggie for company when I'll be an old lady."

"If we get to be old ladies…" Weiss shook her head. She didn't mean to sound so gloom. "When do we tell Ruby and Yang?" She took Blake's hand in hers, making it clear what she was talking about.

"I think we should tell them now. The sooner the better."

Weiss nodded and let go of Blake's hand. The two girls went back to the room, feeling nervous. Winter had at least been on another continent, now their friends were right in front of them.

Weiss was the first to find the courage to talk. "Ruby, Yang… There's something we would like to tell you."

The sisters stopped putting their clothes back in their wardrobes and turned toward their friends, curious.

Weiss took a deep breath, interlaced her fingers with Blake's who gave her a small smile of encouragement. She looked at the pairs of silver and purple eyes looking at her and opened her mouth to talk.

Ruby Rose's day had been a mixed bag up until now. Her time with her dad had had to be cut short — Ruby had been angry at Ozpin since her dad told them they had to go back to beacon earlier than planned — but at least she got to see her friends again. Weiss even let her hug her which almost made up for the bad parts of the day. Not all that great, but still a good day.

And then everything went wrong. Weiss said her and Blake had something to tell Yang and her and Ruby had had a strange feeling in her stomach, like something bad was about to happen.

Something bad did happen. "Blake and I are dating." The words were echoing in her mind, again and again, and her heart was aching. She hoped she heard wrong, that she was making a mistake, but then Weiss looked at Blake and Ruby knew she heard right. She had never seen Weiss look at someone like that but had hoped for so long that she would be the one on the receiving end of that loving look.

Then Yang went to congratulate the couple and Ruby's heart finished breaking. "I'm so happy that you two are finally together." 'Finally'? Yang knew. She had known they were into each other. And she hadn't said anything. Why? She knew she loved Weiss, how could have she done that?

"How could you…?" Ruby couldn't take it, she couldn't stay here. She used her semblance and left the room before anyone could stop her, leaving rose petals behind.

In a few seconds, she found herself in front of the statue near Beacon's entrance, tears falling on the stone pavement as she sat down on the little wall circling it. Weiss had gotten so much friendlier since the beginning of the year, she had opened up to her teammates and wasn't as mean as she used to. Ruby had thought that maybe, if things continued that way, she could be something more than friends with Weiss. She was so pretty, so smart, so—

Ruby's entire body shook with a sob stronger than the others as she was thinking of the girl she loved.

She was dating Blake. Ruby wanted to hate Blake for taking Weiss from her, but she couldn't. Blake was her friend and she hadn't done anything bad, but it felt so unfair. When Weiss had danced with Neptune, it had hurt but Ruby had been able to get over it pretty easily. It wasn't anyone's fault they weren't compatible, but then Yang told her Weiss liked girls and Ruby had been overjoyed. She still had a chance after all. But then Blake came in. She couldn't compete with Blake. She was tall, pretty, smart, funny… Of course Weiss had preferred her, they weren't in the same league at all. It didn't hurt any less, in fact it might be even worse because she knew that they would be happy together, which was great, but she wouldn't be part of that happiness.

And there was Yang. She had seemed to know Blake and Weiss dating was a possibility, why did she get her hopes up by only telling her Weiss was into girls? It didn't make any sense, Yang would occasionally make fun of her, and her of Yang, but that was a lot more mean-spirited than that. That was playing with her emotions and she couldn't understand why she would do that.

After a long moment, the tears stopped falling and Ruby felt very tired. She couldn't go back to her room, not with Weiss and Blake there, but she would rather avoid sleeping outside if possible. Team JNPR's dorm was quickly ruled out. Not only was it too close to her own room, Pyrrha and Jaune would probably try to give her advices about the situation and, as much as she liked them, she wasn't sure these two would be any help. The problem was that she hadn't made a lot of friends at Beacon and she couldn't see herself asking Ms. Goodwitch for a vacant room to spend the night.

"Woof!" Zwei had followed Ruby, having noticed there was something wrong with his mistress. He licked her hand to get her attention and got some scratches between the ears for his loyalty.

"Thanks Zwei." Then a small smile appeared on Ruby's face for the first time since she saw Weiss and Blake earlier. She had made other friends recently.

Silence accompanied the fall of rose petals in team RWBY's room. They had been caught by surprise by Ruby's sudden departure from the room and weren't sure how to react.

Blake was the first one to come back to her sense and saw that Yang was clenching her fists, her knuckles white. "Why don't you go after her?"

"If I thought it would help, I would already be gone. But what should I say? 'Sorry for not telling you Weiss was in love with someone else'? I would only make it worse." Yang took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. "Ruby isn't stupid, she won't run somewhere dangerous by mistake. She's probably still on campus, but I think she's going to need some time alone to sort everything." A voice wavered a little, but she kept talking. "I trust her, I'm sure she's fine."

"Yang…"

"She's fine." Yang spoke louder than she intended and took another deep breath. "Sorry, I just… Ruby knows how to defend herself if anything happens, let's talk about something else." Yang turned to look at Weiss, who hadn't moved since their leader left, no emotion showing on her face. "Are you alright princess?"

"I just hoped my best friend would be happy that I got a girlfriend, but instead she ran away. Other than that, everything is perfect." Weiss was tense, trying to avoid letting emotion filter through her voice.

"I know it's not the same but… I'm happy for you." Yang gave a sunny smile to the heiress, trying to make her feel a little better.

Weiss didn't move at first, making Yang think her attempt to cheer her up had fail, but she started moving toward the blond, slowly and stiffly, before putting her arms around her and giving her a very awkward hug. "Thank you."

Yang put her arms around her friend, enjoying the rare opportunity to give Weiss a hug.

Weiss moved away before too long. "Don't make this a habit, you're clearly not as good a hugger as Blake."

Yang laughed. "I missed you too Weiss, good to see you're still you." She turned toward Blake and opened her arms. "Do you want your congratulatory hug now?"

Blake rolled her eyes at the proposal, but her smile betrayed her amusement. "Only if you stop going for my butt. It was funny before, but now that I'm with Weiss…"

"Of course."

Having her best friend congratulating and supporting her made Blake happier than she would have thought. She hoped their relationship wouldn't change just because she got a girlfriend.

Weiss waited patiently for the two girls to stop hugging, ignoring the pangs of jealousy she knew had no reason to exist, before talking. "What is it about you going after my girlfriends' backside?"

Blake and Yang looked at each other, smiling, before Blake explained it to Weiss. "Yang accidentally touched my butt when hugging me last year, and it more or less became a joke between us that she would try to touch it and I would stop her." She shrugged. "It doesn't feel right to keep doing that now."

"As magnificent as Blake's booty is, I don't want things to become weird between us. If you think I'm going too far, please tell me. I'd hate to cause problems between you two." Yang knew that the way she acted with close friends could easily be misinterpreted and she didn't want to take any risks with Weiss. As much as she liked the heiress, their respective personality made it easy for the two to get angry at each other.

Weiss moved closer to Blake and slapped her butt, leaving her hand on it. "Mine."

Blake and Yang looked at her wide-eyed, surprised by the unusual behavior of the heiress. She would never have acted like that a week ago.

Seeing the way her friends were looking at her, Weiss couldn't hold back a snicker before bursting into laughter. The blond and the Faunus quickly followed suit and the next minutes consisted of one of the girls managing to calm down before going back to laughing again because of the other two.

They stopped laughing after a few more minutes, their faces red and smiling. Yang was the first to be able to talk. "Thank you, Weiss, it feels good to be back."

"You're welcome. How was your time with your dad?" It would be a lie to say that Weiss wasn't a little jealous that Yang could look forward so much to spend time with her dad, but she knew it wasn't anyone's fault other than her own father's.

"Patch is a good place to relax and it was nice to spend some time with Dad. We… also went to see Mom. It had been a while. It's never easy, especially for Ruby, but it always feels… right, to talk to her about our lives."

"Your parents don't live together?"

Blake's eyes went wide when she heard Weiss' question. She had no way to know about Summer, but Blake was still worried Yang wouldn't take it well. Thankfully, her worries were unfounded.

"Our mom, her name was Summer Rose, was a huntress. Both our parents were. She was super strong and really kind and a good cook and all around amazing, but one day… she went on a mission and never came back. We waited and waited… in vain. Ruby… I'm not sure she really understood what it meant at the time, but she was inconsolable and my dad didn't help, he just… shut down. I was angry, sad and I couldn't understand why he was acting like that, before I learned it wasn't the first time he went through something like that. My mom, my biological mother I mean, left me with him right after I was born and disappeared without telling anyone anything." Yang sighed. That story never got easier to tell. "And that's the story of the Xiao Long – Rose household."

"I'm—I'm sorry, I didn't mean to…" Weiss felt awful, forcing Yang think about that while it clearly wasn't an easy subject for her.

"Don't worry about it." Yang's smile was back. While the story wasn't easy to tell, she had learned to not let it sour her mood. "We're going to be a team for at least four years, probably longer, you would have learned sooner or later."

"Probably… longer?" Weiss had avoided thinking too much about what would happen to team RWBY after Beacon. Not only was the situation with the SDC complicated, she was also afraid that Ruby, Blake and Yang would leave her, maybe finding a teammate that wasn't a much of a pain that she could be.

Yang frowned before remembering that not everyone was born in a family of huntsmen. "After graduation, some people choose to work alone, while others stay with their team, allowing them to take on more dangerous missions. Ruby and I are planning to stay together, we were hoping it would be the same for you." She couldn't contain a laugh seeing the mix of surprise and relief on Weiss' face. "Why are you so surprised? We like you Weiss, of course we want to stay on a team with you."

Weiss was about to answer when she was interrupted by the ringing of Blake's scroll.

The Faunus frowned at the name on the scroll and answered, the other two girls staying silent. "Hello?... Really?... I'll tell her, I'm sure she'll be relieved… Can't wait to see the result, I'm sure W—she will like it too… See you later." She put her scroll back next to her bed and turned toward Yang. "Ruby is at team CFVY's dorm. She is talking with Coco about… a lot of stuff apparently."

Yang let out a sigh of relief. "Good."

"Yang… Do you know why she left? Does she have a problem with us?"

The blond looked at her two teammates. They were worried, and clearing up what happened would avoid them assuming the worst. "Ruby…" She let out a sigh. She shouldn't be one the telling them that, but given the circumstances… "Ruby had a crush on you, Weiss."

Weiss' expression didn't change, but she was surprised to learn that. Sure, Ruby liked to hug her and spend time with her, but wasn't she like that with everyone?

Yang continued her explanation. "She would always tell me how nice you were when you helped her with her homework, how you cared about us even if you didn't show it, how pretty and smart you were… She was so happy that you gave her a chance as a leader. She never said anything because she didn't think you liked girls, and she was super happy to learn you did. I'm sorry about that by the way, it wasn't my place to tell her, but…"

Weiss shook her head. "Don't worry about that, I would have told her if she had been with us the other day."

Yang nodded. "Then the next day, you told me you loved Blake." She let out a small giggle, trying to lighten the mood. "That was an… interesting situation."

"Why?" Weiss' emotions were filtering through her voice. "Why help me when you knew that Ruby…" Her voice trailed off, as she was unable to finish her sentence.

"What would have happened then? Maybe you and Ruby would have gotten together, and then what? If Blake is your type, how well would it have gone with Ruby? Worse, what if you had been with Ruby only because you wanted to forget Blake? I think it's better for everyone and for the team it happened like that. And to be completely honest, I'm not sure what Ruby feels for you is love, more like a lot of admiration and respect. I think we should give her some time to sorts her feelings, but I'm sure everything will be alright after that."

"I… hope so."

Blake got closer to her girlfriend and gave her a hug. She knew how important friends were to her and that seeing Ruby leave like that must have hurt.

Weiss gave her a quick kiss before leaning into the hug. She didn't care that Yang was there, she just wanted to be with Blake, to be sure not everyone was about to run and leave her alone.

Yang smiled at the scene of her two friends hugging and Weiss genuinely enjoying it. Since things were calming down, maybe a funny story could help. "You know, Ruby only got interested in relationships and what comes with it recently, she never was very social and has always been rather… innocent. A few years ago, my dad and I were eating breakfast when Ruby came down from our room and asked why my fashion magazine only had people in their underwear in it." She sighed, remembering how embarrassed she had been at the time.

"I guess you didn't have it for fashion advice." Weiss smirked at Yang, happy to not be on the receiving side of the teasing for once.

"It's perfectly normal to have something like that. I said it was a fashion magazine because I thought she wouldn't be interested in it. I couldn't have guessed that Ruby would want to change her style at the time." Yang wasn't sure why she had gotten so defensive, maybe something in the heiress' tone…

"Don't worry, she completely agrees with you about having one of those." Blake's words got a look of indignation from Weiss and a laugh from Yang.

"Meanie." Weiss tried to get away from her girlfriend, but Blake held her and she soon stopped struggling. The Faunus was comfortable enough to ignore the occasional teasing and she went back to hugging her while Blake's hands went to play with hers.

Yang couldn't stop thinking about how cute they were being. "Anyway, my dad took the magazine and said that he understood why I had one but that I shouldn't have let Ruby find it. I just wanted it to end so we could all forget about that, but a few days later, Dad decided to give Ruby and I the talk. You can probably guess how comfortable everyone was." She winced at the memories, remembering the long silence that had filled the room when the sisters had understood what their father wanted to talk about but couldn't find the words to say.

"I can't." Weiss could imagine how embarrassing the situation could be, but she would have taken it over years of loneliness. "My parents just gave me a book that explained everything when I asked how babies were made. I'm glad that they knew I was mature enough to understand and that they didn't sugarcoat it, and I went back to it regularly over the years, but… it would have been better if not every familial interaction had been like that…"

Blake had been getting along well with her mother at the time, and those discussion had been interesting and the occasion to learn more about herself but she didn't feel like bringing it up. Cheering up Weiss felt like a better course of action. "I can teach you if you think you missed something."

Weiss' face went completely red and she muttered a small 'Dolt', but the small smile appeared on her face as her mood improved slightly.

Yang cleared her throat to get the attention of her friends back. "Not that I would mind watching, that, but…" The stare Weiss gave her almost could have been scary if Blake hadn't been hugging her and playing with her fingers, making her look a lot less threatening. "Right. To his credit, my dad did his best. He had done his research and knew what he was talking about, but… it was still weird for everyone present. I had managed to learn a lot by myself and ended up helping him explaining things to Ruby. I think he really missed Mom that day. Since we both already knew we wanted to go to Beacon at the time, he really insisted about us not getting pregnant while still at school and on how to prevent it. I think he was relieved when he learned about you two and that we weren't in a mixed team."

Weiss shook her head, shuddering. "I can't even imagine what my father's reaction would be if I came home pregnant. Not that there are any risks."

"Blake hid that she was a Faunus for some time, maybe you should be careful." Yang's joke got an unamused stare from Blake, to which she responded with an innocent smile.

"It'll be fine." Weiss answered calmly, before blushing when she realized what she had just implied.

Blake's face took the same color as her girlfriend's and she let out a whimper. She knew Yang wouldn't let go of something like that.

The blond raised her eyebrows and whistled. "I… guess you're the expert." It was a perfect opportunity for teasing, but Weiss looked so peaceful in her girlfriend's arms she didn't want to upset her. This time. As soon as she was alone with Blake though…

Weiss broke down the hug and stood up. "I'm going to go train a little and get some food for tonight on the way back, give you two some time to talk."

"You don't have to do that, we can talk with you here." Yang was sounding a little worried.

"Blake and I are dating, not conjoined twins. We've been alone together for a few days, I'm sure she'll enjoy talking to someone who isn't me."

Blake frowned, still no liking when Weiss was making fun of herself. Not that it was a bad thing in and of itself, but coming from her, it felt like she believed it sometimes.

Ignoring that, Weiss gave Blake a kiss before taking Myrtenaster and leaving the room.

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