She can feel the rough sheets scratching against her skin, making it prickle and itch. She is acutely aware of it on her skin alongside the damp stench of her sweat and the constant beeping and whirring of the machines around her. She knows exactly where she is, but she did not want to open her eyes.

"I know you're awake." A cold voice whispers, but Yang wants to pretend it doesn't exist. She wants that voice to leave forever, but she isn't sure she didn't want to hear it. "I can hear your breathing."

"Maybe it'd be better if I wasn't. If I never woke." Her throat stings as she speaks, rebelling at being used after drying up and choking on bile. It burns. Her voice crackles like dry old paper.

Blake is silent after that. Yang slowly opens her eyes, squinting them shut again against the harsh, white light that burns at her irises. She blinks once, again, and it fades slightly, burns a little less. Finally she can open her eyes to see the long string of fluorescent bulbs above her, flaring in starbursts to her tired eyes.

She can see the black shadow of someone she had once known cast against the brilliant fires of the artificial light.

"How can you say that?" She speaks softly, scared and hurt. Her hair is draped over her face, but Yang can still make out the glowing embers of her brilliant eyes.

"Blake, could you turn off the lights?" Yang moans, shutting her eyes against white. All around it is white.

"It's midnight. You won't be able to see." There is a seething anger behind Blake's words, cutting sentences short and stiffening her normally graceful movements into a sharp staccato.

"Blake…"

Without a word or a sound she stands, and the lights go out. Finally, Yang opens her eyes fully.

It is dark. Blake had been right, Yang can't see. She tries to push herself up in the bed, but as she moves the world whirls and twists the way it did when she had filled herself to the brim with the very poison she had tried to stop everything with.

"You could have died." Her voice is hardly audible above the slight whirring of the machines and the drip drops of IV's. "Why?"

It is the only real question.

Why?

"Do you know what it's like?" Blake hissed from nowhere in particular. "To watch you wither away?"

"What? Do you want me to say sorry?" Yang tries to make the words hurt and cut. She brings her knees up to her chest as she speaks, tucks her chin atop them. Even the slight movements make her nauseous. Just like everything she's done for years had made her nauseous and feel like she was being impaled over and over on the stingers of deathstalkers.

"No… I want you to stop. I… I want all this to stop. You, them… I want to go back to Beacon. I want to sit on the airstrip after training and have an ice cream." Her voice is wistful, but crackling the same way Yang's does.

"What are you looking for here Blake? We can't go back to that."

"I… I know. But it doesn't mean I don't wish we could go back before everything happened. Back to when we were ready to take on the world. Ready to take anything it threw at us."

"We weren't ready." Yang sneers, clutching at the strands of her blanket.

Silence chokes the air for a moment, snuffs the life out of it. Yang is sure that Blake can hear her heart beating, hear her breaths wheezing in and out of her aching, burning lungs, but to Yang it is all just quiet. Insufferable, intolerable, miserable silence.

Yang hates silence. She had hated it ever since she had realized that spending time by herself was spending time with her demons, with the memories of who she had become. Without anything to numb her and cut off her past, Yang found the silence agonizing.

She isn't alone now. Blake is there, but for some reason that does not comfort Yang. It makes her more off-put. More ashamed. It was like having someone there to witness your most horrific acts; the ones everyone tries to keep hidden and secret. It was like those nights where the scathing eyes of others marked her as she walked, half dressed, through the clubs, ready and willing to do whatever was asked of her.

"How?" Blake asked, her voice perfectly neutral. Cold. The way Weiss' used to get when she would talk about her father or her work. "How did we end up here?"

Nothing. Yang has no words. She hasn't the vaguest clue how everything in her world has burned away and all the joy she had felt had turned to ash in her mouth and she was left choking on the remnants of her happiness.

Yang wonders if there could ever be a time where she can learn to love herself again.

If she can ever be herself again.

The woman in the mirror who's eyes she had not met for years, because the judgement in them would cripple her. Blake can hate her. Weiss can hate her. The whole world can hate her. Yang Xiao Long had never been one to care.

But when she meets those shattered amethysts in the looking glass, there is nothing there. Empty, cold voids. Yang Xiao Long might not have cared. The dragon may have snarled at the sheep and ignored their terrified baying. She is no dragon though. She is scared. She is broken.

She is a ghost.

And she hates herself for it.

"I am," Yang finally finds her voice again.

"What?"

"Sorry,"

"I don't think you are." But she is. She is not sorry for what she had done. She is sorry she had dropped that last pill, the one that would have made it all go away. Made it all numb. Made the world fade away to bliss and whatever hell waited for Yang beyond the thin veil of this life.

She chuckles without mirth..

"I think you want to die." Blake's voice blends with the shadows, barely distinguishable from the ever-permeating static of existence. "I think you wish I hadn't shown up when I had. Or at least that's what you want to think."

"I-"

"You're a coward Yang. You run and run and run, you hide. You open your legs for people you don't know, but you close your mind even from yourself. Everything about who you are is disgusting."

Yang can feel anger smouldering deep inside her. But there's also something deeper that cools the heat.

"I know," Yang whispers. She is caught in a hurricane, hanging on by the thinnest of strings. She wants to cut them.

Her eyes had started to adjust to the dim light of the stars. She looks over at Blake, at those hands gripping the hilt of Gambol Shroud laid across her lap. They are turning white with the pressure. White as ash.

Blake looks like a thundercloud just before the first flash of lightning splits the sky and the crack of thunder booms across the land. She trembles with a barely contained rage that burns cold as ice.

"Whoever you are now, Ruby would be ashamed."

Yang is silent for a moment.

"How do I look her in the eyes now?" Yang looks down at the sheets, at her hands.

Blake says nothing.

"I don't want to talk to her." Yang curls her hands into fists. "How can I explain who I am? How do I tell my little sister that I'm worse than a whore? A slut and a junkie? How do I tell her I'm worse than the people I told her to stay away from as a kid?"

She can feel the shame, burning at her skin and making her want to be sick again. It itched all over right into her heart, which squeezes and twists and tries to escape, but there is no escape. There is nothing Yang can run from.

"Blake… I… I don't know what to do."

She looks up at Blake pleadingly, at the still, stone statue that had been her partner. It is nothing but shadow now, standing out darker against the inky room.

"You don't have to."

Everything is perfectly still.

"Blake…"

"I said you don't have to."

Yang doesn't understand. There's no dawning or recognition there.

"What do-"

"Do you have any idea how long you've been out? How close you came to dying Yang?"

She's silent. She doesn't. To her, it's just been nightmares and sweat and pain. Time had lost its hold on her.

"You should be dead. The doctors told me the day after you were admitted. They said that you had shocked all your organs, that your heart was barely beating, and that they didn't think you'd make it a week.

"Ruby didn't leave the hospital for the entire week. And somehow you held on by a thread. You crashed three times. You got by on adrenaline and a cocktail of more drugs than I've ever heard of. It wasn't the pills that were doing it to you anymore, your body just didn't want to live.

"But some part of you held on. Some little piece of you kept on going.

"But a week turned into weeks, and you never showed any sign of getting any better. Ruby was torn. Do you know what it was like for her? Staying by your side as you choked on your own vomit? And she knew. I could tell. She knew this wasn't the first time. Maybe this was the worst time, but she knew it wasn't the only time. I never said anything, but I think she began to realize what you had done to yourself. What you let others do to you.

"She had to go sometime. She couldn't stay with you, someone pretending to be the sister she had loved, forever. She had her own life. And Weiss was missing.

"Fuck Yang, did it never even occur to you? Are you so fucking selfish that it was okay for you to ignore what was happening to Ruby?

"You don't know what it was like."

"What? To lose someone you've loved? Ruby was like a sister to me. My parents, the only friend I had growing up, Ruby, now Weiss… Everyone loses people they love. You're dying with every breath you take, same as me. No one lives forever."

"No… Not that. I know. I know that I'm not doing it right. It's not Ruby, and she's back now anyways. You don't know what it's like to wake up in the morning and know you'd be better off dead. To know everyone would be better off with you dead." Blake is still. Just about to snap. "You think I don't know about you? The way you clenched your fists every time I had trouble sitting down because I was fucked so rough the last night. The way you had to stop yourself from getting up to cut their throats when they winked at me. The way you had to leave every time I let someone brush up against me and touch me in front of everyone else.

"You don't know what's it's like to be the person you used to pity and hate. I'm not the same person I was. I wonder what the old Yang would have done if she could see me. She'd probably kill herself to stop it all from happening. She was proud. I'm not. I'm nothing."

Blake still isn't moving.

"For whatever it's worth, I do hate myself for it. I know you can't hate me because you're still too busy chasing after the girl from Beacon, but she's gone. And I hate myself enough for both of us."

Blake moves, a slight tremble and a shaky breath.

"Shut up,"

"I'm sorry that you had to watch as I was violated, time and again, until I lost count."

"Stop it,"

"Leave Blake. Let me die. Just go, and let me wither away until I'm too old for them to want to touch me anymore, if I make it that long. You keep thinking that maybe I'll come back to you, the real me that's buried behind the lust and poisons. There is no real me buried deep down. It's just me. Here and now. I am all there is. Ruined, broken, violated."

"Yang-"

"Unless you just want to fuck me, like all the others. You can if you want. I wouldn't mind. No one's around to stop you, and I won't. I won't scream if you try."

Blake explodes forward, and the blade scrapes against Yang's neck. She can feel the edge, honed to perfection, freshly sharpened, pressed right against her carotid artery. If Blake's hand trembled, Yang would bleed out faster than all the doctors and nurses in this hospital could fix her.

But wasn't she already broken beyond repair?

"Do it," Yang hissed at Blake, sneering in her face, covered by shadows.

The air was still for a moment, the only movement from Blake's straining, laboured breathing. Yang could feel it, making her gown flutter, brushing against her skin. It tickles.

"I should. It'd be a mercy. Maybe you're right, maybe the world would be better without you. You want me to do it. There's a piece of me that wants to too. Maybe then I could finally forget you, the way you've forgotten yourself. Maybe then I can finally live for myself. Maybe then you can finally be at peace.

"This isn't my choice though. And I don't want to lose you too Yang." Blake whispers, hardly audible, overshadowed even by the sound of Yang's skin releasing the blade as she withdrew.

"What do you-"

"Ruby's gone." Blake's voice is nothing more than the faintest of breaths. There is hardly form to it. Were a passerby to hear it, they would not know it had happened.

Those were words Yang could never forget.

"Blake…"

The summer wind blows by outside.

"She's gon-"

The storm breaks.

A scream rips itself from Yang's throat, guttural and primal. She screams, so loud and so violent her throat can't keep up and her voice cracks and she's screaming but no sound is coming out and she can't do anything but scream and rage and writhe but it doesn't make the pain go away and all she wants is for the pain to go away and for her sister to be there and for this all to be a bad dream and this can't be happening not again not now not after she was back and Blake is hugging her but Yang pushes her away but she just holds tighter and Yang is sobbing and she's screaming and she doesn't know which to do so she chokes and she feels the bile coming up but there's nothing in her stomach and it's just acid and it splatters on her and Blake and she tries to stop and her tears mix with her bile and there's sick everywhere and the overwhelming helplessness of it all crashes down on her like a wave and breaks everything that is left of Yang and there's nothing she can do but hold Blake and sob-

Snaky, shaky breaths heave in and out of Yang. She's on her side, curled in a ball. She doesn't know how she got there. Blake is sitting on the edge of the bed, eyes staring straight ahead, cold and empty.

"How?" Yang asks.

"I don't know. She just sent me a letter one day, saying she wouldn't be coming back."

"So she's still ali-"

"No. She made that much clear. Or, if she is she won't be for long. Same with Weiss."

"Then we need-"

"No. We don't need to do anything. I already know what I'm going to do, but as far as I see it, you have a choice to make. The same damn choice you've been waiting to make for years."

"What do you-"

"Shut up." Blake growled, her voice dangerously low. "Ruby went after Weiss. That's what we know. And now she's gone. Nothing is going to change that.

"So we can pick up the trail, try to find the pieces she left behind, find out what happened to her and Weiss and find out who's responsible. We can do our job, as huntresses, and stop this from happening to anyone else. We can find out who to hurt, because someone is going to pay for this.

"Or you can die. All the pain goes away. You don't have to remember what it feels like to lose your sister. You don't have to remember every time that you let someone touch you in the worst ways. You can forget everything. Fade away to nothing, the way you've been trying to for years.

"You've got a choice Yang. And I'm going to make you make it now, before you hurt me or anyone else more than you have."

Blake stood and dropped Gambol Shroud onto Yang's lap.

"Slit your wrists, or don't. There's nothing here to distract you. Nothing left for you to pretend with. No drugs. No illusions. I'm going to leave you alone with a sharp piece of steel, and the choice is yours."

Blake stood and walked towards the door pausing as she lay her hand on it. "If you choose to die, I won't forgive you. Ruby wouldn't have either. No one will. But you won't have to care, because you'll finally have the peace you've wanted for so long. But if you come out of that door, if you choose to live, then we'll find who's responsible.

"And we will hurt them worse than they could ever hurt us."

A/N:

I have no guarantees for update schedule anymore. Do know that this story will continue, it will be finished. It's still my priority, it just sometimes takes a while to get it out.

On to this chapter and the change of story pace:

We are not done with Ruby. Ruby is still the main character, and the majority of the rest of the story will be told from her perspective (it'll make more sense at the end of the next chapter).

Additionally, I very nearly did not write this part of the story. I very nearly changed it. I very nearly changed the entire story because I liked what we had going before. Everyone seemed to enjoy it, aside from some people not liking how Yang treats herself and lets herself get treated. Which is fair. That was never going to be an easy storyline.

But the fact of the matter is that this story is following a plan. There's a definitive beginning and end, and everything is going to make much more sense the way it is playing out right now. I wish I could tell everyone how everything ends, because it would make much more sense. So if you hate what I just did, I'll ask you to trust me and wait until the end before you make your judgements.

A huge thanks to /u/sodnam for signing on as beta. Ever since Blue left, I've been lonely writing this. Ee was also the one who convinced me not to stray from the path of the story and that the underlying theme of the story is more important than appeasing what I believe would make the readers happier in the short term.

For those of you still with me (I'm guessing about half of you at this point), thank you very much for reading and continuing along with this story. I hope that when all is said and done, you'll see why I've made the choices I have. It should all make sense.

For those of you looking for a tease, the next chapter will most likely be called Pilgrim.

Thank you all for reading. As per usual, suggestions, ideas, or thoughts are greatly appreciated. After the final fight in By Year's End, I'm thinking this is the most controversial thing I've done as an author. So opinions are appreciated.

Cheers,

-Unjax