P.S. I Love You

Jaune sat alone in his room, resting quietly in his new home. It had been quiet for days, but it wasn't a peaceful quiet. He couldn't quite enjoy this silence like he wanted to. No, that wasn't possible. Not with this void in his heart. His entire world had been crushed just a few days ago. Penny was destroyed, Yang was severely wounded, Blake had run away, and Pyrrha...

At every instance of her name entering his mind, he could feel his throat choking up and his heart sinking further into a dark pit into his stomach. He could close his eyes and still see her beautiful emerald eyes. He could still smell the pine needles in her crimson hair. He'd always noted that she smelled of pine and leaves. She smelled of autumn all the time, and it was only now that he couldn't smell it that he realized how intoxicating it had been. He'd grown so accustomed to it that its absence further wounded him to the core.

The warmth of her smile had brought him hours of joy. The sound of her laughter cured all that ailed him. He may have been the leader of JNPR, but Jaune knew from the beginning that Pyrrha was its heart and soul. They would never be the same without her, and Jaune was angry at himself these days for not being able to protect her. He shuddered every time he thought of her. Their last interaction was one he would never forget.

Cinder's power exploded in a bright light of fire as she rocketed through the elevator shaft, the sound echoing out of the building and into the exterior courtyard. Jaune and Pyrrha stared at the building in total shock. "But...Ozpin..." Jaune started, unable to continue his sentance.

Pyrrha looked down. "There's no time." She turned to Jaune, her expression hard and determined. "Go! Get to Vale and call for help!"

"Huh?" Jaune stuttered. "What are you going to do?" Pyrrha slowly turned to face the building before them, and Jaune couldn't help but follow her gaze for a moment before it clicked. "No. No, Pyrrha, you can't! You saw how powerful she is! Pyrrha, I won't let you-"

The taste of her lips cut him off. He'd never experienced anything so euphoric. It was like a drug, and he knew instantly that he wanted more. He wanted to protect Pyrrha, to hold her tightly and never let go. As long as he was around, she'd be safe. They'd both be safe. He leaned into the kiss and wrapped his arms around her waist, both in the heat of the moment and as an attempt to make her stay.

Suddenly, they were apart, and Pyrrha had shoved him into a nearby rocket locker, saying only, "I'm sorry."

"No!" Jaune cried as he landed in it, and she used her semblance to close it on him. "No! No! Pyrrha, please don't do this!" She stared regretfully into his eyes as she typed into the keypad. Before he could say another word, the locker ignited and he went flying. In his dizzying state, he caught a glimpse of her running towards the tower.

He could still taste her lips.

He punched his bed as hard as he could. "Damn it!" he swore in a rare spout of anger. Standing, he gripped the bed frame and flipped it over, screaming angrily all the while.

The door burst open, and in came Nora and Ren. "Jaune!" Nora cried as she leapt at him and put him into a sort of arm lock, holding him back from destroying more of the room. "Jaune, please! Calm down!"

"I failed her! I failed her, damn it!" he cried angrily.

Ren approached him from the front and placed a reassuring hand on Jaune's shoulder. "You did all you could, my friend. We...we all failed. But that doesn't mean we didn't try our hardest. We did. We tried our very best."

Jaune glared at his friend in anger. He felt bad for doing so, as he knew that he wasn't angry at Ren, nor that he should vent his rage towards his friends. The response was automatic and beyond his control. He nearly shouted as he said, "Our best wasn't good enough, and for that I am ashamed! What if I could have done more? What if I had been able to go with Pyrrha? Maybe-"

"You'd have died!" Nora shouted, interrupting Jaune and forcing the whole room into silence. Jaune paused and turned his head to try and glimpse at the smaller girl holding him from behind. "Pyrrha...Pyrrha was the best of us all, and she died. She died to protect you Jaune! To protect us! If you had been there, you would have died as well, and her death would have been meaningless. With you alive, her death carries with it something else. Hope. The prospect of a future. To live and fight another day."

Jaune listened intently to Nora, shocked by the reasoning that she was spouting, yet he couldn't find a fault in it anywhere. He wanted to be angry and shout more, but then he felt something wet on the back of his shirt where Nora's head was leaning. He gasped as he heard her sobbing. Quiet as it was, he was able to hear it, and it broke his heart. Nora, the cheerful ball of energy that propelled the team into high spirits was crying. He relaxed, letting Nora feel the lack of resistance in his arms before she let go of him.

He turned to face Nora and gave her a tight hug. "I'm sorry," he said. "It's not fair. None of this is fair. She...she never told me how she felt." He could feel the tears streaming down his face. "And I...never told her how I feel, either." He broke away from Nora and turned to face Ren. The green garbed man wasn't much for physical contact, so Jaune was hesitant to initiate a hug, but was surprised to see that Ren nodded and started the brief, brotherly hug first.

Ren broke away swiftly and said, "But now you know how she felt. I'm sure there are some regrets that come with that knowledge, but surely there is some good to come from them as well, right?"

Jaune thought for a moment. "Yeah...yeah, there is. I...I'm really happy to have known her. I'm proud to have been the leader of team JNPR."

Ren smiled and shook his head. "Proud to be the leader. She may be gone, but we aren't going anywhere anytime soon. Not until we right this wrong."

"Yeah!" Nora yelled with a tearful smile. "We need to track down that Cinder witch and make her pay for everything that she's done!"

Jaune nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, but...she's so powerful. What can we do?"

"You can do anything you put your mind to," came a deep male voice from Jaune's doorway. Standing in the frame, drinking from a flask, was a tall, lanky man in a gray shirt with gray hair, and a rough beard. He turned and gave the members of team JNPR a smile. "That's the beauty of youth and motivation. Given the proper mind set, nothing you set out to do will be impossible."

Jaune stared at the man. "You're...Ruby's uncle, right?"

He nodded. "Qrow. It's a pleasure."

"What are you doing here?"

Qrow smiled. "Well, Ruby hasn't woken up yet from her light show experience yet, so I decided to pay a visit to her good friends and check up on them." He looked around. "Glynda and I worked really hard to set up these refuge homes for the displaced students with no home to go to. Are you comfortable here?"

The three of them nodded. "Yes. Thank you for that. We're very grateful."

Qrow nodded. "That's good." He took a swig from his flask and pocketed it. He seemed uneasy to Jaune. "Look. There's no easy way to say this, so I'm just going to say it. Jaune; you are not to blame for Pyrrha's death. That fault can lie with those four of us that were...heh...foolish enough to get her involved in something bigger than her. Bigger than all of us."

"I don't understand."

"You were down in the Vault, correct? With Ozpin and Pyrrha, there was also a stasis chamber keeping a girl alive. That girl was...special. She had powers. Powers the likes of which normal humans like you and I will never achieve. Cinder stole those powers, though. Amber, the girl, was dying. We believed that Pyrrha would be her benefactor. Pyrrha was meant to inherent those powers. That's why you were down there; to transfer those powers. Cinder...Cinder took the rest of them and, well...you know the rest." He sighed. "I can understand if you hate me, boy. I would if I were in your position. But please, try to..."

"I understand," Jaune said.

"Uh...you do?" Qrow asked, confused.

"You gave Pyrrha the choice to accept those powers. She wanted to help people. I know how she was. It was just in her nature. But it's not your fault anymore than its mine, Qrow. Pyrrha didn't do anything that she didn't want to do." His face became hard and stern, and his voice rang like tempered steel as he said, "This is Cinder's fault."

Qrow opened his mouth as if to say something, but paused. He stared into Jaune's eyes for a moment and he could see the boy's resolve. Qrow smiled. "The things we could do with a few dozen of you, boy." He approached and extended Jaune's hand. "Pyrrha was a fine young lady. Don't let her affections for you be for naught."

Jaune accepted Qrow's hand, the two sharing a firm handshake. "I'll make sure the angels sing songs of me for her," he said with a smile, his tone serious. "Nothing short of Hell itself will stop me."

Qrow nodded. He turned to exit the room. As he walked out of the door, he left a scrap of paper on a nearby table. "My brother-in-law's address is on that paper. Go there if you want to check on Ruby and Yang." He paused. "Also...go there if you want to be shown the path to Cinder."

Jaune looked at Nora and Ren; the two nodded. "We'll be there as soon as we can."

"Good." With that, Qrow turned the corner and dissapeared from sight.

Jaune looked at his teammates once more. "Let's get ready. What needs done?" Ren drew his broken pistols, and Jaune nodded. "Let's start with those."

A few months had passed. Autumn had come and gone, and the first snows of winter had fallen to the ground. Jaune, Nora, and Ren stood outside of Ruby's home. Tai Yang had no idea that the four of them were embarking, and even Ruby was unaware that Qrow had visited her friends. Ruby exited her home silently so as to not draw attention from her sister or her father. "Hey," Jaune said in a low voice.

"Hey, Jaune," Ruby replied. She sighed. "Haven's a long way to go."

He nodded. "I know. But it's the only way we have."

"And you're sure you want to come along?"

Ren spoke up, saying, "The journey will be perilous, and whether or not we find answers at the end is entirely uncertain."

"But we wouldn't be here if we weren't up for it," Nora chimed in, holding her hammer at the ready.

Ruby nodded. "Then let's get started." The four of them began to march through the snow. After a couple of minutes, Ruby paused. "Can we make a slight detour? I wanna say goodbye to my mom."

Jaune nodded, and the four of them slowly made their way to the memorial of Summer Rose. Ruby stood in silent memoriam, mentally saying her farewells. Jaune smiled at the sight, and he reached into his pocket to pull out an envelope. "What's that?" Ruby asked after a time.

He blushed a little bit. "Something similar to what your doing. I wrote a farewell letter to her. We...we didn't really give Pyrrha a proper grave, so I wasn't sure what to do with it. This...seems as good a place as any." He approached the edge of the cliff and brought the envelope up to his mouth to kiss it.

It smelled of pines. He opened it up, as he hadn't sealed it yet, and re-read his writing.

Dear Pyrrha,

It's been over a month, and I still haven't really been able to grasp your absence. It's wrong. Your presence always brought me cheer, even when I didn't realize I was down.

I know why you did what you did. You wanted to protect me. You wanted to protect all of us. I always respected you, but now I respect you more than ever before. Never has there been a woman quite as amazing as you are. You risked everything to do what you believed was right, and I can only hope to match your resolve.

But I'm trying my hardest. This journey I'm embarking on may be the last adventure in my life, or it may be the first of many to come. I can't say. But some day, I hope to sit down with you and tell you about everything that's happened since you left us.

There were so many things I didn't get to tell you while you were here. Hopefully, when that day comes, I'll be able to tell you everything. No story will be left untold, and no feeling left unspoken. You were You are the heart of team JNPR. Nothing will ever replace you.

I hope we will make you proud of us, Pyrrha.

Yours truly,

Jaune.

Jaune felt tears well up in his eyes. He started to fold it back up when he realized there was something he hadn't written down. He shook his head. "How could I forget that," he said aloud. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out an inkpen. Opening it, he added on final touch to the letter before he folded it back up, returned it to the envelope, and threw it over the cliff, letting the wind carry it.

"You think she'll read it?" Jaune asked.

Ruby stood by him and nodded. "I think so."

He smiled, happy to have made that one final addition before he set off on his journey.

P.S.

I love you.

Song: P.S. I Love U - Gackt

Author's Note

I actually don't have any words for this author's note. Only my emotions, which I feel I properly expressed through Jaune in the story. That episode...damn. As soon as it ended, I realized that there must be some regret in Jaune's mind. Words left unsaid.

No "I love you" was ever spoken. Not openly.

So here it is. It is the Post Script. Read at the end of a letter. Almost as an afterthought because it was forgotten in the main body of the letter. But really, what is said in the Post Script is the most important part of any letter.

Pyrrha now receives this letter from beyond as she watches over Jaune, waiting for the day when he joins her so that he may read her reply.

Please, leave a review or a PM.

Till next time.