Chapter 17

"So the rules are… what, I just spin it?"

"That's right."

"What if it misses?"

"Then you spin again."

"And if it lands on someone I have to…"

"You know the rules."

"...kiss them?"

"That's right."

"This seems ridiculous."

"That's the game."

"What happens if it lands on Taiyang?"

"Then you kiss him."

"But… I haven't done that yet…"

"Then you might have to start today."

"Aw man, but…"

"You agreed to play this game with us."

"I know, I know, but-"

"You must suffer the consequences."

"But… what if it lands on Qrow? I can't kiss him, that's disgusting."

"I understand."

"Wh- well what am I supposed to do then?"

"That's up to you to decide."

"But… that's gross!"

"I didn't say you had to kiss him. I said what you do is up to you."

"Ugh… why did I let you talk me into this?"

"Because you are easily coerced by me and my girlish charms."

"How can I unsubscribe from this, I would like to no longer receive these subliminal messages."

"I'm afraid you bought the lifetime edition."

"Fuck."

"Language. Now spin."

Raven sighed so hard her shoulders nearly disconnected from their sockets. But she eventually, after much griping and pouting, reached out and grabbed the bottle in the middle of the carpet. With a flick of her wrist and a very disgruntled look on her face, she sent the little clear glass soda bottle spinning in a tight circle. As it started to slow, Ruby kept her eyes on Raven, who seemed to be far too focussed on who it would land on, as if willing it to stop on someone in particular. And so it did, coming to a slow stop, pointed directly at Ruby herself, almost as if it had been forced into that spot exactly.

"Oh, thank god."

Ruby slouched and looked over at her partner, with a look of 'really' on her face as best as she could muster.

"So are you going to admit that you have telekinesis or what?"

"I don't know what you're talking about. Besides, it's gonna be easier if I start with you anyway."

Ruby rolled her eyes.

"Whatever, you dumb bird. C'mere."

Before either of them could move, Qrow scoffed from where he was sitting opposite his sister.

"Ew, you wanna kiss her?"

There was a silence in the room for a moment, punctuated by the sound of a pair of necks spinning and creaking slowly as the heads upon them directed two identical gazes of complete bewilderment his way.

"Excuse me, Qrow?" Ruby posed.

"Yeah, what the fuck, bitch?" Raven continued.

"Hey wait, that's not what I-"

"You saying it's gross for girls to kiss each other, you little shit?"

"That's - no, I-"

Raven gave a pointed flick of her long, flowing hair.

"If it's so gross, care to explain why your search history is frequently 'hot busty amazons lesbian adventure'?"

Qrow seemed to recoil.

"The fuck you doing going through my search history?"

"You little asshole, we share a laptop between the four of us, and Summer's got me watching this T.V. show, and sometimes I forget what episode I'm on. So I go back to check in the internet history, and boom, you're a pervert for gay chicks."

"Buh, wait, hang on-"

"Uh uh, you lost your chance. You don't get to have an opinion. If you think girls smackin' lips is gross, I'm gonna have to tell everyone about your little fetish." Raven sneered as she scooted sideways, her hip bumping up against Ruby's.

"It could be him, though!" he tried, pointing to Tiayang.

Ruby chuckled. "Oh, please, Tai's so white-bread that his fetishes probably don't get any stronger than 'thigh-highs and consent', don't try to pass it off on him."

The offended party nearly choked on his drink before catching his breath.

"You know what, I'm not going to disagree with that."

"See?" Raven put her hand around Ruby's midsection and pulled her in. "And I bet his favourite sex position is 'just cuddling'."

"Hey, whoa, when did this become about making fun of me, I thought we were on Qrow's ass."

"Oh, shit, you're right." Raven turned to face her partner. "Whether it's gross or not, if there's anyone here I would kiss it's her. You little shit."

"What I meant was do you really want to kiss her! Your partner! The girl you didn't like, like a month ago!"

"Qrow, please, Summer and I are basically married now. So take your head out of your ass, and sit there and pout while I smooch this pretty girl. 'Kay?"

He mumbled something under his breath and crossed his arms, looking harshly away from the circle. Ruby hadn't heard what he'd said, so she paid it no mind as Raven's face turned back in and came closer.

"Remember, he likes this kinda stuff, Rae."

"His prerogative."

Raven's eyes closed as she leaned in. Ruby elected to keep hers open just a hair to make sure the boys got the best view and would have the best reactions. A notion that flew right the way out the window at the very soft and just-slightly-parted lips of her tall and brawny partner met her own, accompanied by her long and slender fingers sliding around the back of her neck and up into her hair. Her eyes went wide for a moment, unfocused, before lidding all the way shut as her whole body melted away beneath her.

Nobody had ever kissed her like this before. Even as far back as Signal Academy when she had dated this rather adorable boy named Carroll. His little butterfly-kisses had made her heart jump at the time, sure, but this wasn't that. Even the way that Weiss would kiss her and do that thing with her thumb on her cheek wasn't the same anymore. Weiss's much smaller mouth and shorter tongue, while perfect for how high she could sing, just had a different feel to it than Raven's did. Maybe it was the mystique and intrigue that had done her in in this moment, how her entire world had disappeared around her and only the feeling of the soft caress remained. But for Ruby, this was no time for a study in philematology, and not just because her brain had shut down, but because she realized how much she had been missing this feeling.

It was a good feeling. The best feeling. No, she wasn't in love with her partner. She felt oddly relieved to be getting kissed, as if a huge weight had been lifted from her shoulders and her back had been massaged for that bit of extra oomph to her relief. She felt… touch starved, but not like she was missing any kind of physical, sexual intimacy. She knew better than to blame her problems on her libido, so she elected to ignore it most of the time. But in her tenure in this new timeline, she had insofar as of yet actually experienced any form of physical affection from anybody, aside from the accident in the bank and coercing her partner into the bathtub with her. It wasn't that she needed to shove her tongue into the waiting and apparently over-eager throat of the genealogically superior specimen that had made itself her partner, she felt that she would have been just as satisfied with a few hugs here and there.

It was more that she just missed every single one of her friends and it had ached so badly that she felt she needed this release of emotion. She missed the familiar way that Yang's hands would rub through her hair when she was proud of her, she missed the way Weiss would chastise her for being clumsy but then help pick her and her stuff up

when she fell, she missed the soft and silent acceptance Blake just seemed to have for her in any situation. And this kiss, this visceral experience had brought it all flooding back to her like the most exciting and most welcome punch in the mouth she had ever received. It was the weirdest thing. Kissing, or rather getting kissed by Raven Branwen of all people had this homely effect on her that she almost didn't want to give up.

Of course, it was about this moment that her brain caught up to her mouth and let her in on the fact that she had been fully lip-locked to her partner for getting on a minute and a half now. Her eyes fluttered open briefly, and the realization of her actions made her almost laugh.

"Hey, Rae?" she asked out the side of her mouth. "Had enough yet?"

Raven pulled back, opening her eyes as well as their lips unhooked.

"Uh…" she sputtered, as it seemed her brain had also switched to autopilot. "Sorry, was that too long?"

Ruby tried to force the blush off her face to limited success.

"Well, a little. I was kinda just expecting like a quick peck or something."

"Whoops."

"You don't seem so upset about it."

Raven blinked, turning a little pink.

"Uh… sorry. How long should it have been?"

"I dunno, quick? That's the point of kissing."

"Sorry, I'm kinda new to this."

Ruby recoiled. "Bullshit."

"I'm serious, that was like, the second time I've ever kissed anyone."

"Bullshit. No amateur kisses like that. I'm sorry, it's just not possible."

"It's true! Who the hell else would I kiss!"

There was a brief pause in the room, as Ruby looked around to the two other people sitting with them. She pointed to the only one who seemed like a viable option.

"That one!" she exclaimed, pointing at Taiyang.

"Not yet, Mere! I haven't… yet."

Ruby chuffed and scooted back to her spot, and reached for the bottle.

"Maybe the bottle will have good news for you next time you spin."

"Don't get my hopes up like that."

She let out a short chuckle and gave the bottle a hearty spin, rolling her eyes. She wiped her nose on the back of her hand as the bottle became a blur of glass and label.

"So, I was in the lab yesterday, and something you said the other day piqued my interest, Rae."

"Oh, yeah, what's that?"

"So, I'm sitting there and looking at my genealogy textbook, flipping through the section on gene splitting and copying, and a thought came to me. Would it be possible to sequence a genome by itself and then have it-self generate to allow it to functionally repair and edit itself?"

Her teammates just kinda blinked at her for a moment.

"Uh, can we have that slower, and in a language we all speak?" Raven quipped, rubbing her temples in her fingers.

Ruby flushed.

"Uh, sorry. Uh, I was in the lab…"

"Yeah, we got that."

"...and I wanted to see if it was possible to replicate DNA by myself. Rae mentioned about having kids without needing… m-men to provide fifty percent of the chromosomes."

"...Why?"

"I was bored?"

The bottle stopped spinning. Not that they noticed.

"You tried to figure out… cloning… because you were bored?!" Qrow nearly yelled.

"Yes?"

"Summer…" Tai leaned over, into Ruby's personal space. "...are you an evil genius?"

She looked around, trying to see if anyone else had the same question. Judging by all the looks she was getting, the consensus was indeed, yes, they all had a similar thing on their minds.

"What constitutes 'evil genius'?"

"You know, we've taken classes with you, and you never seem plussed by any topic, and the math you're doing is fourth-year insane quadratic... bullshit that you power through like it's one plus one. And you have your own lab, for god's sake."

Ruby gulped.

"Well… the lab is so I have something to occupy my time with when I'm not in class or hanging out with you guys, for me to dick around with physics experiments and… Headmaster Pine said no one else was using it anyway."

Taiyang seemed far more intrigued by the science than Qrow or Raven, who both had a look of fear and concern on their faces.

"Physics experiments?"

"...Y-yeah, I built a little plate-sized particle-beam generator last weekend... for fun."

"What would you use that for?"

"...Powering stuff? It wasn't that hard of a machine to make, just needed some fairly harmless Gallium isotopes and a big-ass magnet."

"Do you think you could invent time travel?"

Ruby's heart stopped.

"Uh…" she desperately searched for an out. "...What do you want time travel for?"

He shrugged.

"I 'unno, maybe I'd Back-To-The-Future it and hang out with my parents in high school."

A nervous sweat started to bead on her forehead.

"Uh, that's probably not a good idea. Don't you remember what happened in that movie?"

"Yeah, a shit load of cool old cars and some anti-bullying self-confidence."

"Tai, Marty was like five minutes away from fucking his mom. Don't you worry about that?"

He shrugged and took a sip of his drink.

"Summer, only a loser would go back in time and have sexual relations with their parents. Isn't that time-travel rule number one?"

She paused, sweating profusely.

"...Time travel is immoral and dangerous and nobody should ever do it."

"That's not saying you couldn't do it, though."

In desperation for an out, she decided to point out where the bottle had landed.

"Oh, look, the bottle chooses you. Shut your lips and bring them over here."

"Oh, hey, you're right!"

Well that was easy. She looked over to Rae, who just crossed her arms and gave a weak thumbs up. Ruby chuckled and scooted closer to him, cupping her hair back behind her ears.

"So, you know what you're doing, big guy?"

"Yeah, I mean… yeah."

Ruby paused, halfway between her pillow and Tai's face.

"Wait, don't tell me you've never kissed anyone."

"Uhh…"

"Jeez, Taiyang, you're serious?"

He shrugged.

"Big G might call me a lady killer, but what she doesn't know is that I've never kissed a girl. You're already one step ahead of me, Kiddo."

"Please don't say that when I'm about to kiss you, it's weird. Also, if you want, I can bypass this onto Rae. Might make it a little more risque…"

"Uhh, is that a possibility…"

They both turned to the aforementioned woman, still sitting with her arms crossed. And aside from the mild rosyness on her cheeks, still cut a fair imposing figure on the other side of the carpet.

"The bottle has chosen." She said, using a rather theatrical tone of voice.

Ruby turned back to Tai with a smirk.

"You heard her, big guy. The bottle has chosen."

He sighed and shrugged.

"I guess that's… that's the rules, then."

"Right. Okay, basic rules, close your eyes and pucker. Easy peasy."

He did as he was told, sitting up on his knees and presenting his face for action, lips extended, tray table in the full upright position. She rolled out her neck, and pulled herself up in front of him.

"Okay, hold still."

This was about the point that Ruby realized what she was about to do. This seemed worse, philosophically, to what she had just done to Raven. This was her dad. The man who had raised her. Except, she technically didn't exist yet and Taiyang was a mere boy at the moment. He didn't have kids, and at present, she wasn't one of them. She was certain that like all fathers, he would have smooched her on the face as an infant, just based on his demeanor and attitude towards her and Yang. This would be no different, except he wasn't the one doing the smooching this time, it would her. He was just a boy, and just her friend. This would be no different than that time she'd played Spin The Bottle with her friends across the hall and landed on Ren and Jaune. It would be the same.

She wiped a bead of sweat off her face.

And leaned in to his face.

His lips were soft and poofy, like mashed potatoes, and his breath smelled like the minty sharpness of his favourite brand of toothpaste that he insisted her and her sister use as regularly as he did. She shivered and pulled back, scooting away and trying not to realize how Marty-McFly-esque the situation had just become. Every fibre of her being had just caught fire and were trying to explode out of the shell of shame she had encased them, making her life very very uncomfortable. She sat back on her pillow and shrugged her shoulders, pulling her hair back over her shoulders.

"There, see? Easy."

As his eyes opened, he seemed to have this starry-eyed look on his face.

"...Okay, I see the appeal of that. I understand the hype."

"Oh, don't be so dramatic, Taiyang. It was just a peck, no need to get your panties in a twist. Besides, now it's your turn."

His eyes lit up. "Ooh! you mean I get to pick whoever I want and do that cool shit again?"

Ruby blinked, but gave a soft smile. "Oh no no, my good man. You do not do the picking."

"Right, right. The bottle."

He reached for it and gave it a spin. With the wrists of a professional boxer, the bottle started to spin again in a blurry circle. Ruby smiled at him with her well-brushed pearly whites.

"That's the spirit."

"So, when do we get to visit your evil lair, Mere?"

She sighed.

"Oh my god, it's not an evil lair, it's just a disused classroom. I'm not a supervillain, Taiyang. I don't have like, a room full of evil inventions that I could rule the world with. The worst thing in there is an ambient power generator that uses gravitational dissonance to make electricity. Everything else is just a bunch of physics experiments."

"I 'unno, seems pretty evil to me."

"Fuckin'... how?!"

Tai brushed his bangs back and did a quick flick of his hair, flashing that smile. Ruby heard an audible blush from her partner.

"Well, for starters, there's the unbelievable strength and fighting skill, backed by next-level smarts, killer fashion sense, and the charisma to win over an entire nation."

"Jeez, Tai, cut it out." She said through a hand.

"So somewhere under all that has to be the ultimate evil villain, just waiting for her opportunity to strike fashionably. Right?"

Ruby laughed.

"Sure, why not. Come down to my lab and bow before my genius."

"I got you, kiddo."

She rolled her eyes dramatically as the bottle slowed to a halt. They all looked down at it.

"Ah."

"Well, would you look at that, big guy."

"I don't think I'm prepared for this."

Ruby groaned.

"Tai, you agreed to play spin the bottle, yet you claim to not be prepared for exactly the scenario we've been guiding you towards for two months."

"Yes."

"Do you ha- are you-" she blinked through the fog in her brain. "Do you are have stupid?"

He nodded. "Yeah."

"Just kiss her, you dipstick."

"Alright, you don't have to shout at me!"

They all turned to Raven, who had taken the opportunity to reboot her brain, as her face and expression had frozen midway between excitement over the game and betrayal over the bottle, and had turned a shade of pink Ruby had never seen anyone become before. She gently nudged Tai over to her partner, scooting him closer so he was propped up on his knees in front of the poor, misfiring woman. She slid the bottle out of the way and pushed them together until their knees touched.

"Okay, so I just close my eyes?"

Ruby shook her head with a sly smile.

"Nope. This time, you take charge, big guy."

"Oh, you're evil for sure."

"Yeah, probably."

Ruby sat back and rested on her arms, smirking as she watched Raven exhale quickly and close her eyes. She sat, ready and waiting. Tai looked over to her nervously, looking for an out. Ruby didn't give him one, and just gestured to her partner. She watched the discomfort flush through his face, before fading away and being replaced by mild fear.

"C'mon, Tai, we don't have all day."

"Okay, damn Summer, chill out!"

He sighed and turned back to Raven, who still politely had her eyes closed and her lips pushed out like a stale fashionista.

"Kay, here goes…"

He leaned in. Time slowed down for a minute as their lips met. Ruby was entranced. She now understood the reason why tall guys liked similarly tall girls, much like the way that Taiyang was a solid six-three, and Raven stood only an inch below him. Unlike when she had kissed her partner in the bank and needed to grab Raven around the neck and pull her way down to her level at a mere five-foot-three. There was none of this issue when Tai kissed Raven. It was straight across, falling directly on the presented and poofy landing zone and pressing in with subtle effort.

Ruby blinked a few times as the scene settled, the reliable sound of mildly damp and eager lips touching filling her ears like a fresh bag of popcorn being opened. She smiled, and turned her attention to Qrow.

He was not enjoying this nearly as much as Raven and Tai were. His face was awash with discomfort and anger as he watched his partner get far more familiar with his sister than so far any man had, his face scrunching up as the evident careful parting of their lips signified even more. Ruby held back a snort, realizing that if he knew just how familiar she had become with Raven, he would likely spontaneously combust and implode into his own shoes. Tai might not have been at that stage yet, but judging by how she had slid a hand up his back to get her fingers into his well-conditioned hair, he probably wasn't that far away from wine and dine in the tub.

Tai was the first to unhook his lips, to the apparent disappointment of Raven. They separated and kind of pant at each other, like lovers in a bad romantic comedy.

"Was that so bad, big guy?"

He turned to her with a scowl.

"Hey, screw you for not inviting me to play this game before, kiddo."

"Yeah, fuck you, Summer."

"And all I had to do was sit back and watch the magic happen. You two can thank me later from the altar."

As red as they already were in the face, both of them went redder.

"Hey now, don't you be bringing that shit up here." Tai said, pointing an accusatory finger at her as he scooted out of Raven's arms and back to his spot on the carpet, leaving the smooched party flustered and swearing behind the ears.

Ruby ignored him and turned to her partner.

"So, Rae, which one of us is the better kisser?"

Raven flushed.

"That's an unfair question, Sunshine."

"Just a question. You want the bottle for your turn, you gotta answer it."

"I'm starting to see why Tai thinks you're an evil villain."

Ruby shrugged and dangled the bottle between her thumb and finger.

"Rules."

"Ugh, fine. Well, one of you is pretty masculine, uh, kinda aggressive, and pretty invasive with their tongue." she took a moment to smirk. "And the other is Taiyang Xiao-Long."

Ruby glared daggers for a second, before rolling her eyes and relinquishing hold on the bottle to her partner.

"Rude."

"I'm joking, Sunshine. You guys actually kiss exactly the same, as it turns out. Kinda odd. But hey, what do I know, right? I've only ever kissed the two of you."

"Yeah, that is kinda weird…" she trailed off for a second, turning to Taiyang. He had lipstick on his bottom lip. She paused and touched her own lip, feeling the familiar waxy smoothness of the red top-shelf glaze Raven wore.

"Well, I guess I get to spin again. Sweet!"

Raven grabbed the bottle and spun it with great force. Qrow crossed his arms.

"How come I haven't had a turn yet? You guys are hogging all the game."

"That's 'cause you're a loser." Raven shot back. "Besides, it's more fun to keep you from kissing Summer, because we all know about your little crush."

"Oh come on, that's not fair! Why does that matter?! Doesn't everybody have a crush on Summer?!"

Raven nodded, but didn't drop the sly smile.

"Well, obviously, it's just you're my stupid little brother and it's a lot more fun to make fun of you for it. Summer's a cutie, you're not at fault for thinkin' that. So today, the bottle punishes you, and rewards us."

"Fuck off."

The bottle stopped spinning. It was pointing at Qrow. Raven smirked.

"Well this is a predicament."

"Don't you dare, that's incest."

"Oh, come on, you have no sense of adventure. Just gimme your cheek."

Qrow recoiled. Ruby stifled a laugh to the best of her ability.

"Fuck off!"

"C'mon, dumbass, play the game. Don't be a little shit in front of Summer."

He let out a significant sigh, gripping hard on his bicep with his hand.

"Alright, fine, but still, fuck you."

He leaned over, sticking his cheek out and wrenching his eyes shut. Ruby watched as Raven very carefully pulled out her lipstick again, and reapplied the red colour to her lips. She very slowly leaned towards her brother, lips out and smile on her face. Just as she was about to lay her mouth on her sibling, she leaned back and brought up her right arm.

And punched him square in the jaw.

He went down, hard.

"Ja- what the fuck, Raven?!"

She burst out laughing.

"You fuckin' thought I was going to kiss you? You fuckin' dummy!"

"But you said-"

"You're a fuckin' idiot! Why the hell would I ever kiss your scrawny ass?! You can take that wishful thinking to the bank, you plebeian."

"I hate you so much, Raven."

"I know. Lucky for you, it's your turn. Maybe Lady Luck will be kind to you."

He grumbled and took the bottle, scowling at his sister with force. He planted the bottle angrily into the carpet, and gave it a spin, sitting back and crossing his arms.

"I don't like this game anymore."

"What, you thought it was just going to be you kissing pretty girls all day?"

"I mean, kind of."

The bottle slowed to a stop.

Pointing at Tai.

"Ha!" Ruby snorted.

Tai and Raven snickered quietly.

"I'll be gentle with you, Qrow~" Tai swooned.

"This game is bullshit."

/.../

A few hours later, Ruby found herself in the dark corner of the campus library, having soundly won the game of spin the bottle she had conned her teammates into playing with her. Somehow, they had managed to continue the joke of not kissing Qrow using other, violent means. She liked this particular corner of the library, since this was where the thicker, thinkier, sciencey book that nobody ever came around to check out were hidden, deep in the shadows.

She'd done a lot of kissing. There may have been a little too much, even she had to admit. But such was life of a Beacon student trying to blend in as directed by her headmaster. Sometimes there was kissing to be done, whether it be the asses of her superiors or the lips of her friends, and she was alright with that. The day hadn't gone any different than the New Year's parties that her old group of friends used to host. Even when Tai had saddled up and smooched Qrow directly on his very unwilling and fidgeting mouth had been exactly the same as when Ren and Jaune had done the same, seventeen years in the future. She sighed at the memory.

She sighed into herself and pulled a thick spine off the shelf. Entanglement and Quantum Tunnelling; Eight Ed. Most of her classmates would struggled to lift this book, let alone comprehend the subject matter. She added it to her cart of books and pushed forward, running her finger along some of the softer, fabric-bound titles. It was unfortunate that the technology of the time she was trapped in wasn't advanced enough for her to really do some chronal damage, but it was good enough that she could start to study gravitation and wave dynamics without feeling bored by the contents of her books. She grabbed another, a biography of Atlesian Physicist Friedrich Hund published nearly a hundred years ago. She figured he might give her some insight into a problem she was having in the lab.

"Hey, Sunshine."

Ruby nearly became one with the ceiling as a chin was placed on the top of her head.

"Holy shit!" she spun around, bracing for an attack. It was only her partner. "Goh, you scared the fuck outta me, Rae."

"Sorry, man. Shoulda texted you first."

"No, it's okay… I have bad spatial awareness, I didn't hear you coming."

Raven squinted at her.

"For someone who fights as well as you do, I don't believe that you have bad spatial awareness."

Ruby nodded.

"Okay, maybe I was distracted by science."

"That's 'cause you're a nerd."

"... yeah."

Raven chuckled and put one of her arms around her shoulders.

"Yeah, but you're my nerd, though. I ain't gonna fault you, Sunshine."

"Thanks, Rae, you're sweet."

"Well, hopefully just to you. I'm still trying for the dark and brooding to everyone else. Convenient that dark and brooding is apparently what gets Taiyang going, as it seems."

Ruby shivered.

"I don't need to know what you use to get your boyfriend going, but I'm glad that it's working."

"Hey, he's not my boyfriend."

"Right, fine, yet. We'll get you there."

Ruby smiled and elbowed her in the ribs, garnering a soft chuckle from her partner.

"Okay, maybe I can concede that he's a little bit my boyfriend. Whatcha readin'?"

"Particle physics."

"Sounds neat."

"Do you understand anything about particle physics?"

"Nope. But I don't gotta know what's in the books, I just gotta know where to put them back."

Ruby turned.

"Oh, did you get a job at the library?"

"Yep. Miss Grey said she needed someone on evenings, and said I was tall enough to reach the upper shelves, so she hired me."

"Cushy job."

"Yep."

"So you know where all the books are?"

"Almost. There is an archive if you wanna find stuff."

Ruby paused and furrowed her brow.

"Anything by Hayek?"

"Who?"

"Famous fourth-century astronomer, calculated the circumference of the planet using two small towers, an hourglass and an astrolabe. Also helped pioneer modern calculus."

Raven picked up the biography and fanned through it for a moment, setting it back down.

"I thought you said some Neuton guy invented that."

"Well, he did. I'm glad that you remembered that. But someone had to invent discrete mathematics and mathematical analytics first. And who did that? Hayek. Thirteen hundred years before."

"Huh. Well, I'm not sure I've seen that name across any book I've sorted, no."

Ruby shrugged.

"Didn't think so. I know his complete original works are in a sealed vault in the Atlas National Library, and they're free to look at."

"Vytal Festival's in Atlas this year, we could always stop by and have a look."

She turned to her partner, her face falling into a soft smile.

"That sounds like a great idea, Rae."

"What can I say, I'm full of great ideas."

"Never doubted that for a second."

Ruby chuckled again and grabbed another thick book, on Vector Analysis, and dropped it onto her cart. She pushed her way out of the science section and into the light of the library commons, her partner silently in tow.

"That's a significant amount of reading, Sunshine."

"Eh, it's just light reading."

"This is light to you? This cart is probably eighty pounds!"

"I meant it's just the fundamentals, I'll deal in hard core stuff once I've pinged through this a few times."

"The hell are you working on in that lab of yours?"

Ruby paused for a second, and bit her lip nervously. She looked around the library to see if anyone was nearby to listen, and finding no one, let out a sigh through her teeth.

"Rae, can I confide something in you?"

"I would certainly hope so, after all this time."

She bit down on her tongue and scratched the top of her head.

"Remember… at the circle… when Tai asked me if I could invent time travel?"

"Sort of. I mostly remember the kissing, really. But go on."

"Remember when I said that it was immoral and dangerous, and kinda tried to hint at the fact that it wasn't possible?"

The tall woman nodded.

"Well… what if I told you that it was possible?"

"I'd probably believe you, I have no reason to doubt you. You're studying particle physics and are taking fourth-year classes in science and technology. You certainly have the smarts to figure out time travel, at least I think so."

"Well, I did it. I invented time travel."

Raven was silent for a moment, her eyes flicking between her and the stack of books.

"Cool."

"'Cool'? That's all you have to say?"

"Summer, we live in a world with mystical creatures with no souls, we use magic for fun, and you told me the Atlesian government invented an A.I. so advanced that it feels emotion. I kind of expected this level of genius from you."

Ruby mulled this around her head for a second, squeezing at her temples.

"Okay, that's fair, I guess."

"Is that the incident with your family, then?"

"You remember what I said?"

"You said there was an incident with dust, and then all of a sudden your whole family and friends were gone. Because of a time travel mishap? You ripped a hole in space-time? Isn't that what they say in movies?"

She nodded again.

"That's… yeah, that's what happened."

"Well, I'm sorry that happened to you. I understand your pain."

"Thanks, Rae. I appreciate that."

"So are you from the future or from the past?"

Raven's demeanor was worrying her. She wanted to be honest with the woman, but didn't want to give anything away that might cause the universe to collapse.

"Let's not get into that." she paused. "Let's just say that time travel is possible… and that I've done it."

"Okay." Raven held her hands out in surrender of the topic. "That's all I need to know, then. You've respected my privacy in concern to my family, I'll respect yours in regards to this."

"I think we can agree on that."

"Can I still come see your lab?"

Ruby smiled brightly.

"Of course, Raven. But, there's nothing in there just yet other than a power generator and one of those drinking bird desk things."

"I assume to power your new time machine."

Ruby shrugged.

"Yeah, you got it."

Raven's face fell a little.

"Oh. How far away are you from finishing it?"

"Oh jeez, like five years. I have to invent all the technology for this machine."

Her partner's face brightened immediately.

"Oh, that's okay then. We get to keep you around for longer."

"Well, I appreciate your understanding. Like, seriously."

Raven shrugged.

"Don't even worry, Sunshine"

"Just don't tell the boys."

"I won't."

"Thanks, Rae." She paused and looked up to her loft teammate. "Means a lot to me."

"I know… We all have our secrets, Summer. Some of them are… more significant than others, and we all have ways of coping. I'll be sad when you go, if I'm honest. But I have time to cope with that, don't I?"

Ruby smiled.

It was odd how accepting Raven was of her situation, but most certainly helpful. Ruby hadn't exactly been prepared for such a positive response, but this was certainly a welcome one. She had expected a much more negative and confrontational turnout, but she suspected that Raven's own terse and criminal background made it difficult for her to be judgy. It was nice to have a friend like that. Maybe she could even let her in to some of her more personal affairs.

Actually, speaking of.

"Hey, uh, I have an idea."

"Hit me."

"Do you believe in magic?"

"You just told me that time travel exists, I think I'm more on the side of science."

Ruby rolled her eyes.

"You can create portals with your mind."

"... that's fair. Okay, so what's this about magic?"

"Have you ever wanted to fly?"

Raven squinted.

"...go on."