In response to the 'Send me a fic' you want me to write:' (during V6) Ruby decides to sit Oscar down and ask to talk to Ozpin - not taking no for an answer from either of them. I'd love to see a pretty frank conversation between these two - they've both got some legitimate grievances to talk out (Ruby asking the question, Oz not trusting them, either to say 'this is highly personal, leave it' or about the other stuff). Maybe she asks him if he has advice for dealing with Qrow toward the end :)

I don’t see this quite going down the same way you do, but here goes….

The problem with Ruby was that she’s persistent as all hell.

Oscar tried explaining that he couldn’t force Ozpin to show up for them - that he had tried, several times, to no avail - but she’d simply smiled, hands on her hips, and grinned at him.

It wasn’t entirely a nice grin.

“That’s because I haven’t tried.”



Well, she was trying now, and it was while poking him and singing her sixty-seventh off-key round of Vale’s national anthem (at three in the morning, when an already sleep-deprived Oscar was becoming absolutely desperate) that a hand shot out and grasped her wrist mid-poke.

“Please, Miss Rose,” a weary Ozpin said. “That’s quite enough.”



He wasn’t looking at her. He wasn’t looking at anything, really, just sitting up on the bed cross-legged. Ozpin let her go as if he’d touched fire and wrapped his arms protectively around himself, hunched over.

Ruby suddenly felt very, very uncomfortable.

“We need to talk,” she said, sitting down a little ways away from him. He snorted.



“Talk. I suppose that’s what you do mean, given the lack of the rest of your teammates.” She pursed her lips, wanting to retort, but the vision of Yang screaming at him in the snow while they all watched came back and she sighed instead.



“… why didn’t you trust us?” she began instead.



That made him pause. Ozpin did raise his head then, and the look in his eyes was almost frightening in its intensity. “Do you know,” he began, “that before I met you and and the others in Mistral, there were exactly nine people in the world who knew about Salem? Who knew the Maidens, about who and what I am? The headmasters of the schools, the Maidens, Glynda and Qrow. That’s all. The Maidens have to know because of what they are and what they hold. The others… they are all people I knew for decades, people I trusted with my life.”

A shadow crossed his face; a shaky breath escaped him, his shoulders bowing a little more. “And then I met Qrow in Mistral and discovered he told you almost everything. I didn’t have a choice in that moment. So I decided to trust you - you, four students, children I never intended to involve in this war but you planted yourselves there anyway.

“So I prepared you as best I could. And the rest of your team came, accusing me of hurting two people I-” Another pause. Another shaky breath. “There is no one in this world I trust more than your uncle, Ruby. No one.”



“Even now?”



“Even now.” Ozpin shook his head. “I trusted the rest of your team as well, because how could I trust you and not them? Teammates must be able to share things between them, to hold each other up. So I trusted you all, with secrets I would rather never share with anyone.”

Ruby had been chewing her bottom lip the whole time, listening. And - it hadn’t seemed like such a big deal then, when he’d told them. It’d seemed exciting, even. Knowing such an important person, being part of something so heroic. Saving the world, like a fairy tale.

But fairy tales weren’t real. She knew that now.

“Why did you lie about the relic, then? If you trusted us so much?”



Another snort of laughter, devoid of humor. “It draws Grimm as much as one upset person does. If it had been more of a draw, Oscar would have drawn-”

“No. About the questions.”



Ozpin closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

“Well,” he said, his voice cold. “We’ve seen what happens when you’re allowed to ask them, now, haven’t we?”



Ruby felt a bit as if she’d been punched. “We didn’t know-”

“No. You didn’t. I hope the answers were to your satisfaction.”



“You’re being cruel!” she cried, heart stung by the accusation in his words.



He laughed, a terrible hiccuping sound. “Am I? Was it not cruel of you to force me to relive the worst moments of my life? Being brought back and torn apart again and again because the gods needed a new toy to argue over? My own stupidity and arrogance? Being betrayed and-”

His voice caught; Ruby could, she realized in horror, see fresh tears sliding down his cheeks. “My children,” he choked, and fell silent.

She didn’t dare touch him. He was too silent, too terrible in his grief.

“And you - all of you,” Ozpin whispered after several long moments. “Every one of you who have ever found this out - that Salem is as immortal as I - you all turn. Give up. How many times have I lost friends - allies - my life to the people I loved because you cannot see beyond that one godsdamned thing!”



Ruby jerked back, silver eyes wide. “But if she can’t be-”

“Can the Grimm ever be completely stopped? They existed long before Salem and I ever walked this planet, and they’ll exist long after we’re gone. Does that mean fighting them is a waste?”



“It’s not that simple!”



“No,” he sighed, and curled back into himself again. “it’s not, and yet it is. Because life is precious, Ruby. It is a gift. Humans live and love and change the world and that is what I have been fighting to protect all these millennia.” He flexed his fingers in front of him, eyes gone soft and immeasurably sad. “That world would hate me if it knew who I was. You’ve proven that. But I still love it so.”



Ruby looked at her hands and felt terribly, terribly small.

“When will you come back, Professor?” she asked softly.



He huffed a little laugh. “Not for a little while yet. Let the others calm their tempers first. Remember why they’re here. The relic must be taken care of.”

She nodded and made to get up when a small hand caught her wrist again. “You might,” Ozpin said gently, “remind Qrow of a mission he had back when you and your sister were very little. I believe he saved you both from a pack of Beowolves?” When her eyes went wide, he continued, “He’d saved a village before that. Diamant. It still stands today, south of Vale. You might want to remind him of it, and of your love for him. I think he needs it.”

“He needs you too,” she said, and regretted it as soon as his face fell.



“We’ll see,” he said, voice choked.



She made it to the doorway before turning around; Ozpin was still sitting there on the edge of the bed, framed in moonlight from the window, somehow both towering and yet so very small and frail and terribly, horribly human. “Do you regret trusting us?” Ruby asked, fingers curled around the doorframe.

Ozpin bowed his head and laughed silently, eyes shimmering with unshed tears. “Yes,” he said. “Good night, Miss Rose.”