Part 3 - Breaks & Fixes

"Hey Yang, how long do you think Uncle Qrow is going to stay for?"

Yang looked up from her hammering, two nails pinched between her lip as she tried to fix the hole in the side of their barn. She saw her sister starring out towards the direction their father and uncle had walked off to. She didn't have to see her face to guess what kind of look she had.

"I'm not sure," She answered, with all honesty. Putting down her hammer and nails, she walked over to her sister and put and arm around her. "Uncle Qrow does a lot important things, which sometimes keeps him on the road for a while."

"Yeah, I know," Her voice was sunken with disappointment. Yang knows how long she's been waiting to see him again, how important it was for her.

Yang tightened her one-armed hug. "Hey, maybe when you show him what you've been working on he'll stick around a bit to help you out." Yang said, not knowing at all if that was accurate.

"You really think so?" A hint of hope could be found in her voice.

"Yeah," She nuzzled her cheek next to the other's. "It never hurts to try, right?"

Ruby nodded, giving Yang an assuring smile. "Right,"

"Great!" Yang retrieved her hammer and set back down to continue working. "We're going to need more nails for this board, could you run and grab some from the basement?"

Ruby, confidence in hand, saluted in a mock-military fashion. "On it!"

Like a bolt of lightning, she vanished, leaving her signature trail of rose petals behind. Yang's smile faded after a moment, also hoping their uncle would find a reason to stay longer. Any reason.

Zwei barked at Yang for attention, wagging a stubby tail with a thought on his mind.

Yang looked down a patted the fury friend. "I know boy, I know. Maybe this time could be a different." She sighed, lamenting her inability to promise Ruby what she really wanted. "Dad's probably talking to him right now about it."

Zwei continued to wag his tail, giving her an affirmative bark. He ran around in a short circle on his stubby little legs and gave a series of barks that Yang could easily interpret.

"You want to help fix the barn?" Yang asked. It made sense after all, Zwei keep's his favorite toys hidden somewhere in there, amongst all of the random spare parts and oil stained tools Ruby keeps. "Well okay," She smiled at the cheerful canine. "Could you help me find the power saw? I couldn't find it after the explosion knocked everything around."

The super pup was on the case. It raised one paw in a 'Ruby Salute' before scurrying off into the barn and diving into a pile of parts, tools and metal, looking for the lost tool.

"Good boy."

Qrow could feel his heart pound heavily like a jackhammer. His lungs felt burdened and fatigued, a result of all the hits he took. Taiyang was in the same shape, also feeling the pain brought on by the other. They stood their ground, a few paces a part, and stared each other down.

"Thick skull as ever," Taiyang commented, his fist still held up.

"You're one to talk." Qrow shot back before spitting out a bit of blood mixed saliva. "You just don't know when to just let it go."

Taiyang glared. "I should be saying the same thing!" He dashed forward for a fresh assault.

Qrow easily ducked under a hammer fist from the right and blocked a raised knee aimed at his chest. What he didn't manage to block was the swift elbow Taiyang delivered by spinning back and falling forward. It dug into Qrow's aura and gave him jolting pain across his temple. Taiyang followed up with a combo of lefts and rights, forcing Qrow to fallback with a raised guard by several feet. The pain he felt throughout the whole of his body, the shock of the impacts from his opponents devastating blows, they were nothing to him. He has been through so much worse.

Finally, Qrow's guard weakened for a mere moment. Taiyang's years of experience kicked in and screamed at him to strike now. He sent a devastating uppercut straight into Qrow's jaw, for the second time that night. It put the other right into the ground.

It does hurt nearly as much, Qrow thought as he lied their motionless, eyes half closed and arms spread apart.

Taiyang stopped to look down at Qrow and frowned. "It should've taken more than that to put you down."

Qrow chuckled weakly. It hurt to laugh at this point. "If only Yang could hit half as hard as you," He groaned in pained as he tried to get up. He failed and laid back down in the dirt. "Then… none of us would have to do anything." He joked. "We'd just send that beast out there to clean up all the Grimm!"

Taiyang cocked an eyebrow in confusion. "Okay, I know I didn't hit you that hard."

"My eggs aren't scrambled, calm down." Qrow rolled his eyes. "You've beaten me up, so what? You think that'll change anything?"

"No, I…" Taiyang sighed heavily, finally lowering his stance and calming down. "I'm sorry for before, alright?"

Qrow looked and saw sincere honesty in the other's words. Of course he did, he was the father of his two nieces. "Yeah, sure."

All things considered, he did have a pretty good view of the shattered moon that hanged low in the sky above.

Taiyang sat down next to him and mimicked his position on the ground, lying down in the dirt, arms spread, and just looking up aimlessly at the moon.

"The girls miss you all the time you know." Tiayang said, still looking up at the shattered moon.

All the time? Qrow shrugged. "I can't imagine why. I'm not much of a role model or anything."

"Clearly," Taiyang took a shot there. "But that's not what's important. You know what is?"

"If you give me some cheesy 'family is important' speech, I'm jumping off the cliff." Qrow quipped.

Taiyang wanted to punch him again. "Alright, fine. How about we make a deal instead?"

Qrow cocked an eyebrow at Taiyang. "Go on…"

Ruby sat patiently on the front porch, looking towards the seaside cliffs her uncle and father had go towards hours earlier. Yang insisted she'd come inside before, but Ruby was resilient, even if it was past her bed time. Zwei rested soundly her lap, keeping an extra eye and nose out for her.

Ruby felt like dossing off for a minute until Zwei perked up and gave Ruby a small nudge with his paw.

"Is it them, boy?" Ruby asked. The fluffy lap dog gave an affirmative gruff.

She squinted as she looked down the road and could see two familiar figures walking together towards the house. She and Zwei jumped up together and hurried to meet the two.

"Uncle Qrow! Dad! What took you so – Oh my gosh!"

They looked terrible. Clothes ripped, bruises and cuts all over. To Ruby it looked like they got thrown into some cogs and gears and were lucky to make it out in one piece.

Qrow and Tiayang gave each other looks before later jumped in. "We, um, fell of some rocks…" Tiayang said weekly.

Qrow looked back at him and silently gave him a look that clearly said, really?

"It was a long drop." Qrow added. "Nothing serious."

Ruby's genuine look of worry made both of the men feel terrible. "Are you sure you're…"

"It's find," Qrow gave a dismissive wave to the matter. "We got out of it with only a few bumps and scrapes."

"Well… if you say so," Ruby said. With an awkward pause ensuing.

Tiayang looked at Qrow again with an unspoken question. Qrow replied with another question before Tiayang subtly elbowed him in the ribs.

Qrow cleared his throat. "So, Ruby, your dad and I did some talking and he had mentioned you wanted to show me something."

Ruby's cheeks perked up with a blush. "Well, yeah, I mean… there's just a little something." She suddenly looked like a fire cracker about to go off. "It's in the barn if… if you got a minute."

"Sure thing kid," He grinned.

Qrow followed Ruby, leaving Tiayang to wonder if his plan was going to work out or not. A few days, that was the deal he made with Qrow, stay for a few days, talk with the girls some, and he would drop the issue of him being away for too long a time.

The rest was up to Ruby then, he knew.

Zwei jumped up on his hind legs and put his front paws on Taiyang's knee. He barked a question at the other with a serious look in his doggy eyes.

"I did kind of swung first, yeah." Taiyang admitted, scratching the back of his head. "We got into it pretty fast and there wasn't much time to think."

Zwei gave a few disappointed barks back.

"She's too young to get caught up in all this. I don't like lying to my daughter, ya know."

Zwei huffed and fell back to all fours. He spun around and used his hind legs to kick dirt onto Taiyang's legs.

Taiyang rolled his eyes at the dog. "And you're calling me immature."

The barn, also known as Ruby's workshop, was still a colossal mess. Qrow saw all sorts gears, mechanisms, spare parts, and general scrap metal littered everywhere. The explosion had knocked everything around and turned the place into a maze of junk and debris.

"It's over here!" Ruby said, all giddy with excitement, as she led Qrow by the hand through the maze. Near the back there was a workbench with a red stool next to it and a large lamp hanging over it. Ruby jumped up on the stool in order to reach the lamp switch to flick it on.

The bright light blurred Qrow's vision for a second, but as it cleared he could see just what exactly Ruby has been working on.

"Is that… a weapon?" Qrow began with hint of genuine surprise.

"Yup," Ruby picked up the weapon, a greyish colored rectangular contraption. "It's not finished yet but…" She flipped a switch and a handle popped out of the side of it. "I was able to get the transformation mechanism to work, for the most part." The rest of the weapon unfolded and extended outwards, relying on a serious of complex mechanisms all functioning in perfect unison. It formed a long curved blade on the end, turning it into a scythe.

"You built that all by yourself?" Qrow asked curiously, admiring the complexity of the weapon's transformation.

"Yeah." Ruby began, looking at the scythe she had built. "I remember the time you saved Yang and I from the Grimm. I saw how you used your scythe to fight back the Beowolves and I wanted to use something just like it when I fought the Grimm someday." She slowly, carefully, flipped the weapon around in her hands and presented it to Qrow. "So… what do you think?"

Qrow picked up the weapon, it felt surprisingly light, he thought, and yet very sturdy. The materials it was forged from were top notch, there's no doubt that. But the rest…

"It looks like a solid weapon." He admitted, giving it a flip of the hand to feel its balance. "But it needs work. For starters, I can tell the large-bore barrel isn't weighted properly. Anything you shoot out of it is going to be way off target. That's assuming the firing pin actually stays aligned after transformations." He pulled back the bolt-action on the rifle portion of the weapon. "Just as I thought, needs more work on the round ejector as well."

Ruby twirled her fingers nervously. "Well, I did say wasn't not finished yet."

"Yeah, no kidding." He examined it some more. "You were hoping to get a few tips on scythes, right?"

Ruby nodded.

"Well, suppose I could." Qrow shrugged, tossing the dangerous weapon back to Ruby, who stumbled with it as she tried to catch it. "I can't have my niece swinging around a half finished weapon."

"Does that mean you'll help me finish Crescent Rose?" Ruby asked.

Qrow cocked an eyebrow. "It has a name, huh?" He grinned and patted Ruby on the head. "It sure does kid, we're going to start from the ground up okay? Let's me see how fast you can disassemble her."

Ruby Rose smiled grew wide as she set the weapon down and jumped into Qrows for a hug.

"What's this for?" He asked, not knowing what to do other than to stand there awkwardly.

"Oh you know," She said with a cheek pressed against his chest and eyes closed. "Just really glad you came home."

"Oh," He said. What did he ever do to deserve such affection, he wondered. Perhaps, Qrow thought, what Taiyang had said earlier was more than a half-truth after all. Ruby did miss him, more than he had ever imagined. "I guess I had to come back at some time."

A/N: So sorry for the long wait this time around.

I found this particular chapter's dialogue a bit hard to push through, what with expressing precise emotion and all. Any who, I hope you're okay with how it turned out, since I've scrapped and restarted the silly thing a few times. At one point I was writing about Yang butting in between Qrow and Taiyang during their fight. I decided to save that possibility for later. To be honest I feel that I may come back later and update some (a lot actually) of the wording here. I really just want to push onto into the cooler parts of this story. I hope you can over look this for now.

I keep progress updates on my profile page, for whoever wants to know how soon my next chapter update or other works come out.

And as always, thank you so much for reading.