Ruby had screwed up.

She'd messed up so badly that Yang wasn't even teasing her about it level of screwed up. I'm going to disappoint Pyrrha so much…

The day of love was coming up, the one in which everyone put aside time for their special someone, took them out on a date, gave gifts, y'know, generally the most romantic day of the year. Unlike previous years, Ruby had a special someone now to spend it with. Ergo, it had to be the most special date of their relationship ever!

Of course Ruby had booked a fancy restaurant to take Pyrrha to and of course she'd had a really, really special gift to give her. Or, she would of, had she realized that THE day was today and not tomorrow. Still, that was salvageable as long as she had a gift. Except her prototype had gone horribly wrong – possibly because she had been stressing too much about the fact that today was the day when she'd been working on it this morning.

Regardless, Ruby was in deep, deep trouble as Yang comfortingly rubbed her back. When in trouble, Ruby went to Yang and when your little sister comes to you in tears, Yang had all the time in the world for her. "C'mon sis, it's not gonna be that bad-"

"But it is!" Ruby mournfully shook her head before cradling it in her hands. "I'm going to let her down so much!"

The look that Yang gave her made Ruby feel the distinct impression that she had said something very stupid. "Ruby, this is Pyrrha 'I-am-the-nicest-person-alive' Nikos we are talking about." Ruby could practically hear the eye rolling Yang must have been doing without looking up. "I am pretty sure that she is just happy to have you show up today."

"…you probably are right." That didn't change it to Ruby however, Pyrrha deserves something! She's my champion. "D-do you think she'd be okay with just going to not…a fancy place?" Ruby had no idea where to take her girlfriend now, all the good places have to be booked solid! I guess that means we're probably going to a burger joint or something.

"Definitely! Ruby, she's your girlfriend, she is going to be happy to just spend the day with you, let alone going out." Yang paused as Ruby started to pull herself together, her vision becoming less blurry as the tears subsided. "Speaking of which, when are you going to talk to her today? It's getting kinda late sis…"

Ruby's head finally left the crooks of her arms and saw the dimming light from the window. I need to find Pyrrha! With her mind made up, she zoomed out of the dorm.

The one thing that Pyrrha had not been expecting as she went through her calculus homework was her girlfriend running into her at something like Mach two.

After picking herself off the ground, Pyrrha found her girlfriend dazed as she helped her up. "Ruby! Are you okay? …Ruby?"

"Wha-what happened?" Ruby shook her head, her silver eyes focusing on to Pyrrha.

"I was just about to ask you the same question, you just ran into me after all."

"Oh." Ruby's head tilted for a moment before some sort of light bulb clicked in her head. "Oooooh." Evidently the light bulb that clicked was not a good one seeing as her posture immediately drooped, her index fingers nervously poking at each other. "Right, that. Umm…"

Pyrrha's up turned lips morphed into a small frown. "Is something wrong, Ruby?"

"Um. Kinda?" Ruby sheepishly admitted. "I kinda screwed up and I think you're going to be really sad and probably really really disappointed with me and I'm really sorry, please don't hate me!" The long sentence coming out in one burst as Ruby scrunched up, her head bowed in shame.

It took Pyrrha a moment to make sense of the rapid fire words. "Wait, hate you?" She pulled Ruby into a tight embrace. "I'd never hate you."

"A-a-are you sure?" Ruby mumbled a few moments later.

Pyrrha pulled away to look Ruby in the eyes. "I promise Ruby."

"O-oh okay." Ruby nodded. "I kinda… sort of… maybe… uh, I messed up on the reservations for our date and your gift… I'm sorry…"

"Date?" Pyrrha didn't remember them planning on going on a date today at all, and I'm usually good at keep track of these things.

"Y'know… for Valentines day…"

Pyrrha's insides went cold. Today is Valentine's Day?! Oh no, no, no, no!

Pyrrha may be many things, a students, a teammate, a friend, a cereal mascot, but she had failed at perhaps the most important of these: Ruby's girlfriend.

I completely forgot about Valentine's Day! Pyrrha had forgotten about the day that was set aside for everyone to tell their partner just how special they were to them, how much they loved their other half. And Pyrrha had entirely forgot about it. I don't even have a gift to give or a date planned or anything… I thought Ruby was going too busy with what she'd been up to for the last week so I scheduled calculus studying for today. Oh no. Pyrrha felt worse then terrible, she felt disgusted with herself.

"I'm really sorry." Ruby quietly muttered. "I should have double checked the date o-o-or something. It's all my fault." The short teen's head hung low as she stared at the ground. "It's all my fau-"

"No, I did worse. I, well, I forgot about it entirely." Ruby's head shot up, as her silver eyes curiously peered at Pyrrha, as if she couldn't quite comprehend what she was hearing. "I… I've never celebrated it before, so I didn't realize that it was today. I'm sorry!"

"Wait you didn't have anything planned either?" The team leader asks the question as if she couldn't believe it was real possibility let alone what happened.

"I'm really sorry!" Pyrrha felt pure shame at forgetting about the day that she was supposed to show her love how much she loved her. "And I interrupted you and I'm really sorry, I'm the worst girlfriend ever."

This time it was Pyrrha who found herself as a recipient of a bone crushing hug. "You're the best girlfriend!" Pyrrha found herself melting into the embrace. "We could just postpone it until… next week?" The tall redhead found herself nodding at the thought. "Besides, we can still spend the rest of the day together, right?"

"That sounds like a grand idea." Calculus could wait. Pyrrha was going to spend the rest of the day with her rose.

AU: Okay this is what I meant to post last weekend but was not feeling up to it. Yes, there is a sequel chapter that will be next week, I promise! :D

I apologize for the quality of the chapter was all over the place, I started writing this pre-finale and then very sporadically over the course of several days, sorry! X_X

I couldn't resist having Ruby apologizing and then Pyrrha interrupting to apologizing and then apologizing to interrupt to apologize. I couldn't resist.

HOLY CRAP, you people are amazing!

I've gotten so much love and support from everyone that I pretty much decided after the 20th review/message that I had to stay strong. I really want to respond to everyone considering the sheer depth that some of these reviews and messages went to, seriously, I've published shorter chapters then them and seeing all of them brightened up my day, no, my week. Which I really needed after that finale.

I'm really sorry if this gets a tad long, but it's quite necessary.

So when I mentioned I'd finish up my stuff and leave, well, there are more then what meets the eye to that. Stories like Acceptance will take me probably two or three years to finish, Dilation will take at least a year and a half. At least. Wrath might take upwards to a year. I also want to go through stories I had outlined but have yet to actually publish like a Schneekos story as well as a handful of shorter Pyrrha/Ruby stories. If I come up with more I will write them but… well, yeah. Things.

I'd like to say I'm feeling better and while that is technically true in a very loose sense, I'm also not quite feeling anywhere back to normal. It still hurts, y'know? I identify with the character to a large degree and now she is dead. Gone. In a few volumes she'll just be that minor character that died in volume three to new viewers.

But, and there is always a but, she won't die a final death until we as a community stop producing content for her. This is the reason I am going to keep going, because she is alive until we stop telling tales about her, that is when she will fade.

I can't do that to her. I really can't.

Grief may have been talking mostly in the last author's note and I'm trying to tone it down in this one to be less of a downer, but I do plan to keep writing Pyrrha to keep her from having a final death… even if it's just infrequent updates to Spoon Equality.

Still, there is a part of me that hurts. I don't blame Kerry or Miles or any of that, I don't see the point personally. They were telling the story that they wanted to tell, who gives us the right to tell them they can't do it? We can disagree with them but that doesn't give us the right to say that we are right and they are wrong.

Someday I hope that I can think of Pyrrha with happiness again instead of tears. That's my hope. That's how I'm pretty sure the character would want to be remembered. With happiness.

Unrelated note, but anyone know someone who could do a Pyrrha plushie? I am more than willing to pay for a commission.

I know a lot of people think or hope that she is going to come back, a view I'm kind of… scared of. I don't want hope to be burst like a balloon but the fact that Arkos, from a Miles tweet, was slated to really grown on people in vol 5 (or was it season 5?) makes me wonder.

If I'm being brutally honest, I want to respond to all of the messages and reviews you guys and gals have left but I just don't know what to say since most of it was going to be here and probably before today if I tried to write a response I'd just end up in tears again. I still want to respond to them and it make take me a while but what you guys and gals said meant a lot to me. It really did.

Thank you. Thank you so much, I can't even express how much those words meant to me :D

As always, thank you for reading and have a great day!