"Summer, you need to rest! You're still recovering! You almost-"
"Qrow...I know, but I can't just sit around."
"You can't seriously be thinking about taking on another mission!? You can barely walk!"
"I know! And I'm not! I just want to spend time with my daughter, or am I not allowed to do that either?" Summer asked as she made her way down the stairs of their tiny home.
Qrow winced, he knew that tone, he'd been pushing her and she had already passed her breaking point. She was only letting him live at this point because she was too tired to fight back.
Qrow threw his hands up in surrender as he followed behind her, "Fine, I'm sorry ok? I'm just worried about you. Am I allowed to be worried about my wife?"
For a brief moment Summer felt guilty but she refused to let it show, "Honestly? At this point, no. You've been driving me crazy for weeks. I know I was hurt, I know it was a close call, but I am not made of glass Qrow! I may not be able to take on any missions right now but I can damn well play with my daughter in the backyard!" Summer didn't even look back as she opened the back door and quickly slammed it in her husbands face.
A bright smile plastered itself on her face as Ruby looked up from the garden at the sound.
"Mommy!" Ruby cheered as she ran up to her mother demanding a hug.
"How's my little rosebud?" Summer asked as she knelt down holding her brave little girl tightly.
"I'm ok, it's kinda boring though being by myself."
"Why are you by yourself?"
"Well you were sleeping a lot and daddy was watching you sleep the whole time. I asked Daddy if I could go play with Yang but he said I had to wait until she came over because he couldn't leave until he knew you were ok…" Ruby paused watching her mother's eyes fill with tears, "But it's ok Mommy, I took care of Zwei while you were sleeping too. I made sure he always had food and-"
Summer blinked looking around for her beloved corgi, she chuckled lightly when she found the poor thing passed out under a tree, he'd gained at least five pounds in the nearly three weeks she'd been unconscious.
She'd been missing for almost two weeks, she had laughed when Qrow told her that they had found her on the thirteenth day.
She remembered saying something about how she knew her bad luck charm would find her eventually. Thinking back on it now she realized that laughing probably hadn't been the smartest thing. Qrow hadn't taken her absence well and being unconscious and bedridden for a week at home had not helped matters.
"I'm sorry you were bored sweetie but I'm here now, so what do you want to do?"
Ruby beamed, "Tell me a story!"
Summer threw her head back laughing, happy to see that her absence had not permanently changed her little girl.
As she started to tell one of the more 'classic' fairy tales, Summer couldn't help but notice how distracted Ruby was. Usually her stories had the girl completely enraptured but now she kept staring off at the house.
Finally getting curious Summer glanced over to see what it was that had her babies attention, she just barely caught a flash of gray and red in the window before it disappeared.
Summer held back a sob as her husband hid in the house, a part of her wanted to run in and hold him, promising that everything would be ok, while the other part of her was purely annoyed. They were hunters for Oums sake! The potential to lose each other has been there for the last seven years! There was never any guarantee that they would come back alive and he knew that….
But, she supposed, they had never really had such a close call before.
"Mommy?" Ruby's voice broke through her thoughts.
"Yes sweety?"
"Are you and Daddy gonna be separated like Aunty Raven and Uncle Tai?"
Summer had never been more thankful that she was sitting on the suddenly cold, hard grass. If she hadn't been she was sure she would have dropped her daughter in shock of the words that had just left her mouth.
Even the sun beating down on them suddenly felt cold and accusing.
"Ruby… What I am about to say might not sound very positive but I need you to try and understand, ok?" Summer waited until Ruby nodded her head, "I can promise you, I will never, ever leave your father. I love your daddy with all my heart, if one day I don't come home it will be because I died. Death is the only thing that could stop me from coming back to you and your father… Do you understand?"
Summer waited trying to gage if her daughter would suddenly burst into tears but her face showed nothing but quite understanding.
"I know you and Daddy were scared a few weeks ago but-"
"I wasn't scared Mommy, I knew you were ok." Summer's eyebrows shot up in surprise.
"Oh really, and how did you know that?" she asked coyly trying to see if her baby was just putting on a brave face for her.
"I could feel you, with my eyes." Summer's mouth dropped open in shock.
"Wh-what?"
"I could feel you with my eyes, don't you feel it too?" Ruby asked suddenly wondering if she had done something wrong.
"N- what do you mean you could feel me with your eyes? Explain how it feels."
Ruby suddenly sat up straighter in her mother's lap excited to share, "Well if I close my eyes, I try to see what it feels like when you give me hugs or read me stories, then I see a little cloud. It's soft and warm and smells like you. Sometimes it's a shiny silver color but when you were hurt it was grey, almost like the cloud was sad. That's how I knew you were ok, even if Daddy was scared, your little cloud was sad but it was still there in my head so I knew you were ok."
Ruby turned to see her mother's reaction and was surprised to find tears sliding down her cheeks.
"Mommy? Are you ok?" Ruby asked, worried that once again something was wrong with her mother.
Summer gulped, trying to swallow her tears, "Yes sweety, I'm fine, just surprised how strong my little baby is without even trying!"
Ruby beamed at the praise completely unaware that her mother was silently panicking inside as she continued to tell stories and their day finally came to a close.
"I'm telling you Qrow, I can't do anything like that! She's only three! She shouldn't be able to even use her eyes yet!"
"Oh, now you care that she's only three?!"
"What's that supposed to mean?!"
"You told her everything Summer! Everything! She probably learned how to use her eyes because you told her that she had magic powers!"
"I never told her she had magic powers! I told her the story of the Silver Eyes so she would know she had potential!"
"So you implied that she had powers, that makes such a difference!"
"Why are you so upset about this? These are things she needs to know!"
"She's THREE Summer!"
"And if I had died last week and had never said anything about her eyes what would you have told her?! How long would you have waited to tell her the truth about what's going on in this world?!" Qrow froze, his eyes seemed haunted as he tried to imagine what would have happened, what could have happened if they hadn't found Summer when they did.
Summer seemed to be able to read everything in his eyes as she stared at him in tears.
"Oh my god… you wouldn't have told her anything would you? You- you would have just left her like Raven left Yang! I can't believe you-"
"I would never do what Raven has done!"
"What? You mean try?! She at least tries to balance each aspect of her life! She may not be succeding but at least she's trying! You! You would just walk out and hide! You're so afraid of yourself you don't think about what you are doing to everyone around you!"
"I think about it all the time! That's why I leave!" Summer was shaking in anger.
"Our marriage can survive a few broken dishes Qrow, it won't survive if you think leaving every time you get scared is the answer." Summer turned and headed up the stairs to her daughter's bedroom.
"Hey! Where are you going?" Qrow shouted, suddenly afraid that she would be the one leaving him. Summer looked back at him with tears in her eyes.
"I'm going to sleep with Ruby tonight, if you decide that running is your only option, I want you gone before Ruby wakes up. I-"
"Su-Summer! I-"
"I'm done fighting with you about your semblance Qrow, you're not cursed and you're not going to hurt us. If you want to run, run, but don't come back. If you decide that this," Summer gestured to the space around them, "-that we, are worth it… then I'll see you at breakfast and we can work out the rest later." Summer looked up the stairs with a mixture of fear and resolve as she thought about the following morning.
"Just remember, I love you… no matter what you choose." Summer headed up the stairs.
"Summer - I-"
"Good night Qrow." Summer didn't look back as she walked into her daughters room, quietly curling herself around her baby as she cried herself to sleep and left Qrow standing in their living room, staring into space as if the world around him had just shattered.
"I- I love you too…"
Woo! So I finally started writing the sequel to Summer's Bedtime Stories! I'm sorry it's so heavy on the Qrow angst right out of the gate but I promise it won't stay that way for long!
In case you haven't done so already, you should probably read Summer's Bedtime Stories first so you can understand what is going on. Before the show actually got into the minimal explanations we now have I wrote a story about my own theory for the Silver Eyes, that is how this came about and that is why this story will obviously not be following canon.
As just a general FYI I will also be posting a bunch of other stories today, Some RWBY FLownNorth some RWBY Rosewick, some are both! Some are completly different fandoms... I finally decided that the best way to motivate myself to keep writing is to just post what I have and see what happens. So that also means that updates will... as always... be completely random, but I have never and will never leave a story unfinished!
Hope you enjoyed! Likes and Reviews keep me going!