The house was too quiet, and even lit by the moon and lantern light, Mistral was too dark.
Yang was tired, but every time that she tried to sleep she found herself hanging off of the edges of a bad memory, her hands hurting even when one of them wasn't there anymore. She'd wake every night, world ablaze in her head and her heart pounding too hard in her chest.
It happened every night.
When she wasn't able to get back to sleep, which was on most nights, it meant that she had a lot of time to think, or read, or otherwise be left to her own devices. While her friends and sister were sleeping, and Qrow was away doing whatever it was that he did at night (usually drinking,) she was the only one up.
The good thing about the house that Qrow had decided to rent for them was that it was big, and there was the balcony outside where Yang was now sitting, her legs stretched out in front of her and a blanket there to keep her warm, but not much else. Mistral was chilly, all because of the mountain air, but it was far from unpleasant Atlesian cold or Valean winters.
The moon glowed bright over her, and it was beautiful. Mistral was beautiful. It was nothing like what she had grown up with herself.
The difference was staggering.
"Yang?" A voice called from behind her and Yang took in a deep breath, looking over her shoulder to see that it was Weiss there, in her own pajamas and her hair down. She looked tired herself, and Yang couldn't help but wonder what she was doing awake. Maybe she'd heard Yang get up and had gotten up herself.
Yang pushed the thought back from her mind and sighed. "Hey, Weiss."
"What are you doing up so late?" Weiss asked, walking out onto the balcony with her. Yang shrugged and pat the space on the ground beside her, and was pleased when Weiss took that space beside her. They were both quiet for a long moment before Yang spoke up for herself.
"I couldn't sleep." She said, shrugging. "Needed some space."
"Should I go?" Weiss asked, making herself as comfortable in the spot that she had taken as she could. "Because if you need space-"
"Nah," Yang mumbled. "You don't have to."
Weiss nodded. "Do you... want me to stay?"
Yang hesitated, because that was something that she really wasn't sure of. She and Weiss had gotten some time together, but it hadn't really been enough to catch up. The time at the bandit camp had been limited, and... stressful, to say the least.
It was still stressing Yang out, days after the fact.
"I don't know." Yang finally managed, her voice coming out as barely more than a whispered. She glanced over at Weiss out of the corner of her eye and sighed, offering her friend a place to sit under the blanket. Weiss just slid right in, letting the blanket lie across both of their laps.
"That's okay." Weiss said, stretching out a little bit more and looking up at the sky herself. If the two of them were going to sit there together in relative silence, then that was something that Yang was okay with.
She just leaned back and looked back up at the moon, a thousand thoughts still flitting through her mind like butterflies.
"Isn't it amazing?" Weiss asked, out of nowhere.
"What?" Yang asked, looking up at her teammate.
"The moon." Weiss replied, sighing and looking back over at Yang. "No matter where you are, it always looks the same."
Yang blinked, because that was something that she hadn't exactly thought about herself. In a way it felt almost comforting. Wherever Blake was, she would see the same moon too. Everyone saw it. Life goes on. "It does, doesn't it."
Weiss smiled at her. "It's beautiful." She said, looking back away from Yang now. "Sometimes it feels like it's the only thing that hasn't changed."
"Yeah." Yang mumbled. "You ever think about how differently things could have gone?"
"Well, of course." Weiss replied to her, now the two of them able to lock eyes for a second. "All the time, really."
"We would have been second years this week." Yang said, feeling a heaviness to her that she knew that she wasn't going to be able to shake that easily. She barked out a bitter laugh before continuing. "All of us. Could you imagine that, just... going to classes. Listening to Port ramble. Trying to make out what Oobleck was saying in a lecture."
"I miss it." Weiss whispered. "When I decided that I wanted to be a huntress, nothing like... well, this every came to my mind. I saw a way to restore my family name to honor and try to fix things, and… get away."
Yang nodded. "You know," She said, keeping her voice down because she was afraid that someone else might be able to overhear what the two of them were talking about. "The way that it had always sounded, it seemed like my mother abandoned me because of... me." She swallowed and looked back over her shoulder to check that the two of them were still alone and that nobody was trying to spy on them. "But now the reasons are different and I don't know what to make of things anymore. I've been lied to my whole life."
"It doesn't seem like anyone was allowed to talk about it." Weiss offered, like she thought that might make it better. It didn't, but the thought mattered. "You don't have to love her, you know."
Yang paused because while she and Weiss had talked about their histories before, there were still a lot of things that she didn't know. The two of them had only ever shared so much. Now it felt like she was seeing something... different. Something that she had never thought about with regard to Weiss.
"What?" Yang asked. "But she's... family."
"And?" Weiss responded. "It's just blood. It hurts but... it doesn't mean you have to love them." Weiss began to curl in on herself, pulling her legs up to her chest and wrapping her arms around her knees. Ducking her head like she was trying to hide behind them. Weiss' hair fell forward, creating a curtain of sorts. "Trust me on that."
"Weiss?" Yang picked up her hand to reach over and touch Weiss but hesitated, a few inches away from her for just a moment "What's-"
"Do you want to know why I left Atlas?"
Yang paused because... well, she hadn't really thought about how Weiss had ended up in Mistral all that much. It wasn't like her, where she was going after family or something similar to what Yang had. At least not to her knowledge. It also probably wasn't like Ruby and the remaining members of JNPR, who had come because they could go looking to fix things.
She didn't know a thing about Weiss, and it wasn't like they'd gotten a good chance to talk about it.
"Uh... yeah." Yang replied, leaning back slightly. "I guess."
"I told you all the story about the banquet where I summoned the Boarbatusk." Weiss started, taking her time with her words but still staying too quiet. "But I didn't tell you about what happened after."
"Did... you get into trouble?"
"That's putting it lightly." Weiss said. "My father dragged me to my room- I mean physically dragged. He berated me, slapped me, and disinherited me in about the span of three minutes. He was going to hold me there as a prisoner. He was going to blame my disappearance on what happened at Beacon. Say that I was unfit for anything because of the trauma I endured there." Weiss went quiet for a moment too long, and Yang just felt a creeping sense of horror at the revelation. She'd always gotten the feeling that Weiss hadn't had a great upbringing, despite her wealth. Their conversation earlier that day about their mothers had confirmed it.
This felt like something else entirely, but it made sense. In fact, it was making a lot of things about how Weiss had been acting since they'd reunited make sense. It was hard to miss the way that Weiss seemed to flinch every time that someone raised their voice in anger now.
Yang felt a stab of guilt, knowing why Weiss had seemed to shrink back when she'd lost her temper earlier.
"I... didn't have any idea." Yang said, feeling a little bit more than dumbstruck. "He shouldn't have done that."
"No," Weiss said, looking back up at the moon. "He shouldn't have. But that isn't the point. I don't love him," Weiss explained, some sort of hard to name emotion slipping into her voice. "He's my father by blood, but I don't love him because I realize now that me, my mother, my sister- even my brother were all just tools to him. You don't have to love anyone because they're blood. The only ones from Atlas that I can call family now are Klein and my sister. And Klein isn't even related to me." She went quiet for a moment. "I meant it when I said you guys are like family."
Yang nodded along, but she didn't know that she felt entirely convinced. But the thing was that she knew Weiss, and that she knew that there was some reason that Weiss was choosing to come to her with what she did. But there, resting under the surface, Yang was left with a lot of questions and next to know answers.
"I'm sorry." Yang said, letting her eyes drift over so that they could meet Weiss'. "I just wish that they hadn't lied to me."
"I can't blame you for that." Weiss replied, sighing. "I'm still not really…" Her voice trailed off, but Yang understood what she was trying to say. "I think that being here is the right thing though. Maybe."
"Yeah," Yang couldn't help but chuckle. "Maybe is putting it about right."
"It isn't like we have much of a guideline." Weiss laughed quietly, and she was starting to seem a little bit more relaxed. That was something that Yang was beyond glad for. "I'm just glad that we're all together again. For the most part."
"We could have been normal second years." Yang laughed bitterly. "If only we'd gotten that lucky."
"I don't know that any of us could have been normal, really." Weiss said, keeping her voice down. "With Ruby being… Ruby and your mother. My family. Blake's history. I don't know that normal was ever really possible. But we could have had our time at Beacon as just students."
Yang shrugged, because on some level she was sure that Weiss was right. The thing that she wanted more than anything else would be for them to be able to reset the timer on what had happened. Go back, and just be able to live their lives without their home crumbling beneath their feet and their friends getting hurt or killed.
"Yeah," She said, letting out a quiet sigh. "You're right." Yang looked away, and when she looked down she saw her own hand, metal and painted and not really hers, as much as she tried to make it hers. Another reminder of everything that should have gone differently in her life. Another reminder that no matter what, there was going to be no going back for any of them. Especially for her.
"...Yang?"
Yang blinked, jarring herself out of her thoughts when she realized that Weiss sounded distinctly worried. She didn't look back over, because Yang wasn't sure that was what she wanted to do in that moment. "Yeah?"
"Is there... anything that you feel you need to talk about?" Weiss shifted in closer to her, and the blanket moved with her. Yang pulled it back over herself a little bit, careful to make sure that she didn't pull it away from Weiss in the process. They were all but touching at the shoulders, and that was something that Yang knew she wasn't going to be able to forget about at all.
The closeness was... pleasant, all things considered. Even if she hadn't been planning for it originally, Yang liked it. In fact, now that she thought about it, she and Weiss were spending a lot of time close together anyways.
When they'd sat with her mother and had tea, Weiss had practically tried to hold her hand for a moment. They'd reunited and hugged and Yang had never felt better until she'd finally seen her little sister again.
It felt like things between the two of them had changed so much, even though they'd only been together for a day or two at most. It was a thought that made Yang wish that she and Weiss had been closer back at Beacon.
Yang shrugged, because she didn't know what she did want to talk about at that point. Weiss wouldn't be able to relate to some of the things that were plaguing her, Yang knew that for a fact.
"I dunno." She finally said, and it felt like her voice was only able to come in at barely above a whisper. "I can't really figure it out."
Weiss nodded. "Me either." She murmured, letting herself press in against Yang a little bit more. Maybe she was cold, Yang thought, but she didn't make any real effort to pull back away from Weiss. "I think that I just want to... be together right now." Weiss let her voice trail off. "I didn't know if I would ever see any of you again."
"Yeah," Yang replied, letting her cheek brush against Weiss' soft white hair. "I felt the same way. I still feel like that, but I at least have you and Ruby back."
"We're really stuck in this now, aren't we?" Weiss asked, almost cuddling in against Yang even more. "There's no getting out." She sounded pretty upset, and that wasn't something that Yang could blame her for. The two of them had been told all too much over the course of the last few days, and neither of them really had any way to make sense of what was happening to them.
"Nope." Yang muttered, doing her best to hide exactly how frustrated she felt by all of it. "And Ozpin was trying to groom us for it from the beginning." She hesitated, because that was what her mother her said. Special treatment, turning a blind eye- it had all been familiar and now that Yang knew that was something that she had to worry about she didn't know how to feel about any of it. She hated it.
Weiss nodded. "Do you think that he would have tried for any other team, or do you think-"
"I think that Ozpin might have picked us before we ever would have figured it out." Yang grumbled. "I mean, you said it yourself- between the four of us there is no such thing as normal"
"I don't want to do this." Weiss whispered to her, and Yang understood. She reached out and wrapped her arm around Yang's back, pulling her in just a bit closer because it felt like the two of them really needed that closer connection. It was something that the two of them could hold on to and feel better for it.
"I don't either." Yang replied. "Even if Ruby and the others feel right about it, I don't know that I do. Or that I even can. Not when we can't trust anyone that knows all of what's going on."
"We need to stick together."
"Yeah." Yang sighed. "We need to stick together."
"I'll stand by you." Weiss whispered, tilting her head so that the two of them could finally lock eyes. It seemed like she was just beginning to realize just how close they were. Yang felt an urge to pull the blanket closer around the two of them, but abandoned the thought before it could get out of hand.
It might have meant something, but it could have also meant nothing, and Yang didn't want to know which was the truth. Either she and Weiss were close and both wanted to be there together for the sake of each other, or Weiss and her just needed to feel close to someone else at a time when they were the only ones awake.
"You know that I'll stick with you and Ruby." Yang mumbled back, and she watched as the tiniest smile began to stretch across her face.
For this, Yang would allow time to stop.
They were together, and they were facing a terrible future. That was all that mattered in that moment.
It would end eventually, but for now, Yang just decided to smile back at Weiss.