Author Note: So Bax and I were talking this morning and I was struck by inspiration for this story. Enjoy.
"And then one day she left for a mission and never came back. It was tough. Ruby was really torn up but, I think she was still too young to get what was going on you know? My dad just kind of… shut down. It wasn't long before I learned why." –Yang Xiao Long, Volume 2, Episode 6
Somehow, Dad managed to keep the three of us together after Mom died.
Hundreds of people showed up for the burial of Summer Rose. They huddled around the hole as the empty casket was lowered; they were never able to find the body. A steady stream of tears mixed in with the dirt, courtesy of everyone Summer touched in her short life.
Only one set of eyes remained completely dry, red glowing eyes belonging to a young girl who just learned her families deepest secret. She couldn't cry, not yet. Besides, Ruby needed her to be strong. Their father was the biggest wreck of all. He knelt on the ground, sobbing loudly despite the comfort of his fellow huntsmen.
Yang wondered if her real mother was here somewhere, hiding in the crowd to mourn a dead friend, but quickly squashed the thought. That too was for a later time. As Ruby clung to her waist she wondered instead, where do we go from here?
As it turned out, from there they went home. Ruby fell asleep on the car ride home, having spent all of her energy crying. Yang tucked her into bed when they arrived. Although Yang was only two years older than her sister it felt like a whole world had opened up between them. She left Ruby to sleep with a gentle kiss on the forehead.
When Yang rejoined her father in the kitchen he was crying again. "Can you ever forgive me?" He asked after a few minutes, wiping away tear streaks with one hand.
"Yeah, I think I can." Yang slouched in her seat, all of the tension from the day fading away.
"I just." Taiyang hiccupped and hid his face in his hands. "I don't know what to do from here. I can't…"
Yang's eyes flashed red. "I know exactly what you're going to do. You're going to make dinner and not cry in the food so that in a few hours Ruby will have something to eat and a family to eat with."
"Okay." Taiyang was successfully able to make dinner that night, albeit with many delays. Yang kept him on track though, and the now smaller family was able to eat dinner together.
He always packed the best lunches
Taiyang Xiaolong was never the same after Summer's death. He still taught classes at Signal, but with half as much enthusiasm as he had before. He barely spent any time with his children, instead choosing to sleep his free time away.
One day Ruby asked if he could pack a lunch for her to take on a school field trip. He agreed to do it because Ruby needed to eat, and as a parent the least he could do was pack her a lunch. He set an alarm to go off an hour early in order to prepare it.
Unfortunately he slept through the alarm. He even slept through the second one, waking up later than usual. He saw what time it was and panicked, stumbling out of bed. When he got to the kitchen he froze in the doorway.
Yang was already at the counter, putting small plastic bags into what looked like a sack lunch. She didn't seem surprised to see Taiyang as she finished packing the bag. Taiyang took the bag slowly as she held it out.
"Tell her you did it," she said briefly, brushing by him to get ready for the day. Ruby came by almost immediately.
"Thanks Dad!" She snatched the bag from his grasp and stuffed into her bag. "See you later!"
As she left to catch the bus, it occurred to Taiyang that he never signed a permission slip for this field trip.
He even helped me stay out of trouble at school.
A year later, one day after school, the house received a phone call from the vice principal at Ruby's school. The energetic girl recently started picking fights with other students, so the vice principal wanted to meet with her parents.
Yang was the one who answered the phone, set the date and time, and ended up going to the meeting when her father couldn't gather himself to face the administrator. He didn't even pick up the phone to cancel.
The elementary school was only a couple miles from their house, so Yang was able to bike there. She managed to leave the house by saying she was hanging out with friends, which allowed her to escape without scrutiny. She gave herself over an hour to get there. It took less than half an hour to reach the school, giving Yang plenty of time to find the main office.
She was so early she had to wait for the vice principal to come out into the hallway. "Can I help you?" The older woman asked. She'd expected a fully grown man to be waiting for her, not a young child.
"My name is Yang, I'm here to speak with you about Ruby." Yang stood with her back straight, trying to exude confidence and authority.
"Are you her parent or guardian?"
"N-no but…" Yang thought for a moment before eyes lit up. "Our Dad sent me in his place. He got tied up with work and couldn't make it." Hopefully that lie would convince the vice principal. The older woman, used to fielding fibs like that one, saw right through it, but decided to humor the young girl anyway.
"Very well then." The vice principal gestured into her office. "Please come in." The two settled on opposite sides of the desk. "How are you related to Ruby?"
"She's my younger sister." Yang said seriously, crossing her arms.
"Well, she's been caught fighting with other students ten times in the last month. She's also admitted to having started over half of those fights." The vice principal watched as the young girls expression became thoughtful.
"Maybe she's lashing out 'cuz of Dad." Yang muttered. "Or maybe…"
"If her behavior continues we will be forced to take disciplinary action." That's what the vice principal was planning to say to Ruby's father, so she might as well share it with his replacement.
"It'll stop." The young girl jumped out of her seat. "Don't worry I'll take care of it." Yang was almost out the door when she skidded to a halt, turning back abruptly. "Thank you for meeting with me." She bowed her head slightly and then vanished. It was at least another mile to the office supply store and she needed to get there before they closed.
After making her purchase and biking over three more miles Yang finally made it back home. Her legs were sore, but she had a couple things to do before she could rest. She wrote up a set of instructions for her purchase, tucking them inside of it.
Next she woke up Taiyang, thrusting the item in his groggy grasp. "Go give this to Ruby." She whispered so Ruby wouldn't accidentally overhear. "Tell her that when she feels like fighting she should use this instead." Telling someone not to get into fights would sound hypocritical coming from someone with a hair trigger temper. It would be better if someone she looked up to, like her father, gave it to her.
He agreed to do it, so Yang pulled him to his feet and gave him a shove. He found Ruby in the kitchen working on her homework.
"Hey Rubes." Taiyang sat down next to his daughter. He hid the item behind his back so she couldn't see it. "How's it going?"
"Fine." She didn't even look up from her work.
Taiyang cleared his throat. "I heard you've been fighting at school."
"So?" she scoffed.
"W-well an alternate to fighting could be to write in this journal." He put it on the table in front of her. "Next time you're angry, give it a try." He left Ruby to her thoughts, retreating back to the safety of his bedroom.
Ruby glared at the journal as if it offended her. The black and red cover was unbothered by her anger. After a minute of silence she couldn't take it anymore, she had to open it. It flipped open easily, revealing the instructions Yang wrote just ten minutes earlier.
Hey Ruby, it read, There are better ways to deal with anger than fighting. Try writing in me instead. Songs or poems or just your thoughts, I'm here for you.
The next day, when a kid in her class commented on her lack of a mother, Ruby wrote in her journal instead of punching him.
He always had the best books on his shelf.
When Ruby moved on to middle school she developed an interest in reading. She didn't like romance novels or dystopian books, but instead was interested in historical fiction and any book about weapons. As she worked her way through the school library she told Yang all about the books she read.
The library had a pretty limited selection though, and Yang wondered what Ruby would do when she finished reading all of the available books. Yang thought about it for a while, and was able to come up with a solution.
At 13 years old she wasn't old enough to have a part time job, but the neighbors would still hire her to do odd jobs here and there. She only needed to make a little bit of money; just enough to buy some books. Once she purchased a few books about historical fiction and different kinds of weapons she planted them on her father's bookshelf. All she had to do after that was wait. It paid off when, one day, Ruby came home in a glum mood.
"There are no new books to read at school." Ruby complained to her older sister. "I just want to read about new awesome weapons but no, I can't."
"Did you try Dad's bookshelf?" Yang kept her voice level to not give anything away.
"His books are laaame." Ruby groaned.
"You should look again." Yang suggested with a smile. "Things might've changed."
"Fine, I'll go check." Ruby bounced away to look, calling back over her shoulder as she climbed the stairs. "But I doubt it!" She was wrong; there were indeed books on the shelf that piqued her interest. After that she never asked why the books kept changing, and just figured that Dad was being Dad.
And before I started at Signal he made me this amazing cloak. He still says that Mom made it, but I know he's lying.
When Ruby hit her teens she suffered the same fate as many others in her age group, which was growth spurts. The cloak she'd worn since childhood no longer came close to fitting, along with most of her other clothes.
The clothes could be replaced, but not the cloak. Summer Rose made it before she died, entrusting it to Ruby for her eighth birthday. So with Ruby's 14th birthday coming up along with her starting at Signal Academy, Yang decided it was time for a change.
Yang now had a motorcycle and a license to drive it, so getting to the store to buy supplies was easy. All she needed was some red fabric, a cloak pattern, a book about how to sew, and a box of sewing needles. It took her a couple months of careful work while Ruby was out of the house, but Yang managed to finish it in time for Ruby's birthday.
She wrapped it up and put it with the other presents, labeling the wrapping paper as from Mom. Ruby questioned her Dad about the label, and he gave Yang a long hard look before going along with the lie.
Sometimes the lie can be more comforting than the truth.
Sometimes he was just so… distant. But he always came around, 'cuz he's my Dad!
"Dad, Dad!" Ruby burst into the house, disrupting the calm of the night. Taiyang emerged into the hallway slowly, as if unable to shake the sleep from his body. "You won't believe what happened tonight!" Ruby was undeterred. "There were these bad guys and they tried to rob a store but I stopped them like, hyaaa!, and then a huntress showed up and they offered to let me to go Beacon!" Taiyang stared back at her blankly, trying to understand the jumbled mess of words.
"What do you mean they offered for you to go to Beacon?" Was all he managed to produce.
"They want me to start next year. I'm gonna be a huntress!" Ruby struck a triumphant pose, grinning from ear to ear.
"Oh Summer help me." Her father muttered. "I need to sit down." Her grin shrunk as he pat her on the shoulder and stumbled away, escaping to a chair in the other room. Ruby watched him go with a sigh, but was surprised with a tackle hug from Yang before she could move.
"Congrats Sis! I'm so proud of you!" Yang hugged her sister tightly, but not so much that Ruby couldn't breathe."
"Thanks Yang." Ruby relaxed in her sister's embrace. "I was just hoping he'd be happy about this."
"Don't worry," Ruby couldn't see it, but Yang was glaring towards where Taiyang disappeared to a moment before. "He'll come around."
Later, after a stern talk with his eldest daughter, Taiyang started to make arrangements for his daughters to go to Beacon together.
End Note: I might be evil, or just sad. One of those. Thanks for reading.