Well, here's my first fic of 2014! And why not start it with good ole' JaunexRuby?

This is a different fic than my usual works, so I may have bombed it. But I still hope that you all enjoy!

I don't own RWBY, Roosterteeth and Monty Oum do.

Trees and various pieces of debris went flying in all directions as Death Stalkers rammed through the slim trees as if they were nothing but mere twigs, all while pursuing Team JNPR as they were desperately trying to escape the madness. They group of four teens had been sent to terminate a Death Stalker nest, as it threatened to harass the villages nearby. While the nest was now dealt with, they still had yet to rid of the parents, who were now trying to avenge their babies by killing the ones who killed them. With two Death Stalkers on their trail, fighting would end in death or serious injury so they simply ran through the forest surrounding the area in hopes that they would not face imminent death.

With sweat pouring down from his blonde hair and onto his face as well as sting his blue eyes, Jaune called to his teammates,

"Just keep running! Don't stop!"

"I'll be working on that!" His read-head partner called back.

"Let's just turn around and fight these things! We've done it before, we can do it again!" The orange-haired Valkyrie attempted to persuade her teammates.

"No Nora! It was only one last time, and we had difficulty with that!" Ren was counteracting her childhood friend, who returned with, "Yeah, but you're super fast, and I'm super strong, and Pyrrha's got a super throw, and Jaune's super smart, and together, we're a SUPER TEAM! How can we not win?"

The banter was ceased by Jaune's cry of, "Can we just worry about living? Please?"

Nora grew her typical joyous smile and screamed, "GOT IT, BOSS!"

Jaune still couldn't believe that Nora could find a chance to be this joyful, even now. To be honest, it actually scared Jaune to an extent he would rather not think about. But there was no time to think about that now, because they were now at a dead end which took form in the ending of a cliff which, when one looked over the edge, revealed a massive ocean that continuously with several pointed rocks all of which were hundreds of yards below. Basically, they were looking down at indefinite death below them. As they finished observing the horrors below the cliff, the two Death Stalkers broke through the tree line and headed straight for them. With death by the sea and rocks not being a valid option, JNPR got their weapons out and ready for conflict. The Grimm creatures simultaneously raised their tails up and smashed them b into the ground, separating the team into Jaune and Pyrrha on one side and Nora and Ren on the other. The monster pair split and charged after the two sets of partners.

With that, Pyrrha and Jaune charged forward, with their shields and swords raised in attack and their battle cries emitting from their throats. The Death Stalker swung its massive tail at the two, but it was intercepted by Pyrrha's shield and slashed at with Jaune's sword which caused pain for the massive creature. It again attempted to swing at them, only for it to be dodged as the two leaped away from the massive appendage. The Death Stalker raised its tail up as if it was enraged and it attempted to smash Jaune, only for him to deflect it yet again and slash at it with his family sword. Finally, the massive beast collided with Jaune's unprotected legs and sent him flying where he landed mere inches away from the cliff's edge, where he laid in a mass of distortion.

When the blonde finally came back to his senses, he looked up to view the situation in search of a plausible outcome, per usual. However, he looked up to see his partner getting worn down from fatigue, before finally getting hit in the ribcage and colliding with a tree, as well at the sight of Ren and Nora being flung immediately after attempting to fight the large beast.

For some reason not even Jaune himself could explain, he felt a deep, uncontrollable rage that caused his white aura to glow brilliantly around his figure. Then he took a massive leap forward with his sword and shield in hand all while yelling from the top of his lungs. The two Death Stalkers took notice of the boy and began to charge him. Jaune raised his sword and while fusing his aura, he sliced off the tail of one of them before leaping and driving the blade through the injured beast's skull. The other beast raised its tail and brought it down on its now dead friend, but only before Jaune pounced out of the way and grabbed onto the appendage with the strongest of grips. The Death Stalker attempted to shake him off, but Jaune wasn't having any of it. He was going to end this thing right now. So, he began to hack at the golden pointer until it was officially hacked off and plummeted onto the poor Grimm's head. Still enraged, Jaune seized the opportunity to send a massive burst of aura to send the scorpion carcass up into the air to turn into particles, all while screaming in a reddening rage. Jaune continued to breathe heavily with the now deceased creatures dissolving around him. As his vision cleared and his rage faded, he looked to his injured teammates. Nora was staring up at him in uncharacteristically shocked silence, Ren's eyes had widened greatly, and Pyrrha was looking at her leader with her mouth agape and her eyes were fixated onto Jaune with mild fear. Another uncontrollable feeling began to bottle up inside of Jaune.

But it wasn't anger.

It was shame.

Team RWBY went into mild panic and serious worry to hear that three of members of JNPR had been badly injured and needed serious medical attention. At first, Ruby couldn't help but be extraordinarily panicked at the high chance that the JNPR team leader, and Ruby's boyfriend, would fall among the three. She was proven incorrect, however, when the doctors rolled Nora, Pyrrha, and Ren into the medical bay. But the quite unusual part was that it was just those three, as their leader was nowhere to be seen. It made no sense, on any other day, Jaune would be right alongside his injured comrades. But, for some reason, he didn't show up. This got Ruby even more worried. The rest of her team advised her to not worry so much about the blonde, saying that he was probably fine.

Ruby Rose never was much of a good listener, so she worried, and eventually took off to find her blonde boyfriend.

The search for Jaune finally concluded when Ruby found him on the rooftops, standing deadly still with wind smashing into his face and throwing his hair in miscellaneous directions. He seemed unaware of his girlfriend's presence, as he made no movements whatsoever

"Jaune?"

Ruby attempted to call to the blonde, but he did not respond and continued to stare off into the cold late afternoon sky. This struck worry in the young scythe wielder, so she walked up to her boyfriend and wrapped her arms around him from behind and she rested her head on his left shoulder. Jaune seemed to pay no mind to the attempted comfort, he just kept staying still and looked out to the sky. Ruby couldn't help but feel greatly saddened at the boy's alarming silence. They remained like this for several minutes, with Jaune doing a flawless statue impression while Ruby held him, until Ruby finally broke the silence with,

"If there's something wrong, you can tell me-"

"I don't deserve to be here."

Jaune's proclamation brought great surprise to his girlfriend, seeing at this was the first words he had said to her, as well as the worrisome tone and words themselves. Ruby looked up at Jaune's face, as it still had yet to change positions yet.

"Huh?"

"I said I don't deserve to be here. I don't deserve to be team leader, either."

Sadness brew up in the girl at hearing this,

"Jaune, if you blame yourself for what happened toda-"

"It's not just that. It's part of it, but not all of it."

Ruby was definitely interested in what was plaguing the blonde boy's thoughts. A wave of depression and a mild hint of anger fell across the boy's face as he began to explain himself.

"We were being chased by Death Stalkers in the forest after we killed those eggs, but we got cornered and had to fight them off. Everything was going fine at first, Pyrrha and I took care of one Death Stalker, Ren and Nora took care of the other, like always. But when I saw them get hurt today…"

Jaune trailed off as his mind trailed back to the memories of the day, memories he clearly did not want to keep stored in his head.

"… I just lose it. I sprinted at those freaks and took them down. It all happened so fast I barely remember it. When I came to my senses, they were all so terrified of me …"

The hinted anger from earlier overtook Jaune's features and Ruby felt his body language tense and his stomach muscles get so tight the almost threatened to snap. His mind had descended into self-hatred before he continued,

"It wasn't even entirely me. It was my aura. Pyrrha told me that I apparently have a lot of it. But I just can't control it. When it takes over me, I lose it. And I'm terrified of when it'll take over again, and what I'll do."

Ruby expressed her sympathy via her facial expressions while still hugging Jaune from behind.

"Jaune, it's going to be ok. You can get better-"

Jaune finally turned around in agitation, causing his girlfriend to let go of him and stumble backwards for a few steps before Jaune furiously ranted,

"What if I don't get better?! Huh?! What if my aura completely takes over?! What if I seriously hurt somebody?! What if I kill somebody?! I don't ever want to do that to anybody! My team will just end up getting hurt by me!"

The anger on his face turned to immediate depression and sadness at the shock and hurt in Ruby's widened silver eyes.

"And now I'm hurting you. Out all the people in the world that I don't want to hurt, I would never want to hurt you. And I just hurt you. So please, for your own good, leave. Just go. Stay away from me, and never look back."

Ruby was now genuinely surprised at Jaune's melancholy words, which caused her to become melancholy herself.

"You…want me to just leave?"

Jaune nodded sadly as his depression flowed into his blue eyes as it were water fleeing into a river bed,

"Yes, I want you to stay away from me. It's for your own good, Ruby. I'm a time bomb, with no idea when I'm going to explode and what will happen. I don't want you around when it happens."

Ruby went quiet for a little bit, processing what the boy was saying and instructing her to do. But then her eyes went hard and steely with determination.

"No."

It was finally Jaune's turn to look at Ruby, surprised at her words.

"No?"

"No. I am not leaving you, Jaune. You can get help, we can get it under control."

"Ruby, I need you-"

"No, Jaune. I know that you're worried for me and your team. I understand that, but I will not leave you. That's final."

Jaune was surprised at her resistance. Despite her innocent and shy nature, Ruby was quite stubborn when the situation called for it. Jaune knew that, but hadn't been expecting her to rebel against him so quickly.

Knowing there was no going against her words, Jaune finally submitted.

"Ok."

Ruby's happiness returned with vengeance as her eyes of silver were shining with her typical happiness as her adorable smile stretched across her pale face. She followed up with giving Jaune a massive hug and snuggling her head into Jaune's chest. After seconds of initial surprise, he hugged his girlfriend back run fingers through her hair. He also began to word his apology

"I'm so sorry, Ruby. I'm sorry that I'm an idiot who-"

"Jaune, it's ok. You're having some troubles, we all do. We can handle it. You can handle it."

Ruby's interruption brought a smile onto her face that was returned by the blonde.

"But is there something, anything I can do to make it up to you?"

"Talking to your teammates would work fine."

Jaune's smile fell and his shoulders slouched.

"Ruby…"

"They need to talk to their leader, Jaune. And you're their leader."

"But what do I say? After today, how can I convince them I'm still good enough to be their leader?"

The scythe wielder put a supportive hand on his shoulder,

"Just tell them what you told me, that you never want to see them be hurt. And don't back down, or they'll think that you don't care. But you do care, so just tell them that."

Jaune went silence for a few seconds, trying to make up his mind before finally making up his mind.

"Ok, fine. I'll talk to them, but I'm really nervous."

"You'll be fine, Jaune! Just go and talk to them and you'll be fine!"

Jaune's face lit up as his confidence grew and his smile returned.

"Ok, I'll do it."

"Good. Now got get 'em, Vomit Boy!"

Jaune held in a groan at his nickname as he marched away from the roof and to the medical bay where his teammates would be waiting, leaving his girlfriend smiling at his retreating figure.

Jaune took in a massive breath before entering the area where the rest of Team JNPR would be situated. When he entered the room, all three of them were attached to IV machines that were transfusing medicine into their bloodstreams and were obviously now in recovery. Their heads turned to their leader as he entered the room with a nervous smile and a shy greeting,

"H-Hey guys."

The friendly greeting was recuperated by a nob of acknowledgement from Ren, and small smiles from Pyrrha and Nora. Jaune then took an audibly deep breath again before his features were stricken with strong determination as he spoke to his injured comrades.

"Look, I just wanted to come by and say that I'm sorry. What happened in the forest was me being impulsive and reckless and I wanted to-"

"Jaune."

The leader's rambling was interrupted by Pyrrha, who was now sitting upright and looking directly at him.

"It's fine. It was your aura that made you lose control. We can work on that, but you shouldn't put yourself at fault."

"She's right," Ren intervened, "You are having difficulties with your aura and need some help on getting it controlled. It won't be an easy task, but not an impossible one."

"Yeah! And you're our leader, Jaune. And a good teammate helps their leader!"

Jaune's smile grew larger at his teammates' word of encouragement before saying,

"Thank you all, honestly. I really appreciate it. I just want to try and do this leader thing right."

Pyrrha smiled at her leader and stated,

"You are fine. Everyone needs help, Jaune. Leaders are no exception."

Nora and Ren nodded in agreement, making the blonde feel contentment growing within him. He knew that getting his aura controlled was not going to be a simple task, not by a long shot. But he at least had the satisfaction of knowing that he had at least four people to back him up.

So this fic is based on something that I think (and hope) will happen in the actual RWBY plot. Ever since we were first introduced to Jaune, we learned that:

1) He has a strong aura, according to Pyrrha.

2) He never went to any actual combat schools prior to attending Beacon. Since he didn't even know what aurawas until Pyrrha explained it to him, it's probable that he doesn't have much experience in aura control.

With that in mind, I believe that these two points will come together and his aura will become a problem later in the series, both to himself and those around him. I hope that this happens, because think of the character development that it would lead to for Jaune.

Before I drag on too much, I'm going to sign off here.

Until next time, readers and writers!