Blake felt the hand tighten around her throat, Adam close enough to feel his breath on her face. Cold terror made her limbs go numb and she wondered why she'd never seen this side of him before and if it had been there all along.

"Get your hands off of her!"

A blur of golden fire surged towards them, so fast that Blake couldn't warn her away. Adam dropped her and in a fluid motion swung his weapon out. It passed through Yang's neck with no resistance at all.

"YANG!" Blake bolted upright, breathing heavily with sweat making her hair stick to her head and shoulder. She pressed her hand to her face, trying to fight back tears or the sobs that threatened to escape her clenched throat.

It was different every time. Sometimes it was Blake's head Adam removed, or her arm and Blake always wished that were so to spare Yang the suffering. Other times she had to lay there and watch as Adam stabbed at Yang or tortured her. Her imagination was terrible some nights.

Nightmares weren't uncommon for Blake. Even before the fall of Beacon, she'd had them. They weren't as bad as these. Usually fears over what the White Fang would do and a faceless shadow that she now understood to be Adam. Ruby could sleep through an Earthquake and if Weiss woke up she never said anything. In each their own ways it was a comfort. Ruby in her innocence and Weiss in respecting boundaries.

But Yang, Yang would lean over the edge of the bed and peer at her, hair like a radiant waterfall. More often than not she'd listen, or tell Blake a joke or something witty. A couple of times she'd wordlessly crawled into bed with Blake and held her and those nights she could never tell who was actually comforting who.

She threw back the covers of her bed, dressing in silence. She looked at herself in the mirror, twitching her ears as she made sure it wasn't obvious she'd been crying. For the first time since she'd let her ribbon blow away, she didn't catch herself trying to find it. Progress, and it buoyed her mood. She didn't have to hide who she was here, and she didn't have to anywhere else.

Her parents were already making breakfast and surprisingly Sun was helping. She eyed him suspiciously, then sighed and made to get the plates. At least this hadn't changed. They'd always preferred to make their own breakfast.

"Sweetheart," her mother said. "Who's Yang?"

Blake fumbled the plates and if it wasn't for her quick reflexes she would have dropped them.

"We heard you in your sleep." Her father put his arm around her but that only made her a little more tense.

"...she was my partner. At Beacon." Blake slipped away from her father to set the table. She didn't know if they'd watched the tournament or kept up on any of the news and braced herself for that. No matter how much she believed Yang, the world had seen what the world had seen. "She got hurt by Adam."

Even saying his name left a bad taste in her mouth. She hadn't really gone into detail about Adam's actions at Beacon before. "When the school fell, he was there. Leading the White Fang in the attack as they flew in Grimm. I found him killing a soldier, and he went after me."

Blake could see it clearly. Adam looming over her, his threats fresh in her ears. "Yang came to find me. She just… rushed in, not thinking about herself. It was like I was the only thing that mattered to her. But Adam is too strong, too fast." Blinking her eyes, she shook her head to clear the vivid image of Yang laying there. "I barely got us both out with our lives."

Kali shared a look with Ghira. "How badly was she hurt?"

It was both a testament to how much Yang had gotten to her and an annoyance that the first thought that occurred to Blake was to answer with 'she was disarmed.' Her lips twitched just a little, but she instead shook her head and replied. "Badly. But she's still alive. Recovering, I guess."

Ghira frowned, "You don't know?"

"She kind of left in a hurry," Sun offered, perching on a chair.

"I wanted to get away from her, for her own safety! It was dangerous around me. I got her hurt, I could have gotten her killed. You didn't hear Adam, Sun. He threatened everyone I loved. I had to leave her. Them."

"Does that mean-"

Blake's voice flatlined. "No, you're perfectly safe."

Sun's tail drooped, but he shrugged and picked up a fork.

"She's important to you." Kali came over, making her daughter sit at the table.

"Yes." Blake hadn't even realized just how much until it was much, much too late. "It's not important now."

"Why?"

She looked at her dad. "I abandoned her. I cost her so much, I couldn't stand the thought of looking at her and always knowing it was my fault." She hadn't wanted Yang to wake up and hate her. It was better if Yang hated her from a distance.

"Sounds selfish." Sun took a big bite of his breakfast and continued to talk with his mouth full. "Just saying. I mean you can tell yourself all you want that you ran away to protect her but it was mostly to protect yourself."

Hanging her head, Blake only shrugged. He was probably right. That wasn't the first time she'd thought about it and she missed Yang, Ruby and Weiss. "She was there for me and I couldn't be there for her. For any of them."

She smiled tightly, looking down at her food and not really feeling any appetite.

"What's she like?"

Blake started, glancing at her mom.

"Buxom. Like really curvaceous." Sun swerved his hands in an hourglass motion, with an emphasis on the top half and then yelped when Blake kicked him under the table. "What, it's true!"

"Sun! She's a lot more than that." Blake folded her arms, sinking into her chair as she glared at Sun. The worse part was he wasn't wrong but she was trying not to think about that. "She's...funny. She always makes me laugh. And she's got a huge heart. Yang never hesitates to help someone, and not just her sister or her team mates, but anyone who needs help. She was the only reason I actually went to that stupid dance."

Yang had been right, though, she'd needed a chance to unwind and refocus. Her parents exchanged another look and she was about to call them out on the look when her dad spoke. "Why don't you write her a letter?"

Surprised, she countered, "The CCT is still down."

"A real letter," Kali suggested. "It might take a few weeks to get to her with air travel so spotty, but maybe you could clear the air. You might sleep better for trying, at least."

"The worst that could happen is she ignores it." Sun reached over to touch Blake's arm. "Give it a shot. What could you lose?"

Blake thought it over, writing some letters in her head.

Dear Yang,

I'm so sorry so sorry so sorry so sorry so sorry so sorry so sorry s

Dear Yang,

I'm writing to you from beautiful Mena

Dear Yang,

How are you doing? That's probably a stupid question. You lost your arm because of me and I left, you're probably miserable but I hope Weiss and Ruby are taking care of

"I don't know." Blake pushed her plate away from her and got up. She wasn't hungry anymore. "I'm going to go train." She shot a look at Sun. "Alone."