Not Quite The Stork

by Kaen Okami

Every day since Raven left, Summer has thought of her partner, and hoped that one day she would change her mind and come back to her. Her wish finally comes true, but not at all in the way she thought it would. Now, the sudden addition of Taiyang and Raven's daughter into their lives forces the remaining members of Team STRQ to confront their buried feelings about her departure.

"You're gone, gone, gone away, I watched you disappear

All that's left is a ghost of you

Now we're torn, torn, torn apart, there's nothing we can do

Just let me go, we'll meet again soon."

- Little Talks, Of Monsters and Men

~0~

Summer Rose had never considered herself a morning person.

As such, it took her a long and groggy minute first to realize that she was suddenly awake, then to register that it was not her alarm going off but a ringtone, and finally to fumble for her Scroll on the nightstand and answer it.

"H'lo?" she mumbled. Her eyes still only half-open, and there was sunlight streaming into them through the gap in the thick hotel curtains, but she could feel in her bones that it was far too early.

"Guys?!" Taiyang's panicked voice was a jolt to her system that woke her up near completely. "Guys, a-are you busy?!"

"Uh..." Qrow's voice too; a three-way call. "I was...kinda sleeping?"

"Mm-hm," Summer agreed.

"Good, you're not busy! Can...Can you both come over here? Like, right now?"

Summer blinked. "Tai, what's going on? Are you okay?"

"I-I'm fine, don't worry, nothing's really wrong, I just...I don't think I can explain over a call, can you just come? And, uh, can one of you stop somewhere and get baby formula? A-And newborn diapers?"

A moment of silence. Then Qrow muttered, "What the hell, Tai?"

"Just do it? Please?"

"Okay," said Summer, reluctantly kicking off her covers. "Okay, just hang tight, we're on our way. Right, Qrow?"

"Urgh...Yeah, sure, we're coming."

Forty minutes later, Summer found herself with a convenience store bag in each hand, walking down one of the sunlit but silent dirt paths that wound around Patch, and wondering what the trouble could be. She had Moon's Tooth strapped to her back, as usual, but this didn't sound like something she'd need to fight off with a monk's spade...

A noise from above pulled her out of that train of thought. Even without the distinct rattling caw of a crow instead of a raven's far deeper kraaaa sound, or the similar shopping bag in the bird's talons, Summer would have known which red-eyed black bird was gliding down to the treetops. She had learned a long time ago how to tell them apart, though Tai still struggled unless he was looking at both the twins together.

No chance of that anytime soon, she could not help but think, with a twinge in her heart, and tried not to feel disappointed.

In the time it took her to blink, Qrow was dropping down on his feet next to her with a loud thump, the bag transferred instantaneously to his hand.

"I keep telling you, you're going to screw up your knees landing like that."

Qrow shrugged. "Good morning to you too. What do you think's got Tai all freaked?"

"Your guess is as good as mine. I just finished a mission right by the coast, so it's lucky I was so close by."

"Same here. I was just at Beacon with Oz, it's not a far fly from there." Qrow paused. "You think Tai's okay?"

"I hope so. But we'll see soon enough."

It was only a few more minutes of walking before they arrived at the Xiao Long house. On reaching the end of the path and the beginning of the lush green yard, Qrow and Summer glanced at each other curiously: it looked typically peaceful enough.

Summer pushed open the unlocked front door, and before the two of them had even stepped inside, Tai was up like a shot from the living room couch...holding something small, red, and moving in his arms.

"Guys! Great, you're here, I...I've got a lot to explain to you."

Summer barely heard the words, or saw the mix of relief and residual panic on Tai's face. She was transfixed by the very familiar red and black patterned fabric, as much as she was by the tiny waving fist and curl of blonde hair wrapped in it. It took only a second for the pieces to click in her brain.

"...Raven?" she blurted softly, and something painful flashed in Tai's eyes.

Qrow blinked owlishly, looking between the two of them. "Oh, hell."

~0~

"Did you see her?!"

"Is that really your kid?!"

"Did she say anything to you?"

"How old is she? Did you just get her today?"

"What's her name?"

"Will you two back up for a second?!" Tai yelped. "I want to talk, but if you'd let me breathe for a second first?!"

Qrow and Summer glanced at each other again, realized that they were both standing mere inches from their poor teammate and his baby, and took a long step backward. "Well?"

Tai took in and let out a breath, before starting in with his explanation.

"Okay...No, I didn't actually see Raven. She didn't really say anything, either, I...An hour ago, I was asleep. I heard this scratching on the glass on my window, and this really loud cawing outside it, and it didn't stop until I woke up. I heard her crying, and went to the window to see what was going on..." He awkwardly shifted his weight from foot to foot, rocking the now-quiet baby. "And I found her left by the door, with this shirt and that note over there."

He gestured with his head to a small note on the kitchen counter, while Qrow pinched the bridge of his nose in irritation. "That dramatic bitch," he muttered. "She's real quick to go back to all the tribe's bullshit, isn't she?"

Summer, for her part, had already darted over to drop her bags, pick up the note, and read:

Tai -

She's yours. Take care of her and stop looking for me.

It wasn't signed, but Summer instantly recognized the thin, scratchy handwriting. She read and reread the lines, something cold setting in on her gut. She could practically hear her partner's voice, sharp and dismissive without even looking her fully in the eyes -

The now-familiar pang of hurt and grief jabbed at her heart again, sharper than it had been in months, and she slapped the note back down on the table. "She is unbelievable!" she hissed, stalking back over to Tai and Qrow.

"Well, I can believe it," Qrow grumbled.

"What did you mean by that before, Qrow?" Tai asked. "About...the tribe? Is this common for you guys?"

"Not exactly. Bandit tribes take in runaways and strays all the time. People know that, so if they have a baby or kid they don't want, they drop them by the camp gates, or at least near where they know a tribe is roosting, in the hopes that they'll get taken in by them. I've seen it happen with our people a few times. Raven must have remembered, too."

Tai and Summer stared, appalled. "Is...Is that what happened to you and Raven?" Tai asked. "When your mom found you?"

"First of all, Kite's not my mom. Second of all, no, according to her Raven and I were just dumped in the middle of the woods. If the Grimm had found us before she did, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Raven probably thinks she's being real considerate here by comparison."

"Oh..."

Qrow took his hand off his face and turned back to Tai. "Like I said, do you think that's really your kid? She - " He tilted his head to the side, squinting at the baby, who was staring just as curiously back at the three new faces above her. "She's got purple eyes, is that a thing that happens? Since you've got blue eyes and she's got red? Summer, you know about weird eyes, is that a thing?"

"Me?!" Summer blurted. "I don't know? Silver eyes are a dominant gene."

"What the fuck is a gene?"

"Qrow! That's first-year biology!"

"You know damn well I never paid attention in class!"

"If you two scare my baby shouting like that I swear I will knock your heads together," Tai growled through clenched teeth, and both his teammates fell momentarily silent. They then started talking again in softer voices.

"Well, I don't know," Summer said again. "She's got your blonde hair, and...I guess she kind of looks like you?"

"Summer, that baby looks like a potato and you know it," Qrow said flatly.

"Dude!" Tai yelped.

"It's true! She can't be more than - " Qrow took another quick look. "Two or three weeks old? They're still pretty squishy when they're fresh outta the mom."

Tai looked contemplative. "You think she's that young? You sure?"

"Yeah. The older kids in the tribe have to babysit the younger ones a lot, so I...kinda ended up just learning about that stuff?" Qrow scratched his head thoughtfully. "What I don't get is why Kite would just let Raven go give her kid to an outsider. She thinks the people who ditch their kids for us to pick up are disgusting, but she's always excited to get new additions to the tribe. And she's not exactly big on letting anyone go from the tribe once they're there..."

Summer frowned. From what little Qrow and Raven had said of their adoptive mother, she didn't seem like too terrible of a person...But she also got the sense that the leader of the Branwen tribe was not at all a woman to cross. However, she didn't get the chance to dwell on that point any further, before Tai speaking out loud caught her attention instead.

"Two...And that's...Nine, and..." Tai's head jerked up and he stared into space with wide eyes. Summer could almost see the light bulb going off in his head. "Oh. Oh. Ohhh."

Something in Qrow's face twitched. "Oh what?"

"...Y-Yeah, she's mine," Tai said. "Definitely mine."

"You're sure?" Summer said, at the same time Qrow asked, "What happened?"

"Uh...w-well, there was the graduation party, and..."

"And?" the other two pressed at once.

Tai's cheeks went distinctly pink. "L-Look, can we not talk about that right now? Or at all? We kind of have more important things to think about here?"

The three of them looked down at the baby again. "Yeah," said Qrow. "Kinda."

Summer took a deep, steadying breath. Team STRQ was, technically, disbanded, between their graduating Beacon and Raven fleeing the continent. But, she was still its leader, and it was still her job to take the helm.

"Okay," she said, straightening up to her full height (which wasn't much, but still). "Plan of action. What's the most important thing we need to get done, at this moment?"

Qrow shrugged, while Tai paused to think. "All right, uh...We need stuff, right? A crib...Clothes...Changing stuff..." He trailed off into a sigh, looking down at the baby again. "I'm going to take care of you as best I can, sweetie, but you know, I wish you had come with a little bit more of a warning."

"Don't worry, man, I just got back from a mission, so I can throw in for whatever you need," Qrow said.

"Same here!" Summer added.

"And here...weird that we all come home and get paid around the same time," Tai mused.

Qrow rolled his eyes. "Raven had both the best and worst timing for this drop ever, it looks like."

Tai looked startled. "You think she knew? That she was...hanging around, watching us, waiting for it?"

"Sure. She's an impulsive ass, but she's not stupid."

"O...Oh," Tai said again, shifting to downcast again very quickly. "And all this time I've been...I mean, I didn't think she was so close, but..."

"Uh...Don't worry about it." Qrow awkwardly patted Tai on the shoulder. "You wanna head out now? We don't need to get everything today, but checking a few major things off the list might make you feel better?"

"Huh?" Tai blinked. "But...I can't leave her."

"You can take a little while to clear your head." Summer looked up at him curiously. "Have you even put her down since you brought her inside?"

Tai blinked again, as if he hadn't considered that. "No?"

Summer promptly reached out her arms. "Let me hold her, then. I'll look after her until you two get back."

Unconsciously - she hoped - Tai held his daughter closer. "Uh..."

Clearly, this called for a firmer hand. Or voice, as it were. "Taiyang, give me the damn baby."

"O-Okay."

Tai leaned forward and carefully passed the baby to Summer, who felt a nervous jump in her heart as she wrapped her arms around the delicate, tiny weight.

"Hi there, cutie," she cooed, as much to soothe herself and Tai as the baby. "Hi...It's okay, you're safe with me."

Qrow poked his head over. "Are you supporting her head? They've got tiny necks, you gotta support their heads so they don't die."

"I know how to hold a baby, Qrow, calm down." She smiled reassuringly at Tai, who still looked shaky about this. "I used to babysit for families with little kids while I was still in combat school. I'm a little rusty, but I still know what to do."

Tai nodded, eyes still lingering on the little girl wriggling in Summer's arms. Qrow put an arm around his distraught teammate's shoulders and guided him towards the front door. "We'll be back soon, don't worry."

As the door shut, leaving Summer alone in the silent house, she wasn't quite sure which one of them he had been trying to comfort. For a few moments, she stared at the closed door and listened to Tai's station wagon start up and drive off, her mind briefly frozen as things really started to set in. Then a surprisingly sharp whimper broke her out of her near-reverie.

"Shh, shh..." She started to rock the baby as best she could, like Tai had been doing. "It's okay, honey. Your daddy will be back soon, and Auntie Summer's going to take good care of you in the meantime."

Aunt...That was a decent enough thing to call herself, wasn't it? Especially, she realized with a slight jolt, considering that Qrow was now a biological uncle.

"I wonder if he's realized that yet," she murmured. "If I had to bet, I'd say he's probably been too distracted. What do you think he'd do if we called him Uncle Qrow when he comes back, hm?"

She knew, logically, that the little girl couldn't yet understand a word she was saying, but she had read that you ought to talk out loud to babies as much as you could. It was supposed to be good for their brain development and all. And in any case, it seemed to be working: the baby was looking up at Summer seemingly more intently than before, now that she was the only one in her limited field of vision.

"That shouldn't be too much of a problem for me, I don't think," she went on, a smile coming to her face. "You'll find I'm quite the talker, sweetie. I hope you won't end up getting tired of me before long."

The memory that barged into her head at that wipes the smile from her face just as quickly as it came -

("You little motormouth," Raven mutters, her fingers in Summer's hair far gentler than her voice. The scents of the Beacon dorm's sheets, of the night air from the cracked-open window, linger in Summer's nose. "I was ready to go to the stupid dance with you anyway. But you just don't know when to quit, do you?"

Summer nuzzles closer into the taller girl's shoulder. "Weren't you the one who told me that a leader has to push to get what she wants?" she teases. "I figured you wouldn't mind a little extra motivation.")

Summer bit her lip. Gods, the thought of her partner still hurt, grabbed her straight by the heart and squeezed.

"Your mom's not a bad person, honey," she murmured. It felt important that she say this, as if just the repetition would unlock a solution to their team's ruin. "It would be easy to say that and be done with it, but...She's not. She's my friend, I know her better than that. She...She's just..."

("Raven!"

Her partner had dropped from the air and landed hard on her knees. In the time it took Summer to run to her, she hadn't been able to pull herself back up. Raven is normally pale but now she's whiter than death itself. She stares wide-eyed at the ground, every inch of her trembling, and hugs herself tight. She doesn't seem to be seeing or hearing Summer, as she quickly crouches down to try and help.

"Raven! Raven, I...It's okay. Look at me, it's okay. Are you hurt?!"

Raven's breath is coming too fast and too shallow. Summer tries to take her hand, and it's freezing cold.

"Raven, listen to me. Deep breaths, okay? I'm right here, I'll help you. You're home now, you're safe - "

Raven twitches, only now feeling the touch of Summer's hands, and jerks her head up to meet her eyes. Her own are huge and bloodshot, and Summer can see her own frightened face reflected in them.

"Safe?" Raven echoes, with a twisted smile, as if it's the most absurd thing she's ever heard. "Summer, none of us are safe. We're all going to die.")

Summer swallowed hard. She wished so badly that she had known the right things to say to Raven, so that awful day wouldn't have been the last time she had seen her.

"...She's scared. So much more than she's willing to admit. People don't always make the best decisions when they're scared. And she won't let me...She won't let any of us help."

Either that, the other voice at the back of her mind chastised her, or they really were useless to Raven, and she had been right in casting them off of her. The former certainly made her feel better, though.

"It's not that I don't understand her. And it's not that I'm stupid or naïve, either, no matter what she thinks of me," Summer added with no small streak of bitterness; Raven had had plenty more to say about what she thought of their not vanishing from Ozpin's sight along with her. "She knows she's not safe, so she runs off and hides somewhere she can pretend to be. Where she can act like she's in complete control. She's not really all that subtle, although I'm sure she thinks she is. And, you know, I am upset with her, for running out on us and not listening to anything we have to say. But...Mostly, I think I'm just scared, too. She's running herself straight into a corner and it's going to hurt her one day, and what scares me the most is that we're not going to be able to help her when it does."

The baby was lying still in her arms, now, gurgling softly. It seemed like this whole talking and rocking combo was working out pretty well for the both of them, Summer thought. She definitely felt a lot calmer than before.

"You're kind of therapeutic, honey," she remarked, starting to pace back and forth across the room. "I haven't been able to say things like this to anyone since she left. That's...probably a problem, but it's my problem, so I can deal with it. I'm not so sure about your dad and uncle, though. Speaking of which..."

Her Scroll was in her skirt pocket. As well as she was doing so far, she wasn't sure she trusted herself to be able to securely hold this baby in one arm while she grabbed it. So she crossed the room one more time to sit down on the couch, and with all the care she could, laid the little girl down on her back on the cushion next to her. There she whimpered and squirmed a bit, but Summer was confident that she didn't yet have the muscle strength to roll over and hurt herself. Just in case, though, she kept one hand resting on her chest and shoulder, both to gently hold her still and to calm the increasingly distressed noises she was making.

"Shh, shh," Summer hushed her, pulling out her Scroll with her other hand and tapping to her messages section. "Shhh, it's just for a minute. We're just checking on Daddy and Uncle Qrow, and then you're right back in Auntie's arms, I promise. Shhh..."

She shot Qrow a quick text - 'hey, all good?' - and was surprised to receive equally quick answers.

'not great'

'tai's trying to keep it together, but i can tell, he's kinda freaking out'

'everything hitting him at once'

Summer grimaced. Qrow's presence would be helpful, no question, but he wasn't as good at running damage control as she was. 'Coming back soon?'

'like halfway done?'

'tai keeps talking 2 me about looking 4 raven and kite'

'NOT HAPPENING'

Summer paused a moment, then texted, 'hang in there. come back soon.'

He sent her the black bird emoji, his equivalent of a reassuring smiley face. She sighed. Hope for the best, one step at a time, all that jazz, she decided. Meanwhile, the wiggling and whining under her hand was growing more insistent by the second, and she quickly replaced her Scroll in her pocket.

"You don't like being set down, do you, sweetie? Come here..." She scooped the girl back up and got to her feet. She started walking in a circle around the room, holding her safely to her chest. "Don't worry, I'm still here. I'm not going anywhere."

Newborns were not the most expressive sorts, but it seemed to Summer that the little girl did not look at all convinced. She wondered whether Raven had ever cradled her close like this - whether she'd even wanted to.

She's yours.

And just like that, a whole floodgate of questions was opened.

"I understand why your mom ran from us," Summer said again, swallowing a lump in her throat so she could speak clearly. She was not going to break down crying over her lost partner now, not after she had spent the better part of a year fighting those tears back. "I understand what she must be feeling. After Evernight, she's - "

Something clicked like a heavy latch in Summer's head, that froze her throat and her legs in brief but crushing horror. Even leaving aside all the human-to-bird-and-back shifting that Raven had been doing at the time, the twins had been sent on their mission to Evernight...just about nine months ago...

Nausea hit her directly in the pit of her stomach, and Summer held the baby closer, as if afraid something would suddenly snatch her away.

"Good gods, sweetheart, all three of you are lucky to be alive! But still...But still..." She looked again at the newborn in her arms: so tiny, so innocent. "You don't have anything to do with that! Why...Why would she leave you too? That's what I don't understand. She told me once that she would never abandon her family, not for anything, but...Was that just a lie, or...Or does she not think of you as her family? But why wouldn't she...?"

The weight in Summer's gut only seemed to swell, and she kept on walking to try and push it away. It was easier not to be held down by such weights, she remembers her parents showing her as a child, if one only kept on moving. The ache in her head, however, she wasn't sure was going away anytime soon.

Take care of her.

"No," Summer murmured. "No, that can't be right, I know she cares about us. I know she does. She wouldn't...She could have given you to the rest of the tribe to raise, if she didn't want you. Qrow says that's what happens with bandit children, who don't have any parents. She could have kept you a secret from us...Not that I would have ever wanted her to do that! But she left you with us..."

She knew that it was a bad idea to be so hopeful in cases like this, when her whole brain was telling her that she was wrong. Her heart, still aching for her partner, put the words in her mouth instead, quick and convoluted.

"Maybe...Maybe she just panicked. Again. Maybe the idea of being a mom to you freaked her out, and...And she wanted to ask us for help but didn't know how, or she was too proud to, so she left you here instead? Not that that was the right thing to do, though! You're a person, not a...Not some thing that she can just shove off on someone else when she doesn't want to deal with you. If she wants to be a part of your life, she's going to have to make a choice about where she wants to stay, because you're here now. One family, or another. She can't have it both ways."

Such a thing wouldn't be at all fair, though Summer thought it might sound petulant to say so out loud. Not fair to her team and certainly not fair to her newborn. Newborn...But only just.

"...She kept you, for a bit. Don't listen to your uncle, you don't look that fresh out of the womb to me." She stroked the smooth little cheek with one finger, gently catching a lock of soft, downy golden hair, and smiled. "It looks like you've got quite a lot of hair already for such a little baby, hon. What did Qrow say you were? Three weeks, about? Raven hung onto you for that long...That has to mean something, doesn't it?"

The more cynical part of her mind, small but now determined to make itself known, pointed out that Raven had hung onto her and Tai for four years, to say nothing of how closely she had stuck to her twin her whole life. And she had still thrown them all away, too, just as easily.

But, Summer found herself quickly distracted from thinking about that any more deeply: the baby had started fussing again, suddenly restless in her arms.

"Hey, hey...What's the matter, honey? I - Oh," she said, realizing that her chest that was being nuzzled at. She quickly turned and headed back towards the kitchen. "When's the last time you ate something, honey? I love Raven very much, but if she dropped you here without feeding you, I'm taking out her kneecaps. Moon's Tooth is good with kneecaps."

Summer attempted to set the girl down again, but that only made her cry louder. She was starting to wonder whether that was normal infant behavior, or a result of the girl's so abrupt and drastic change in caretaker. A little bit of both, she decided was the most likely answer. So as leery as she still was about it (forget how Tai would react, if she lost her grip and accidentally hurt this baby she would never forgive herself), Summer shifted her to one arm, held her tighter, and started digging around in the shopping bags on the table for the necessary supplies. She pointedly ignored the overturned note still lying there next to them.

"I'm glad I thought to get bottles along with the formula, because I'll admit, sweetie, I'm not really at my best when someone's just yanked me out of bed to do something," Summer explained, moving around the kitchen, one-handedly trying to get everything out of the bag and mix the formula and water. She paused, rethinking her words, and looked at the teary-eyed newborn in her arms. "If I'm going to help take care of you, I'm going to have to get over that pretty quick, aren't I?"

A hungry whine was her only answer. "Shh, okay, almost done..."

With the aid of the small instruction pamphlet in the formula box to jog her memory, Summer managed to make the bottle up and warm it, and adjusted her hold on the baby so she could put it to her lips. But instead of taking it, she just whined louder and moved her head away. Summer sighed.

"Yeah, I know, not quite what you're used to. But it's all we've got for you, so you've got to drink it, okay, hon?"

She walked back out of the kitchen and settled into the corner of the living room couch, cradling the little girl to her chest: maybe she just needed to feel more comfortable? "Come on, now, sweetie. It's okay."

Another few moments of coaxing, in which Summer started to worry - if this didn't work, what was she going to do next? But then finally the baby took the bottle into her mouth, and eagerly started to drink the formula, and Summer breathed a sigh of relief instead.

"There you go. Attagirl," she murmured, cuddling her closer. "But I'd be pretty dumb to think that all our solutions are going to be that easy, right?"

She kept an eye on the girl until she was done, leaving only a small amount of formula left in the bottle; she didn't want to look away too long and leave the poor thing sucking down air. She set the bottle on the end table, and laid the baby against her shoulder so she could gently pat her back. And only then did she glance out the front window, looking out at the sunlit trees surrounding the house.

A little over nine months had passed since she had last seen Raven, since she had shoved Summer away and sprinted away, vanishing into the dusky sky in a flash of black feathers. Ignoring all of Summer's shouted pleas for her to come back, that she wasn't thinking straight, that if she would just wait for a minute they could work this out...

"We could have worked it out," Summer said softly, frowning out at the bright blue sky. "Couldn't we?"

Or had she really been the stupid, unreasonable one all along? Like Raven said? She'd lost count of how many times the thought had passed through her head, in her friend's voice. Wasn't it her job to keep everyone together? That was what a leader did. And yet it seemed like everything she had tried to say was all wrong, had just made Raven even angrier at her. Every day since Raven had gone, she had caught herself looking for a spot of black in the trees or in the sky above her, or a flash of crimson out of the corner of her eye, so she could both know that her friend was all right, and maybe get one more chance to try again. There had to be a way she could convince her to come back.

"Because...She has to come back sometime, doesn't she? After everything, she wouldn't just leave and never look back? We have to mean more than that to her, because..."

Because what? That cynical voice, damn her, was back and snapping. Because you love her so much? She's obligated to love you back? To care if you live or die? That's not how this works.

"No," she said again. She bit her lip and took care to breathe slowly and deeply; that too-familiar tightness in her throat was not going to get the better of her today. "We can't just mean nothing to her. We...we're more than that. And I...Sweetheart, I'll never let you think that of yourself, I promise."

The baby rested contentedly against her shoulder, as Summer gently rubbed her back.

"We'll see her again." Summer kept staring out the window. Maybe her friend was nearby right now; though she had always been able to tell before when one of the twins was watching her from a bird's eye view. "She'll come back. Some way. She has to."

There was a fragile, trembling feeling in her chest, that she did not like one bit. Ignore it, like always, she decided. She had plenty of other things to pay attention to, and soon it would go away.

Yeah...And we keep it moving, she told herself, standing carefully back up. Back to the pacing, she thought, returning to her circle around the living room. Though every time her voice of reason told her not to, she checked out the window every time she passed, for a glimpse of what she had been watching out for somewhere there. She tried to tell herself that she was listening and looking for something else instead - Tai and Qrow coming back, maybe - but that was a difficult task. Though her heart was slowly but steadily calming, her brain still raced to fortify her wall of denial.

Her teammates weren't like her family, she reasoned. They were closer. And this time, Summer was in a better position to take care of the ones she loved so much. Raven was not yet dead, only...lost. Summer could still try to protect her, bring her close again, couldn't she?

Everything they had been to each other couldn't just be over. The same Raven who had fought and trained by her side for four years, who she had shared food and secrets and a bed with, who had flung her onto her back and sprinted miles and miles to get her to safety, when an unplanned explosion of her eyes had taken out half a horde of Grimm and her with it. Despite being terrified out of her mind and having no clue what had just happened, Raven hadn't even thought of abandoning her then...

Summer glanced back down at the baby, who had drifted to sleep in her arms, and tried to smile. Raven had fought down her fear to do the right thing before, for the people she loved. There was no reason she could not do so again. Was there?

"She cares about us," Summer found herself murmuring, repeating. Holding a crumbling dam together with clear tape. "She cares. She loves us. She'll come back. She'll come back..."

Again and again, like a lullaby, until it almost sounded true. After a while, she started to get lost in it. She didn't quite register the rumble of the station wagon until it came to a stop at the side of the house with a loud sputter of the engine.

She turned around, for a quick and hopeful second fully intending to go out and greet them, maybe help unpack a little if she could...Until the next second, when the noise of slamming car doors and shouted argument reached her ears through the walls. She froze at the end of the living room, holding the baby tighter and grimacing.

"Slam that front door and wake her up, I gods-damn dare you," she hissed between clenched teeth, shifting her weight back and forth to keep the girl sleeping in her arms.

As it happened, her command was only half-followed: Tai threw the front door open, but Qrow left it hanging there as he stormed into the house at his partner's heels.

"I'm not listening to you on this right now, Qrow!"

"Well, you better start, because all your ideas about how to deal with her are shit, Tai!"

The baby stirred slightly under her hands, but by some small miracle did not wake.

"You two better cool it or I'm throwing both of you right back out that door," Summer growled, stalking across the room to get between them as they glared fire at each other. Tai and Qrow's arguments hadn't devolved into straight-up punches since they were seventeen, but tensions were running just a little higher than normal today. "Fill me in, why don't you? What's the problem here?"

Tai's face was still pale and his hands shook. "We...We got in a fight on the car ride home, because - "

"Because Tai doesn't know when to fucking drop an idea that's not gonna work," Qrow growled, his expression downright stormy as he glared over Summer's shoulder.

"Will you shut it and let me talk?! You won't even consider trying, I've been - "

"You've been being fucking stupid is what you've been doing! It's not an option! I'm not going back home, not for anything, and you shouldn't be trying to either! The tribe can screw, why do you give a damn what Raven and Kite are thinking?!"

"Maybe I don't want to believe the worst of your sister just yet, like you do! You saw her, she's not okay! What if we're looking at this wrong?"

"Neither of us are okay after what we saw, Tai! I'm dealing with it and she's not, just how am I looking at that wrong?"

"Oh, yeah, drowning yourself in liquor, that's a great way of dealing with it!"

"Will you two stop it?" Summer snarled, then tried to take a breath to calm herself. "Okay...okay. Qrow, we've been left with no answers, none at all. Would it really be such a ridiculous idea to try and find Raven to see what in the hell she's thinking?"

Qrow's lip curled. "Figured you'd take his - "

"Don't you start. I'm on our side. Answer or don't, I don't care if you're going to be like that."

"Fine. I'm not going back to the tribe, I'm staying with you and Oz, I've decided that. If Raven wants to waste her life with a bunch of shitty thugs in the woods, that's her problem. She's not changing her mind and neither am I."

"No one's asking you to go back for good, Qrow!" Tai protested. "And no one's asking you to go alone!"

"Tai's right, we'll go too!" Summer put in. She could feel the baby stirring again, but she could not let this go. "Raven wouldn't hurt us, she'd listen to all three of us if we - "

Qrow cut her off with a derisive laugh. "Wake up, Summer. She's ditched us. You think just because you want to see her so bad, she wants to see you? Either of you?"

Rage flared in Summer's chest, and she fought down the sudden urge to scream. "What if we were wrong? What if something else is going on with her and she needs our help?" she hissed, Tai nodding vigorously behind her.

"You wish. You just want us to be all back together again, but it's not going to happen. Raven's made it clear she only cares about herself after all. She doesn't care about you two, she doesn't care about me, and she sure as hell doesn't care about that kid! We're all just unwanted trash to her!"

For a full second, Summer saw red, and felt the same engulfing heat in her skull that built up when her eyes burst into silver light. She opened her mouth, heard herself start to shout something, at the same time that Tai snapped from behind her, "Don't talk about my daughter like that!" and Qrow stepped forward to yell something more, that she heard but was too angry to process -

And then the shrill shriek of a newborn suddenly frightened awake made all three of them jump, briefly startled into silence.

"Shit..." Tai ran a hand roughly through his hair in frustration, and then reached for Summer's shoulder. "Damn it, I'm sorry, I - "

Summer reflexively jerked away, holding the crying girl closer to try and stop her hands from shaking. All of a sudden she felt her face burning and her eyes stinging, and if she didn't get herself out of here right now, she was going to snap, she knew she was.

Seeing her start to move away, Qrow took another tentative step forward, looking now distinctly out of his element. "Hey...Summer, come on, I'm - "

"No!" she hissed, gritting her teeth. Even if she had wanted to yell again, she couldn't through the returned tightness in her throat. "You...You two, figure it out, I can't...I can't!"

She turned on her heel and darted upstairs, trying to move quickly but not roughly, for the sake of the little girl in her arms. She shut herself in one of the spare bedrooms at the end of the hall, and leaned against the bare wood-paneled wall, seriously afraid that she would collapse if she didn't. Part of her registered that she hadn't heard the arguing pick right back up downstairs in her absence, but she just had no capacity to respond to that right now.

The tears were flowing freely down her face now. Nothing she had tried over the past months would hold them back, and she hated herself for it, fiercely and sharply.

So weak...Some leader you are, you're so weak, it's your job to be strong, why can't you...Why couldn't you?!

The baby was still wailing in her arms, and Summer cradled her close to her chest, trying to rock her as best as she could.

"I...I-I'm sorry, s-sweetie," she managed, choking on sobs. She tried to adjust the shirt tucked around her; at the very least, she wasn't going to let her tears fall on the poor girl. "So...S-So sorry. Shhh..."

Stop looking for me.

The words still felt like Raven's Aura-enhanced palm slamming into her chest, and it brought on another round of sobbing.

"Sh-She...She r-really is never coming back, i-is she?"

Summer hated how pathetic, how pleading she sounded. Raven would sneer at it, if she could see her now. Oh, gods have mercy, but how she still wanted to see her now...

"I-I, I really thought...I..."

Gods, she doesn't even know what she thought. She never wanted to hurt Raven, never. And she wished that she had known, while she still had the chance to do so, how to tell her how badly they - she - needed her. Part of her been so...so convinced that they had more time, that Raven hadn't just shrugged her words off as worthless, that one day she would change her mind and come back. And maybe it was selfish of her, but it wasn't just that all of them together stood a better chance of survival than they ever would apart. Even more than that, Summer just did not want to have to look to a future where her best friend was gone.

Oh, gods, why couldn't she pull herself together?!

She tried to blink back her tears and swallow her throat back open. She looked down at the baby, who her attempts at comfort had managed to calm from screaming to just crying. The wide lilac eyes staring up at her looked just as scared as Summer felt, and yet more guilt was thrown into the roiling mess of emotions in her gut.

"Oh...Oh, honey, I-I'm so sorry. It's not...This is not your fault. W-We're falling apart," Summer admitted, trying to make her tone sound soothing even despite the cowardly words. "We have been for...for a while. And, and I don't...I-I should know what to do but I...I..."

This wasn't helping. Deep breaths. Deep breaths, she ordered herself. There was no way she could calm the baby down with such a strained voice, such a frantically racing heartbeat. Gods knew the poor girl was probably having a far worse day than she was, and wanted Raven back far more than she did right now.

"Shh...Shh, it'll be okay..." The words felt so empty, and Summer so weak. "Do you miss your mommy, sweetheart? It's okay, I...I miss her too. S-So much. Shhh..."

Less than a day and she was already failing. What...What were they going to do when the girl got old enough to know what her mother had done, Summer wondered? When she understood fully what it meant to be left behind by someone she should have been able to trust more than anyone?

"I...I won't be able to tell you why she left, when you're old enough to ask. I don't understand it. Why she left us, I know, but...Why you, too? Why...Why hurt you, too? She doesn't want us, fine, but...What could you have ever done to her, that she'd..."

Some part of her brain once again reminded her that the girl hadn't understood a single word she'd been saying all morning, and wouldn't understand this one either. But still, to say abandoned out loud just felt cruel. It painted a red-hot streak of anger through her heart, that began to clear her head and slow her tears.

"Why would she...?" Summer whispered, half to herself. "I could never...My family is gone, too. My dads, everyone, they...They didn't leave me alone on purpose, but...I know what it's like, to be left behind, all alone. I would never wish that on anyone, and she...How could she?"

Summer ran her hand again over the soft, thin red fabric, and wished more than anything that she knew what was going on in her partner's head.

Take care of her. Stop looking for me.

One more deep breath. Then another. The second one hitched, badly, and tears still leaked from her eyes. But she felt her heart beginning to calm again, and her trembling was gone as she held the girl.

"Raven would let that happen to you," she said softly. "But I can't. I won't."

Another breath. Summer straightened herself up fully, and glanced around the room, for the first time fully taking in her surroundings. She carried the baby over to one of the twin beds, and laid her gently on her back on the quilt, starting to unwrap the shirt around her. As she did, the girl squirmed harder and fussed louder, both at being set down and at having her loosely wrapped attempt at a blanket removed.

"Shh, shh, shh," Summer hushed her, stroking the tears from her tiny cheek with one hand and unfastening her own cloak with the other. "I know, sweetie, I know. It's just for a minute. Not even that. It's okay."

She slipped the cloak off of her shoulders and laid it flat on the bed, pulling away the string that held the hood around her neck; she wasn't quite sure if it was a choking hazard, but she wasn't taking any chances. She slipped the string in her pocket, picked up the baby, and laid her gently down again on top of the cloak. She didn't one hundred percent remember how swaddling was done, and her cloak was much bigger than a regular baby blanket, but she did her best, murmuring soothingly to the girl to keep her calm.

"There," she cooed when she was done, scooping her up again. "There we go. Is that more comfortable, sweetheart? I bet it is, hm?"

The girl stopped crying outright, as Summer straightened back up and resumed rocking her, but she still whimpered in her arms.

"Shhh..." Summer was able to give her a tiny but genuine smile. Her own tears were gone, for now. "It's okay, honey. Mommy's got you. Mommy's here now."

She still wasn't entirely sure that she had the right to award herself that title, even if Raven had so readily discarded it. But it felt right, to her. Whatever she had to do to ensure it, this girl was not going to feel alone or abandoned. Not like her. Not on her watch.

The thought soothed her, and before long she felt her system settling into the still and quiet calm that always came, after riding out a breakdown and letting the solution-finding part of her brain boot back up and take over. As such, when there came a hesitant knock at the door a few minutes later, she was able to turn and answer sounding more like a person and less like a cat with a hairball.

"Yeah?"

The door squeaked open, and Tai poked his head in. "Uh...Hey. You okay?"

Summer still felt part of her nose stuffed up, her eyes still stung, and she was sure that there were obvious tear tracks left on her face. But that was all that was left of her crying jag, and she felt fairly certain that another one wouldn't rear its head anytime soon. "Yeah, I'm fine, I just...needed a little space."

"I figured," Tai said, stepping inside and coming up to her. "I felt bad leaving you alone up here, but you, uh...really did look like you needed that minute."

Summer was all of a sudden very grateful that she wasn't quick to blush. "Sorry, for flipping out on you guys back there."

"Hey, I was coming up here to tell you the same thing." Tai rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "I think we all kind of lost it a little. Qrow and I, we've been talking while you were up here. Like, actually talking. And we've more or less figured things out?"

"That's good. I hope you don't mind I kind of...ran off with your kid?"

"Oh, no, don't worry about that, you...I trust her with you. But..." Tai looked down and tentatively lifted his hands. "Could I, uh, have her back now?"

"Well, of course," Summer almost laughed, passing the baby over to him. "You are her dad, after all."

"Gods, that still sounds weird." Even so, Tai was smiling, cradling his daughter tenderly. "Hey, honey. Daddy's back. I'm sorry we scared you, honey, we won't do it again, we promise."

The baby laid contentedly in Tai's arms as he kept talking, managing to loose one arm enough to grip the finger nearest her tiny hand.

"Oh, wow, aren't you a strong one?" Tai gushed, adjusting his hold so she could hang on better. "Look at you, in your cool new blanket. I bet you're all nice and warm in that, huh?"

He grinned at Summer, who suddenly felt self-conscious, looking down and shifting her feet. "I...thought she'd be more comfortable in something softer, is all..."

"No, it's great for now, Summer! We damn near filled the trunk, but I don't think I remembered to grab her an actual blanket. I mean, I think we got a lot of the major stuff, we made a list on the car ride up, but still..." Tai sighed. "Thanks so much for looking after her while we were gone. It means a lot to me that you and Qrow came out to help, really it does."

Summer reached up to put a hand on Tai's bicep. "Of course we did. We're still teammates, and friends. We're here for you both." She hesitated a moment, then decided to throw it out there anyway. "I can't speak for Qrow, but if you like, I can stay here for a while, to help you out with her. If that's okay with you, that is."

Tai's eyes widened. "I...Summer, that's really nice of you to offer, are you sure? I wouldn't want to take you away from home too long."

Summer rolled her eyes and smiled. "Yeah, because I'm just dying to go back to that tiny apartment in Vale."

She appreciated the assistance programs that Beacon offered to its more down-on-their-luck students and graduates, really she did. But 'assuaging of loneliness' was something she had to take care of herself, and she had not been doing a very good job of it. Two birds with one stone, it occurred to her. And speaking of which...

She glanced for a second back to the discarded shirt on the bed, then back to Tai. "I didn't fully get what Qrow was trying to say you did, but it sounded like...Have you really been trying to look for her?"

Tai glanced away, almost ashamed. "It's like I said. You saw her when she got back from that place, even better than I did. She's...My last memory of Raven is her breaking down worse than I've ever seen her, I had to at least try."

"Yeah." Summer tried not to let her own shame show in her voice. The thought had crossed her mind before to go after Raven; that was, after her attempt to chase her down the night she'd bolted ended in failure. But following that, what had she ever actually done, other than wait for Raven to return to her instead? "Did you ever get anywhere?"

"No, not really. I thought it was because I wasn't trying hard enough, but..." He sighed. "After what Qrow said, about her being so close and us having no idea, it's looking more like she just didn't want to be found. And I wasn't going to be able to track her down, if that was the case. I was afraid of that..."

"Is that why you didn't tell us?"

"Yeah. So that means if Qrow really was right, and I disappeared because the tribe doesn't want anyone on her tail, no one would have known where I was or what happened to me. No wonder he freaked when I told him."

Summer knew logically that that was right, and felt it best to quash the sprouting desire in her heart to run off and try her hand at it. All the better, then, that she and Tai now had something stronger than their duties as Huntsman and Huntress to keep them firmly grounded here. A change of subject couldn't hurt either.

"Is he still hanging around downstairs?"

"Yeah. You want to head back down, then?"

"Sure. Let's go."

Tai nodded, then turned and left the room. Summer started to trail after him, but stopped. She glanced back just one more time, at the sky and trees outside the window. They were as still and silent as ever.

When she was very young, her father used to say to her, If you love something, let it go. And if her dad was within earshot, he would grin and chime in, And if it returns to you, it is yours.

She took a long, deep breath, then turned around to follow Tai.

~0~

The two of them made it halfway down the stairs before Summer sighed yet again. Qrow was seated on the couch, his top half hunched over and his long legs stretched out, as he sipped from the emblem-embossed flask that was becoming more and more of a presence in her friend's hand lately than she'd like.

"Qrow," she said flatly, pointing to the baby in Tai's arms. "Baby. Close proximity. Probably shouldn't be drinking?"

Qrow looked up at her with a largely blank expression. "You don't know what I've got in here. Maybe I'm drowning my sorrows in apple juice. You don't know."

Summer rolled her eyes, and came up to sit on the arm of the couch. "No, but I know you."

"Tch. I barely got my lips wet. Listen..." Qrow replaced the flask on his hip, and looked her full in the eyes. "I shouldn't've yelled at you like that. I'm sorry. But listen: you guys cannot go out after the tribe anymore. They're a shitty excuse for family, but they were my shitty excuse for family, so I know them best. The regular mooks, sure, you could take no problem, but Kite is vicious, has got her favorite girl home to back her up, and fucking hates when people up and ditch the tribe. What she wanted from sending the two of us to Beacon...Well, she got it from one of us, and there's no way that that's enough for her."

"...You think she'd hurt you, too?"

Qrow gripped his cross necklace tight.

"She...She's not my mom, and I don't want to sound like some dipshit kid, but...To put it real simple, guys, if I go back home now, my mom's going to kill me. And she'll know who you are; Raven and I told her those first few breaks we went back to the tribe, before we started staying around here instead. She'll blame you for luring her precious kids away from her, and she won't want to let you go unpunished. And...I don't know if Raven would help her in that. I don't want to think she would, but...I just don't know. But even if she didn't help Kite kill you, I doubt she'd try to stop her, either."

"Hmph." Summer slid out Moon's Tooth and hefted it in her hand. "Let her try. Let either of them try."

Qrow blinked. "Summer, I don't think you're quite getting what I'm trying to express here."

Tai, once again, looked thoughtful. "Well, like you said before, that doesn't explain why she was able to leave the baby here. Would Kite have forced her to? To...To punish her somehow?"

"Not a chance. Kite would never do that, she'd just love the chance to dote on a grandbaby." Qrow looked up curiously at the newborn. "There's a piece of the puzzle missing here, but I don't know if it's worth it to dig too deep about what it might be."

"Right," Tai agreed. "I want an explanation, but...I don't want to put any of us in danger to find it. You're right."

Qrow shook his head. "Don't butter me up, I lost my cool. I should have been up front from the beginning, too."

Tai nodded. "And I'm going to keep my priorities straighter from now on."

"And I haven't had to learn a lesson today!" Summer added brightly, deciding she'd rather keep her day's personal realizations personal, for the time being.

Qrow snorted, and met her grin with a wry smirk. "Thanks, Summer. Thanks a lot."

"Anytime!"

"Ugh." Qrow leaned back and stretched his whole body out like a cat, and then pulled himself to his feet. He paused a moment before reaching a hand out, and when Tai made no move to back up, tentatively petted at the baby's head. "Listen here, potato. Aunt Summer already gave you her cloak, don't let her give you her smart mouth, too. Not cool."

"You know, if you're planning to make her think you're the cooler one, you'll have to come up with a better nickname than that, Uncle Qrow," Summer pointed out.

Qrow froze as if given an electric shock, eyes going huge. "Oh, shit. I really am her actual uncle, aren't I?" he blurted out, and Summer and Tai burst out laughing. "Shut it! I have...actual responsibilities and shit, wow..."

"Don't worry, honey," Tai assured his daughter, as Qrow retracted his hand. "Your uncle's not as brainless as he acts, I promise."

"Hey!"

"And speaking of names," Tai went on, ignoring Qrow. "You need a real name, too, don't you? We can't just keep calling you honey."

Summer tilted her head thoughtfully. "Honey's a name."

"A stupid name," Qrow scoffed.

"Bold talk from the man named Qrow with a 'Q.'"

"Hey."

Tai kept his eyes on his daughter's face, studying it carefully. "Lilac, maybe? Because of her eyes?"

"That's like if my dads had named me Silver. Qrow's right, we ought to think a little bit bigger."

"Hmm...How'd you two get your names?"

Summer shrugged. "Born on the summer solstice. Pretty common thing to do."

"Mm, meaningful names are a pretty big deal in the tribe. Kite used to be pissed that her dad didn't name her for any special reason," Qrow mused, rubbing his chin. "Ravens are smart birds, and they'll follow armies, packs of Grimm, bandits on the move, so they can eat the bodies left when everyone's dead. Kite named Raven in the hope that she'd grow up to be a clever leader who would have good instincts and feed the tribe well one day. And...You know why she gave me my name."

Summer tilted her head in the other direction. "I'm sorry, I'm still on this, where did the Q come from?"

"Kite's Red Bull vodka hangover at four in the morning, she didn't stick to tradition too hard."

"Jin? Or Feng?" Tai thought out loud, sounding unsure. "Those were my parents' names. They mean 'gold' and 'phoenix,' I think."

Qrow nodded approvingly. "Phoenix is cool. Phoenix is a bird."

"It feels like you're on the right track," Summer agreed.

"Yeah...I've always thought that giving a baby the name of a dead relative was a weird thing to do, though. Puts pressure on the kid, you know?"

Summer and Qrow, who had no great opinions on this sentiment, looked at each other and shrugged. Tai thought for a few moments more...And then his face lit up.

"Guys! I got it - what about Yang?"

The other two startled. They glanced at each other again, and then back to their teammate. "Taiyang, that's your name," Summer pointed out.

"Except short," Qrow added.

"What, you don't like it? Come on, you guys, it's perfect! Yang Xiao Long." Perhaps by coincidence, perhaps not, the baby started cooing happily, and Tai's face broke into an even more delighted grin. "See! See, she likes it, you're outvoted."

"Uh...Hm." Qrow silently counted that figure on his fingers - two against two, more a stalemate than anything - but Summer got the sense that that quite mattered anymore.

"Yeah. Yeah, that's your name, sweetie," Tai cooed back, lifting her up higher for a moment to kiss the top of her head. "My sunny little dragon. That's you."

Good gods, Summer could physically feel her heart about to explode.

"All right, I'm sold. Yang it is, then." Summer smiled, poking Qrow in the thigh with the blunt end of Moon's Tooth. "Take notes, Qrow, that's a cool name."

Qrow gave an exaggerated huff, but he was smiling too. "Fine. In twenty years she's gonna have a kid and name it Ya and you'll have to deal with it, but fine."

Summer, whose brain was not quite done bashing her with unwelcome thoughts, wondered if Raven had ever thought of what her daughter's name should be, or if she would ever know it now that she had one. If she would even care to. But she gave her head a small shake to clear those thoughts away, and smiled even brighter.

"Well! That's one thing taken care of," she said, standing up and leaning Moon's Tooth on the couch arm again. "Now I think we should get the rest of the stuff taken care of. Qrow, you want to help me unpack the car, show me what you guys went and got?"

"Sure." Qrow took Tai's keys out of his pocket, and a pleasant chirp-chirp sounded from outside as he unlocked the car. "It all looks nice, but I'm not looking forward to having to put it all together."

"Come on, there's no way it's as hard as everyone says," Summer reassured him, as she and Tai followed him to the door. "Put Thingy A into Other Thingy B, how hard can that be?"

"Hell if I know. We don't have half this stuff in the tribe, and what we do have we either steal or inherit. They're not much for building things over there."

"Well, now you're going to learn some things, aren't you?" Summer looked over her shoulder to smile at Yang again - gods, it really was so nice to be able to think of her by name. "Just hang tight, sweetheart, we'll have a nice home set up for you before you know it."

~0~

Several hours later, 'before you know it' had not come yet.

"I can hunt down criminals no problem. There's no Grimm that can survive me. But it's putting together this gods-damned crib that's going to kill me!" Summer groused, half on her back on the hard floor, trying to figure out how to fit these half-assembled pieces of white-painted wood together in a way that didn't feel ominously loose.

All she could see of Qrow from here was maybe a third of his skinny legs. "Don't worry, Summer. Next one'll be your turn to hang back and read the instructions while Tai and I fuck around with the thing. Though good luck finding the parts in the language we actually speak."

"I'll manage. What's it say now?"

"Locate the red lynchpin..."

Summer ran a hand up to the bars of the crib. Her fingers found the narrow, rounded piece of red plastic, and tugged it out. "Got it! What now?"

"...But do not remove it."

Summer didn't have time to fully think, oh, hell, before all the pieces promptly collapsed on top of her like a fallen Jenga tower. "Aagh!"

Even upside down, she could still recognize Qrow's smirk. "You're right, that is gonna kill you."

Summer gave her friend as withering a look as one could give, having just been knocked upside the head by the frame of a crib.

"Well, you two look like you're having fun," Tai said pleasantly, stepping into the room as Summer extricated herself from the pile of pieces.

"That's one word for it," Summer said, taking a weary breath as she walked over to him. She didn't think she could be too annoyed, though, getting the opportunity to coo over Yang again in between her tasks. Her cloak held the baby more loosely now, and she was dressed in a new, fluffy yellow onesie with a smiling orange sun emblazoned on the chest. "Well, aren't you a cute little ray of sunshine?"

Tai grinned. "It looks like we managed to get the right size, thank gods. You want to tag out for a minute? I'll see if I have better luck with this thing."

"Oh, gladly. Come here, sweetie..."

When Summer reached out, Tai didn't hesitate for a second this time in handing Yang over to her, before heading over to the rather pitiful looking heap she had left behind. She found herself thinking that she was getting used to the feeling of the little girl held safely in her arms pleasantly fast.

"You've been pretty calm today, hon. You think we're all feeling better now? Hm?" She held her finger out for the baby to grab, curious, and was surprised by the quickness and intensity of the reflex. "Oh, damn, that is really tight."

"Yeah, that'll happen," Tai said. "Qrow, we got the two-in-one crib and changing table, right? Which part do we put together first?"

"Hold up, let me go back," Qrow muttered, flipping the small, shiny pages of the instruction booklet backward.

"We should have done this one first, if we were going for all the big pieces of furniture today." Tai looked over Qrow's shoulder at the diagram of what the final product was supposed to look like. "That table looks a lot nicer than laying out a bunch of old towels on the bathroom counter."

"As long as we have the essential stuff, I think we'll be okay for now," Summer said as she crossed the small room. The two twin beds that had occupied the center of the room before, the three of them had shoved into a corner to make room for the new items. Summer settled down on the closest corner of one to the window, in the warmest patch of sunlight she could find. She was careful not to let it stream into the baby's eyes, as she leaned against the piled-up pillows. "We don't need to take things at too fast a pace."

"Fair enough," said Qrow and Tai together, as they started again to put the pieces of the crib together.

"Yeah...Do we, sweetie?" she crooned softly, smiling down at her. She held Yang close to her chest; her heartbeat there was more than steady enough to soothe, now. "My little sunshine."

Her focus was on Yang, she was sure it was. So she really had no idea what it was that drew her eye to the window at her side, even before the familiar black shape came flying by, just above the treetops, dark feathers striking against the pale blue sky.

Summer froze.

Qrow and Tai hadn't noticed anything, too occupied with their task. Summer didn't dare move or speak to draw their attention, in case she had been wrong...

But she hadn't been wrong. Her eyes followed the bird's intended course, after it had disappeared from sight past the other side of the window. And sure enough, after a moment, it - she - reappeared at the far window across the room. Not approaching the house, not getting too close, but alighting on the branch of a nearby tree and looking through the window into the room. Summer could never mistake the intensity of the read eyes staring into her own for anyone else, even at a distance.

No words were exchanged, of course. No feelings communicated by their proximity or their unblinking eye contact, either. Summer could register nothing in herself but shock, and could read about as much in Raven's eyes as she could have read in two shards of red glass. All of a sudden, her heart was pounding like thunder, and she realized that hoping her friend would come back to her and actually believing she would were two very different things.

One small and ferociously insistent part of that heart still screamed at her, made her legs and arms twitch, to drop everything, leap up, and bolt to her partner. She had so much to say, so much to ask her, and surely Raven wouldn't fly away from her this time - !

...Or would she?

Despite her knee-jerk reaction, Summer didn't think she could move if she tried. Less than a year ago, she would never have hesitated to run into Raven's arms, but...

Why are you here now, Raven? Are you just here to mock us? To tease us? What do you want from me?

She held Yang closer, protective anger surging through her blood, and her hands did not shake even a little.

She's safe with me, if that's what you want to know. You're not getting her back. Not unless you intend to be in her life and not just jerk us around. Can you do that?

Raven blinked slowly, head held high and not one feather ruffled. If Summer's new and unfamiliar distrust had gotten through to her, she certainly didn't show it. With as much indifference as she had arrived, she spread her wings again and flapped off of the branch, taking flight and disappearing into the trees once again. Summer couldn't deny that she felt the same twinge of grief watching her this time as she had the last.

Tai, finally noticing where Summer's eyes were focused, looked up at her. "Hey, Summer? What's wrong?"

"Huh?"

Summer blinked, jolted back to the present. For a moment, a blank expression overtook her face. Both her teammates were staring at her now, in concern and confusion, and it took her a moment that felt like forever to pull herself back into reality. When she did, she smiled, as always.

"No, nothing's wrong. I'm fine."

Qrow quirked an eyebrow, unconvinced. "You sure?"

Damn. She broadened her smile, making it look as close to her natural grin as she could. Yang started squirming again in her arms, and she cradled her more gently. Soft breaths, a steady heartbeat, and a bright smile, and she could already see them start to relax. That was how she would keep their peace, for now.

The urge to check out the window again, just one more time, still tugged at her, but she ignored it. She had a home to protect now, like her fathers before her, and she would not think of leaving it.

"Yeah, don't worry. Everything's fine, I promise."

It was time to stop looking.

~0~