A/N: This story deals with sensitive topics like death and other issues. Please be warned before reading it. Don't read it if you want to be happy. This will make you sand. Wolf Faunus Ruby AU.
If you really wanna get in the sad mood I recommend reading this with "The Last Rose of Summer" playing the background. The version I recommend and which became the inspiration for this story can be found on YouTube. YouTube Link: /h-P15xujxoI
In case the above link does not work, just go to YouTube and add this to the end of the URL: "watch?v=h-P15xujxoI" removing the quotes.
Please read till the end and let me know what everyone thinks. This is just a story I had an idea about. Don't expect regular updates if at all. For now, It can be taken as a one shot.
Chapter 01: The Last Rose of Summer
It had been a long and trying two years. Her mother had been sick for a very long time. Before, she could manage to move around, and deal with life with a trip to the hospital every now and then. But two years ago was when it all changed. The cancer on its own was bad enough, but the experimental drug concoctions had pushed her mother's vitality to its limit. She had been admitted to the hospital, and left her. The years had not been kind to her.
Who was once a beautiful and vibrant woman, had been reduced to a former shell of her past self. As Ruby saw Summer lying there on the hospital bed, with all those infernal machines and contraptions attached to her, she couldn't help but reminisce about better times.
Summer used to be a good huntress. Before Ruby had been born, Summer used to be spend her days hunting Grimm with her team, and not only had brought her renown, it had been a steady source of income as well. But when she had become pregnant with Ruby, she had given it all up.
Summer had taken up the life of a writer, all so that she could work from home and take care of her precious daughter. Ruby still remembered when she was little and Summer would sit with her at night, and tell her these amazing stories. Stories of brave hunters and huntresses triumphing against terrifying Grimm. She would sometimes speak of her old team. Team STRQ. Summer Rose, Taiyang Xiao Long, Raven Branwen, and Qrow Branwen. Even when Ruby was little she knew not to ask too much about them. Summer would always get sad whenever she was reminded of her team. Although on days when she was feeling especially melancholic, she would tell Ruby stories about them. She never allowed Ruby to see her cry, but Ruby never liked seeing her mother sad. That's why she made it a promise to herself to stifle her curiosity about this matter and never ask her mother about this topic.
Those times were long past now. A time when she was a carefree teenager. A teenager whose biggest worry in life was submitting her homework for chemistry on time or worry about her girlfriend. She still remembered the time when she was 14 years old. It was during the start of her 8th grade when they had found out that despite all the painful chemotherapy, her mother's cancer was still spreading. The doctors had informed them that her mother would have to be admitted to the hospital.
That had just been the start of the troubles. That was a time long past. A time when Ruby believed in hope. Believed in fairy tale endings and happily ever after's. She had cried when she had found out about her mother being admitted to the hospital. But Summer had always been strong. She hadn't allowed Ruby to break down. Ruby still remembered the words her mother had spoken to her back then, "Don't worry my little Rose. I will be fine. You will see." The words spoken with so much love and sincerity as her mother had hugged her, Ruby could do naught else but believe in them.
But Ruby had learned an important lesson since then. Time was a cruel mistress. Time broke down the strongest of wills and brought down the mightiest of warriors. It had been slow. At the start the experimental treatment they had put her mother on had shown improvements. They doctors had assured them that the treatment would work. But it hadn't. Slowly but surely her mother had started to get worse in front of her eyes.
Every day she would go to school. She would pass through the classes, waiting impatiently for the day to end so that she could go to the hospital and spend time with Summer. She used to do all her homework sitting in her room. Since Ruby had been 14 at the time Summer was admitted to the hospital, and with no other family member being present, a social worker was assigned to them. Summer had somehow managed to convince the social worker to emancipate Ruby, to avoid having her being placed under some foster family. How she had managed that Ruby still did not know. Summer was awesome like that.
Ruby had let her dad and sister know about Summer's condition of course. And they had come to visit. They had offered to stay, to take care of her. But Ruby never really had much of a relationship with her father. And she loved her sister Yang far too much to allow her to put her life on hold for them. So she had forced Yang and Taiyang to go back to Vale. She had convened them that they would be fine here in Mistral. They still visited every few weeks, but the visits were few and far in between.
Ruby had had to learn to grow up pretty fast. Since her mother had been in the hospital and the doctor had recommended to keep her stress to a minimum, Ruby had been forced to deal with all the bills and learning to live on her own and take care of herself. Summer had a tidy little sum from her Hunter days saved up, as well as what money she made from her writings. Over the past two years, most of it had been depleted in Summer's hospital bills.
But if it had only been poverty, then Ruby would have gladly become a beggar if only to avoid the fate that rested before her now. Summer's condition had slowly started to worsen. Add to that her memory had started deteriorating as well. On her better days Summer would lie in bed, with a smile on her face just watching Ruby working her homework in her hospital room.
But on her bad days, she would forget. She would sometimes forget who she was. And on the darkest of days, she would forget Ruby. Those days were the hardest when she would shout and scream that she didn't know who Ruby was. And the nurses would have to come in and sedate her. Ruby would then be asked to leave for the day. To avoid agitating her mother. Those days, Ruby would go home cry herself to sleep.
But Ruby was strong. She had to become strong to take care of her mother. As the saying went, you can recover anything as long as you had your health. But life is rarely kind, and almost never fair. About a month ago was when the earth had slipped from beneath Ruby's feet. She remembered her mother's doctor calling her to his office, and speaking with her.
The doctor had said something. Ruby didn't remember what she had said. All she remembered were the six words in between that had shattered Ruby's heart. "…your mother's cancer has become terminal…" Six simple words had turned her world upside down. She hadn't shed a single tear at the time. She had decided subconsciously that here would be time for that later. She had been in such a daze that she barely remembered the doctor laying her down on a bed. It might have been hours or maybe minutes when Ruby had come to. She had of course informed the Xiao Long family about Summer's condition. All of them had come, but after a week they had had to go back. No matter how much they may have cared, Ruby Rose was not their family, no matter how much Yang wanted to believe otherwise. They had their own lives to get back to. Taiyang had hunter business to see to and Yang had to attend her final year at signal.
Since she was an emancipated adult, as well as the person responsible for decision regarding Summer's medical condition, Ruby had forbade the doctor from telling Summer about the prognosis. Her mother on her better days still had faith, and the last thing Ruby wanted was to take that away from her.
And so the most brutally hellish month of Ruby's life passed during that time. She had seen Summer wither away, slowly and painfully. Becoming a shadow of her former self. Her beautiful red hair, once so dark it appeared almost black, now had streaks of silver going through it. Her once perk and upright wolfish ears were folded against her head. Ruby didn't need the doctors to tell her that her mother was not long for this world. Ruby had seen it with her own eyes. Seen her mother slowly become all but a husk.
She had called her dad that morning to let him know, but all she had gotten was his voice mail. She had felt it in her heart that something was wrong today. She had spent the entire day at Summer's bedside, holding her hand. Her mother had been surprisingly lucid today. Whenever she was awake that is. She had been going in and out of consciousness all day. But the good thing was that every time she woke up, she remembered Ruby, and would try to squeeze her hand back with all the little strength she had left and would give her a painful but loving smile.
It was all Ruby could do to hold herself together. Ruby had felt a cold hand grip her heart all day long. Ruby looked towards the clock, and saw that the clock had struck twelve. Signaling the start of a new day. The start of her birthday.
"Hey mom. I know you're sleeping and all, but I wanted to let you know your daughter has reached 16. I know, I am surprised too. With my clumsiness, I wouldn't have bet on me getting this far either." Ruby stated with faux cheer to the sleeping woman. She had gotten special permission from the hospital for her birthday to spend the night with her mother. After fidgeting around for a while she sat down by her mother's bed again.
"Hello Ruby…Happy Birthday my dear child." she heard a voice call out, barely above a whisper. But in the silent room it might as well have been shouted towards Ruby.
Ruby whipped her head towards Summer, and almost broke down right there with how frail the once strong woman looked. Gathering her strength, she managed to speak up, "Hey mom. You're awake. And you remembered."
Even with how frail Summer looked, she gave Ruby The Look, the look that only mothers can give their children when they do or say something silly. The look that manages to convey their exasperation and love at their all at the same time without saying a single world.
Ruby and Summer spent the next few hours conversing about anything and everything. Ruby felt how precious these moments were. Her mother rarely remembered her these days. So this was the best gift she could have possibly received on her Birthday. For her mother to remember her. That's how much Ruby loved her mother.
After a while, Summer fell asleep and Ruby went about cleaning and tidying up the already clean hospital room. Around the five in the morning, when the sun was barely peeking up the horizon, Summer woke up again.
Ruby looked to her mother with a happy smile but that smile started to fade away as she saw the look in her mother's eye. The look of someone gazing not at the daughter they loved with all their being but at a stranger.
"Who…are…you…dear? Are…you waiting…for someone here?" Summer barely managed to get out. And Ruby felt her heart shatter into a million pieces at that. Perhaps it was her because today was her birthday, or perhaps because she knew in her heart that this might be the last time she could get to speak to her mother, and even though it was nothing she hadn't gone through with her mother before, it was too much for her to hold back her tears this day.
"Mom, its me. Your daughter. Ruby." Ruby barely managed to choke out.
"Ruby? …..I don't remem-…" She stopped midway her sentence.
Ruby grabbed Summer's hand, squeezing it as though wanting to transfer her warmth to her mother. But it was too late. Ruby felt her heart shatter for the billionth time when she saw her mother's eyes slowly closing for the last time. Somehow, as only a child can know, she knew her mother would never wake up again.
And thus day came to pass that Summer Rose passed from this world and thus Ruby Rose became the last rose of Summer.
Read and review. I would love to hear what everyone thought. And if anyone cried :)