Author's Note: In case the summary didn't give a clear enough warning, this story was written with knowledge of what happened in episodes 13 and 14 of volume 5. So if you haven't seen those yet, you probably shouldn't read.
Anyway, hi everyone! I decided to write this because I knew Roosterteeth would not have the time or inclination to do anything like this in the actual show. And you know what they say, write what you would want to read. Or in this case, write what you want to see. So what I've written here would be what I, a self-admitted White Knight fan, would have liked to see happen between Jaune and Weiss following the events of volume 5.
I hope you enjoy.
"I'll always be here for you, Jaune."
It wasn't a lie. She was there for him every night. Every time he slunk away from the group when he had reason to excuse himself. Every time he couldn't fall asleep thinking of the horrors he had encountered since pursuing his once fanciful dream. Pyrrha had always been there for him.
Jaune stared down at the familiar face on his scroll's screen. A face that always had the same expressions every time the video played. The same words repeated themselves hundreds of times. He could recite the video from memory now. He knew Pyrrha's every inflection. Every pause. Every expression. He could see it in his mind when he closed his eyes. He could play the video in his brain and speak the words himself.
His arms felt heavy, and he slowly let Crocea Mors lower down to the ground until the tip hit stone. Jaune had been working on his skill with his ancestral blade in its great sword form, and doing that always wore him out quicker than training with his sword and shield combination. After what had happened at the fight for Haven, he knew he had to get better.
He had her. He had her in his sights. He thrust with all of his might, and he had missed. His one shot had failed, merely scraping the edge of Cinder's mask. In that moment he could not believe he had missed his opportunity. His heart sank when he did not hear the pained scream of the woman he hated more than anyone else in the world. His misstep had cost him. It had cost everyone dearly. It was because of his failure to deliver the killing blow that Weiss had nearly died. She would have if not for his Semblance.
His Semblance. He could still hardly believe it himself. After all this time, he had finally discovered just what made him special. He had the power to not only help himself, but he could help others as well. He had brought Weiss back from the brink of death, and he had given her enough power to be able to summon a massive and monstrous looking Grimm creature. Since everyone had reunited in Mistral, he had seen smaller creatures that the former heiress had been able to conjure up. However nothing compared to the size and scale of what she had done in the heat of battle. And it had all been because of him.
The thought warmed his heart. It had indeed been a team effort. Haven Academy had been saved. Those who wished to cause misery and harm to others had been driven back. And one... perhaps the most important of them all, had fallen. A sense of closure overtook his heart, but he could not help but feel a twinge of bitterness as well.
He stepped backwards until he reached a wall that he could slide down against and onto the stone below. Jaune looked down to the smiling face of the girl on the screen who had lost the most as a result of Cinder's crimes. "We did it, Pyrrha," he said softly. "We stopped what happened back at Beacon from happening to Haven too. It was hard, and for a minute I thought that the same thing was gonna happen all over again." He paused, becoming choked up on his own words for a moment before continuing. "But we did it. We pulled through. We won. And we sent those bastards running back to wherever they came from."
The face in his hands did not answer. It never answered. Still, speaking to her felt comforting. It felt cathartic. Like she was still there with him. Like telling her about the news would somehow reach her. Jaune did not know what happened to people when they died, but after learning about the existence of magic, after learning about gods and reincarnation, maybe, somewhere out there, Pyrrha knew what had happened here at Haven Academy.
There was so much he wished that he could tell Pyrrha face to face. But nothing more than what came through his lips next. "She's dead," he continued. "Cinder's dead. I don't know how, I wasn't there, but that's what Yang said. Must have been her mom. I'm glad she did it, but... I wish that I could have been the one to do it."
Jaune felt his face growing warmer by the moment as he spoke, and a twin trail of tears started to run down his cheeks. He wiped them away with a sleeve. "I tried my best. I did. But I still wasn't good enough. I wasn't good enough to beat her. I'm sorry, Pyrrha. I wanted to be the one to avenge you. I would have done it without a second thought or regret. But someone beat me to it. I guess I shouldn't be complaining though, should I? All that matters is that evil woman is dead. She'll never be able to hurt anyone else ever again."
Cinder had in fact claimed one more life before she met her end. A woman he knew nothing of beyond her name, Vernal, had died at Cinder's hands. Jaune did not know how to feel about it. She had sided against them in the battle, but had somehow wound up against Cinder in the end. Did that make Vernal good? Or was she merely a shade of grey just a little bit lighter than Cinder's evil black?
"You'd be proud of me though. I managed to save someone from being murdered by her. It was Weiss." An incredulous laugh broke through his tear-stained face. "Can you believe it? After everything we went through back at Beacon, I saved her life. She of all people was the reason my Semblance finally unlocked. After all the time and training I spent trying to do it, she's the one who did it. I'm not sure which one of us will never let the other live it down. If we ever talk about it at all."
Grief was a powerful motivator. He knew from talking with Ren that it was grief which had allowed him to unlock his Semblance as well. For Jaune it had taken the thought and very real possibility of losing another friend to finally allow him to harness his Semblance. The fact that it had come in a situation so similar to what had happened back at Beacon did not elude him.
"And... and it got me thinking. What if you hadn't sent me away that night?" The tears began to flow anew, and he choked back a sob as he wondered what might have been. "What if you hadn't shoved me into that locker in order to protect me? What if I had been stronger? What if I had my Semblance? Maybe I could have done something. Maybe we could have faced her together like partners. Maybe... maybe I could have saved your life too."
Jaune closed his eyes when he felt warm drops of liquid hit his hands. The questions were too much to bear. If he had only been stronger, Pyrrha might still be alive to this day. They might be back in the house with the rest of their friends, laughing and celebrating about their victory here today. However where some of them were, he was not. He didn't have time for that. He had to get stronger. He had to continue to train every day. Not only to become a better fighter. Now he had to hone his Semblance. He had to ensure that he would never lose anyone else to the twisted evils of the world.
"It's funny," he said humorlessly. "We're all here now. For a while it was just good old Team Ranger. But then Weiss and Yang came back. And now Blake. And there's Oscar and Qrow... and Ozpin." The last name had a bit of a darker tone to its utterance. "And despite all of us being here, it feels so lonely. I'm the only one without a partner. Heck, even Qrow and Ozpin have each other in some sort of weird comrades in arms sort of way. But as much as I love Nora and Ren, I still feel left out in the cold. Like I'm the odd man out. It's stupid, I know. But it's just how I feel sometimes."
He laid his head back against the wall, his eyes still closed. He normally didn't get this emotional when training with Pyrrha. However after everything that had happened, how could he not be emotional? How could he not be filled with doubt and regret? With bitterness and anger? With hope for the future?
After what seemed like an eternity of silence he was snapped from his thoughts by the sound of an unexpected voice. "You're not alone, Jaune."
Weiss had not exactly meant to interfere in whatever it was that Jaune was doing. She had not meant to eavesdrop on him either. However when she had been walking through the house in Mistral that had become their home for the past several weeks, she had heard his voice. It had seemed odd to her, considering that everyone else was back inside chatting among themselves. She knew that Jaune had excused himself earlier, but had not thought much of it at the time.
It had been simple curiosity that had caused her to listen near the entrance to the house. Then she had heard his words. They were meant to be private. Meant to be shared between only two people. Neither of them were herself. Yet she continued to listen. She heard as Jaune unburdened himself of every terrible and heart-wrenching emotion that was filling his body in that moment. And it was indeed painful to hear. He was a young man filled with lament. Uncertainty. Pain. She could relate to that. Once upon a time she had been filled with all of those same feelings and more.
Then he had said the magic word. The one she could identify with more than any other. Jaune had told Pyrrha that he was lonely. That despite being surrounded by friends, he felt alone. She had been too back before going to Beacon Academy. Weiss had had wealth. Fame. Servants. People who would bend over backwards in order to try and be her friends. And yet, she had felt like the loneliest girl of all.
That was why she could not, and would not, let another person feel those same terrible feelings she had once suffered.
"You're not alone, Jaune," she said as she stepped out from the shadows and into the light of the home's courtyard.
A surprised and wide-eyed face snapped up at her. Jaune did his best to dry his tears on his fingers, using the motion to appear to be scratching his eyes. She didn't buy the deceit for a second. One could not fool a person who had shed more than her fair share of tears over a lifetime.
"Weiss," he said cautiously. Fearfully. "How long have you been there?"
She understood his embarrassment. This was not exactly an ideal moment for them to be talking. Not when only moments ago Jaune had lost his composure. However, his words had hit home with her. Weiss had grown up with loneliness. It was a fate she would never wish to thrust upon anyone else.
"Long enough," she said vaguely. She took a hesitant step over towards him. "How are you doing, Jaune?"
The blonde snorted a soft laugh. "I think you already must know the answer to that."
She did. Yet she wanted him to know that she cared. Sometimes the intent behind a question was as important as the answer.
Weiss stood there for a few seconds as silence settled over them. She hadn't really thought about much of a plan for what to say. Coming out and telling Jaune that he was not alone was done out of impulse. Everything afterward would just have to be done on the fly.
She took another step toward him before speaking again. "Still, I feel that it's important you know that you're not alone," she told him. "You do have all of us. Even me."
That last part was an important part to clarify. She and Jaune had not exactly had the best history together. Even in light of recent events, she still wanted to make absolutely certain he knew that she harbored no ill feelings towards him.
"I know," he smiled. It was as fake of a smile as she had ever seen. The others might fall for it, but not her. Weiss Schnee had mastered the art of a fake smile. The fact that he wore it like it was nothing spoke volumes to how often he must have worn it since Beacon fell.
Weiss took another step, and now was close enough to both him and the wall so that she might sit down against it too. She might as well. Her dress had a nice hole in it the shape of a spearhead. Sitting on the stone floor would not ruin it any more than it already was.
After sitting down a couple feet away from him, Weiss pulled up her knees so that she could rest her hands against them. She focused on them as she spoke again. "I never did get a chance to say that I was sorry," she said softly. "Pyrrha... she was a good person. A good friend."
"Yeah," he agreed somberly. "The best. Thanks, Weiss."
"If you ever do need... want to talk about it..."
She saw in her periphery that Jaune had nodded. "Yeah. I'll keep that in mind."
He might keep it in mind, but he would never take her up on her offer. People liked to suffer alone. They liked to not be a burden on others. And after everything she had just heard Jaune tell Pyrrha, it was obvious that he felt as if he had been a burden. He felt weak. He felt like he needed to be able to do more. He would not come to her or anyone else to get his feelings off of his chest.
If she wanted him to do so, she would need to push him to do it herself.
"And I never thanked you for Ruby either," she continued. After hearing the tales from Nora about what their makeshift team had gone though, she felt as though he did deserve her thanks. They all did. "As someone else who has had to put up with her for nearly an entire school year, you have both my thanks and my condolences for having to deal with her."
There was a trace of humor to her voice which lent itself to helping bring out the same emotion from Jaune. A tight smile curled on his lips. "She wasn't that bad."
A smile was a good thing. It was a thing shared between friends. She wanted him to know that he did have friends. That he wasn't alone. That he should not feel the way he did about himself.
"Regardless. You have my eternal gratitude for helping to keep her safe." She almost added that she would not know what she would do without her partner, but she knew that was perhaps the worst possible thing she could have said in this situation.
He shrugged. "We all did. We all had to look out for each other. I- we couldn't let anyone else die."
Weiss caught his slipup. He blamed himself for Pyrrha's death. He would have blamed himself for her own. He would have blamed himself for anyone they lost. Like he had told Pyrrha, he didn't feel strong enough.
He was wrong though. He was strong. Maybe he wasn't the best fighter, but he had endured so much since first starting at Beacon. He had overcome so many obstacles. He may have been struggling with the loss of his partner, but it had not defeated him. He was still here. He was still fighting. He would never relent until the day he died.
Jaune deserved to know as much. "You've really grown, haven't you?" she asked.
He shrugged again. "Not sure. Haven't really had a chance to check these past few months. But maybe I'm six-foot-two now?"
Weiss blinked, and it took a moment for her to realize what he had just said. She giggled before playfully slapping his shoulder. "I meant as a person, you dork."
"Oh." His sudden realization made him laugh softly too. "Yeah. Maybe I have. Out here on our own we didn't have much of a choice. It was either grow up or die."
And grow up he had. Joke or not, Jaune did seem taller than he had before. His armor was different. His sword. The red sash he wore around his waist. However it was his personality which had grown the most.
"Perhaps you had grown even before that," she admitted. Looking back on it, she might have been right. She just did not want to admit it at the time. She was hesitant to do it now as well.
"What do you mean?"
It was like ancient history after everything that had happened since then. However Weiss remembered it well. It had meant a lot to her at the time. The memory was crystal clear.
"The night of the dance," she explained. "You told Neptune to go and talk to me."
"Oh," he said, as if he had been caught red-handed committing some crime. "I, uh..."
"It's okay, don't deny it," she smiled. "He told me himself. It... it meant a lot to me. I really liked him back then, and it really hurt when he turned me down for the dance." Weiss fidgeted uncomfortably. Her old self would have never admitted any faults about herself, but there was a glaring one in her mind after what she had just told Jaune. "I guess you must have felt the same when I turned you down. Especially when I did it so harshly."
She wondered if bringing up such an old wound would make Jaune feel uncomfortable. Especially because he had wound up changing into a dress and dancing with Pyrrha that night. However, she felt as though she had to get that off of her chest. It would not be the last thing, either.
Much to her relief, Jaune chuckled. "Well in your defense I was kind of annoying back then." Weiss raised a questioning eyebrow. He laughed some more. "Okay, I was really annoying back then. I was... stupid. Immature."
He had been. However she had been no better herself. "And I will admit that I was rather difficult to deal with at times as well back then. It was no wonder that our two old selves brought out the worst in one another."
Jaune nodded. "Yeah. And as long as we're being honest, I just want you to know that everything I ever said about you back then was true. I was head over heels for you. Not about your name or your money or any of that. I just liked you for you."
She knew. She knew all too well now. She had known the truth ever since Jaune had used his Semblance on her.
The science of Aura was still something that was being researched in Atlas. However there was one thing that people everywhere knew for certain. Aura was the manifestation of the soul. It was who they were on the deepest and most personal level possible.
Jaune's Aura had bolstered her own. It had brought her back from the brink of death. It had surrounded and filled her on a level that was beyond physical. Jaune's very soul had touched hers. It had been a powerful and intimate experience that she was still hard-pressed to describe. Weiss felt as if she understood the young man better now. She understood the weighty expectations he put on himself because of his family legacy. She understood his feelings for her better. Both past and present.
Still, the words he had used in his confession resonated with her. "Was". "Liked". Past tense. Did that mean he no longer had feelings for her as he once had?
It was selfish, but she wanted to know where he stood with her. "But... you don't anymore?" she asked.
"You'll always be special to me," he explained. "So will Ren and Nora. Ruby, Yang and Blake. You guys have been my family for almost two years now."
Weiss noticed how he didn't answer her question. She pressed onward. "But you don't feel how you used to feel about me anymore."
He shook his head softly. Sadly. "No. I don't think I do."
She understood where he was coming from. Weiss herself had once liked Neptune, but now no longer did. It had more to do with the fact that he had a tendency to hit on random girls he came across. In the end it had just been an immature infatuation. He had been good looking. Charming. But in the end, it had been nothing but a schoolgirl crush.
In any case, this knowledge did not make Jaune's words hurt any less. To know someone had once had feelings for you, and they didn't anymore, hurt. To know that someone had fallen out of love with you was a sobering thing. It meant that something, or someone, had changed. And probably not for the better. That was the case here. Weiss knew what had changed in Jaune. She knew his true feelings about himself.
She knew how little he valued his own life.
"I see," she said neutrally.
"I don't know. To be honest ever since... that night, I haven't thought much about stuff like that." His voice was growing weaker with every word he spoke. "I've thought about things like loss. Regret." He shook his head, and the tears he had tried so hard to conceal from her began to form in his eyes once more. "I've thought about hate. How I wanted to kill the person who killed Pyrrha. I've thought about how weak and pathetic I am, and how I need to get stronger. I've thought about how twisted this world is, and how people like us are always going to get hurt or killed as a result. So no, I'm sorry, Weiss. I'm not going to lie to you about this. My feelings about you have been the last thing on my mind."
She appreciated his honesty. She knew that it was stupid and childish to care about something like this, especially when she did not have any kind of romantic feelings for him herself. Truth be told, she did not know how to feel about him now that he wasn't an annoyance anymore.
However, knowing that someone had wanted you, and that someone had felt that way about you, was comforting. He didn't anymore. He had moved on.
"I understand," she said. And she did. She had moved on from Neptune much the same way. However it did not mean they could not still be friends. The same applied to Jaune. "However, regardless of how rocky our relationship may have been in the past, we are friends now. And as your friend I feel it is my responsibility to not only tell you that you're not alone, but to also tell you that you matter. Your life matters. I heard what you told Cinder, and I don't want you to throw your life away. I've already lost one family. I will not lose another. Do I make myself clear?"
"Weiss-"
"Do I make myself clear!" she all but screamed at him.
Her tone took him aback, and for a moment he was speechless. But he composed himself soon enough, and gave her a weak nod. "Yeah. We're... we're clear."
Weiss gave him a stern nod of her own, her icy eyes piercing into his own blue ones. "Good. Then I believe there is only one more item to cover before we're through here."
Jaune looked at her quizzically. "What do you mean?"
She felt her face heat up for a moment as she thought about what she was about to do. Thankfully it was dark out, and hopefully he couldn't see that her face was becoming flushed. "I know that what I'm about to do is a little... a lot too late, and you would have appreciated it much more back then, but..."
She reached over to him and gave him a tiny peck on the cheek. It lasted for only a split second, but the feel of his face on her lips resonated on her skin long after the contact broke.
After pulling away, Weiss could not bear to look him in the eyes as she spoke next. "Thank you for saving my life, Jaune."
Not a moment later she stood and fled. She was beyond embarrassed, and her cheeks were burning hotter than her former company's fire dust. The night's sky was indeed a blessing after committing such an act.
Weiss wondered if the small kiss of appreciation would reignite a spark of feelings for her. Truthfully she was fine that he did not love her anymore. She did not want to try and force him to feel anything like that for her ever again.
However... maybe when this was all over, maybe after they had finally vanquished Salem and her forces, maybe then she would give him a fair shot. Jaune wasn't such a bad guy. In fact he was one of the best guys she had ever met. One of the best people period.
One whom she would not mind falling for her again.