"Hey Pyrrha." Jaune sat in front of the grave, Grave was too generous a word. Grave imlied that there had been a body. Grave implied that they had been able to bury something, anything. Anything that would have given evidence that Pyrrha Nikos had existed. This was just a stone tablet, erected in the corner of her parent's yard with her name engraved on it. "It's been a while huh? Almost a year since I was last here. Exactly a year since –" A sob cut Jaune off as a late autumn leaf drifted past.
"It's, it's been a while." He gave a weak smile to the stone. "We've all missed you, a lot. It's not the same. Yang is getting better though, she can kick my ass again now. Not as easily as she used too, but she swears it's that I'm stronger, and she olds her own against Weiss and Blake. Weiss keeps mentioning Atlesian prosthetics, but I think Yang is a bit sceptical." He plucked at the sparse grass growing in the sandy dirt around the stone. "Ren and Nora say hi by the way. Those two are dating now. I guess they decided that waiting isn't an option in our line of work, that if you wait too long your chance will disappear." A hint of bitterness coloured Jaune's voice.
"I don't blame you." Jaune continued. "I did at first a bit, I convinced myself that if you hadn't gone everything would have been okay. I know it wouldn't have. Cinder would have been able to kill us all with that Grimm monstrosity. I guess I'm trying to let you know that your sacrifice did mean something. You saved us all, Pyrrha. Your sacrifice let Ruby unlock her powers. I think you would be happy to know you didn't die in vain. I don't think I thanked you for saving us yet." He paused for a moment. "So thank you."
"But back on the waiting thing, I'm so sorry Pyrrha." Jaune's voice cracked as he said her name. "I knew, I knew from the dance. I'm so sorry." Tears were beginning to fall from his eyes. "I knew from what you said, from the way you smiled at me in that stupid dress. And please," He took a deep breath. "Please know that it was reciprocated." He swiped a hand at his tears. "I did, I do love you."
"And I know it means next to nothing saying that now, saying it to a stone with your name on it, because you're gone and I didn't get a chance to tell you in person, but I wanted to. When we spoke before you fought Penny, before you left to fight Cinder. The timing was never right, I never managed to spit it out. I'm so sorry Pyrrha. I'm sorry I let you die without knowing that I loved you." His tears were flowing freely now, hitting the dry earth between him and the stone. "And I mean it, I loved you. I loved your smile, and your unnecessary apologising. I loved how you believed in me, and pushed us all to be better than we were. I loved how you were always the first to figure out something was wrong and how you let us all try to figure it out before helping. I loved how in spite over every stupid insensitive awful thing I did you never gave up on me, never stopped believing I could be better. I loved the incredible strength you showed, even when faced with something bigger than yourself." He sighed. "Qrow told me all of it, I'm so sorry I wasn't able to help you through it. I'm so proud of how well you handled it. You were so incredibly strong, I can't imagine the stress you were under." He gave a weak smile. "Enough about that though. I was going to tell you after the tournament. I had it all planned out, I was going to ask you on a date to that Ice Cream shop you like, the one with that mango sorbet. I made a mistake though Pyrrha, I thought we had time. We were supposed to have time. Three more years of relative safety before graduation and it was stolen from us, from you. I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have waited, but like they say, hindsight is twenty-twenty."
"And I can't even tell you that we have won yet, it just keeps getting worse and worse Pyrrha. It's a war now, a bad one, worse than any we have seen before. We're fighting for the very survival of life and civilisation in Remnant. We've lost a lot of people, but I guess you will know that already." Jaune stood up as he heard footsteps behind him. "I'm sorry, I have to go now, we were only stopping over to restock our supplies. I'll come back and visit again, I hope that once the war is over and I'll be able to tell you that we won. Goodbye Pyrrha."
"Hey Jaune are you ready to go?" Ruby called to him.
"Yeah I'm coming." He pressed his fingers to the top of the stone. "Until we meet again Pyrrha."