Blake had to suppress a sigh of relief as she quietly opened the door to her dorm. It had been a very long night.

While her teammates had been eager to help her get to the bottom of Torchwick and the White Fang's plans at the start, their enthusiasm had waned in the face of late nights, excruciatingly long hours of boring surveillance, and what seemed to be an endless
trail of dead ends. Blake's however, had not.

She could feel it, she was getting close and Torchwick knew it. His goons had started to get sloppy and scared. She didn't quite have them on the run, but soon she would either be able to stop them from unleashing whatever plans they had for Vale herself,
or at the very least, enough evidence to turn them over to the authorities. That's why she couldn't give up.

Blake was in a grim mood but overall it had been a relatively successful evening of hunting. After having several enlightening conversations with some low-level thugs she'd managed to track down a shipment of stolen dust to a warehouse in the theatre
district. Sneaking up on the driver and taking out the pitiful security detail Torchwick had assigned hadn't been a problem. What she wasn't counting on was the White Fang backup that came pouring out of the warehouse at the first sign of trouble.

She was a huntress, and was a more skilled warrior than all of them combined, but still, taking down twelve armed fanatics had been no easy feat. That's why she was silently limping her way past her sleeping roommates to team RWBY's bathroom at one thirty
in the morning instead of gratefully flopping into bed. The fight had drained every ounce of her aura which inevitably led to a few punches and kicks hitting their mark. She'd certainly have some colorful bruises to share at breakfast tomorrow.

Those she could shrug off, they were par for the course in her line of work. But towards the end of the fightshe'd gotten careless, and a desperate stab from a katana had sliced a deep gash across her ribs which was still bleeding steadily. To make
matters worse, while she'd been busy dispatching the katana's wielder another terrorist had taken advantage of her blind spot and roughly kicked her knee drooping her to the ground. She'd fallen, but immediately rocketed upwards and dropped her assailant
with a vicious elbow to the nose, before silencinghim with a downward chop from Gambol Shroud.

After placing an anonymous tip to the police as to the location of the ill-gotten dust, adrenaline had carried her swiftly and silently across the rooftops of Vale, but once she reached the safe haven of Beacon's campus her knee began to scream out in
protest with every lurching step she took.

Closing the door as gently as she could, she flicked on the lights and made her way to the mirror. What she saw made her jump back in surprise for a second before drawing a rueful laugh from her throat. She looked worse off than she thought. Aside from
a constellation of small cuts and scrapes, bruise was already starting to turn a sickly shade of yellow on her right cheek, highlighting the deep bags under her eyes. A lineof dried blood running down her chin lead up to a split lip.

After quickly washing her face free of gore the faunus' eyes anxiously jumped to the top of head to check her ever-present bow. Seeing as how it was perfectly tied as usual, she let herself relax.

Slowly and painfully, feeling her wounded side pull excruciatingly, she leaned down and grabbed the medical kit from under the sink. Opening it left her dismayed. They were running low on both bandages and medical tape. It looked as if their disinfectant
alcohol was almost entirely used up too. Her nightly excursions had taken their toll on the team'ssupplies.

Turning to that which need the most attention, she gently lifted her shirt to inspect the mark the blade had left on her pale skin, Blake assessed the damage. While the blood surrounding it made it hard to judge exactly, the wound seemed to be about four
inches long, and deep. She could see some raw muscle exposed to the cool night air. There was no way around it, she was going to need stitches. And it's probably going to scar she thought bitterly.

Resigned to at least another hour or two without sleep, Blake tossed her blouse in the corner and sat down on the toilet lid, unscrewing the bottle of disinfectant. Closing her eyes tight and clenching her teeth, she dumped what was left of the bottle
onto the gash, cleaning it as best as she could.

Hissing as the burning liquid did its painful work, she fumbled around and,up the needle (Weiss always made sure that all their equipment was perfectly clean and sterile), she set to work. It was not easy, the placement of the wound made it difficult
for her to suture, and she flinched every time the needle pierced her flesh. Stitch after stich went in with unsteady fingers, shaky from fatigue, and after three, she realized that she probably wasn't even halfway done.

"You're making a real mess of that." The voice made her jump, she briefly thought about reachingfor Gambol Shroud, but realized that she had left it leaning next to her bed. Slowly she brought her eyes up to meet the violet gaze of her blonde partner
who was propped against the doorframe with arms crossed.

Unconsciously, Blake ran her eyes up and down Yang's exposed legs which seemed to go on for miles. The thought drifted into her mind that it was entirely unfair for her to look so good in pajama shorts before she quickly banished it, ablush
rising to her cheeks. Get a grip Belladonna.

Yang, thankfully, seemed not to notice and lifted herself off the frame and moved into the bathroom "Here, let me." Without thinking Blake started to turn away casting her eyes to the floor.

"It's fine." Yang paused and placed her hands on her hips

"Really? Because your first and second stitch are almost an inch apart. All you'd have to do is yawn and those things would pop right open." Looking down and the haphazard stitching, the dark haired girl realized that her partner was telling the truth.
She'd let her exhaustion get the better of her and done a sloppy job. She mentally chastised herself, before bashfully holding out the needle and thread.

Yang took them without another word and knelt down. She deftly removedthe faunus' sloppy handiwork, before beginning a row of surgically neat stitches. Blake let her work in comfortable silence for a moment before her curiosity get the better of
her.

"How'd you get so good at this?" Yang smirked down at her hands, not breaking the rhythm of her stitching.

"Well, when your baby sister's two hobbies are giant monsters and a five-foot scythe that turns into a gun, you have to learn these things." Her smile faded slightly but she didn't look up. "I got a lot of practice after my mom died. I mean my dad was
still around but he was kind of… out of touch. He'd mostly be away on long solo hunts, and when he was home he'd go on walks in the woods alone for hours. It took me a while before I understood why. Mom wasn't the first woman that he'd lost but the
second."

Yang fell silent, seemingly lost in her memories but Blake was too curious. She hadn't known anything about this bit of her partner's past, though to be fair, she hadn't really asked either. Now seemed like as good a time as any.

"Who was the first?" she whispered, and the blonde girl's face instantly hardenred.

"Raven Branwen. My mother.

"But I thought you said-" Yang put up a hand to stop her, pausing her work for the first time.

"Raven might have given birth to me, but Summer was my mom. She was a hunter like my dad, and she was like supermom;baker of cookies and slayer of evil monsters. Raven abandoned me when I was still a baby, she gave up the right to be called
my , that should be good." Without her noticing, Yang had finished bandaging up her side and stepped back to admire her work. For the first time, Blake was keenly aware that she was in only her bra, and felt the heat return to her face.

"Why didn't you ever try to track you mo- Raven down?" Blake spat out to fill what felt like a very uncomfortable silence before inwardly cringing at how insensitive that question probably sounded. The blonde just sighed and grabbed a cloth, kneeling
again as she began to clean the cuts from Blake's hands.

"I did, for a while. Eventually I found this old picture in my dad's photo album. It showed all of team STRQ, the team my mom and dad were on with Raven and my uncle Qrow, standing in front of some cabin in the woods. I remembered my parents used to tell
me stories of a cabin they all lived in on Patch before Raven and my dad settled down to start a family. So, I waited for dad to leave the house, loaded up ruby in a wagon and went off to find it, convinced she would still be living there."

"You went out alone? How old were you?" Blake couldn't keep the shock out of her voice. She knew that Patch was pretty safe, but no wild place in Remnant was completely clear of grimm. The idea of two children wandering a forest unchaperoned was
ludicrous. Yang's grimace showed she seemed to share her opinion, and she moved to wiping the scrapes on her face clear, and Blake couldn't help but notice how good her partner's hair smelled this close.

"Not old enough. We walked for hours. I could barely stand. We were just outside the cabin door when I heard the first growl. A pack of beowolves had surrounded us. There we were, a toddler and a stupid little girl too exhausted to run away." She let
out a bitter chuckle

"We would have been toast if my uncle hadn't been crashing in the cabin to sleep off a bender.I would've gotten myself killed, would have gotten Ruby killed.." She trailed off as she finished wiping the blood off Blake's lips. She kept her eye's
fixed on the faunus' mouth before blinking and quickly turning away to rummage through the med-kit, muttering something about buying more bandages when she went into town.

"Why are you telling me all this?" Blake whispered, humbled that Yang would share the intimate memory of one of her biggest mistakes. The taller girl clenched her fingers against the porcelain of the sink so hard her knuckles turned white.

"Because I want you to know what it's like. I want you to know that I understand what it's like to have a search control you, how it feels to be so desperate for answers that you're willing to do anything, even let yourself get hurt…" Realization suddenly
dawned on Blake, and she found herself annoyed with her teammate.

"Yang… I'm sorry about what happened, and I get what you're trying to tell me but this, Torchwick, it isn't the same. I'm not a child and-"

'I'm not telling you to stop." The blonde interrupted, wheeling on her with a red glaze in her eyes, having activated her semblance in frustration. "I haven't. To this day I still want to know what happened! Why she… why she left me. But I know
that running myself into the ground isn't going to solve anything!" Though the outburst shocked her, and angering her partner like thisfrightened her, Blake wasn't going to be shut down so easily.

"You don't understand! I'm the only one who can stop them!"

"Really? Can you even stop me?" Yang shot back, jumping atthe faunus and firmly pressing two fingers against the fresh stitches, causing Blake to yelp in pain. The red in Yang'seyes drained to a cool violet as a look of horror shot across
her face. "I'm sorry!" she murmured, wrapping her arms around Blake in a tight hug. This also caused the dark haired girl's muscles to ache, but she was able to bear it and melt into the embrace. After a moment they separated, but Yang kept their
faces inches apart.

"I'm not asking you to stop, just to slow down. If not for your own sake then for the people who care about you… and for me." As she finished she trailed a finger slowly down her partners jaw. Blake nodded with a dry swallow.

A heartbeat later, Yang was wearing her trademark grin and Blake's heart melted. She leant up and pressed a soft kiss on the faunus' head whispering "Get some rest" into her hair sending electric shivers down her spine. Jumping up, the blonde turned to
walk out of the bathroom before pausing at the threshold.

"I-if you feel up to it, meet me at the dance tomorrow night?" she asked with an uncharacteristic timidity in her tone.

"That would be nice." Blake was able to choke out, though she wasn't sure if her partner could hear it over the sound of her heart hammering in her chest. Apparently she had, as she turned around to face her with a blush on her face. Had she actually made Yang
Xia Long blush?

"Perfect, can't wait!" Yang replied cheerily before padding back into the dark dorm room.

As Blake began cleaning up the medical supplies strewn around the bathroom, she found herself looking forward to tomorrow for reasons that had nothing to do with Roman Torchwick.