A/N - This is my first real attempt at writing fanfic. I got the idea for it after I listened to a song, so the one shot is based off of it as well. The song is called Let It Die by Starset and I'd recommend the reader to listen to it or to at least check the lyrics out before reading to understand the idea I came up with in a better way.
Also a great thanks to everyone who proofread it too.
She had already memorized the sequence. The last few nights had been all the same. The same dream, or nightmare if you prefer, happening all over again, all night long.
She would fall... Fall into the void, voices seemingly echoing on her head, louder and louder, until they suddenly stopped. That's when she would wake up.
For what felt like the hundredth time that night, Ruby felt herself awaken. Immediately jolting her upper body upwards, accidentally knocking a few books over to the floor.
She scanned the dorm room to see if her clumsiness had woken up anyone and spotted her sister and Blake sleeping peacefully in their makeshift bunk beds. She then attempted to look downwards from her bed, in search for a certain heiress, but immediately regretted doing so, feeling her eyes water up, her thoughts filling with the past. Memories of when she and Weiss had met for the first time, ice cold personality and a death stare in her eyes against the hyperactive and clumsy girl she was herself, but most of all, they were memories of how Ruby had been able to change Weiss' personality since then.
She had definitely been changing, opening up more to her teammates, and especially Ruby, with whom she had developed a rather close relationship. All of these thoughts made the tears in her eyes finally flow free to the young leader's face as she laid back and closed her eyes once more, reliving the memory that haunted her over and over again.
2 weeks prior
Team RWBY had been deployed to Forever Fall, along with a few other first and second year teams, in order to fight the reappearance of large quantities of Grimm monsters in an area which had a small village nearby, effectively surrounding it. While the enemies themselves were not powerful, their vast number had exhausted them pretty fast, their Auras dropping to dangerous levels.
Ruby had two Ursae left in her sights, while her team members were busy finishing off their fair share of monsters. While fighting a single Ursa at a time was rather easy for an experienced huntress-to-be like Ruby, fighting two of them simultaneously required a lot more focus than it looked. Having to keep track of both their positions and actions at the same time was not an easy task, but Ruby was confident in her skills and years of training.
Maybe too confident though, because as she was going for the kill on the first one, she forgot about the second for no more than a millisecond, but that was enough of a time window she never should've given the enemy Ursa.
Even though she sliced the head off of the first Ursa, the other one was already retaliating, and even though she managed to strike him, cutting off one of its arms clean, Ruby had no time nor reaction to move away. She felt the impact of its good paw on her back, sending her flying against a nearby tree. Dazed and too tired to move, she heard the Ursa coming back to finish her. She closed her eyes, as it was lifting its only remaining claw to deliver it's final last resort blow, and she hoped it would be quick.
But the fatal blow never came, at least not for her, and as she opened her eyes she immediately looked away, wishing she hadn't opened them in the first place, as on top of her was a frozen-solid Weiss.
Her hands were planted on each of Ruby's sides effectively shielding her from the Ursa's strike, who had now effectively died of blood loss due to its arm being cut before. She bore a painful expression on her face, a bloody and messy Ursa claw coming right out of her chest.
Ruby quickly closed her eyes hoping it was all a bad dream and it would soon end.
"Ruby...", she heard that too familiar voice calling faintly, said girl still not wanting to open her eyes.
"Ruby…", Weiss called again, this time Ruby willed herself to open her eyes again, only to see the other girl's blood streaming quickly from where the Ursa claw had been.
"W-Weiss, w-why?", Ruby's brain started to falter, she panicked and her first instinct was to rip off a part of her cloak as quickly as she could, trying to stop the blood flow from the heiress' chest, but to no avail.
'Why?' was also the question echoing in Weiss' head, not even comprehending her own body's impulse to save the younger girl. Maybe she thought that saving her would be a way to pay her back for melting her ice heart into a world of friendship, maybe it was something else.
"Y-you dolt…" were the only words that left the heiress' mouth, her life slowly vanishing. "D-do you reall-" Weiss coughed some blood before continuing, "-think that would work on a wound this big?" she managed to say, now starting to feel Ruby's tears falling down her face as she was held tightly by said girl in hopes that that simple gesture would have the power to save her from certain death.
"W-Weiss...", Ruby managed to say, sobbing hard now, "Pl-please d-don't leave me here alone again..." was all the heiress heard, all of her energy now had drifted away from her effectively dead body, Ruby still not wanting to let go of her partner's body, holding her close as if pretending that she was peacefully asleep...
Present time
The memory flash made Ruby feel tears falling freely down her face as she tried her best to forget them and get some sleep, even though she already knew such thing would be impossible since she still hadn't got a decent night of sleep since she had come back from the mentioned mission.
Already asleep now, the damned sequence played over and over again until Ruby opened her eyes once more.
Expecting to see the dorm room again, she was surprised as white was now all she could see as she heard the familiar voice that had haunted her nights for the last few weeks.
"What are you doing to yourself?" Ruby was asked as she searched for the source of the voice, only to sense the presence of something behind her, cold expressionless blue eyes, dark red blood stains on the area where she had been hit, and a harsh tone in her voice.
"Why?..." was all the red girl managed to answer back, still not being able to face her partner's gaze.
"What are you, an idiot?" Weiss almost shouted, making Ruby flinch, "Do I even need a reason to save you?" was what she really meant to say, but the words just simply wouldn't come out of her mouth like that.
"I-I've been looking for a wa-" Ruby tried to begin talking, losing her power of speech almost instantly as she was interrupted by the heiress, her remarkable intelligence able to fill the gap in Ruby's speech instantly.
"Looking for what? Have you even thought about what you're doing?" she retorted, trying to return some sense to the young girl's head.
Ruby, not listening to what her former partner was saying, attempted to continue her speech "...and if I could find a way..." she started, finally able to look up towards the older girl, "...then I would bring you back tonight."
"Ruby, stop spewing nonsense," Weiss began, hoping that she would finally listen to her now, "you are ruining your life along with your time in this school, you've been missing classes and exams for nothing, you complete idiot."
Ice blue eyes coldly stared into silver ones, as if they were staring right through them, as the red-clothed girl's orbs began to pool with water at the feeling of rejection of her idea. "B-but what if I could actually make it?" she tried again, already picturing the negative answer she'd get, as tears started crawling all over her face.
"You'd be just wasting energy for nothing. You have no physical evidence that the hundreds of books you have snuck from the library into your bedroom will ever end up working, do you?" Weiss scolded her partner, ignoring her failure-prone attempts to save her.
"But I also have no evidence in contrary, it could actually w-" Ruby attempted to begin her speech before being cut off again.
"Ruby," the heiress having resumed her scolding tone, "have you even tried to look around yourself? Everyone is getting worried sick about your own wellbeing as of late."
"Then if I can't save you, I don't want to leave this place anym-" the red-clothed huntress made an effort to start talking again before she felt a sharp pain in her face, completed with Weiss cutting her off for the third time.
"Ugh, can you even stop for a second?, she began, the slap and her harsh voice tone finally silencing the other girl and grabbing her attention. "Are you even listening to what you're saying anymore? I swear that at times you're the most immature person I've ever known in my entire life."
While it had been a poor choice on words, it was exactly what Weiss was feeling at that moment, maybe even starting to regret having given her own life for the younger girl's.
She then started to notice Ruby's hands clenching as if she was trying to suppress something.
"Ruby? Are you okay? I'm sorry if I sounded too harsh, it wasn't really my intention...", she asked, not wanting to further increase the young huntress' depressive state she was already at.
That's when Ruby snapped, "You." she began, "You don't even know what it feels like to have one of your closest friends dying in your arms, do you?"
"Ruby…" Weiss tried to talk, before being herself cut off by the red-clothed huntress, tears now falling freely down her face.
"A-after you died, I felt so cold, I just wanted you back with all of us, with me... I felt so alone…", her voice now reduced to slightly more than a whisper "...I felt dead myself."
Weiss looked down, only to see Ruby now leaning towards her shoulder, sobbing uncontrollably as she felt the words of her former partner sinking in her mind.
"Ruby?" she called cautiously, her voice softening down after what she had just heard, but no answer was given from the younger girl.
"Hey Ruby?" she tried again, this time her call being listened to as Ruby looked upwards, her constant tear flow not seeming to have an end in sight. "Hey, come on..." she patted Ruby's back in an attempt to try to comfort her "I know you had the best of intentions with your 'idea'..." she started, noticing that Ruby was indeed calming down, "...but please I want you to know that I would never have done what I did if I wasn't ready to face the consequences of my actions.".
"B-but I don't wanna live without you now, it feels so lon-" Ruby tried to speak before Weiss interrupted her.
"You dolt, you still have Blake, JNPR, even Professor Ozpin. Not to mention that Yang is probably worrying herself into exhaustion at this point, you know?"
Ruby felt herself look downwards now at the thought of the pain she was making not only her friends but also her extremely overprotective older sister go through because of her current state. "But it doesn't feel the same…" she restarted her speech, through tears and sobs, "...it will never feel the same as it was with you…" her voice starting to falter now, "I…"
Ruby then felt a familiar hand move itself from her back towards her cheek in an effort to clear the tears that stained her face. As she looked upwards in the direction of the fallen ice queen, her expression quickly changed into one of shock as her lips were quickly met by the heiress' own.
"I think I may have fallen in love with you as well, you dolt." Weiss said, as she retracted from the kiss and hugged the other girl, Ruby still not wanting to let go of her.
"B-but now y-you're d-" Ruby attempted to say, still trying to fully understand what had just happened, tears beginning to reform in her eyes as the white-themed girl cut her off.
"Hey Ruby?" She started, "Please don't cry. Believe me when I say that I am as sad as you are now, but we can't change the past now can we?"
Ruby managed to mutter a faint "No, but..."
"No buts," Weiss continued, "Please don't make me regret this decision I have made. Promise me you'll become good enough for both of us?"
"M-Mhm." was all Ruby managed to say between sobs.
"Mhm what?" Weiss asked, not satisfied with the red huntress' answer.
"I... I promise." Ruby said, steeling herself in order to calm her sobbing down and to formulate a coherent answer to the heiress' question. "I promise that I will not let you down, I will not let you have died in vain, not when you died to save me of all people." still feeling her heart tighten at the mention of her partner's death.
"That's more like it." Weiss replied, sending a small smile of reassurance towards the other girl, and kissing her on the head, holding Ruby tightly, finally happy with her partner's answer and newfound determination.
"But please remember, even if we do have to part ways in the real world," Weiss couldn't take it anymore, her ice mask breaking apart as she felt her own tears forming in her eyes "e-even if we have to let it die, don't you ever dare forget me, you hear me you idiot?" She said, finally letting herself cry and sob as well. She hugged Ruby closer hoping that they could stay like that forever, as they both cried their broken hearts out.
"Don't forget me." The last sentence spoken by the heiress plus the promise she had made now echoed in Ruby's head.
Finding new determination, she closed her eyes and finally drifted off to sleep, being finally able to sleep properly like she hadn't been able to since that fateful day.
And she knew... she knew that from now on she would have her little snow angel guarding her from above her at all times so she would never feel alone ever again.