You had long since replaced your scarf.

It had gotten old, worn, tattered. Useless. You replaced it.

The new one was worn and tattered, too. Not old, though. Not old. You didn't think it would ever get old. Not this one. This was the scarf you would never take off. You wore it to bed. You would shower with it if Blake would let you. But that was "unreasonable." That was bullshit, you thought. But you listened to your partner anyway.

It was a comfort thing. The scarf, though torn, was part of something important. Something you'd lost. Something you'd all lost. It wasn't much consolation. On worse nights, it was only a cruel reminder. But you still wouldn't get rid of it. It was all you had.

You remembered the day clearly. It had been a nice day, only a few clouds. You were on a mission as a school assignment. An easy one, if you were honest. It was supposed to be easy, anyway. But then there were Beowolves. And Death Stalkers. And Ursas. And Nevermores.

When you had crawled your bloody way back to school, an investigation had been launched, but no explanation had been found. The only thing they knew was that someone had orchestrated it.

You shouldn't have lived. None of you should have made it back, and sometimes you wished you hadn't. Sometimes you wished they had died there.

Sometimes you wished you didn't have to live without your little sister.

But Ruby was gone, and you weren't, and it was the hardest thing you had ever suffered through. It was harder than losing their mother. Harder than all the years without answers from your biological mother. Harder than anything.

So, the scarf. It was only removed when Blake deemed it "unreasonable" to wear it. She was sort of like your moderator now. Always making sure you didn't do "unreasonable" things. Like cutting, or drinking, or taking too many pills. Sometimes you wondered why she bothered. But you knew why, really. She threw herself into keeping you safe to keep herself safe. You let her. She was the closest thing you had to family right now and you weren't going to let go of that.

You'd fucked up already. You weren't going to leave Blake alone like Ruby had left you.

You knew how it felt.

Your partner was in pain.

Oh, sure, you were in pain too. You'd known Ruby. You'd liked her. She'd been your leader for almost two years. She may have been young, but she was good at heart and better than she seemed.

But it was easier to think about Yang than to think about yourself. If you just focused on making sure she didn't do something stupid out of grief then you were okay. If you poured all of yourself into her, there was none left to cry.

Crying wasn't something you usually did. You knew better. You had to be the strong one. And maybe being strong didn't always mean not crying, but you had a strong feeling that that's exactly what it meant now. So you didn't cry. You swallowed your tears and grief and anger and instead made sure Yang had three meals a day and didn't drown herself in alcohol and took her scarf off to shower.

It was all you could really do, honestly. The days flew by, you did your homework, and your team wasn't assigned to any more missions. And you took care of Yang. She needed it. You needed it.

It was a mutual thing.

You would even curl up next to her at night. When the nightmares came, you were there to hold her. Sleep wasn't something you were very familiar with anymore, but you made sure she got as much as possible. That meant calming her down after a dream. Dreams were never good.

You often spent your nights replaying the events of that mission in your head. What you could have done differently, what could have happened, who could have done this. You'd been through all the possibilities a thousand and two times and over again.

The team had just been about to reach the target of the mission. You don't remember what that was now-only what happened next. Ruby had stepped forward to complete the mission. A Beowolf had appeared. Then another. Then three Nevermores. Then a dozen Death Stalkers. Then twenty Ursas.

Hundreds. There had been hundreds of Grimm, surrounding you. The Nevermores dove. The Ursas and Beowolves lurched. The Death Stalkers lunged.

You had fought back, all of you. With everything you had. But it wasn't enough. It could never be enough. Ruby had seen this.

She did something. Something that saved you but killed her. You'd been focusing on keeping an Ursa from gnawing your face off to see. You thought Yang had been watching. You thought that must be the centerpiece of her nightmares. Seeing her baby sister sacrifice herself.

It hadn't killed the creatures, but it had stunned them for long enough. Ruby's tattered cloak had floated to the ground. You had to drag Yang and Weiss out of there, but your partner had grabbed the hood.

You were kind of glad she did.

The three of you stumbled back to Beacon, barely able to stand. An investigation was launched. No results. You weren't sure you cared. Ruby was gone.

You knew Yang wished she were dead. You knew she thought about joining Ruby. But you wouldn't allow that, not yet. You all had to keep going. For Ruby. You each wore bits of her tattered hood as a reminder. A comfort. A vow.

You couldn't protect one sister, but damnit you were going to protect the other.

She was your partner. Your partner, that's all. You hadn't even granted her the grace of being your friend. She never granted you the grace of being hers.

It wasn't that you hated her, though you acted that way sometimes. No, you hated yourself far more than you hated anyone else. You weren't used to getting close to people. It made you nervous. Anxious. You didn't do it. But sometimes you wanted to.

That didn't matter, though. Wanting to didn't make it so. You couldn't even call her your friend. Not even once. There was something deeply wrong with that, you knew. The truth was, you liked Ruby. You liked her a lot. Probably more than anyone else. When she was your leader, you felt like you didn't have to outperform anyone. You weren't in the shadow of your siblings with her. You were Weiss. Not even Weiss Schnee. Just Weiss.

Weiss, the bossy, stuck-up, prudish, cross little daddy's girl. It must have been so irritating. But Ruby had persisted.

Certainly, she would take jabs at you at times, but they were in good nature.

"Sisters, friends...Weiss."

You remembered that line clearly. She had smirked at you when you'd protested. You'd huffed. Not only had she insulted you, she'd also stolen your binder. She hadn't technically denied it either, only stated that she was not a crook. For all you knew, that could only mean she was considering it a "loan." You tried not to remember things.

But the memories came anyway. Constantly. Memories of Ruby throwing orders during combat. Memories of her tearing apart some Grimm with that scythe of hers. Memories of finding her passed out on her bed during a late-night study session. Memories of trading banter.

Bittersweet. Those memories were all bittersweet. The ones that came most often were most certainly not.

Memories of fighting off a Nevermore. Of seeing Ruby out of the corner of her eye, jump into the sky. Of being knocked into the snow while her eye was drawn away. Of missing absolutely everything of importance. Of the red cloak drifting down toward the bloodied ground.

Of Yang crying out.

Of Yang screaming and crying and punching goddamned holes in the ground out of pure rage. Of Blake dragging you both away from the scene, but not before the elder sister could grab her sibling's cloak.

Of realizing that Yang was no longer a sister.

Of realizing you didn't have a partner.

It was your fault, of that you were completely convinced. There were a dozen, two dozen, maybe three dozen things you could have done differently. Things that could have saved Ruby. But you hadn't done any of them. All you had left was a piece of her shredded cloak tied in your hair.

Old. Worn. Tattered. You were useless.

Inspired by this skiretehfox deviantart com/art/Red-Stained-Redraw-471312940