A/N - Hello again! I present you my second one-shot, based off of another song, The Last Night by Skillet. While I don't think reading the lyrics or listening to the song before reading this one is as necessary as it was for "Let It Die", I'd still recommend it because obviously it'll give the reader a better idea of how I came up with this.
Once again, thank you to everyone who proofread it.
Ruby had been waiting for this day the whole duration of her school break. Her partner and, secretly as of late, girlfriend too, had headed over to Atlas to visit her family, as per usual, for Christmas celebrations. Even though Weiss had much rather stayed over at Beacon, together with Ruby, she had gone, mostly not to spite her family. They still kept in touch via scroll messaging, but it just wasn't the same as a physical presence of her girlfriend near her.
But now the break was coming to an end, and tonight would be the night Weiss returned to the academy, and they'd finally be able to be together again.
Her other two teammates were out, spending the night by themselves so they weren't expected in the dorm room any time soon, which gave Ruby some more space inside. Laying down on Weiss' bed, playing games on her scroll, she felt the door move ever-so-slightly so she sat up, prepared to tackle her white haired girlfriend again after such a long wait.
"Weiss!", Ruby shouted, in joy, as soon as the first flashes of white came out of the door.
What she saw then though was completely different. Completely ignoring her call, Weiss entered the dorm, dragging her feet across the room, carrying her luggage bag behind her. She passed by Ruby, still not acknowledging her, and stopped in front of her dresser, opened up her luggage, and started to place her clothing on the empty bag.
"Weiss...?", Ruby said, in a considerably lower tone of voice, severely confused as to why she was acting like this in her presence, especially since no one else was present in the dorm room.
Seeing as there was no visible reaction from her Ice Queen, Ruby got up and silently approached her and reached for one of her hands.
Weiss felt Ruby touching her right wrist, "Let it go…", she quietly, almost silently said, looking away from her girlfriend, unable to gather enough energy to speak any louder.
"Uhm, Weiss, w-what's wrong...?" Ruby asked a third time, letting go of Weiss' hand as the older girl had almost pleaded to, now shocked and unsure on what to do with the situation on her own hands.
Not wanting to let go of her, Ruby pressed on and reached now for Weiss' face, intending to turn it back towards her so they could at least talk. But she almost instantly wished she hadn't done that. Not only she saw her eyes were swollen, but also her left cheek, her neck and both her wrists appeared to be badly sore.
At this point, Weiss had stopped resisting and from her eyes, droplets of water started to fall, running down her cheek, as she fell face down limply on her own bed.
"I shouldn't… I didn't want to…", Weiss tried to speak, her voice muffled by the tear-stained bed sheets.
"W-Weiss? D-did something happen?", Ruby asked, cautiously, not wanting to worsen her current mood.
"I'll be… I'm… fine…", Weiss managed to choke out between her sobbing, but clearly not convincingly enough for her partner to believe her.
It really pained for Ruby to see her girlfriend like this, especially when she had no clue of what had happened and it seemed to be affecting Weiss so much, enough to have her crying and sobbing all over the dorm, making her start to tear up as well, seeing as she was clearly unable to help her right now.
Gathering courage to speak up again, Ruby tried to counter what the older girl had just said, "You came back, after a Christmas trip to your parents' place, with scars all over your body, not to mention you literally ignored me until I pressed you, only to break down crying. I'm sorry but I don't believe you're fine.", the last sentence being no more than an almost quiet whisper.
With some problems due to lack of energy, Weiss managed to roll from her previous position, so her face was up, eyes closed. She didn't want to tell Ruby what had happened. She knew what would happen if she did so. She wouldn't stand seeing the younger girl cry, but it seemed that not telling was going to do it anyways.
She wished her family was not like it was. Never present, but always imposing over her own, like she had no personal say in anything at all. Or rather, she had, but her wishes would always be overruled by her family's interests.
She opened her eyes, facing Ruby, looking extremely worried and about to break down like she had before. She had to tell her what had happened fully, but she wasn't brave enough to do that, so she sat up and simply said "I have to go."
"You… have to go…?", Ruby didn't understand what she meant, so she tried to get a better answer from her girlfriend. "W-what do you mean?"
"I just came to pack up my bags…", Weiss said, trying to steel herself for what she'd have to say next, "…and say goodbye to this academy."
Ruby looked shocked unable to comprehend what she had just heard, her mouth opening and closing, trying to formulate an answer, but nothing came out of it.
"I was hoping no one would be here… I didn't want you to see me cry… I'll be fine…", Weiss kept going, her voice barely perceptible, as if she was trying to convince herself of what she was saying instead of Ruby, who was now crying, still trying to say something, but to no avail.
"Y-y-you're leaving the a-academy?", Ruby finally managed to choke out, her voice trembling with every word she said. "Our team? Me? U-us?"
Every word Ruby said was like knives that pierced Weiss and, especially, the last two words had tore a hole in her heart, as she whispered a single "Yes.", that managed to break the younger girl's heart, as she slumped into a corner, now sobbing and crying.
There were many awful things Weiss could stand, but seeing Ruby cry was definitely not one of them. She slowly rose up to her feet, passed by the crying huntress in training, planted a kiss on her head, and simply muttered, "I never wanted to do this…"
As she was walking towards the doorstep to finally leave the room, she felt a hand tug on her sleeve, and a soft, but raspy voice that simply asked her, "Then why…?"
Without the courage to turn back to look at her, Weiss simply dismissed Ruby's hand, "Maybe one day I'll be able to tell you… But not now.", was all she said, leaving the younger girl sobbing, laying on the floor as she walked away with her luggage.
Weiss felt horrible.
She should never had told her parents that she had been dating Ruby. What was in her mind? That was a beginner's mistake she should've never committed. Being the family heiress for the company, it was obvious she'd have to marry one of her many suitors that her parents made her constantly visit, or that were visitors at her mansion themselves. She hated them, they weren't even at the level of someone like Ruby's toes. But now she had messed up. she had made Ruby cry. She felt like a terrible person.
Her parents were sending someone to pick her up tomorrow morning. obviously they wouldn't come themselves, because her younger daughter had never been a priority to them, but she knew she'd have to sleep somewhere today, and Beacon was not an option anymore, since she had just left what used to be her dorm room at the academy, and her parents would be forcing her to move academies anyways… that is, if they still let her continue trying to be a huntress after all this.
She walked down to the nearest hotel she could find, not bothering to look for an expensive one, seeing as the combination of a cold night and a single night of sleep urged her to get in the first one she'd find.
She spotted a hotel named 'Night Vale' by the end of the road and she decided to step in. The interiors were cozy, made of wood and she reached up to the front desk.
"I would like a room for one just for tonight please.", she said to the assistant, handing over her ID card, trying to sound as normal as was currently possible for her, having cried for the last three or four hours straight.
The assistant looked at her computer and pressed a few buttons, presumably filling out her information and checking for availability.
"Sure thing. Would you please wait for some minutes while we set everything up?", the assistant said.
She did as she was told, and moved away in the direction of the hotel's lobby, sitting down in a sofa, gazing absentmindedly at the moon. Snowflakes fell down from the skies, coating the ground in a thin layer of white.
Ruby, still laying on the floor, feeling defeated and clearly with not enough spirit to get up felt her scroll buzz. With whatever life she still held on her body, she picked it up and looked at her screen. What she saw surprised her and somehow managed to spark her back up. There was a single message from her sister that said "Something's wrong? Might wanna see this.". Attached to it there was a picture taken from the inside of the 'Night Vale,' of Weiss sitting in the hotel's lobby.
She knew vaguely where was the hotel located, it was the same hotel as the one Yang and Blake were staying for the night, so with new-found energy she managed to get up and immediately darted out of the academy, not wanting to give up on what had taken her so long to conquer. Weiss' friendship, her love, their love was well worth fighting for, so she ran, hoping she would get there in time.
"Your room is now ready Miss." Weiss jumped a bit when she felt a light tap on her shoulder, her mind was not expecting that due to it being too focused on everything except where she was right now. As she was turning around to face the assistant, she thought… wishful thinking, maybe, that she had seen a flash of red outside, but she doubted anyone would come back for her, especially Ruby, knowing how pained she felt when she had left earlier that night.
"Of course, thank you." she said, and started to head towards the hotel's lift together with the new assistant.
"Weiss!", Ruby tried to shout at the older girl as soon as she stepped inside the hotel, the latter already inside of the lift and unable to hear her calling her name.
Ruby darted off the stairs, checking the floors for whatever clue she could find of Weiss having been there. When she reached floor 6, she caught a glimpse of an assistant, and instantly recognized him as the one that was helping with Weiss' luggage so she assumed the semi-open door he was close to would be the one Weiss was at. So she screamed again.
"Weiss!"
Her mind froze at the voice. This was not happening. it was impossible for Ruby to be here. It would've been impossible for her to leave her room in the state she was when she had left.
The voice repeated as Ruby grew nearer and hugged her, ignoring the presence of the assistant next to her ex-girlfriend. "R-Ruby? What are you- Who told- How did you find me? This place? This room?"
The younger girl paid no mind to her partner's words and kept hugging her, tears in her eyes.
With a quick wave of her hand, Weiss dismissed the assistant, who was perplexed looking at the couple, and left them to their devices as they moved over to the bedroom and laid down on the small bed, Ruby with her face hidden in Weiss' shoulder as they both cried again.
After a few minutes, both had seemingly stopped crying and had calmed down. Weiss nudged her partner slightly, eliciting a slight "hmm" in response.
"After all that happened, all I said, you still came for me…", the older girl said, obtaining another "hmm" from Ruby's part. "Why?", she asked, trying to press on, not satisfied with a simple hum as an answer.
"I don't want you to leave me, I love you more than anything…" the red-dressing girl said, her voice slightly muffled by Weiss' dress.
"But my par-"
"What about them? After all of this, are you still going to let your parents rule your life? Where you go to? Who you talk to? Who you date? Who you are?" Ruby cut off the older girl's speech, and lifted her head up, so she was directly facing Weiss. "That's wrong and they… they can't do that."
Shaken by the sincerity of her partner's words, the heiress attempted to start again, "Everything's wrong, but they don't care… they never did…"
"Then why do you care about them… what they say so much? They're always downplaying you, hurting you-", Ruby said, point at the bruises she had all over her body before continuing, "-why do you care about them?" Ruby asked, sincerely. She couldn't stand seeing Weiss as hurt both physically and mentally as she was today, and wanted to do everything that was at her reach to have her girlfriend back with her.
"I… don't know… they're still my family, I'm just so sick of them, but what am I gonna do without them?", Weiss asked back, starting to feel uneasy again. family talk always had this effect on her.
"W-We can all help you! All of us!" Ruby said, feeling the uneasiness in Weiss' look, but still as cheerful as she could possibly be at the moment, before continuing, "We're your family, they only care about you for political reasons, so if you let us, if you give us your hand, we can all help you hold on.".
Weiss said nothing, simply humming as tears fell down her face for what felt like the hundredth time that day. Ruby wrapped her arms around Weiss' waist and quietly spoke, hopefully, through tears of her own, "S… so does that mean… you're not leaving?"
"I… never intended to in the first place… not voluntarily…", was all she managed to say.
"B-but what about your… parents? A-are you just gonna d-dismiss their opinion?" Ruby went on, carefully enough not to press too much on such a delicate topic.
Only a simple, quiet "mhmm" was heard, but to Ruby this was enough, closing her eyes, her tears now a signal of joy, as she tightened the grip around Weiss.
"I won't let you say goodbye,", the heiress turned sideways towards her and wrapped her left arm over Ruby's shoulder and pulled her closer, "I'll be your reason why.", the younger girl said, enjoying this moment that both of them had been wanting to have for so long. After all the time she had been away, through all the bad moments, this was all that mattered for her, now and forever.