A/n: I love RWBY and this will probably be three or four chapters long.

Warning: ANGST. Piles and piles of angst.

Dust to Dust

She couldn't save him.

The memory robs her of all breath, like a blade sunken deep between her ribs. She had seen Mistral's lush hills, the brightening sky, all the relief coursing through her veins stealing her strength away. She'd squeezed his hand, both of them sticky with blood.

We made it, Uncle Qrow.

His fingers twitch and she knows he hears her. He sighs once and his hand goes lax and she thinks he must be just as relieved. She squints out at the city, trying to gauge the distance left. She hadn't even looked at him.

It isn't until they land that Jaune suddenly grabs her shoulder, yelling that Uncle Qrow isn't breathing. His face is bone-white, his lips blue, the blood seeping through the bandages is a dark, ugly violet. Time grows slow and thick like molasses. Ruby stares, feeling nothing when a patrolman shoves her aside to start CPR. Jaune steadies her, large hand gentle on her arm.

A group of people are soon crouched over him. Someone pulls her back, speaks to her. Jaune. She can't understand a word. Sirens wail from far away. This isn't happening, she thinks and then suddenly she's at the hospital.

She sees them press a mask to Uncle Qrow's face and continue to do chest compressions. They must've tried for hours.

He never woke up again.

Ruby doesn't remember the next few days—the pitying faces of doctors and nurses, Jaune, Nora and Ren blurring together. She's hugged several times, quilts draped over her shoulders and "I'm so sorry, Miss Rose, there was nothing more we could do."

She runs to the kingdom outskirts to avoid them—Uncle Qrow's tattered cape spread across her lap, trembling hands clutching the fabric tight enough to tear. It smells of whiskey and blood and forest skies. Ruby feels like she can't breathe, like she's suddenly forgotten how to.

It occurs to her over and over again that they hadn't said goodbye.

Dad and Yang appear at some point. Jaune must've contacted them, because she doesn't remember doing it herself, though she doesn't remember eating or getting dressed or even moving either. She keeps thinking Uncle Qrow has just stepped out or is only a call away. His voice, tired drunken slur that it is, echoes through her skull and pounds against her heart.

Yang is already crying when they first see each other. She hugs Ruby tight enough to crush and her new arm is heavy and cold and glints beneath the fluorescent lights.

"Ruby," she whispers, choking, "Oh god, I'm so sorry..."

Guilt lurks in the shadows of her voice, and a small horrible corner of Ruby is glad. Yang let her go, too caught up in her own pain, and if she had been there then maybe…Uncle Qrow wouldn't have…if she had only been there…

Rationally, Ruby knows there's a disconnect in her thoughts, that this isn't Yang's fault or the doctors' or even her own. But her heart doesn't care. It only knows that Uncle Qrow is gone. That he's not here anymore. Not anywhere anymore. That she'll never see him again.

Ruby closes her eyes and winds her arms around her sister. She hugs her back, even though part of her wants to grab Yang by the shirt and scream, "Where were you I needed you where were you where wereyou wherewereyou…" Ruby closes her eyes. She wonders if she's a bad person. If perhaps she's crying too. She is so numb and broken inside that she can't tell.

Dad is pale and dark-circled. He speaks with the doctors at length and then he just stands in the hallway, gaze far into the distance. Strangely, it is the sight of him, the memory of him looking this same way years ago, that sends the first real pang through her chest. The first real…anything.

"Dad?" she whispers.

He looks at her and it takes a minute for anything coherent to register in his eyes. But then he smiles, papery thin, and gestures her over. His hug is gentle and strong fingers bury in her hair.

"It's not your fault, Ruby," he says simply, a tremble in his voice, "He wouldn't have blamed you, not ever, so don't do it to yourself, okay? Please."

Ruby is silent, pressing the side of her pallid cheek to her father's chest. His heartbeat roars like a dragon in agony. He wants her to forgive herself.

She wants to ask him how.

They burn Uncle Qrow away. Her father explains why repeatedly, eyes worried and fearful. She doesn't know why he feels the need. Uncle Qrow hated Mistral. It brought him nothing but pain. It hadn't been his home. These are all the reasons Ruby needs.

The crematorium is dark and deserted, with only a spindly mortician present who steps away to give them privacy. The air is overly clean, as if in overcompensation. She has smelled only the cloying, metallic scent of venom for so long that her head spins from the change.

Uncle Qrow is wrapped in a silver shroud.

Yang's throat is bobbing, her eyes wide and glassy with tears. Their father stands in the middle, an arm wrapped around each of them. She can feel his nails digging through the fabric of her shirt, as if hands scrabbling for purchase on a cliff side.

They stare at the body for a long, long time. Not speaking, even though she can see Yang's lips part as if she wants to. Ruby can see the shape of her uncle's arm, lying loose and limp beneath the cloth. She can see his hand, the same long deft one that had corrected her battle stance or checked Crescent Rose's gear-work for jams. A hum starts vibrating through Ruby's head.

Eventually, the mortician comes back. He loads the slate up to the black incinerator and the steel door opens. Inside, the orange beasts snarl with hunger. Yang makes a quiet noise, a desolate cry that somehow echoes across the dull heat and loud, trembling hum. Her father is rigid, like there's a gun prodding into his spine and it's the only reason he's standing at all. The hum returns, deafening, full-force. Her eyes are terribly, painfully dry.

And then Ruby's Uncle Qrow is fed to the flames.

His hair, his voice, his smile. His long, deft hands. The way he'd lifted her onto his knee for stories, bouncing her high whenever the characters rode horse-back. Klip and Klop Klip and Klop. How he'd washed her face clean of flour and patched the rips in her hood. The scratch of his stubble. The calloused palm offered on long walks home. How he hummed slow, sad songs without even knowing it when he dried dishes. All this too was burned away.

He was her Uncle Qrow—strange and wild and sometimes a million miles stuck in the past. He had loved her like no one ever would again.

The furnace door clangs shut. Ruby will hear the sound in her dreams for many years to come.

The mortician brings out the ashes. He hands Dad a yellowed receipt and the stainless steel jar. "I'm sorry for your loss," he says and shuts the door.

Yang hugs her close. Her arm is freezing to the touch and she smells of the crematorium's antiseptic. Ruby is torn between wriggling away and clinging back as if she's drowning.

Dad walks up to them, not really seeing them. "Girls," he murmurs, holding their uncle's remains with both hands. The fragments of him. Every shard of his bones. Every speck of rust in his eyes. All of Uncle Qrow crammed into a little metal jar.

Dad begins down the street without waiting for them to follow.

They stay in Mistral for an indeterminate amount of time.

Ruby fits herself into a window alcove, hugging her knees, the tattered cape across her thighs. It rains endlessly and she watches the streets ripple with swathes of water droplets.

Out in the hallway, Dad is speaking softly into his scroll. He's made a lot of different calls and she recognizes the names sometimes like Professor Port and Oobleck and several teachers from Signal. His voice grows hushed when he speaks to Professor Goodwitch, low and slightly cracked. He talks to her longer than the others and the words are not all stemmed in grief.

Uncle Qrow had left many secrets behind—some of which she suspects her father knew and some that sound as if he's trying to piece together now.

Ruby presses her forehead against the glass. The night before the fire paints across her vision, Uncle Qrow's hunched form and raspy voice as he spoke of gods and brothers. He'd been dying then already. Out of the searing ache of his own pain Jaune had yelled at him and in a moment of disappointment, Ruby had let him.

And he'd taken it. Sitting on the log, with his tired, sunken gaze and arm wrapped tight across that damning wound. She had seen the remorse in his eyes as he'd regarded Jaune, or Ren and Nora sitting mute and bewildered. How he'd gazed at her with all the regret and sorrow of the world. In hindsight, she wonders if he had been just as lost as they'd been, with Ozpin and Beacon gone, war looming, and this terrible, alien being—Salem.

She wonders if he had been afraid. Uncle Qrow, who wasn't afraid of anything.

"Ruby?"

Yang's voice is amiable and calm, with a tray of food in hand judging by the clink of silverware. Ruby doesn't turn around.

"I'm not hungry."

"You haven't eaten all day."

She grips the cape, knuckles whitening. "No."

Yang doesn't argue, merely setting the tray on a nearby table. She lingers though, feet shuffling, seemingly gathering the courage to speak. When she does, it's the first time she's heard hesitation in her sister's voice.

"Sis…we should probably talk…about what happened…"

"I don't want to talk."

A sigh. "I'm not saying now. But…eventually…when you're ready."

Ruby is silent. She wishes Yang would get out already and it frightens her how hostile the thoughts are. Yang doesn't leave though. Perhaps it's guilt that motivates her now, to reach out with the utmost of sincerity.

"You were so brave, you know, and strong."

"Who cares?" the words break right through Ruby, "It hadn't mattered." Nothing had.

"Of course it mattered. If I'd been there—"

"But you weren't."

Everything goes still, until the patter of rain against the window is more of a thundering. Ruby turns to her older sister, teeth clenched, ice sweeping across the shattered parts of her heart.

"You weren't there," she whispers, "You weren't there even though I asked you to be. You didn't care enough and now it's too late."

Deep down, in some distant part of her, Ruby realizes that she is being childish and cruel. It knows lashing out won't make her feel better or change anything, despite how tempting it is. The shame will come later, but for now she can't bring herself to listen.

And Yang, her sister of fire and gold, only looks at her.

"I know you're hurting," she says finally, "And I know you didn't mean it. But he was mine too, Ruby. I wish you'd remember that."

There is not a trace of anger in her eyes—just something sad and gentle. Losing an arm only seems to have made Yang stronger, lovelier, and Ruby thinks of how unfair it is, because she has lost a part of herself too and it's only made her weaker and uglier than ever before.

The first nightmare begins during the day.

Purpling blood soaks her knees, singeing the edges of her cloak. Crimson rain blinds her vision, soaking into the forest's ruined trails. A black haze curtains the area. There is a hole in her uncle's stomach as she crouches over his prone form—one she finds herself plugging with bare hands.

The venom stings her skin, makes her nose burn and he leaks out between the cracks of her fingers. Her voice is gone. She cannot scream.

Tyrian's face floats in the darkness—a grinning, ghoulish mask with laughter that echoes and echoes and echoes—

"Ruby? Ruby, wake up!"

She jolts upright, hand already groping for Crescent Rose before the world can even come into focus.

"Whoa, easy!" There is a flash of blonde and blue. Ruby's eyes snap open wide and the afternoon sun comes spilling in. Jaune is practically hovering on top of her, features alarmed and pinched with worry.

"Hey, you with me?"

He's too close and she leans back, spine pressing against rough bark and the sound of shedding leaves shivering in her ears. Then she remembers. She had waited for her father to make another trip to Haven and Yang to the market, before slipping away here. Back to this lone ash tree at the outskirts of the kingdom.

She pushes Jaune away, missing the second of hurt in his expression and scrambles to her feet.

"I'm okay," she whispers, and can't even hear herself over the ringing in her ears. She isn't fooling anyone, least of all Jaune, who is too smart and understands too much, but is also kind enough not to comment.

"What are you doing out here?" he asks instead, gesturing at the barren hill and browned weeds, "Doesn't seem like the best place to take a nap."

She laughs weakly, the sound like brittle paper. "Yeah, I, um, I guess I haven't been sleeping too well lately. Must have nodded off."

It's not exactly an answer and Jaune's eyes soften with sympathy as he gazes her. Ruby scrambles to change the subject before he can say anything.

"A-Anyway, what are you doing here, Jaune? I thought you, Ren and Nora were going with my dad to Haven."

At this, Jaune rubs the back of his neck, expression growing more confused and anxious.

"Right, uh, well not exactly. Things are apparently pretty complicated now. The headmaster won't meet with anyone but your dad."

She blinks. "What? Why?"

He hesitates, gazing sliding from her and back again. "Qrow…he must've known something important. I think he's hoping your dad knows too."

They are silent. The wind howls and the tree's boughs moan from the gale. Ruby's hood unfurls towards the sky like a pair of blood-red wings.

"Oh," she says.

Jaune nods, looking down at her carefully. "Yeah. I don't suppose you ever—"

"No."

Uncle Qrow had had his mysteries and she is only just beginning to realize how powerful they are and how many. Things he had probably known even back in Patch, when he'd been tickling her feet and trucking her along on his shoulders. Even then. She didn't know what he'd been thinking, why he'd felt the need to take the weight of Remnant upon himself, or why he never saw it fit to trust her with any of it.

…look, this has nothing to do with trust…

She swallows, staring at the dead clumps of grass as Jaune scratches the back of his head.

"Okay," he says, softly.

There is more silence. And then, as if it slips right out between his teeth…

"Ruby, I know you're sick of hearing it, but…I wanted to say I'm sorry. About what I said to him. About everything."

Ruby's lips purse into a thin, colorless line. "You don't have to, Jaune."

"No, please, listen," his voice is small and desperate, "I was just…I was just mad and confused and he was right there. I said things that I shouldn't have. He was your uncle, he had his reasons and I was wrong."

Something aches in Ruby. She doesn't want to hear this.

"It's okay, Jaune," she offers anyway, "You did your best and helped when you could. Don't apologize to me."

The words sound so stupid even as she's saying them. Trying one's best doesn't mean anything—not if it isn't enough. She had tried her best too…

It's so stupid. When did it start sounding so stupid?

"The same goes for you." Jaune's warm hand touches her shoulder. Concerned blue eyes gaze down at her.

"It wasn't your fault," he says, "None of it was. Getting angry, trying to blame someone, torturing yourself with all the 'what-ifs' in the world—you think it's going to fill you somehow, help somehow, but it doesn't and only makes it worse in the end."

A river of the past glittered in his eyes—golden armor, flaming hair, a lonely smile. Heat sears the back of Ruby's eyes. She has to breathe consciously to stop herself from gasping and just barely succeeds.

"I have to go," she whispers and then runs as far and fast as her Semblance can take her.

He wouldn't want to see her like this.

For all his skepticism, Uncle Qrow had believed in something. He'd always been so practical and never would've tried if he hadn't. It is just the actual belief part that had not been so practical. She supposes some piece of Uncle Qrow had been fond of the huntsman's creed, no matter how many times he'd groused that it was nonsense and the foolish fantasies of a child.

Maybe that was why when she used to run up to him and hug his legs, proclaiming that she wanted to save people and be a hero, he would look at her with such love. Heroes weren't real, but monsters very well were and he had loved her for trying to prove him wrong.

Uncle Qrow had believed in something.

She still isn't sure exactly what it was—only that it'd been huge and important and had taken him away.