After a while, Ruby learned to accept the fact that sometimes, Penny would just kind of show up with no explanation.

What really got her was where Penny would show up.

The girl wasn't a Beacon Academy student, not that Ruby knew of, anyway, so when she was waiting for Ruby in the RWBY dorm room one day, perched on Weiss's bed when the girls came back from classes, it was a little bit strange.

"Friend Ruby!" Penny exclaimed as the girls entered, a little more than surprised. "Friends Weiss, Blake, and Yang! It is so good to see you! I'm so happy! Where were you earlier?" Her face fell slightly, not losing the almost wild excited expression even then. "You were not here for exactly nine hours and two minutes!"

"Uh..." Yang trailed. "We sort of had classes?"

"Oh!" Penny brightened visibly. "I do hope you learned something!"

"We fought Grimm!" Ruby announced.

"Did you win?"

"Well... uh. Yeah. We're alive because... we won."

Penny absolutely beamed. "I am very happy that you engaged in successful combat then! I could have done that too, you know! I'm..."

"We know, we know," Blake said with a small roll of her eyes. "You're 'combat ready,' right, Penny?"

"Yes! You remembered, how awesome!"

Weiss frowned. "How did you get in here?"

"I climbed through the window!"

Ruby echoed her girlfriend's reaction. "Isn't that ten stories or something?"

"I am a very good climber!"

"I... I see." Yang grabbed Blake's shoulders and pulled her own girlfriend from the room. "Hey, Blake and I are gonna go down to Vale for a... a something. We'll be back in a few hours. See you another day, Penny. Don't wait up for us, sis and future sis."

Then the two of them were gone, and it was just Penny, Weiss, and Ruby. Just the way Ruby liked it. Plus one.

Weiss stormed over to her bed, seeming intent on sitting down, when she realized that was exactly where Penny had set up. "Would you mind?" she asked, cold as the day Ruby had met her.

"Would I mind what, friend Weiss?"

Weiss slowly closed her eyes. She slowly opened them again. She opened her mouth, shut it, reopened it. "Would you mind," she repeated, saccharine sweet, "sitting somewhere else?"

"Most certainly, friend!" Penny jumped up, hitting her head on Ruby's bed and causing it to swing haphazardly, until Ruby was sure it was going to fall (it didn't). "Where should I sit instead?"

"You can sit on my bed," Ruby said, before Weiss said anything about leaving that could be mean (as she looked like she was going to).

Weiss shot the younger girl a glare, and Ruby shrugged. She felt bad for Penny. Penny was so nice, so awkward. She reminded Ruby of herself at fifteen, just arriving at Beacon. She saw in Penny the girl who had an awful first day; the girl who knew she came on much too strong, who was better with weapons than people. Somehow, people had reached out to her, and it made Ruby upset to realize that nobody had that much interest in reaching out to Penny, as strange as she was. Penny didn't even seem to have the benefit of a cool and popular older sister, one who forced people to be nice to her. Penny, unlike Ruby, was on her own before.

Ruby had promised to make sure that she wasn't any longer. Even if it made Weiss mad. Weiss was always mad about something, after all.

Penny hopped up onto the top "bunk." Ruby noted that she was, in fact, a good climber, getting up there without much difficulty. The strange girl looked around at her surroundings. "You have blankets!" she exclaimed. "May I use them?"

"Uh, sure, go ahead!"

"Thank you, Ruby!" Penny tugged on the blankets and pulled them off messily, wrapping them around her. "I'm going to cuddle. Would you like to cuddle with me?"

Ruby's eyes widened. "Uh..."

"Excuse me?" Weiss interrupted, getting up from her bed, hands on her hips. She marched out onto the center of the dorm floor, looking up at Penny. "You do know Ruby and I are dating, right?"

"Yes! You've informed me before. You two make a very cute couple, you know."

Weiss softened, only enough so that Ruby, who knew her so well, could tell. "Yes, we are. Ruby always cuddles with me, anyway. Just so you know."

"If Ruby cuddles with you always, and I also want her to cuddle with me, why don't we all cuddle together?" Penny clapped her hands, eyes glowing excitedly. "I never have cuddled before, and I would like to have double cuddles."

"How about n-"

Ruby waved her hands rapidly, cutting Weiss off... if it weren't for the older woman's sensitivity to touch, she may have simply clapped her hand over Weiss's mouth. "Be nice," Ruby mouthed.

Weiss narrowed her eyes and frowned at Ruby.

Which should have been a warning to not say "That sounds like a great idea!"

Ruby didn't take the warning.

Penny beamed. She scurried back down to Weiss's bed, Ruby's blankets still wrapped around her. "I doubt your bed would hold our combined weight," she explained seriously. "I am very heavy. Perhaps I am wrong though, as Weiss is very tiny."

Weiss's eyes widened and she opened her mouth to shoot off a comment... Ruby remembered the last time someone had commented on the heiress's height. It hadn't ended well. "She probably means you're very thin, Weiss," Ruby hastily explained. "She's paying you a compliment!"

"She is very thin! And also quite short!" Penny piped.

Weiss glared at Ruby. "You see?" she commented.

"Yeah." Ruby sat down on Weiss's bed, next to Penny. "Penny..." she began. "Weiss doesn't like being called short, and now she's in a bad mood..."

"You know what I read makes bad moods better? Cuddles! That's why I want to try them. They must be some sort of magic to make people so happy!"

"Yeah! They really are!" Ruby wrapped her arms around Penny, moving the blankets away from the other girl, and shivered. "Gee! You're really freezing cold, Penny!"

"Yes I am! You're very warm, Ruby!"

"Uh... yeah! Hey Weiss! Get over here and feel how cold Penny is!"

Weiss frowned. "I don't want to cuddle."

"Fine, but you've gotta at least feel how cold her skin is! It's colder than yours!"

"What are you saying?"

"Um. That you normally have pretty cold skin? And I like to warm you up?"

"Like you're doing for Penny now?"

"You are making my temperature rise quite a bit," Penny chimed in.

Ruby sighed. "Weiss... Penny and I are cuddling as friends. Buddies. Right, Penny?"

"Yeah! Ruby is my friend!"

Ruby smiled at her girlfriend. "See? It's not like we're kissing or anything."

"Can I kiss you?" Penny asked eagerly. "Can we kiss as friends?"

"Uh..."

"Move over," Weiss ordered, shoving in next to Ruby and her pillow. "I'm not leaving some strange, overly social girl alone with you, and I absolutely don't want to be here, but I know what happens when one is overly trusting in these matters. It's like tempting fate. Hand me a blanket, you dolts."

"She gets to be a dolt too?" Ruby near whined. "I thought I was your only dolt."

"Fine. She's nuts. You're the dolt."

"Nuts and dolts! That's an amusing play on words!"

"Penny, please don't speak and just hand me the blanket."

Penny passed a comforter to Ruby, who handed it over to her girlfriend. With suddenly empty hands, she put one arm around Penny. "Can I cuddle with you, Weiss?"

"Yes. Thank you for asking."

She sat the other arm over Weiss's shoulders and pulled her closer. "You're both really chilly," she noted. "But don't worry. Between me and the blankets, we'll be all warmed up!"

"Yeah!" Penny exclaimed. Weiss tried not to smile, Ruby saw it. Maybe, despite how it seemed, her friend and her girlfriend could get along.

"Hey!" she said suddenly. "Maybe we could get Yang and Blake in on this cuddlefest when they come back!"

Weiss narrowed her eyes. "Three's enough."

"Okay. Three is enough."