Author's Note: Set between Volumes 1 and 2.
Heart to Heart
Blake had been dreaming. A happy dream, she thought, though the details had fled from her mind the moment she'd awoken.
What woke me up? she wondered. A quiet sniffle was her answer. Silently, she scooted sideways and looked up. Yang was sleeping above her, on top of the makeshift bunk bed they had created by stacking books on Blake's bedposts and balancing Yang's bed precariously on top of them. But no, the noise hadn't come from her. Yang was still snoring, one arm dangling over the edge of her mattress.
Blake then turned towards the other bunk, this one even more treacherous than her own as Ruby's bed wasn't even touching Weiss's, but rather hanging above it, supported by several ropes attached to the ceiling.
A whimper drifted across the room from the bottom of the two beds. In it, Weiss shivered and rolled over to face the wall. Blake frowned.
For a week now, ever since she had visited her family shortly after that mess at the docks with the White Fang, Weiss had been quiet and withdrawn. Not normally one to put up with her team's ridiculous antics for long, she seemed to be just going with the flow of late, not offering even a token protest. The rest of Team RWBY had noticed Weiss's odd behavior, though whenever one of them questioned her, she always insisted she was fine.
Neither Ruby nor Yang knew about the nightmares plaguing the heiress every night, though. The two of them always slept like the dead.
Blake couldn't deny that her curiosity was piqued, but out of a mixture of grudging respect and leftover enmity with Weiss, she had decided not to pry. So, night after night, she had been awoken by Weiss's quiet, pained cries. Night after night, she had listened in silence until the mutterings ceased and she was finally allowed to fall back to sleep.
Not tonight, though. Tonight, she'd finally had enough.
Blake slipped out from under her covers and padded across the room, her bare feet whisper-silent against the carpet as she approached the heiress's bed. Weiss was cocooned tightly in her blanket, her eyes clenched shut as tiny whimpers escaped her. Blake reached out and touched her shoulder. When Weiss didn't respond, she grasped it gently and gave her a shake.
"Wha—" Weiss exclaimed, though she was quickly muffled by Blake's hand. When her blurry vision cleared up after her abrupt awakening and Blake's face swam into focus, her eyes narrowed in anger.
"Shh" Blake whispered, putting a finger over her lips. "Quiet, Weiss. Ruby and Yang are still sleeping." She removed her hand from the girl's mouth, then peeled Weiss's covers back. She gripped the girl's wrist and tugged. "Come on. Let's talk outside."
"What on Remnant are you doing?" Weiss hissed as Blake dragged her from her bed.
"I'm doing you a favor," the Faunus replied under her breath. "Now come on already!"
Weiss, grumbling under her breath about girls who dared to interrupt her beauty sleep, nonetheless allowed herself to be pulled out into the hallway, then up the nearest stairwell and out onto the rooftop balcony over the dormitories. When they were outside, she finally yanked her wrist from Blake's grasp.
"What's wrong with you?!" she demanded irritably.
"I should be asking you the same question," Blake replied cooly. Weiss fell silent as her raven-haired teammate continued, "Something's wrong with you, Weiss. Ever since you came back from visiting your family, you've been depressed, moody, and even more of a downer than you usually are—"
"Hey!"
"We've all noticed it," Blake continued, ignoring Weiss's protest. "You keep saying you're fine, but we all know you're lying. The only reason Ruby hasn't already tried to interrogate you is because she doesn't know about the nightmares you're having."
"N-Nightmares?" Weiss stuttered. "You know about the—"
"Yes," Blake interrupted. "Every night. I'm sick of being woken up every night by your mutterings. I'm sick of watching Ruby worry over you so much that she's become as distracted and moody as you are. It's clear something happened when you visited your family. Tell me."
When Blake stopped speaking, a ringing silence fell over them.
"It's none of your business," Weiss murmured quietly. Blake, even with the enhanced hearing her extra feline ears gave her, had to strain to catch the whispered words.
Blake sighed. "Someone," she gave Weiss a significant look, "once told me that whenever something big comes up, whenever I have a problem, I should come to my teammates for help rather than trying to shoulder the burden on my own."
Weiss flinched, remembering what she had said after she, Ruby, and Yang had spent half a day searching all of Vale to find Blake.
She took a deep breath and asked, "Why did you leave the White Fang?"
Blake froze. "I... What?"
"Why did you leave the White Fang?" Weiss repeated. The ivory-haired girl turned and looked up at the shattered moon. "What made you want to leave? You agreed with their aims, didn't you? So... what changed?"
"I thought you didn't care."
Weiss looked down again, her gaze boring into Blake's own. "That was then," she said. "I just... I need to know why. Please."
Blake's protest died in her throat. Weiss's emotions were plain to see in her eyes. There was a hint of fear there, some apprehension, and a generous helping of...
Empathy?
Weiss had never once asked for something as seriously as this. She had never, as far as Blake could remember, said "please" in such an earnest way before. And that look in her eyes...
"Why do you need to know?" Blake asked. She meant for it to be a simple question, but it came out sounding more like an accusation.
"I..." Weiss hesitated. "I'll explain after. It's important though. I swear."
Now there was something else in her eyes. Desperation. She was begging Blake to answer her question.
But why?
With a sigh, Blake acquiesced and began to tell her tale.
"When I first joined the White Fang, they were... very different from how they are today," she explained. "A peaceful protest group, campaigning for Faunus rights."
When Blake stopped speaking, Weiss asked, "What changed?"
Old memories filled Blake's mind, overwhelming her. She tried to push them away as she continued, "Our old leader stepped down about five years ago, and a new one took his place. He was... different. He had a different way of thinking, a different direction in mind for the White Fang. Instead of protests and picketing, we started organizing attacks and raids. Burning down shops that refused to serve us, stealing from companies that exploited us..."
A small part of Blake noticed Weiss shiver. The Schnee Dust Company was one of the White Fang's most frequent targets for theft and sabotage.
"And it was working," Blake admitted sadly. "We were finally being recognized. Humans were finally looking at us, seeing us, when before we were just ignored." She sighed and shook her head. "But it was more out of fear than the respect I had hoped for. Eventually though, I realized what we had become. What I had become. And then they asked me to do something horrible." Memories of her last mission with the White Fang washed over her, almost smothering her with their intensity.
"I'll set the charges."
"What about the crewmembers?"
"What about them?"
"What..." Weiss gulped, then tried again, "What was it?"
"I thought we were just going to be stealing cargo," Blake said, her dull voice so quiet that Weiss could barely hear it. "We attacked a train transporting a dust shipment through Forever Fall."
Weiss paled. Blake frowned as she noticed the girl's strange reaction, but chose not to comment.
"I thought the plan was just to get in, fight our way through the security bots, grab a few crates of dust, and get out before any Humans even knew we were there. Once we found the dust, though, I discovered that Adam—my partner at the time—planned to blow the train, killing everyone aboard."
If the Schnee heiress was pale before, now she was dead-white. She opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. Blake, lost in her memories, didn't notice.
"I couldn't do that. I had done a lot of terrible things for the White Fang, but killing innocent people just because they worked for..."
"The Schnee Dust Company," Weiss whispered, finishing Blake's thought after she trailed off.
"Yes," Blake agreed, taking a deep breath to try to calm herself. It didn't work. "When he told me, I... I had to stop him. I cut off the back half of the train with him still on it. And then I ran, and never looked ba—"
She stopped, staring down in shock at the white hair now sitting just beneath her chin. She felt thin arms wrap around her torso. Weiss was... hugging her?
"What—"
"Thank you," Weiss murmured into Blake's shoulder. Then she released the taller girl and stepped back, turning away to hide her bright crimson face.
"What the—"
"You saved the life of one of the few people in this world that I actually cared about before coming to Beacon."
"What are you—"
"I thought I understood."
Blake stared at the strange doppelganger that had apparently replaced her teammate.
"I'm not stupid," Weiss went on, unaware of Blake's state of shock. "I always noticed the signs, even when I was very young. I know the Schnee Dust Company has been operating in a morally... gray area, ever since my father took control."
"That's putting it lightly," Blake's mouth said, though her mind was still stuck on the fact that Weiss had hugged her.
"I always wanted to make things right," the heiress explained softly. "I wanted to fix the company, to restore my family's good name, to stop the war between the Schnee family and the White Fang. All of it. I couldn't do that by staying in Atlas. Just taking a job with the company, allowing my father to groom me to be the perfect heiress... wouldn't change anything. I knew I couldn't just inherit the company after spending my life under my father's thumb."
A part of Blake's mind noticed distantly that Weiss's voice held not a trace of affection for the man who had raised her. She opened her mouth to ask why, but thought better of it and remained silent.
"I knew I had to go out into the world, outside of Atlas. I had to learn how to be the best leader I can be when it's finally time for me to take over the company. I have to earn it, or I'll be no better than my father in the end."
"You sound like you have it all figured out," Blake said, a hint of a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. Weiss wanted to make things better? A Schnee wanted to end the constant strife between Humans and Faunus? This was a dream come true!
"I thought I did," Weiss admitted. "I'd go out, learn about the world, and come back a better person, a better leader, the perfect person to take charge and fix things. But I... I had no idea..."
"No idea about what?"
"I had no idea how bad it was!" Weiss snapped. She ground her teeth. "I had no idea how deep my father's racism ran. I had no idea how hateful, spiteful, and greedy he could be. I thought that maybe I could... convince him to make things better. Maybe he and I could both make things right."
"But..." Blake prodded curiously.
"But my father has... nothing left inside him. No love. No kindness. No empathy. He is so full of hate and greed that there's no room for anything else!"
"Why?" Blake asked before she could stop herself. When Weiss's face went completely blank, she hurriedly said, "Never mind. You don't have to answer."
"My mother died when I was young," Weiss said anyway, speaking in a dull, lifeless monotone. "She was killed by terrorists. Faunus terrorists. This was before the White Fang turned to attacks and thievery, but maybe they were part of the White Fang and weren't satisfied with how their methods weren't working at the time. Or maybe they had nothing to do with it. Whatever it was, it was Faunus who killed her. That is all my father sees. And the ones responsible... were never caught.
"I asked him something when I went to visit him last week," the heiress said. "I asked him about the Faunus. I asked him if maybe he could... try to make things right. Try to stop the constant fighting between the SDC and the White Fang. He used to be a good man. A kind man. I thought maybe he might see reason. Maybe he might understand. He..."
Silence fell as Weiss struggled to find her words.
"He slapped me. He called me a traitor to the family. He said Beacon had corrupted me, had made me forget my purpose. I left the next morning. I ran. Like you."
"Oh." Blake wasn't sure what else to say.
"And now here I am, back at Beacon, still training to be a Huntress... but to what end? How can I undo years of hate and suffering? I don't know how to fix this!" Weiss shouted. "I don't even know if I can!"
Blake should have been happy to hear this. She should have been overjoyed that Weiss wanted to set things right. She had never imagined, never even dreamed that any member of the Schnee family might actually be, well... human. Human enough to care, to understand how terrible their treatment of the Faunus actually was, to regret it and want to fix it.
"And I'm not even sure why I want to," the snow-haired girl admitted in a dull monotone. "The White Fang has attacked my family so many times. They've killed people I cared about. Everyone I've ever known has had a giant target painted on their back, and so many of them are gone today. Because of the White Fang.
"I won't forgive them," she growled vehemently. "I'll never forgive them for the pain they've inflicted on my family, the war they've dragged us into. But I... I understand them now. I understand why, even if I hate them for it." She looked at Blake and sighed. "I do want to fix everything. Not for them, but for the innocent people caught in the crossfire, whether those people are Human or Faunus. But I just... don't think I can do it alone."
"Then don't."
Weiss blinked, staring at the Faunus standing next to her.
"Don't do it alone," Blake said, a tiny smile making its way onto her face. "If you honestly want to make things better, you won't have to do it alone. I'll help. Ruby will definitely help. Yang..." She frowned. "Well, if Ruby's involved then Yang will come along anyway, whether she wants to help or not."
Weiss stared at her for a very long moment, her eyes filling with tears, then shook her head and rubbed her eyes with both fists. "Alright then, well if you don't mind, I'm going to get back to the sleep you so rudely interrupted."
She smirked, her confident persona back in its proper place, and turned to head inside.
"Weiss..."
The heiress glanced back over her shoulder and raised an eyebrow.
"Thanks," was all Blake could say.
"That's my line," Weiss murmured. Then she was gone.
Author's Note: This was a long time coming, wasn't it?
I really struggled with this fic, not to mention NaNoWriMo kind of putting it on the backburner, but in the end I like how it turned out. Let me know what you think in a review! Particularly if you think there's an area where I could improve. It would be immensely helpful, since I'm kind of worried Weiss may have been a bit too OOC here.
For those who don't know, this is part five of a loosely-connected series of oneshots about the members of Team RWBY starting to bond with each other. They're written chronologically, but can be read in pretty much any order. So if you liked this one, you should go read the others! The other four oneshots are called: Common Ground, Sharing, A Simple Act of Kindness, and Ego. Each one is about two of the members of Team RWBY finding common ground, as the first title implies.
As for who Weiss was talking about when she said Blake saved someone she cared about, well, she obviously doesn't seem to be close to her father, so there's really only one other person it could be, right?