I know.

Summary: They did it again. Tag: Lancaster, future.

Disclaimer: RWBY belongs to Rooster Teeth and the blessed Monty Oum. All I owe is the cliche-esque plot of this.

Chapter 02.


Two lonely people walked home from the bar. That was what this had started as.

"Jaune." She had said into his ear. "Can you walk me home?"


It had been just two old friends out drinking, a brief and chanced reunion that seemed so little compared to the time they were seperated.

"Ruby." He had gaped, his eyes meeting her form. The Saviour of Remnant - Her red cloak was torn and tattered, her hair thin and unevenly cut, her face worn and weary from constant fighting. Her eyes jaded yet still glittering like silver moons, light refusing to be snuffed out as she always had.

"Jaune..." her eyes had teared, before jumping to embrace him in a full body - glomph! Armor collided with limbs, crimson petals scattered like blood in the air, eyes widened and glazed in shock, for a flash not quite there but at a scarred battleground somewhere not so far away.

"-I missed you." Came words through ears ringing with cannon fire, the gauntleted hand gripping onto a hilt of a blade loosening to return the embrace and - surprising himself that they didn't brush into the hilt of another.

"...what happened to Crescent Rose?" Blue eyes focused slowly, her grip brought him back like they always had.

"It's a long, long story." Came a wry smile on cherry rose lips.


They had talked, they had drunk, they had swapped stories and questions needed to ask, 'How have you been's and 'where is this scar from's and 'what happened's. It wasn't a cheerful talk, by any extent of the word, but it was one needed.


His hand touched her left earlobe, a piece missing and fleshy scars still red hidden under her hair. The close contact noticed but felt so natural. "Amalee." She answered his unasked question. "A pack of Gryphons. I drew them off into a chase into the nearby ravine, and got... stuck."

Her hand examined three scabbed gashes filled with regenerating flesh on his left arm, where crimson had once showed bonewhite. "An Ursa got me in a routine house clearing."

"You running on red again?" Her brows furrowed in a scowl.

"It was the final days of Glenn, everybody was pushing it." Not any much more than you do.

His eyes was drawn to a fresh line she tried to hide under the red fabric of her scalf. He unwounded the piece of clothing, his hand tracing over the healing cut on her throat, a deepening scowl on his hard face.

"Ruby..."

"Nexus A1, you've heard about that?"

"...Yes." the new CCT-relay beacon, who hadn't heard about it's almost destruction. Internal sabotage by Grimm cultists that met their swift end by an unseen blade. He had a particular feeling who it was. Or she.

"There was a kid. The lead cultist was holding a gun to her head, and I acted." She said quietly, almost hesitant of telling. "Turns out that bastard wired himself with a dead-man switch, detonating the tower on top of us. A rebar caught me in the neck."

"...ouch." he said.

"Of course it's 'ouch', I can't heal as well as you." Ruby wryly said. "She lives, if you're asking."

"Of course she is." Jaune Arc smiled. "You're Ruby Rose."

Her fingers traced over his crooked nose, two diagonal scars intersecting in the middle. He decided to tell something funnier. "I came up with an idea to trap a Manticore in a concrete tunnel." The question of 'there is a Manticore in Glenn?!' silenced by the Commander's simple remark. "Never trap a Manticore in a concrete tunnel."

"I presume you used yourself as bait?" A small tug upward pulled at her lips at the guess.

"Yeah." He chuckled, hand moving up to rub at the itching scar absent-mindedly.

"And the manticore?"

"Collapsed half a quarry on its head, and it was still struggling for three days straight." A wry and humourless smile. "Pinned down by a rock three inches from its face, so I guess that makes us even."

She let out a weak giggle, stiffled quite a bit from her own experiences with those things.

His hand parted the bang over her right eye, to reveal nearly faded lines of scars intersecting with burns like thunder crackling from eye. "Just how big was that Gryphon pack?"

She laughed, smiling another wry grin.

"Big. Very big."

"Guess I know what happened to Crescent Rose?" He dryly smiled.

"Guess I know what happened to your gods-damned cortesy?" She playfully glared.

"...Eaten by a Grimm." They said simultaneously, cracking into hearty laughter.


Much more wine was drunk. More stories told. And they had let facades built crumble down like walls made from so much wet sand.

"I miss them. I miss them so, so much."

Two lonely people walked home - and one was crying into the shoulders of the other.


"Yang... Blake... Weiss..."

Her arms over his shoulders shook as she clung onto his back, almost strapped to it in a piggyback ride. Her voice shaking, mixed with both grief and resentment suppressed for so long breaking open.

"...They all left me. They all did."

"Ruby..." he tried to argue, to be the reasonable one. "They didn't leave you."

"No. No. They left because I failed them." She hiccuped, fingernails biting into the fabric of his chestplate. "They died, because I lead them to their deaths."

"No, Ruby. I told you, didn't I? You didn't pull us along, you gave us the courage to follow you. And it wasn't you who decided that we must die, it was us who was given the courage to decide what must be done, even at the cost of our own lives."

"I didn't see you using that arguement when Nora and Ren left you." She accused. "You didn't use that arguement when it was Pyrrha who pushed you into that metal locker and flew off to die facing Cinder alone."

Jaune's teeth clenched. He blinked away a tear that arose at her stinging words. She didn't mean it, he knew.

"Gosh-! I'm sorry, I-" she choked on a hiccup.

"I know." He mouthed softly. I know you didn't mean it.

No words was exchanged for a long, long time. A friend continued to carry another home on his back, quietly trying his best to be sympathetic as she let out quiet sobs into his shoulders. His hands, that had sometime ago moved to her calves, gently squeezed once, acknowledging that he's still here, and there was nothing to be worry about.

"Jaune... don't leave me, okay?" She pleaded, her arms draped around his shoulder wrapping closer. Her body pressing into his back so much closer, even through the layers of fabric and metal.

"No... I won't." He answered, without thinking.

"Good." She let herself drift to sleep.


Two lonely people walked - into a single room permanently reserved at the Hunter's Inn. In the darkness, his feet stumbled, her limp arms draping around his collar suddenly coming to life pulling them both onto the soft matresses of the lone bed.

His panicked retort was cut off when her lips rammed into his bruised ones, rosy scent and numbed mind overwhelming rational thoughts.

In the darkness, silver eyes glowed with wetness and want, and blue eyes replied with the final crumbles of the last walls.

"Please, just for tonight-"

Two lonely people -

"-stay with me."