… has so far been peaceful. Except for the occasional gathering of people along the roadside, the convoy carrying former Schnee Dust Company CEO Walden Schnee has not met with any incident in what is termed by Faunus rights groups as a pivotal victory in their fight for equality. Back to you central.
Thank you. That was our live coverage of the convoy carrying Walden Schnee to the central penitentiary in Atlas after his groundbreaking conviction for countless Faunus rights abuses. In related news commodity trading prices of Dust in Vacuou, Vale and Atlas have shot up 30% a mere 2 hours after the verdict was…
Ruby and Weiss sat on opposite ends of Ruby's sofa as the news anchor droned on how the conviction of Walden Schnee and the dissolution of the SDC was rocking Dust markets Remnant-wide. Ruby had her foot up on her coffee table as she tried to absorb all the news being flashed on the flat screen monitor mounted on her living room wall. Weiss, looking uncomfortable on her side of the sofa, was more in tune with how the dissolution of her family's company would affect Dust markets for months, if not years, to come. All this on top of the awkwardness she's feeling ever since Ruby had welcomed her in to her home with a smile and a tight hug.
"Hmm… well I guess this means dust ammunition's gonna cost more now. Probably should time my shots better…"
Ruby said those words aloud, half expecting a response from the quiet and docile girl also sitting on her couch. She couldn't help but notice that Weiss hadn't touched the tea and cookies she put out in the last hour that they've been on the couch since Weiss came into the house. They had, in fact, exchanged only a few awkward hellos and pleasantries since they first saw each other in 5 years. Weiss had retreated to her side of the couch, stuttering with every word that came out of her lips as she tried her best to respond to Ruby's barrage of questions about how she's been and how she's taking the recent events surrounding her family. Ruby was always the talkative and inquisitive type, and while Weiss was always the type to either answer her quick to get her to shut up or get eventually get irritated at some point, Ruby was genuinely surprised at the way Weiss looked like a scared little animal.
"Weiss… come on talk to me…"
"Ruby I… I just don't know what to say… you know showing up suddenly at your house after… after not contacting you for 5 years and you letting me in like nothing's happened…"
Weiss looked down on her feet as she twiddled with her toes. She felt a genuine sense of shame for just appearing on the doorstep of the girl she had pushed away all those years ago, especially since a part of her was actually expecting that Ruby would just let her in without a thought about the last day they were together. Yet here she was, sitting on that girl's couch, with a cup of tea and a plate of cookies in front of her.
"Well you know… it's actually kind of funny with you hauling all that luggage with you here when you were carrying the exact same bags when you left Beacon."
Ruby let out a snicker as Weiss' mind shot back to the exact last moment they saw each other, both of them walking away with their back turned. Weiss could feel her chest tighten with a pang of guilt. The memory of that day was still fresh on her mind, unable to forget the things she had done on that day for the sake of her family and for what she thought was right.
"I'm sorry…"
"Hmm? For what"
"For coming here unannounced, with all the remaining things I still own and… actually expecting you to let me in…"
"… WeissWeissWeiss."
Ruby almost instantly put herself beside Weiss and wrapped her left arm around her former combat school partner's shoulder. Weiss' heart skipped a beat.
"You know I didn't actually really realize how serious it all was until… probably when the news started showing all those reports of the SDC's… illegal activities. Er… no offense."
"… None taken."
Ruby took her arm off and leaned back on her sofa and stared at the ceiling. Above them was an old-looking wooden ceiling fan with dragon carved motif on the blades.
"When they showed on the news early this morning how your family's company was going to get chopped up and distributed among the Faunus workers and how they were taking almost all your money… well I was kind of worried how a princess would take sudden poverty."
While the last line in Ruby's monologue was a mix of humor and sarcasm, Weiss didn't feel any sort of pity or even venom in her words. Still, she couldn't help but wince at the stinging truth behind Ruby's choice of words. It was true: being born with s silver spoon and having lived her life in the lap of luxury, she was still afraid of the future despite knowing full well that her family stood to lose everything when it was all said and done.
"Of course you did end up here of all places. So… why did you?"
"My father once told me that… the number of your friends increases and decreases proportionately with the value of your bank account. You can probably guess how many were left when they took almost everything from us…"
With that, Weiss got up and pulled on her luggage. She took Ruby's last comment as a sign that she was not really welcome here. She couldn't blame her if she felt that way. She had no right to impose on Ruby after what she did to her, especially with her having the gall to show up on her porch with luggage in hand. She had somehow expected for Ruby to put up with her for maybe a night or two, after which she was fully prepared to leave. With the way she thought things were going, she felt it would be better if she just left. Perhaps now, for good.
"Anyway Ruby I guess I'd better be-"
Ruby grabbed Weiss' hand before she could finish speaking. She pulled her to a small room in the back of the house, with a window facing the garage. Inside the room was a double bed covered in a dusty white sheet. In one corner was an old wooden cabinet that creaked as Ruby opened it, exposing a clothing rack and a few clothes hangers. By the door was a small desk with a quill lying beside a bottle of ink. On the opposite side to the door, by the window, was an armoire with a couple of family photos of Ruby, Yang, their father and their respective mothers. The floor was also covered in a thin layer of dirt. It was clearly a room that wasn't lived in for a while.
"This is my dad's room. He uh took a professor's tenure in Signal so he's pretty much living there permanently on campus. It's pretty much just me here in the house. No one's used this room for a while so… yeah we don't actually have a guest room so if you don't mind cleaning up a bit-"
"Ruby…"
"Hm?"
"… Thank you. Really this is… this is more than enough. Don't worry about me."
"Ok well then… I'll put the vacuum cleaner by the door. You should clean up a bit while I make dinner. And Weiss…"
Weiss placed her bags inside the closet and Ruby walked out the door. Ruby looked back at her, tilted her head to the side and smiled a mischievous smile.
"If you're gonna live here, you're gonna have to work for your keep!"
With that Ruby disappeared down the hall. Weiss felt a torrent of emotions well up inside of her as she was fully prepared to be completely but deservedly rejected by Ruby. But here she was, standing in a slightly dirty but perfectly livable room, offered to her by them same girl who's heart she broke all those years ago. She felt undeserving of Ruby's generosity but was still not surprised. After all, Ruby had the biggest heart of anyone she had known her whole life. Despite everything that's happened, this part of her never changed.
Having never really seriously cleaned her whole life, Weiss struggled with the vacuum cleaner. She's seen how Ruby and Blake used to operate the machine back in their Beacon days, but she had never actually used one before. This was readily apparent to her when she flicked the eject switch on the machine, which rather than a vacuum's typical suction action, instead blew out the contents. Weiss was thankful the cleaner was on a low setting and the bag was nearly empty or she'd have to explain to her new housemate how anyone could make a room dirtier by trying to clean it. As her struggles with the vacuum continued, she could smell something good coming from the kitchen. Ruby was making dinner, and Weiss was first taken aback as Ruby was the type to be better at eating food than cooking it. Previous attempts by Ruby in Weiss' memory at the culinary arts tend to end in failure, sometimes catastrophically, with cookies of course being the sole exception.
After successfully if haphazardly cleaning the room, Weiss stepped out to see a nice spread on Ruby's rustic woodwork dinner table. Weiss was, again, stunned because this was something she had never imagined Ruby could do, especially in such a short time. Deep fried sweet potato sticks, pot roast chicken and 2 tall glasses of strawberry smoothies. She didn't need to taste them to know they'd be good if not great.
"Ruby you didn't have to-"
"Heh. It's fine. Most of the time I eat alone here so it's nice to finally be able to eat with someone."
"Well it… certainly looks great, and in such a short time. Back then Blake and I had to pick up the pieces of broken cookware when you were done."
Both girls had a hearty laugh as they sat down on opposite ends of the table.
"So… how's Yang? You said you lived alone so… I take it she doesn't stay here?"
Weiss asked Ruby nervously. This was their family home after all so it came as a surprise to Weiss that Yang wasn't around. That, and she was nervous of what might happen if Yang saw her in the house considering that they didn't have the most civil of partings all those years back. Just the idea of that moment brought back a slight tinge of pain on her jaw.
"She… well she went back to looking for her mother while working as a huntress, so she's very rarely at home. She comes back like twice a year but we also keep in touch via scroll. That reminds me I should probably tell her you're here and-"
"No!"
Ruby was taken aback by Weiss sudden increase in volume.
"Look we… didn't exactly part ways in amicable terms because of… you know…"
It didn't take Ruby more than a moment to realize what Weiss was talking about. She remembered crying into Yang's arms the moment she came into their room, and then seeing Yang storm out when she told her what had happened. It was a memory she had pushed back into her mind, but upon seeing Weiss on her front door, she knew she would have to deal with those memories resurfacing.
"Oh…"
"That and she sort of punched me in the face so yeah…"
"She WHAT!?"
"Let's just say I'm glad she wasn't wearing her gauntlets that time or we wouldn't be here talking."
Weiss bit into the sweet potato fry as she spoke. Ruby got riled up at the idea that Yang punched Weiss in the face, but seeing as Weiss was enjoying her food she sat down and continued eating. Both girls chatted as they ate, at times laughing at the memories of days past and in some tiptoeing around anything that might inadvertently bring up that very uncomfortable shared memory they had. Having finished their meal, Ruby excused herself to start cleaning up.
"I'll help."
"You remember the last time you tried cleaning dishes right?"
"… no?"
Weiss' bossy attitude took over from her generally reserved demeanor and eventually she convinced Ruby to let her help clean up. Ruby was thankful that this time no dishes were broken in the process, no cuts and blood either. Trusting in Weiss enough to keep her dishwashing rhythm going, Ruby went ahead to take a shower as she hadn't taken one all day. After a few more minutes Weiss was finally done washing the dishes and decided to head to the room Ruby had lent her to unpack and to also take a bath. It was in that hallway that she would accidentally bump into Ruby, who was clad in nothing but a towel over body as she headed for the bathroom. It took a moment of Weiss staring at her before she realized what she was doing and gawking at.
"Eyes up here Weiss."
Ruby poked Weiss' forehead, upon which Weiss eventually raised her head to look at Ruby in the face as opposed to staring at everything from the neck down.
"I'm gonna go take a bath first. When you're done you should probably get some sleep. There's a place I wanna go to tomorrow. Both of us."
Ruby stepped into the bathroom. She looked back at Weiss with a shallow smirk on her face.
"And really Weiss, there's nothing on me you haven't seen before."
With that sly remark she closed the door behind her, leaving a befuddled and blushing Weiss to facepalm in the middle of the hallway. Weiss knew exactly what Ruby was talking about, but at the same time had to remind herself that it was all in the past that was better off left where it was. Weiss went back into the bedroom and opened her bags. Sorting through what remained of her belongings, she went through piles of clothes to find her scroll. Booting it up, she placed a call to her sister.
"Weiss? Have you arrived? Did you make sure to use the secure line?"
"Yeah. I'm here in Ruby's house over in Patch."
"Ruby? As in that girl you were-"
"Yes. Don't... don't remind me."
"And she let you in despite it all?"
"She was... she's not the type to hold grudges, unlike her sister. To be honest... the more welcoming she is the more it... hurts."
"What do you mean?"
Weiss sighed as she plopped down on the creaky bed. She stared at the ceiling with a blank expression.
"She was the first person that came to mind when I decided to leave. I don't know why, in reality she should have been the last person for me to go to. She has all the right to refuse me, and I have none of the right to impose myself on her. But... I guess... she was the only one I knew who'd let me in..."
Weiss closed her eyes as she remembered the multitude of events in their shared history where any other person would have exploded in anger or disappointed. More than a few people have called Ruby naive or, for the lack of better terms, much too nice for her own good. A significant amount of these events tended to involve Weiss and, in her own words, sometimes abusive use of language. The way she treated Ruby weighed heavily on her own heart a lot of the time, but Ruby was always the forgiving type of person. Even now, when any other person would have shut the door in Weiss' face after what she had done.
"You have a great friend there sister. Even after all that's happened between you two..."
"I know. Sometimes I really think I don't deserve her, even if just a friend."
"Weiss! Your turn in the bath!"
Ruby's voice accompanied a knock on the door.
"Coming! Thank you! Anyway have to go. I'll call again when I've settled in."
Putting her scroll inside a drawer of the bedside table, Weiss picked through her bags for something to wear. As the trial was going on much of the family's possessions had already been auctioned off, Weiss' wardrobe included. All she really had left were the more simple clothing she had collected during her time in Beacon, as well as her old white dress she wore during missions. Her old outfit was the one thing she insisted on keeping, as it reminded her of her days in Beacon as well as the old adventures she had with her friends. Those were more innocent days for her, very much unlike the collapse of her family and the fallout that ensued in its wake.
She took out her dress and was bombarded by a single, repeating image: A memory of her, back to back with Ruby, surrounded at least a dozen Ursa. On a cold, snowy day in Forever Fall. The day of their final practical exam of their 2nd year. One week, just the two of them tasked with trailing and hunting an Ursa pack as their final test. She remembered Ruby bragging about how they've fought tougher odds before, with her responding with her usual sermon of her by-then girlfriend not to be overconfident. She recalled them both promising to pass with flying colors and to have more "intense" encounters in the future. They both lunged forward with their weapons and-
"Weiss! Water's getting cold! The shower heater's in the shop and you do NOT want to take a cold bath in this season!"
Weiss snapped back to reality. Stuffing her old combat dress back inside her bag, she took out her almost equally old Beacon issued nightwear, a towel and some toiletries and headed for the bathroom. Inside the bathroom was a bathtub full of steaming hot water beside a shower stall that a "Under Repair" sign on the door, as well as a wall sink and a toilet. She was reminded of how much it looked like their own bathroom back in Beacon, only much cleaner, as their old shared bathroom typically had one of Blake's hairballs in a corner and Ruby's occasional forgotten underwear in the sink when she was in a hurry to class. Weiss smiled to herself as she disrobed, tied her hair and slowly sunk herself into the water. She hadn't had a real, peaceful bath in weeks, as reporters had this habit of bothering her and her family during the trial, even when she was in the bath.
"Weiss? You doing okay in there?"
"I'm fine Ruby. Thanks. Haven't had a nice quiet bath in a while."
"Anyway Weiss... tomorrow I've got some work to do in the morning. When I get back we can go to that place I wanted to take you. Is that okay?"
"It's fine. Wherever you want."
"Okay... well then... goodnight. I'm hitting the sack."
"Goodnight Ruby."
As Ruby walked back to her room, a tired Weiss could slowly feel her consciousness slowly drift away in the warm comfort of the bath.