Ruby grabbed fistfuls of her hair and pulled the moment the door to the women's bathroom swung shut. She wanted to scream at having screwed up so early in the game. He caught her. She couldn't even stay out of sight for one week—how will she manage acting undetected for one year?

Falling against the wall into a sitting position, Ruby decided that the best course of action for her right now was to go home and mull over her options in a safer space. She stood up, brushed herself off, and walked onto the train platform.

As she approached her home on the train that ran underneath the city, Ruby conducted a thorough run-through of what she needed to do for Torchwick in order to meet his requests without creating suspicion.

First of all, she needed to provide weekly reports on her own self, three years ago, and provide him with updates that would hopefully drive him to write Ruby off as irrelevant. However, she knew how things went the first time; if Torchwick had half a brain, he wouldn't disregard her just because a P.I. who he doesn't know gave him reports that didn't suggest other activity at hand. No, that instead suggests that she is inadequate for the task, and not a single other person in the city is more qualified.

What information could she give him?

There were outright some things that she couldn't do—for example, enter Beacon's campus—which meant that there were simultaneously some things that she could keep from the report without arousing suspicion, but then there were other details that she would have to watch for and omit when necessary.

Even when Ruby thought about her situation logically, she felt as if she were walking along a tightrope made out of barbed wire. There were too many opportunities to fail—especially now.

A thought occurred to her: did this happen the first time? Did she gather intel for Roman Torchwick back when she was the fifteen-year-old? What if nothing has changed? Maybe her interference was inevitable, but Ruby still had the nagging feeling that she created a mess too early on. Her position was hardly navigable, but there was one advantage she could play to. She could use this relationship to keep tabs on Roman's whereabouts. But even then, she would be playing a dangerous game. From what she gathered from her encounter with Torchwick, he didn't like being watched.

Ruby needed a Plan B.

Not that she had a plan to begin with, but this throws major complications that could have even worse implications.

The only way she will be able to control what happens this time is if she can keep everything exactly as it happened before. Otherwise, she may not be able to save Torchwick's life in time.


Once she arrived at her current living space, she looked at the door handle for signs of tampering. Kneeling in front of the door, she peered into the keyhole, searching for any indication that the lock had been picked. There was paint chipped off the handle around the key hole, but she hadn't paid enough attention to know if that was new or old. Either way, Ruby didn't like that he had no problem getting into her apartment.

Ruby inserted her own key and twisted, pushing the door open. She recoiled at the sight of her apartment.

Whatever Torchwick was looking for, he very clearly did not care about getting caught; the entire three hundred square feet of the place she could only barely afford were in utter disarray. Her clothes, removed from the dresser, strewn across the floor, the kitchen cabinets opened and left hanging on their hinges, the doors to her refrigerator left ajar, which she hadn't gotten around to using yet, Ruby felt a wave of a horrendous feeling tear right through her. She did not want to identify it as fear. Fear would imply that this scared her for things to come. On the contrary, it was reassurance that he would leave evidence knowing full and well that neither of them could do much to implicate the other. Not without time, at least. Instead, this filled her with a sense of guilt and shame, Ruby realizing that he could do these kinds of things to her, terrorize her, because he had something over her head.

He did not ask what she was hiding before he left, which at the time, puzzled Ruby. However, now that she has had time to think about it, she realized that it doesn't really matter. All he has to do if she messes up is drag her under the spotlight and watch the police bury her in a hole so deep she would age another three years just to watch how her failure plays out. He has no idea how much worse it really is. Technically, Ruby is guilty of no crime, but she did not remember anyone informing her that her future self has come back to save someone from something that she was involved in, so her only option is to keep her identity secret, by all means necessary.

Ruby froze. The note.

She darted to the pile of clothes in front of her dresser, searching for the leather jacket she came in. On the first night, she tucked it into one of the zipper pockets on the inside of the jacket, which she took out and threw into the dresser when she found this place. Panicked, she flew to the dresser, which had only one thing left inside: her jacket.

Tearing open the zipper on the left side, she scanned the insides, her heart skipping five painful beats when she realized it was no longer in there.

"No, no, no," Ruby cried. "You have got to be kidding me!"

Ruby ran her fingers along the cracks and crevices in the wooden frame, sticking her finger into everywhere it would fit, hoping that she would come across something flimsier. She opened and closed the drawers, scanning, scouring. She placed her hands over her face and tried to keep herself from crying. "I'm such an idiot," she said.

Ruby had already begun to form plans to leave town and escape whatever Torchwick could do to her when her eyes caught a fragment of white peeking out from under the dresser. She reached out and pinched it between her fingers. Paper.

Holding back any assumptions she could jump to, Ruby pulled the paper out from under the dresser, refusing to draw breath until she has read it. She turned the piece of paper over in her hands and unfolded it. On the edges of the folds, she recognized her own strict creases worn into the fresh paper. She sighed with relief and flipped it over.

It was her note.

She sighed with relief and decided in that moment that she would carefully, meticulously go through the things that could expose her identity to the public—or worse, Torchwick.

A piece of yellow paper on the fridge caught her attention. She had not put anything on her fridge. Up until this point, she had completely disregarded it. She stood and walked to her fridge, removing the adhesive sticky note and reading what was undoubtedly Torchwick's scrawled, almost illegible handwriting: "Get a vertical deadbolt."


Ruby packed her camera bag the same way she had the day before, but today, she instead wore her hair down, planning to get bangs trimmed across her face to hide more of her face. She never looked good with bangs straight across her forehead, so fewer people would be able to spot a resemblance if they ran into her. It was one of the things on her list, titled, "Things That Would Fuck Everything Up."

Only able to come up with five items, she sighed and pushed that into her camera case. She knew that it would be a damning piece of evidence if it were to be found on her person, but as long as she kept away from people, that wouldn't be a problem. Better in her sight than in a place that Torchwick apparently has no problem getting into.

Following the same logic, she took the note and considered burning it, but she decided it may have future value. It is Neo's exact penmanship, and that could come in handy one day. She folded it up along those same hardened creases and placed it between the foam that protected her camera and the lining of the actual case itself.

Running over a mental checklist, Ruby examined the items she had placed inside the bag. Instinctually, she patted her pocket for her wallet, but she forgot—she would have nothing to put in a wallet. She pulled the note out of her bag and picked up a pen off the kitchen counter, writing, "get fake ID." Folding the note in the same fashion as the note that brought her here in the first place, she tucked it away, and slung the strap over her shoulder.

She zipped her hoodie up to her neck as she opened the door and walked out, prepared to settle an impossible balance.