Although we both knew there was no real point to it, Winter and I ignored each other once we got to the hospital, at least until we'd signed in and boarded the elevator. (Just before I got on, she glanced at the control panel in a way that made me pretty sure she was going to shut the door on me.) When I stepped off at the third floor with her, she finally turned around and straight-armed me. "Are you coming to see Weiss?"

There was something in her tone that said Answer carefully, so I held back my initial, simple answer—that the easiest way to Yang's room was to take the stairs at the end of the hallway, which only came down to that floor. "Yyyes."

"This way, then."

To be honest, I'd expected Weiss' room to be larger, lighter, or otherwise cushier than Yang's. The only real differences were the direction its windows faced and the amount of equipment it contained; perhaps I'd misjudged Winter, but then again, the hospital might simply have been as short on space as it was on everything else.

Weiss didn't look too bad—and she was at least awake—but she had a dressing on her right forearm, and I noticed that there were very few hard surfaces near the head of her bed. Her eyes flashed when she saw me. "Mr. Branwen—good morning."

"Miss Schnee. How are you feeling?"

"I'm recovering well, thank you."

"Glad to hear it. I'm on my way back to Yang's room, is there anything you want me to pass on to her or Ruby?" By the light of the Hunter's Moon, please don't ask about Yang. If I had to lie to her, I could, and I assumed Winter would go along with it, but I'd feel like a bit of a bastard, and it would probably catch up with me eventually.

"My thanks for asking, but Ruby was here a moment ago and I asked her to give Yang my regards." She made a brave attempt at a smile, and I wondered if, despite Winter's efforts, she knew or at least suspected the shape Yang was in. Not my problem. Besides, maybe her ribs are just bothering her, or she's worried about something else.

I felt close to outstaying my welcome, so I smiled back at Weiss, nodded to Winter, and said, "It was good to see you too—both of you. Take care."

"Until we meet again, Mr. Branwen." Weiss didn't sound especially eager for that to happen, but I couldn't fault her for that—and since nothing was broken or on fire, I counted it as an improvement over the first time we'd spoken.

Just after I walked out, I heard Winter murmur, "One moment," at a volume I probably wasn't meant to hear. Then she was standing in front of me again. For about ten seconds, I waited for her to say something, although it almost looked as if she was waiting on me. Finally, she put her hand out, and I took it warily.

When her grip tightened, I wasn't surprised—I'd been fairly sure she was planning to play a round of the bone-crushing game. (Not that I expected her to get any satisfaction from it: James and I had practiced that routine on each other a lot over the years, and I was nearly as good at it as he was.) Instead, though, she yanked me a little closer and very quickly and quietly said "Apology accepted, by the way," before dropping my hand like it was burning her. She turned on her heel and walked back into her sister's room.

Just after I reached Yang's floor, I overtook the fourth member of Team RWBY, leaning against a windowsill and gazing outside with her scroll forgotten in one hand.

"Morning, Blake."

"Oh! Hi." I kept walking, assuming she had something on her mind, but she quickly caught up with me. "Um…Qrow? There's something you might need to know about."

"Does it involve Ruby and Weiss?"

She blinked, shifted her shoulders around for a moment, and finally nodded. "Well, yeah. I guess you know already."

"I have the general idea." Clearly, I hadn't needed to remind Ruby to check on her partner. I gave Blake a sideways look and cocked an eyebrow. "Did you walk in on them?"

"Well, I did knock, but when I said it was me, Weiss just said to come in. Ruby was giving her a foot rub, and Weiss had this look on her face that she was having trouble hiding…" She blushed. "I wouldn't bring it up, but I know your family has a…complex relationship with the Schnees, and…"

"And it's only getting more so. I get it, Blake—and I think they would, too. Thanks."

"Don't mention it… Seriously, please don't."

"I know, I know." On a fiendish impulse, I asked, "How are things going with whatsisname? The one with the abs?"

"Fine," she said primly. I couldn't tell if her bow was twitching out of shyness, smugness, or frustration, but she gave me a sideways look, and I nodded to let her know I wouldn't pry any further. "I made my excuses after a minute and ran off to get Weiss a few things. When I got back, Ruby was gone, so I'm guessing she's back with Yang. I was taking my time going back there, to make sure they had a little while to themselves."

"Heh. You know, you make a pretty good teammate."

"I try."

"You been taking care of yourself?"

Blake gave me an odd look. "Well…I've been making sure to sleep, at least. I feel like I'm more confused than ever about—about what's happening, but having people I can count on helps."

"Welcome to our world," I said, patting the hilt of my sword. In reality, sometimes it felt like all I had to show for my life as a Hunter was that I'd failed the people who had counted on me most. Others I had lost entirely, and I'd wasted a lot of nights—generally drunken ones—wondering what I could have done to keep them by my side, but this was not the time to share those stories. I hoped Blake would never have to go through anything like that.

A familiar voice cut into my thoughts. "Ah, Mr. Branwen—excellent. I'm glad I ran into you."

Dr. Jared Gray was a thin, angular man with a seemingly endless supply of nervous energy. He reminded me strongly of Oobleck, in fact, but shorter and without the coffee cup. They might have been related, except that instead of sharing 'Barty's' shock of green hair, Gray was balding, with a band of black feathers around the sides and back of his head.

"Doctor. What can I do for you?"

"Well, your niece's condition hasn't changed since last night, but as long as she remains stable, I was wondering if we could run some additional tests."

"…Go on."

"I'd like to know more about her brain activity. We haven't had many opportunities to study Huntresses in her condition; it might provide us with clues for optimizing her treatment, both now and after she regains consciousness." As he talked, his hands got more and more expressive, and I got more and more concerned that he'd crack me in the face with his clipboard. Blake was, quite wisely, edging silently away from him and toward Yang's room. "In addition, it would supplement the data we're gathering from monitoring her Aura, and all of it might be useful in the future, for treating patients with similar abilities."

"Fair enough. I suppose you need me to sign something?"

"Just this." It was a single sheet of paper, summarizing the procedure and emphasizing that, while Gray and his colleagues hoped it would be useful, they didn't expect it to lead directly to any improvement in Yang's condition. (Of course, it took them most of the page to say that.) I let him sweat for a moment, just because I could, before signing.

"Thanks very much! I'll be right back with the cap." He swept off, leaving a stray feather to fall to the floor. I walked on in the other direction and slipped back to Yang's room, where Blake was just getting settled into the chair in the far corner. Ruby was—surprise surprise—tinkering with Crescent Rose.

"Did Dr. Gray find you?" she asked, without looking up.

"Yeah. I told him it was fine by me."

"So, uh…you think it's a good idea?"

"I think it couldn't hurt. What do you think?"

She sighed. "Well, I'm curious to see the results…but it feels like they're expecting her to be this way for a while."

"Could be. On the other hand, they didn't take long to come to us with this idea. They might be trying to move quickly, in case she comes out of it soon."

"Yeah…" Ruby was clearly not confident that this would happen. Privately, I agreed with her, but apparently this was my turn to at least pretend to be looking on the bright side.

"…Wait a minute. Ruby, did the doctor say anything to you about a 'cap'?"

"I did, actually," said Gray, stepping back into the room with a box under his arm. The gadget he took out of it was essentially a net of wires, shaped to more or less fit a person's scalp. At the intersections of the wires were small disks that I assumed were sensors of some kind.

He settled the cap down over Yang's mane (let's call it what it is), adjusting it to cover her forehead and fit behind her ears. "As you can probably guess, these sensors will pick up electrical signals from different parts of Miss Xiao Long's brain. They take simultaneous readings, which allow us to remove background noise, at a time interval we can select; in this case, I'll start with every ninety seconds and see what that does. I'm not expecting her functions to change all that quickly, so a longer interval will keep us from having to stop and collate data quite as often." He uncoiled a cable that ran from one side of the cap and plugged it into the same console that displayed her heart rate and Aura level. "It's probably clear from the spacing of the sensors that the resolution on this device is less than ideal—" I had to take his word for that— "but for anything higher, we'd need to implant them directly into her scalp, however temporarily. And again, there's the issue of the sheer volume of data we'd end up collecting. Besides, this is more than sufficient to pick up signals from her motor and visual cortices, her frontal lobe, et cetera."

He turned to the console, flipped a few switches, and the screen showing Yang's heartbeat changed over to an outline drawing of two brains, mirrored side-to-side. The clock at the bottom of the screen counted off about thirty seconds, during which nothing much happened. Then there was a quiet beep, and spots of warm and cool colors filled the display. It was only then—not proud of myself—that I realized each side of the image represented one hemisphere of her brain.

"In about a minute, can I ask one of you to hold her free hand?" he asked, pointing to the hand that did not have heart-rate and Aura monitors attached to it. Blake glanced at Ruby, but made no move to volunteer. I gave Ruby the "after you" motion, and she stepped up to Yang's side. She looked at me and smiled sadly, and I knew we were thinking the same thing: If she were awake, she'd be furious about what that thing is doing to her hair. At the doctor's signal, she took Yang's hand, and after a moment there was another beep and the display changed slightly. "Wonderful! It definitely appears as if she felt that," he said, pointing to a spot about in the middle of one hemisphere. "There's no motor response, but at this stage I wouldn't expect one."

Ruby burst into tears, out of what must have been a combination of relief and continued worry. (That was certainly what I was feeling.) I swept her up in one arm, and used the other to give Gray the "you—get out" motion. He did, although not before double-checking that the cable was securely plugged into the console.

We stayed like that for a while—I don't know how long, but the monitor beeped several more times before Ruby's sobs gave way to hiccups, which slowly faded. Sometime during that process, Blake tiptoed over to us and put a hand on her arm. When I looked up, I noticed that her eyes would flicker back to Yang when the display updated. There was also something odd about the way the lights of the console reflected off of them—

Oh.

She looked back to me, and part of me felt that I'd intruded on something that was none of my business, but the rest of me insisted that by now she was damn near family. In this room, more than anywhere, her feelings were my business, just as much as Yang's recovery was hers. I held out a hand and mouthed the words "gonna be all right." I didn't much care who she thought I was referring to.