Before we start, I've come to a decision on how to continue with this. First of all, I'm going to complete Grimm Eclipse to make sure I'm getting Merlot Industries right, but unfortunately that isn't my biggest priority. I have a game of Stellaris to finish up first, and I can only really do that on days where I don't work. I'm also working on creating short term goals instead of only long term ones. Long story short, a hiatus is most likely imminent, as in probably won't upload to this next week.
Let's get to it, the chapter you've been waiting for.
Summer's nervousness started when she boarded her transfer flight in Chicago, and only grew as time passed on. By the time the plane landed in Minnesota, she felt like she would explode. The only times when she was short with people before was when she had to be, like boot camp or out on combat missions. Now though, she practically ignored the agent that gave her the agency car, and even Weiss. Summer knew she was being incredibly rude, but she had more important things on her mind.
After fifteen years, she was going to see her little girls again. Though they weren't little girls anymore. Both Yang and Ruby were Huntresses in training at Beacon. Apparently neither were close to the high end of class rankings for regular classes, but what did Summer expect with Tai raising them? On the other hand, they showed extreme promise when it came to combat, though Weiss didn't care for their techniques.
The only reason Summer asked Weiss that much about her daughters was to figure out how well they could survive on their own. She wanted to find out everything else right from the source.
The route to the house Ruby, and apparently now Yang, were staying at was already programmed into the car's GPS, along with a safe house in Brooklyn Center. Summer offered to drop Weiss off, but the heiress refused, saying that she wanted to get back to her team as soon as possible.
During the drive to Blaine, Summer thought Weiss was admiring the scenery, but she didn't really hear any of it. She barely concentrated on the road. So many scenarios and questions streaked through her head. What if they're not there? What if they don't recognize me…What if they do…and they hate me for leaving them?
Eventually though, Summer turned onto the street where her girls were saying. It suddenly got hard to breathe. She was so close to seeing them again, just a few more minutes, if that. Her destination had a short driveway and already had two cars parked on it. Summer wasn't sure about the city's ordinances about street parking during the winter, but she wasn't planning on staying too long anyway, if her girls wanted to come with her.
Summer parked on the street in front of the house and felt her heart skip several beats. She was there. Her Gem and Little Sun Dragon were less than a hundred feet away. Even so, her left arm wouldn't obey her command to open her door.
Eventually, her eyes settled back on Weiss, who looked back at Summer with an incredibly confused look on her face. "Why don't you go up there first?" the older Huntress suggested.
Weiss blinked twice. "I figured you'd already be over there by now."
"Well, if I go up there with you, they might forget that you're there. I'll let you have your time first." Summer couldn't keep her voice steady. The truth was, she wanted to break that door down, find her girls, hug them, and not let them go for hours. Unfortunately, that would only be fair to her.
After a second or two, the heiress nodded, and left the car. Even though it was below freezing, Weiss didn't look cold in her combat outfit. Summer looked down at herself to make sure she was presentable. This was the first time she wore her own combat outfit in months, and it was the exact same thing she wore when she last saw her girls. It was that much more of a chance she'd be recognized.
Summer looked up to see Weiss ring the doorbell. A few seconds later, the door opened. While it wasn't one of her girls, it was the guy who rescued Ruby from freezing to death on the side of the interstate. The Huntress made a mental note to thank him in some way in the future.
After a few seconds, the guy disappeared from the door and Weiss took a step or two back. The screen door practically exploded open and a girl dressed in red and black rushed out.
Summer's throat clenched to a painful level as she saw her Ruby trap Weiss in a hug. Ruby had an impossibly large smile on her face. She was possibly a little taller than Weiss, if the heiress wasn't wearing heels. From a distance, it looked like she had two cross pins keeping her hood in place. Summer touched one of her own. It looked like her daughter picked up her spares. My baby girl's all grown up.
Weiss finally returned the hug. If Ruby was anything like Summer was at that age, she wouldn't have let go until that happened. Her other teammates probably learned that early on.
Yang made it out the front door, also with a huge smile on her face. The pictures Weiss had of her didn't do her justice. Her golden hair stretched down toward her knees, though it was unkempt in places. She was remarkably well built, with muscles that soldiers would be jealous of. If her personality stayed similar to what it was when she was younger, she could make fast and long lasting friends. If she could break through to a Schnee, she could make friends with anyone.
Ruby let Weiss go and it looked like she talked a mile a minute. Weiss put her hands up as if to tell Ruby to slow down and Yang laughed. Yang put a hand on Ruby's shoulder that made Ruby snicker. Weiss, on the other hand 'punched' the blonde on the shoulder.
Finally, Summer found the strength to open her door. She stepped outside and closed it loudly. It grabbed the attention of the still laughing Yang. She looked over toward the source of the noise and locked eyes with Summer.
Yang's eyes opened to their fullest extent and her jaw dropped. Summer tried not to let the same happen and walked toward her daughters.
Ruby looked at Yang, and it sounded like she snorted. "Yang, you look like you've seen a ghost."
Summer took a quick breath when she heard her Gem's voice. You're not far off.
"I…I think I do." Yang put a hand on Ruby's shoulder and turned her around.
The next few seconds felt like moment from one of those cheesy romance movies Summer's coworkers sometimes dragged her to. Ruby turned around, a smile plastered on her face. Her hair swished to the side. Two sets of silver eyes met for the first time in too many years.
Unlike those movies though, Ruby's smile vanished almost instantly. Her mouth hung open. The light left her eyes. She took a step back on her now shaky legs.
There was a hitch in Summer's step. She can't be afraid of me, can she? No. She's shocked. She thinks I'm dead. I shouldn't be here, but I am.
Ruby looked between Weiss and her mom. "Who is she?" she whispered.
Weiss smiled, a rarity for the girl. "I think you know." Ruby's eyes widened even more and she turned to face her mom again.
Summer to within five feet of her daughters. She smiled warmly at both of them as she fought to hold back tears. "Hey girls. It's been a long time." Really Summer? You've had how long to think of what to say and you go with THAT?
Ruby's bottom lip trembled. "M-mo-mom?"
The flood gates opened up. Summer let out a breath and slowly nodded. "Gem," Ruby gently gasped at the use of her nickname, "I never thought I'd hear you say that again."
Ruby's own eyes started leaking fiercely. "Mommy!" Before Summer knew what happened, her daughter slammed into her with impressive energy. Arms and legs alike wrapped around her body. It forced her to take a few steps back, and she actually fell into one of the snow piles at the top of the driveway. Before she fell to the snow though, she wrapped her own arms around Ruby.
Summer lay there in the snow, holding her daughter close. Ruby tightened her already strong grip and buried her face in the space between her mom's shoulder and neck. The girl sobbed hard, but in the best way possible. Summer slowly rubbed her daughter's back, just like she used to all those years ago.
Suddenly, an arm it's way behind Summer's back. It pulled and Summer removed one of her arms from Ruby. Shortly after that, Yang's teary face came into view. Summer wrapped her now free arm around her other daughter. "I didn't forget about you Little Sun Dragon." It looked like Yang's throat constricted, and she leaned her head forward slightly.
All three heads met in the middle. Summer tried to contain a laugh but failed. She kissed Yang on the forehead and Ruby's hair, and repeated the sequence several times. She tightened her grip on her girls, not wanting to let go.
"Please let this be real. Please let this be real," Ruby begged into her mom's neck.
"This is real, Ruby," Summer comforted. "This is very real."
Ruby finally pulled her head back. "This is where you've been for the past thirteen years?"
A lump formed in Summer's throat, but not from joy this time. "It's been fifteen for me. I'd say not an hour went by without thinking of both of you, but I have to sleep sometime. If a chance to go back ever presented itself, I would have taken it in a heartbeat. I-I'm sorry I left both of you alone for so long."
"It sounds like you're the one who was alone." Ruby's legs dropped, but her arms still hung around her mom's neck. A wide smile broke out on her face. "But we're here now. Mom, I have so much to tell you."
"We both do," Yang said, finally finding her voice. "Some of it you might not believe."
Summer smirked. "We're in another planet, where Grimm aren't native and seven and a half billion people live. I think I'll believe anything you say, and I want to hear all of it."
Ruby's eyes sparkled. "Before, during, or after cookies?"
The other two laughed, and Summer moved her arm that held Ruby to her daughter's hair and ruffled it. "Thirteen years later and that's still all you can think about."
"Yeah, she's a cookie eating machine," Yang said patting Ruby on the back.
"The correct term here is 'cookie monster.'" Summer grabbed a handful of Yang's long hair and gently pulled. She was the only one to get away with that way back when, but that was so many years ago.
Yang yelped and backed away from her other two family members. "Mom! That hurts!" She rubbed the part of her head where hair meets scalp.
Both Summer and Ruby laughed. The latter finally let go of her mom and landed gently on the ground. Summer looked toward the door to the house. Weiss stood right by the door with a small smile on her face. The door was closed, but there were probably people just inside. Considering both Ruby and Yang were staying there, those that actually lived there must not be too bad.
Summer looked down at her youngest. "Why don't you introduce me to the people you've been staying with?"
Ruby nodded quickly and ran past her two teammates to the door. Summer and Yang slowly followed. "I'm here too," Weiss said, with fake exasperation.
"Sorry Weiss," Yang said. "It's just been a lot longer since we've seen mom."
Weiss sighed, then looked at Summer. "You were right. I'm invisible."
"Cheer up, Weiss." Ruby opened the screen door. "We're getting the team back together! We just need to find Blake."
"We might actually have a lead on her."
If it was possible for Ruby's eyes to light up even more, it just happened. "Really?"
"Northern Texas," Summer confirmed. "She's not in a fixed position though, and I have to take care of a few things here before we can head south." What she didn't say was that agents in the state had been looking for Blake from the beginning, and after her first appearance in the police station, they couldn't track her down again.
Ruby pumped a fist. "Yes! Almost there!" She opened the main door and turned to the left. "Oh, hey Fred. There's a couple people out here I'd like you to meet." Everyone outside entered the house, with Summer bringing up the rear.
"This is my partner Weiss." Ruby put a hand in Weiss' shoulder. "She may seem uptight as first, but she's really friendly when you get to know her."
"Hey!" Weiss shrugged Ruby's hand off.
"And this," Ruby ignored her partner and hugged Summer once again, "is my mom!" If there was a real life happiness meter, Summer was sure Ruby's rating would be off the charts.
Summer looked to the guy who pulled her Ruby of the interstate. "You must be Fred Olson. I've read a lot about you."
Fred blinked, and the statement seemed to surprise Ruby and Yang too. "Uh, you've what?" Fred asked.
"I'm with the FBI. When I heard one of my daughters was being housed with a civilian, I had to check it out. Since both of them are here and neither tried to run away from here immediately, I won't have to make you disappear."
Ruby snorted. "Mom, please don't threaten him."
"You're sounding like dad," Yang laughed.
Suddenly Weiss made a high pitched squeal. "Aww! They're so cute!"
Summer stared at the heiress, trying to figure out how a Schnee could make that kind of sound, then she looked down at the floor. One kitten stood in front of Weiss and another walked over to Summer and Ruby.
Ruby pointed to the one in front of Weiss. "That one's Tigger," she knelt down to pick up the other, "and this one's Eleven."
"Eleven?" Summer turned to Fred.
The guy shrugged. "The white fur on his chest looks like a bowtie."
Summer looked at said spot and smirked. "And bowties are cool."
"Finally! Someone who gets it!"
"What?" Ruby turned between Fred and Summer.
"I'm going to have to introduce you to Doctor Who." Summer ran a finger down Eleven's back.
"So, what now?" Yang asked.
Summer looked between both her girls. "Weiss already knows this. The Bureau set up a safe house for us in Brooklyn Center. It's about a twenty-minute drive away from here. There should be enough room for five people comfortably in there. If you want, you can-"
"Yes! Yes! Yes!" Ruby jumped up and down. Eleven jumped out of her arms and to the floor. Arms now free, Ruby hugged her mom once more.
"…I was going to say you can stay here. If I'd known you didn't want to come home with me, I wouldn't have come."
"No you weren't." Ruby tightened her grip.
Summer turned to her other daughter. "What about you Yang?"
Yang smiled for ear to ear. "What Ruby said." She also moved in for a hug. The three family members stood in each other's embrace silently, enjoying each other's closeness.
"Sooo," Fred said awkwardly, "anyone thirsty? We've got a bunch of cold pop in the basement?"
Ruby looked out the car window at the safe house. It turns out that this one was actually a house, not a run-down apartment somewhere. The building was slightly bigger than her home on Patch, and slightly newer.
It wasn't the house that Ruby cared about though, it was the other people living there. Yang found her two days ago, and that felt like a miracle in and of itself. Coming from over a thousand miles away couldn't have been easy. If that wasn't good enough, Weiss also made it back that day. She seemed happier than normal, yet she was hiding something at the same time.
Then there was her mom. Ruby had a smile fused to her face since hugging her mom the first time. It had been thirteen years since the last time that happened. It looked like her mom was in a similar condition. She couldn't stop asking Ruby and Yang questions about everything. Weiss was just along for the ride, but she didn't look like she cared.
"Okay girls," Summer said as she parked the car in the garage, "welcome to our new home for who knows how long. Sorry, but I get the master."
"First come, first serve on the other rooms!" Ruby jumped out of the car and grabbed her one suitcase from the trunk. The garage was detached, so she sprinted across the cleared walkway, onto the deck, and finally into the house. She entered in the kitchen, and she kicked her shoes off. Wanting to beat Yang and Weiss, she ran to the back of the house and threw her suitcase in the first room she could find. After she did that though, she saw there were two beds in the room. Oh well, looks like I'll be sharing with Yang again, unless she claims one of the other ones.
Other slower footsteps came from the hall Ruby just left. Soon after, Yang poked her head into the room. "You found this quickly." She looked at the second bed in the room. "You mind?"
"Not if you don't!" Ruby chirped. Yang nodded and threw her own bag onto the bed. "Could you help me get my 'new' computer out of the trunk?"
"Why'd Fred give that to you anyway?"
"It was going to a recycling place anyway. I might be able to get a little more use out of it. He did wipe the hard drive though."
"Smart guy." The sisters walked back to the kitchen and saw their mom going through the cupboards. "Whatcha doing, mom?" Yang asked.
"Safe houses are supposed to be fully stocked all the time," Summer replied. "But their definition of fully stocked and mine are very different, especially if you two are the big eaters I remember you to be."
"We are." Ruby gave a sideways nod.
"Well, it looks like I'm going to have to…wait." Summer reached far back into one of the cabinets. Her eyes narrowed slightly, but quickly returned to their normal size. "Actually, I won't have to go anywhere to get started." She turned to Ruby. "Would you like chocolate chip or MnM cookies?"
Ruby straightened up slightly. "MnMs are those chocolate things, right?" Her mom nodded. "Why not both?"
Summer smiled. "I had a feeling you'd say that. Coming right up."
Yang pulled on Ruby's arm. "Come on Ruby. Let's get you rig out of the trunk. Give mom some space to work and all that." The sisters walked out of the house back toward the garage. "So what do you think of mom?" Yang asked as Ruby reopened the trunk.
"She's amazing!" Ruby bounced on the balls of her feet. "She's nice, she's funny, and if what dad and Uncle Qrow say about her is true, she's an amazing Huntress!"
"Yeah. From what I remember, she hasn't changed a bit." Yang sighed. "But it's been so long. What if she isn't the supermom I remember."
Ruby shrugged. "She is, and isn't. It's been fifteen years for her, away from us and Remnant. That can change anyone. But she is mom. We know that. She may not be exactly how we remember her, but she's still supermom."
"You're just happy to see her again."
"And why shouldn't I be? She's here, and I haven't seen her since I was two!" Ruby lifted the tower out of the trunk. "I'm sure she needs us just as much as we need her."
"You're probably right." Yang grabbed the monitor and a bunch of cords.
"I can do that sometimes." Ruby walked out of the garage. "Watch out for ice. I don't want any of this stuff smashed."
"You worry too much." Yang followed Ruby back into the house. Inside, Summer was already hard at work making the cookie dough. She waved at the other two, then continued working her magic.
Ruby stopped in the door to her room. "Oh. There's no desk in here…"
"That's a problem," Yang agreed. "There has to be one somewhere in here." She set the monitor on the one dresser in the room.
Ruby followed suit and looked and looked around the house for anything that could be used as a desk. She hadn't even checked out the basement yet, so she walked downstairs to continue her search. A large, wooden workstation sat in the back left corner. It had a pullout keyboard slot and holes in the back for cords. It was a little big for just a computer desk, so it could probably be turned into a weapons maintenance station, if there wasn't a better suited spot anywhere.
"Found a place!" Ruby called up the stairs before she ran up them. Yang was still in their room, unpacking her few clothes. "There's a nice desk downstairs. Sure, it's public, but that's what headsets are for."
Yang shrugged. "If it works, why not?" She picked up the monitor and cables again. Ruby took her tower and led the way to the basement.
At the bottom of the stairs, Ruby almost ran into a very angry and tired looking Weiss. "You're not going to make noise down here, are you?"
"I wasn't planning on it." Ruby looked over Weiss. "Why are you in your pajamas? It's only five."
"I've been awake I don't know how long. I got up early in the morning to get on a 'plane' and flew for about ten hours, with no chance of sleep. I have what your mom calls 'jet lag.' Now, unless you want to wake up one day with peanut butter all over your weapon, you'd better keep it quiet!" Weiss turned around and stormed into one of the bedrooms in the basement.
"Did-did she really just threaten Crescent Rose?" Ruby asked as her partner disappeared.
"I think she just did," Yang said, equally surprised. "She must be really tired to do that."
"Apparently. Well, let's get this thing set up then get out of her hair." Ruby set the tower down roughly where she wanted it. For a normal person, the desk was probably too heavy to move by themselves. Yang, however, wasn't a normal person. She pulled the desk slightly away from the wall to let Ruby get behind it to hook up all the cords. It took longer than she thought it would, but she eventually got the computer to start up.
Ruby would have tested it further, but she didn't want to suffer Weiss' wrath. The sisters walked back upstairs and into the kitchen. It looked like their mom already had a batch in the oven. Summer smiled at the two newcomers. "I've got a mixing bowl and a spoon here. Who wants what?"
"Bowl!" Ruby snatched the large bowl of the counter and the small spoon beside it. She sat down at the table in the kitchen and went to town on the cookie dough still in the bowl.
Summer laughed, a beautiful sound to Ruby's ears. "Some things never change."
"Never take her to a strawberry farm." Yang took the wooden spoon loaded with more cookie dough. "There wouldn't be anything left."
"Strawberries huh? I'll have to keep that in mind." Summer looked between Yang and Ruby. "So since the cookies are in the oven, why don't you show me your weapons, if it's safe to do so in here."
Ruby's eyes widened and she sped up eating the cookie dough. She finished in record time and ran to the living room. Her left hand held Crescent Rose in the weapon's travel form. "Okay mom! I present, Crescent Rose!" She hit a button on the case and the scythe extended to its full form.
The smile that adorned Ruby's face for so long disappeared. Something was…off. Her mom apparently didn't notice the change. "Impressive. Looks like you took Qrow's scythe and incorporated a sniper into it. Modular at points, high impact, I'd guess .50 caliber, range of just under a mile. It also kind of looks like a Barret…" Summer came back into Ruby's view. "Did I miss any…Ruby what's wrong?"
Ruby collapsed her weapon, and noticed the same thing. The process was slightly slower. An unusual grinding sound came with the usual noise. Ruby extended and collapsed her scythe several times to try and figure where the problem was. Eventually, she laid her weapon down on the carpet, fully extended. She looked up at her mom. "I don't suppose you know where a tool kit is, do you?"
"Hold on." Summer disappeared into her bedroom and returned with a small white case. "This is a custom field kit I put together for Sun's Light. It might not have everything you need though. Oh, and the WD-40 is Earth's equivalent of DW-30."
"It'll do for now." Custom field kit huh, sounds like a good idea. Ruby turned back to her scythe and set to work on the offending section. With the covering off, she took a look at the inner workings of her weapon. On her quick first look, nothing looked out of place.
The smell though was off. Back on Remnant, Ruby used DW-30 as her lubricant. Whatever was in there wasn't that. Ruby grabbed the small bottle of WD-40 from the kit, and sniffed the end. Definitely wasn't that either. Then again, it may just smell off because of her time in the forest before being rescued, or something somehow got spilled on it in the hospital.
Ruby took a closer look inside. Her eyes rested on a single spring. It was turned one hundred and eighty degrees off of what she knew it was before going on that mission. Wind or spillage couldn't have done that. "Someone's been inside here!" She searched through her mom's tool kit to see if she could take her weapon apart and put it back together the right way. Unfortunately, it was missing several key tools. Then again, it was made for a weapon that didn't transform into a box slightly bigger than a scroll.
"That's another thing I'll have to talk to them about," Summer mumbled. Ruby looked up at her mom confused. For the first time since meeting, her mom didn't have a smile on her face. "Long story short, I'm not happy with how differently you and Yang have been treated by the FBI since coming here."
"What do you mean? They haven't even talked to me."
"That's what I'm talking about! They dumped you with a family they knew nothing about, and they set Yang up in my apartment in New York City. She's now 'officially' a US citizen and has access to government funds. Did they give you any of that?" Ruby shook her head.
"Wait, that was your apartment?" Yang asked from the entry to the kitchen. "They said it belonged to someone else."
"The only people that know my real name are from Remnant. Everyone else knows me as Clara Flowers."
"So what do you think's going on here?" Ruby asked.
Summer sighed. "With your scythe, I'm guessing they were trying to figure out how it worked and replicate it for other weapons. Everything else, they're probably trying to recruit you."
"They do know Huntsmen aren't technically supposed to support any one government, right?" Yang asked.
"We aren't exactly old enough for that kind of work either," Ruby chipped in.
"This isn't Remnant," Summer stated. "To the rest of the world, Huntsmen and Huntresses might as well not exist. Anyway, everyone from Remnant that I know works for a government in some way, although they're mostly involved with Grimm defense and hostage rescue.
"I will agree with you on age though. The youngest a person can join the military or any government agency is eighteen. Both of you are too young for that. Then again, they've seen what others from Remnant can do. They might not care about age when it comes to us."
"Is that how they got you?" Ruby asked.
"They 'got' me when they offered me a position on the FBI's hostage rescue team. That, and if I didn't take it, I'd continue to live off scraps for the rest of my life. They'd most likely try the same on you two, but at least you have a place to stay if you refuse."
Ruby stayed silent for a second, then asked, "So what are we going to do?"
"I'm going to the FBI branch here tomorrow to get some answers. After that, well, there should be a lot of stuff to around here. Movies, food, malls, I don't think we'll get bored." Summer sat down on a couch in the room. "Now, what have I missed the past thirteen years?"
Summer woke up in the middle of the night because of something falling across her torso. Without even opening up her eyes, she knew it was an arm. She tried to not move, so the pervert wouldn't know she was awake. This wasn't the first time someone tried to sleep with her, but after what she did to the first guy, no one even made crude jokes in her direction.
She slowly cracked open her right eye to see who it was and where exactly to strike. As soon as Summer saw the red and black hair though, both eyes snapped open. Someone was trying to sleep with her, but not the way she expected. Ruby came across the hall from her room and cuddled up close. She was somehow already out cold.
Summer smiled as she gently kissed her daughter's forehead. Ruby was probably too old at that point to do this, but neither of them cared. Summer freed the arm trapped between her and Ruby and wrapped it around her daughter. It felt so right to be a mom again.
That enough happy feels for you? It feels good to write some happy stuff when my other story constantly stabbing people in the heart.
