**AUTHOR'S NOTE**

(I just want to apologize, now that I've caught it, if you see any strange jumps or leaps on story progression. Of course, it's simply a natural case of cutting out the non-relevant details that come with certain actions, such as travelling, or menial tasks. The reason there may seem to be jumps in progression is because I wrote this for AO3 originally, and I'd upload chapters as I wrote them, which were shorter than the chapters here, due to me simply merging them to form larger ones. Scene transitions would largely just take place between chapters, so the skips wouldn't seem so strange. Thank you for reading, and I hope it doesn't harm your experience too much.)

Yang must have dozed on at some point, because she awoke to a position she hadn't honestly expected to be in. Neo had pressed right up against her and latched her arms around her, with their faces pressed cheek-to-cheek together. All her limbs ached, which was what she had expected in this situation. Her only option was to try and stretch to get her blood flowing again, but she ended up disturbing the small girl that had attached to her.

Neo's eyes eventually opened, and the sensation of the girl's delightfully soft skin rubbing on hers as she pulled away left her aching for more contact. What Yang couldn't help but notice however, was that for the first time since she'd been her, her eyes were no longer white – in fact, both were a deep, rich brown, and somehow, she could feel the warmth in them.

There was a brief hint of confusion on Neo's face when she tried to move her arms that had locked themselves around Yang, but she accepted the situation readily enough and opted to stay where she was.

"How are you holding up?" Yang asked, her voice as soft as she could manage.

"Better." Her voice was barely audible though, and it was only because they were a but a few inches apart that she could hear Neo. "My throat is dying, though. I talked too much."

"You did spill your heart out and cry a little, it happens even if your throat's fine."

"You don't mind...this, do you?" Neo asked, each word coming out after clear deliberation.

"Nope. It's uh, kind of nice, to be honest."

"That's good. It's been a long time since I've held somebody like this."

Maybe brutality was a pleasure from the old days that she still tasted, something she craved and could never give up. A life of grimm-slaying certainly afforded that one horrendous delight. Of course, all who were able were expected to lend their efforts to keeping the menace down – but to enjoy it invited corruption.

Neo had learned that the hard way, and once her insides began to blacken, the constant urge to scratch, to tear, to bite and to roar and growl and give in to the beast within grew and grew and never ceased. From the moment she woken up beside Yang, that urge was there – even with her anger diminished, part of her so desperately wanted to scratch away at the blonde's skin until there was nothing left.

Yet, after so long, something overpowered it. The scent that bordered on honey, and warmth that was almost far too intense for a human yet still managed to remain all encompassing and welcoming.

So why did it leave her so miserable? Because it had arrived far too late to save her? Because it was coming from somebody who for all intents and purposes may as well have been her enemy?

Because she knew it was ephemeral.

She had to get her mind off it, or else she'd go crazy. At least the corruption was retreating, leaving room for her emotions to plague her instead.

"I want to get back to my garden, Yang. Would you...like to help me? We trampled some of the flowers, but maybe I can make some progress if you help me out." Neo asked, as she climb up off her tiny bed, straightening out her shirt and pants. She found a loose white petal in her hair, which must have been trapped when she'd been knocked to the ground, and laid it down upon Yang's nose.

Yang huffed it off and nodded. "Sure, I guess I had some part in that."

Neo would have called that a gross understatement, but she decided not to push it, Yang seemed remorseful enough. Gardening was nice, though, it was a good way to relieve tension and bring yourself back down to earth – the smell of petals, the feel of dirt between your fingers, it brought back childhood visions.

Neo had never really grown tall enough to feel far away from the ground though, no matter how much arrogance she'd accumulated.

"Let's go then. The tools are outside, I'll show you what you need to do."

The weather was still moody, but she was used to it. It'd almost become comforting, as if to set a tone for her life. The cool quiet breeze that brushed against her skin when her body grew hot with exertion, the tickle of raindrops from clouds that always seemed to threaten to yield their cargo, the silence and space, all of it had made the transition from unwelcoming and alien, to familiar and homely.

"I don't have any spares, so I suppose we'll have to take different duties up. I'll deal with the soil, seeing as it's my garden and I know where I want everything planted, you can water anything that looks dry. It may look wet out here but it rains far less often than you'd think."

"Oh, alright then. Sounds easy enough."

"Hmm, well if that's the case, if you see anything that looks like a weed, yank it out. It's not the most I could be doing but usually it's enough." With that being said, Neo went to collect the tools that were flung across the garden when they'd fought.

Soon enough they were squatting down at different points working around the humble patch of flowers that had popped up, and Yang seemed to be working extra carefully to avoid trampling anything.

They worked for a good while in near silence, aside from the odd grunt of exertion from Yang, every time she pulled out a stubborn weed, before she eventually spoke up and caught Neo's attention.

"Hey, Neo. How did you learn to fight like you did? I don't want to poke fun at you, but you're one of the shortest fully grown people I've ever met in my life. I mean, you never went to an academy as far as I know, and something tells me you didn't go to any other similar organization, so what's the deal?" She seemed genuinely curious, rather than accusatory.

"I don't have a good explanation for you there, Yang. No hidden secrets or anything. I figure it was just a case of survival of the fittest and a mix of natural talent, perhaps. You hear how some of the faunus that survive outside the safety of the cities are some of the best fighters around, hm? I had a rough life, and father always had me in the thick of it, as you could see when we first met. I'd run into one or two fully fledged hunters before that, even. I wouldn't say I won the fights again them, but I learned one or two things."

"Boy, that's rough. Don't you ever, like, wish you could stop fighting? Take up a normal life or something?"

"Heh. Yang. Come now, you came here to try and lock me up and stop that from happening. Why on earth are you asking me that?" Wait, no, that was a mistake. "I'm sorry, I didn't really mean that. The bruises are just leaving me a little sour." She held off on her answer for a little while, and she caught Yang watching her expectantly, continuing to prompt her answer in silence. Shrugging, she shook her head. "What would I do if I stopped fighting? What else am I good at?"

"You'd know better than me." Yang returned a shrug of her own. "You uh, worked in a 'big business', you're gardening right now, too. You don't have to be a prodigy in everything to get anywhere in a career."

"Maybe...but I don't deserve to. I don't want to go into that kind of life, though, mingling with people that very well could have just been part of the collateral damage of my lifestyle."

"What about -"

"Yang, shush. I'm done answering questions. You're always, 'Why this? Why that?' and it's a little frustrating."

"Sorry." Yang replied, ducking her head down, somewhat cowed. Squatting like she was, her long blonde hair was almost dragging along in the dirt.

"It's fine...if you want to figure me out, you're going to have to avoid picking my brains quite so blatantly. Maybe I should do the same to you."

Yang looked back up, smirking. "It wouldn't bother me! Ask away. This whole gardening thing is kinda boring, anyway. I'm just trying to keep a conversation going so I don't get too bored."

"I didn't expect you to like it, but I don't care, really." She looked back down as she kept working, before eventually looking back up, not at Yang, but at the surrounding hillside.

"So, what'll it be?" Yang asked, prompting her once again.

"Hmmm...actually, I've always known that hunters and huntresses slay grimm, but what are the finer points? Do you have quotas? Do you work like a private military? Police? Armed forces? Why are you here, and not at work?"

"Heh, well, I guess I was asking that question when I first came here from Patch. There are different fields among us hunters. There are the teachers, of course, which are what most civilians see if they don't leave the safety of the cities often, they have the easiest jobs, if you want to call dealing with teenagers 'easy', cause they don't go too far afield all that often."

"I could have guessed there were teachers. But don't stop, I want to know more."

"After that, there's the sector me and Rubes are in. They call us Guardians, mostly because we're limited to the cities themselves and the surrounding locales. We keep the cities safe, but usually aren't expected to deal with criminals – but a lot of us get involved in anything that we catch wind of anyway, cause grimm attacks aren't often enough to keep us busy every day."

"Why'd you become a Guardian, then?"

"Ruby, mostly. Guardian or teacher, they both seemed to be the least likely choices for me when I was first introduced to the different roles, cause I wanted to keep exploring and experiencing the world. Vale was just the first stop on what would have been my great big journey, but...after the things that happened during our years in Beacon, I found value in something else – what little family I had left."

"Makes sense, I suppose. I can't say what I had was a 'family', but you know how it is...they were there with me, and I was stuck with them. You get attached."

Yang nodded vigorously in response. "Yeah, see! And Ruby felt the same, not just about me and dad, but about Blake, Weiss, and all the other teams we'd worked with. She wanted to hold on to what she loved, and being a Guardian was the best way in her eyes. At that point, I didn't want to do anything that'd keep me away from her, either, not after she'd almost died a few times."

Yang held off for a moment, before forcing herself to continue. "But uh, yeah. Then there's the Cullers. They've got the real dirty work. They spend almost all their time out of civilization, travelling and looking for all the grimm they can find. They get paid the most in compensation, but boy, it's rough stuff. I'd say they're our best hopes for getting rid of the grimm, but the world's a big place and there's more of them than there are of us. Something tells me they ain't just gonna disappear after we kill enough."

"The grimm are ageless and ancient beyond all belief." Neo agreed. "They feel more like a metaphysical concept than a thing we can just wipe out. Would you be a Culler, if not a Guardian?"

"Nah." Yang shook her head. "There's not so much exploration and thrillseeking as there is waging a constant war against an enemy that doesn't really diminish in the long-term. Sure they can lower populations for a while, but they come back eventually. Apparently a lot of Cullers get worn out and move to teaching."

Sensing the inevitably follow up question, she kept going. "I was gonna go for what most people imagine when they think of your typical hunter – a Vigilant. They travel around their assigned region or country, and do a bunch of different things. Deal with any urgent issues, like packs of grimm that get too large, scout and keep track of grimm movements so the Cullers can clear an area out. They're very flexible and can fit any situation – they're not as battle-hardened as Cullers, but are still good at what they do."

Neo nodded, watching Yang as she spoke the entire time. "Yeah, I can see you doing that. Must be easy as a Guardian, at least. I bet there's not even much crime for you to handle nowadays. Is that why you're allowed to dawdle around out here with an ex-criminal?"

"I'm not ALLOWED to." Yang laughed. "There are still the grimm wandering around that we're expected to try and keep down, and they can generally tell if we've been slacking because of the lack of grimm exposure that shows up on us when we go in for medical checks. Heck, if you got yourself looked at with all that stuff that's piled up on you, they'd give you a huge pension and let you retire right now."

"Gee, don't remind me how easy it could be." Neo waved Yang's comment off with a dainty hand. "Surely they don't just trust you to do whatever you want, though?"

"No, they don't. I'm technically on call, they can get hold of me at any times and all of a sudden there's an urgent mission or problem that needs dealing with. While technically I'm stuck to a set area, sometimes if the grimm population is really bad somewhere else, they'll ship me off to where the trouble's worst until it's under control – heck, there ain't a single hunter who's exempt from that rule, not even the teachers."

Neo finally stood up properly, surveying the garden-in-the-making around her, a faint smile of satisfaction on her lips. "At least I know that I can just stay here to do my share of local violent killings."

"With the state you left that Ursa in, it's probably best you don't let anyone else see you at work, anyway." Yang chuckled, standing up. "We done here?"

"For now." Neo nodded. "You can never be truly done with a garden, but I think we've done enough today." She stared at Yang for a moment that seemed to drag on, almost for an uncomfortable length of time, before she eventually added on, "Thank you for the help. I think you deserve something to eat."

Yang rested her elbows upon the barely-a-table that sat in the non-existent partition between the living room and the tiny kitchen. The exertion in the garden had woken an appetite in her, and the smell of a simple, yet pleasant meal being prepared was stoking it further.

Something else was being stirred up however, as she remained in Neo's presence. It was worrying, nagging, and somehow, seducing – and it urged to be entertained. "Life's kinda strange, isn't it?" She spoke out of the blue.

Neo paused, and looked over her shoulder at Yang from her stand at the counters. "What do you mean?"

"How much it changes, even just over a few years. I mean, look at you. You were like...well, you seemed so flippant and playful towards almost everything. Nothing seemed to bother you and you always had a smile on your face. It pissed me off, sure, but now that I think about it, we both had pretty similar attitudes when it came to fighting, except for when I got angry. I guess we cancelled each other out, huh?"

Neo had already turned back around to her task at hand. "Sure, it's strange. But it always has and always will be like that. Some people keep their youth, and some don't. I don't know about you, but I didn't hold on to much."

"I kinda wanna see you like that again." Yang said, not really thinking about what she was saying. "Now that we're not outright enemies."

"Why?"

"This is probably the weirdest answer I can give you, but...nostalgia?"

"Nostalgia for the all the things I and Torchwick did?"

"No, no! I mean, nostalgia for the time I spent with my team, nostalgia when the world still felt like an adventure, when I was still experiencing things for the first time, rather than over and over and over."

Neo turned around fully this time, and chewed on her bottom lip, her eyes wandering off to the side. "I have to admit, fighting you was quite...fun. Thrilling, even. The first time, you were just angry. But after that? Gaining control of your temper did wonders for you, and meeting you with a smile on your face gave me chills. I knew it was going to be good. And then you almost killed me." She chuckled, before adding, "And I had no problem with that at all."

"Yeah..." Yang sighed, as she settled in her chin in her hands. "Grimm don't give me that feeling, they're nothing compared to an actual person. I can't get it from my friends, either, even if I saw them regularly to begin with. Blake's fighting is so amazing that she's practically a superhuman – maybe Faunus are superhuman. Buuuut. I can't actually seriously injure her, even if I can push her pretty far. Fighting to...uhm..." She drifted off as she realized what she was actually going to admit.

Neo caught on, though, because she'd been thinking the same thing. "Fighting to kill. That's what you were going to say, isn't it? Fighting with all your being, fighting to survive. Fighting to spill a person's blood. Extinguishing a soul...it's such a morbid pleasure, one that shouldn't be be entertained..."

"But you savour it when you have the chance, right? Maybe not everyone does, but we do, don't we?"

"I suppose this is where a villain might tell the hero that they're not so much alike, hmm?"

"Heh." Yang snorted out a laugh, even if she was grimacing. "Maybe we are alike, though. Not for the best reasons, but people relate to bad things, don't they?"

"You're relating to me, are you?" Neo asked, with a raised brow. "That's not good for you. That's quite bad, actually."

"You're interesting. You always have been." Yang conceded. At that, Neo let out a long giggle, for reasons she couldn't discern, and even more to her bemusement, her heart fluttered for a moment at the girlish, youthful sound.

"The food's gonna burn." Neo eventually managed to say, after her laughter paused.

"What was so funny? Tell me!" Yang insisted.

"No, no." Neo was focused back onto the food. "You just reminded me of something else. Stop distracting me now, I need to see to this." Even so, her voice was pleasant enough, and it lacked the usual weight and sobriety it'd carried so far.

It made her happy. It shouldn't have made her happy. Yang hid her face in her palms, as she refused to contemplate the odd butterflies that cluttered her stomach, and instead, focused on the smell of the food Neo was about to serve her. She needed to go home.

The butterflies wanted to know more, the pangs in her heart were urging her to sate her curiosity. Perhaps there was that hint of concern, too – scratches on wrists, shredded fabric, scars and wounds, none of them hinted at anything good. She took the perfect opportunity when Neo laid out the food upon the table – baring her wrists as she set a plate down.

"Neo?" Yang asked, as subdued as possible.

"Yeah? What's up?" She brought her other plate along and handed it to Yang ready to settle down.

"What...what's with those scratches on your wrists? I noticed tears in your bedding, too, they almost looked like clawmarks, somehow."

All the motion in Neo's body evaporated, and she stood on the spot, half bent over as she laid her own plate upon the table. Yang's lips fumbled at an attempt to rectify this apparent offence, but Neo broke the tension and spoke up.

"I told you, I'm...I'm sick. That's it. You know already."

"And it makes you leave scratch marks? Heck, they look like they're starting to scar over. That's kinda scary, Neo. Not to mention the tears in your bed – you don't have a pet in here, do you?"

The stress was evident in Neo's eyes – she almost looked as if she were in pain. Maybe she was, for all Yang knew, it was not like she could tell what she was feeling, especially if she was sick.

"Fine, if you want to know the truth, it's...a part of the sickness, I suppose that was obvious. What I mean, is...it's the influence of the corruption, of the grimm blood. It feeds on your worst traits, and perverts them to far worse extents. It takes my capacity for violence, and somehow, gives me these horrible, feral urges. But I have nothing to turn on, and I turn on myself, when I'm alone and everything goes dark." She didn't sit down, instead leaning on the back of her chair as if her energy was rapidly depleting.

Yang stood up, and walked over, laying her hands on Neo's shoulders, before slipping one under her arm to straighten her up. It slipped around her waist, and she offered her the most supporting look she could manage. "Don't stop. Help me understand." Yang said, voice low and soft.

Neo looked up, and nodded. "It's horrible. I start to growl and snarl. I feel like an animal. I become one, there's nothing else to dress it up as. I break things and tear whatever can be torn. I don't have spare bedding, I couldn't just throw it away." She said, desperately trying to excuse herself. "When I can't let myself break anything else, I satiate my rabid behaviour by tearing into my own skin. I've come so close to almost killing myself painfully by going too far into my wrists, Yang..." Her voice cracked, splintered, and her words came out in split syllables, her voice quivering far too much to keep going on like it was.

"I'll be here, Neo." Yang immediately said, stopping Neo from going further. She knew enough, and now that mess of a corpse that had led Yang here in the first place suddenly made sense. There was no way she could have done that in her right mind. She might have been dangerous, but she wasn't as rabid as that. "I won't let you hurt yourself." And now Yang understood herself, too. Even if Neo had done a lot to harm her and her friends in the past, that basic sense of compassion for a lonely girl like this couldn't let her take out her revenge, hell, it couldn't even let her just leave her alone.

Perhaps it was pity, pity for the Neo who had fallen so far, but then there were those troublesome butterflies that fluttered and flocked to Neo's smiles, her smooth, level-headed manner, the Neo that seemed like a fully-grown, matured, wonderful woman.

"I'll be here for you." Yang repeated. At some point, her arms had embraced her fully, and Neo had buried her face in her chest, which made for a warm, welcoming place of hiding. "I'm on your side. I promise."

Neo nodded, her head moving just a few fragments up and down to signal her acceptance, while the firm squeeze she gave Yang showed her appreciation.

Warmth and chills alike ran across Yang's skin, while her heart sank and swelled at the same time. She was giving in to herself, that much she knew. Her sympathy and care for the destitute girl made it all hurt, and yet her... her love – yes, that had to be it. The flowers in the small, resilient garden in the front obviously hadn't been the only things to sprout despite the cold conditions. Her sudden, budding love and want left her tingling with purpose, a genuine desire, for the first time since her youth.

After a few, time-stretched moments, Neo looked up with red eyes, the struggle to compose herself reflected on her face, and she spoke. "We should eat. Don't...don't want the food to go cold now, do we?"

Yang answered with a soft smile, and nodded, her eyes glimmering in response. When she was sure Neo wasn't going to drop to her knees without her support, she slowly pulled away, her arms uncoiling and sliding along her skin.

The next few moments went in silence, as a strange sense of mutual understanding and preparation settled over them both. The food was a good excuse not to say anything, as the realization was a little overwhelming. A bitter bond, with a resilience that would be tested yet, had formed between them - one that forgot the past and endeavoured to hold on to the present. That was all that Yang's sudden, frustrating sense of affection needed, anyway. The current moment, of the way Neo looked, spoke, felt, all of it was what her emotions fed upon, and it cared little any more for what she'd already done.

Neo was a human being, and Yang had grown up being taught to help and protect those who needed it, and didn't Neo need it? Even in her weakness, Neo still radiated strength, and Yang was hopelessly enamoured by that concept, a girl powerful even when brought to her knees by a loathsome, corrupting sickness.

"How's it taste?" Neo asked, out of the blue, thankfully breaking the silence.

"Tastes good." Yang said , words muffled by the food still in her mouth. "You're a good cook." Her compliment prompted an appreciative smile from Neo, but no words. After that, they continued to eat in silence once again, leaving Yang to her thoughts.

Their eyes frequently met, and each time they did, Yang's heart leapt a little, as if Neo's eyes were enough to infuse it with a charged jump. Every glance, even though they were used to sharing them by now, lasted longer and longer, and the final one, as they finished, didn't end. Their eyes remained locked even as Neo stood and strolled over to Yang.

"Will you really be here for me?" Neo asked, with low and quiet words. "Even with all I've done, and all I could still do, with this sickness?"

"I wouldn't lie about that." Yang answered. "God knows why it's turned out this way, but yes...I'm here for you now, after all's said and done. You've convinced me for good that you've turned over a new leaf. I think I started to believe you a while ago, to be honest, or else I wouldn't have gotten so close."

"You're not obligated to. I wouldn't blame you for leaving. The entire point was that I was meant to leave everything for good. I was punishing myself, remember."

"Maybe, but what you've come down with, that's not fair. Nobody deserves that. I don't know what's going to happen to you, but leaving you alone isn't a good idea, I think. Whether you get better or worse, you need somebody with you. I'll be with you."

"Yang...I have no words..." Neo said, as she laid her hands on Yang's shoulders, coming in close to her. She had another way of expressing herself in lieu of words, evidently, as she leaned in, and laid a delicate kiss upon Yang's lips.

With the kiss came the feeling of warmth rushing to her cheeks, and Yang could do nothing else than return it, her eyes falling shut as their lips pressed together for what was in reality the briefest of moments, but to her perception, many long minutes.

When Neo pulled away, Yang knew that Neo had just solidified her promise to stay with her. It was almost sly, but really, it just felt sweet.