It was a decidedly odd procession that made its way down to the docks the next morning. Leading the way were Weiss and Yang, arm in arm, chattering away, Yang fielding questions from Weiss. Behind them came Blake and Ruby, not quite as close together or as chatty, but a little more comfortable with each other than they had been yesterday. Next came Winter, her saber at her side, with 'This is a bad idea' practically written in permanent marker on her face.

Bringing up the rear was Neo, a frilly parasol on her shoulder, traipsing along like they were headed for an outing in the park, not off to hunt Grimm. There had been raised eyebrows from Weiss's teammates at the sight of the parasol, Yang even asking, "Is that what I think it is, Neo?" Neo had smiled and pulled the handle out just far enough to show the blade underneath. Whitley had it rebuilt for me as an anniversary present. He meant well, he really did. But now I can use it to protect people I care about, she added with a wink.

Yang's laughter echoed across the docks, startling the fishermen getting their boats ready for the day. "Honestly, Weiss, do you think you brought enough ammo? I think you might be able to stuff a couple more in your bra."

Weiss tilted her head in consideration. "Now that is somewhere I hadn't considered hanging an ammo pouch. Do you suppose there might be a market for lingerie with built-in ammo pouches? I do believe there's an overlooked market opportunity there. Winter, do we know anyone that works in that area?"

"Coco's mother would be the one to talk to. A line of combat-ready undergarments is a wonderful idea, Weiss. Huntsmen will want them, obviously, in case of Grimm attacks during intimate moments. Father would be proud of your business acumen, sister."

Yang stopped dead in her tracks, gaping at the white-haired sisters. "You can't seriously be considering it, right? It'd be uncomfortable as hell!" Weiss laughed and grabbed the blonde's arm again, pulling her along, and Yang realized she'd Been Had. "Lost her memory and still playing me like a fiddle," Yang muttered.

"Really?" Weiss asked.

"It's the deadpan delivery. A lot of times, I can't really tell if you're joking or not," Yang admitted. "Like the cookie trees you had Ruby chasing in Vacuo."

"Hey, I was drunk! And you were helping her!" Ruby objected, her teammates laughing.

"What can I say, sis, I love a good prank."

A voice called from up ahead. "Ireia! Good to see you this morning. You joining our Huntresses today?" Up ahead she could see Merrin, leaning on the railing of his boat and waving at them.

"Merrin, hi! Don't tell me you haven't heard?"

"Heard what? I was out to sea for a week, got back really late day before yesterday. And then yesterday morning, the mayor offers me good money to ferry around the Huntresses. Not that I mind hanging around such a bunch of lethal and lovely ladies."

Weiss laughed. She was going to have this conversation a lot, it seemed. "I finally found out who I am, Merrin, the day before yesterday. My real name's Weiss Schnee, and the Huntresses you were ferrying around are my teammates. The other two are my sister, Winter, and our friend Neo."

"What, you a Huntress too? Didn't figure you for the type, figured you for some lost high-society girl. So, we on for that dinner now?"

Her face fell. She'd forgotten that she'd told Merrin she wasn't dating again until she knew who she was. "Sorry, but it turns out I'm married."

Merrin shook his head. "Just my luck, all the good ones are taken. Your husband, he's one lucky guy."

"Yeah, I am," Yang said, wrapping an arm around Weiss.

"Damn, put my foot in my mouth twice in under a minute." Merrin shook his head ruefully. "Sorry about that. Anyway, I got to thinking last night, after I got home, and I might have a good spot to look for our Lancer nest." He led them into the pilothouse and spread out a chart. "See, yesterday, you mentioned that Lancers like nooks and crannies to sleep in, but they don't like to go too far. What if they're going further than they normally would because the town and the fishing fleet are the only real targets in the area?"

Ruby frowned. "How much farther? And how good is the nesting site?"

Merrin tapped the map. "Well, the town is here. This is the search radius we were checking out yesterday." His finger slid across the map, stopping about a finger's width outside the circle. "And this is Banshee Rock. Might be just the thing, from what you were saying."

"Of course! Banshee Rock is the perfect place for a Lancer nest. The caves are a perfect nesting ground for them. Lots of little caves, so they can each have their own nest, plus enough vegetation for them to chew on. What?" Everyone was staring at Weiss. "I spent a couple of months crewing on Merrin's boat. I didn't like it, but I did learn something about the area."

Blake laid a hand on Weiss's shoulder. "It's good to have you back, Weiss."

"I'm not back, not all the way back, not yet." Without thinking about it, Weiss's' left hand drifted down to hover to her left, just above waist-level. She looked down, frowning. "Can-can anyone explain that? I catch myself doing it a lot."

Ruby shook her head. "No great mystery there. That's about where the hilt to Myrtenaster would be if you were wearing your combat outfit."

"I see." Annoyed that something that had puzzled her so much over the last year had turned out to be so mundane, Weiss bent back over the chart. "Anyway, Banshee Rock is definitely worth checking out. Even though there's a lot of fish there, the fishing boats avoid it. The waters are tricky to navigate, and there are a lot of Grimm reports in the area."

"Yeah, even if we don't find the Lancer nest, you'd be doing us a favor if you can clear up some of the Grimm around there. It'd open up some good fishing waters for us. Hell, you'd never buy your own drinks in the Roundhouse again. Ireia, why don't you go below and grab coffee for everyone. Unless anyone's got any other ideas, I'll set a course for Banshee Rock."

"Name's Weiss, not Ireia, remember," she tossed over her shoulder as she headed down below.

Frowning, Yang followed Weiss below, catching up with her as she entered the galley. She watched as Weiss filled a tray with cups of coffee, frowning as she did so. "So you and he are awfully chummy," Yang said, leaning up against a bulkhead.

"God, Yang, you startled me! And yes, Merrin and I are friends. Just friends. And yes, he asked me out. Like a lot of other men in town did—and yes, a few women. Yang," Weiss poked her wife in the chest, "I already told you, other than Leshin, there wasn't anyone else while I was here. And Leshin, Leshin took advantage of me." She leaned up against a cabinet, running her hand through her hair. "God, I still can't believe I fell for his bullshit. All that time he knew, he knew who I was, and he pretended he cared about me, that he wanted me to get better. How the hell could I have been so stupid?!" Weiss slumped against the cabinet, slamming her fists against it, making Yang jump. "How the fuck do I move on from this, put my life back together? How, Yang, how?"

"Hey." Yang slid her arms around Weiss, moving carefully now that the boat was underway. "You do it the same way I handled it when you went missing. With help from family, friends, people who care about you. Probably a shrink or two, who knows? But we'll be here for you, day by day, hour by hour if need be. You know what I did, on the one-month anniversary of your disappearance? I got drunk. And I don't mean happy fun-time drunk, oh no. I got absolutely staggeringly, shitfaced verging-on-alcohol-poisoning drunk. You know who got me through this? My uncle, Qrow. Qrow, well, he's what you might call a professional drunk. He cleaned me up, listened to me crying and ranting and raving till I sobered up, fed me a solid meal, then fed me another one and another one till I kept it down, then looked me in the eye and asked me one question. One question, that's all. And that's all it took to drag me back up long enough to find you again."

"What was the question?" Weiss asked, her breath returning back to normal, head down against Yang's chest.

"'If Weiss walked through that door, right now, would you want her to see you like this? Because that's what you've got to hang on, for now, kiddo. The hope that somehow, somewhere, she's alive, and that there's a good reason she's not here.'" Yang chuckled. "Right now, what do you want to do most in the world? Come on, you can tell me."

"Umm..." A memory swam to the surface of Weiss's mind. "Find a sunny, sandy beach somewhere. Like that one in... Vacuo, I want to say, maybe I'm not sure. I remember you in a swimsuit, some guy hitting on you, you told him to take a hike, he persisted, I told him he needed to cool off, and then I launched him into the ocean somehow."

Laughter filled the galley. "I haven't thought of that in a while. And it was Menagerie, not Vacuo. Pest control for a new resort down there. The resort owner was kinda pissed because the jerk's dad was a major investor. Daddy was really pissed at first, then he got real understanding when he found out his son was hitting on one of the Huntresses that had just taken care of their Grimm problem. Insisted on us getting the royal treatment for a couple of weeks." Yang pulled back from Weiss, looking down and wiping the tears from her wife's face. "You know, if it wasn't for that jerk, I might not have gotten up the nerve to ask you to marry me? Two weeks together, no Grimm, nothing to do but be ourselves, it really showed me what you meant to me. And yeah, I overspent on the ring, but you, you're worth it, every Lien."

"My ring, I-I don't have my ring, where is it-! How could I forget?"

"Relax. Call the VBI guys, ask them if they've found it, have them ask Leshin. Who knows what that fucking weasel did with it. Could be sitting in a pawn shop, could have been in that box he buried in his yard, for all we know. We really didn't look through the box that hard, just grabbed your ID and Myrtenaster and high-tailed it to the mayor's office. Now, slightly less earth-shattering question: Of the seven people on this boat right now, how many of them take their coffee black? Because that's what you were fixing to head upstairs with." Yang leaned back against the other side of the galley, arms crossed, a challenging look on her face. "Consider it a challenge to see if you can fish out a relatively minor detail from your life."

Weiss scowled at her. Damn Yang for knowing the exact words that would make sure she couldn't back down. "Blake prefers tea, but takes her coffee with one sugar, Ruby likes so much sugar in hers it's practically coffee-flavored syrup, Winter likes hers black, I have no idea about Neo, and you... you like yours with a bit of honey in it."

"See, it's all in there, you'll find it. And you've got a lot of people who love you to help."

"Should I... should I fix everyone's coffee for them?"

"Nah, let em drink it black. Served them right for not getting up and getting it themselves, the lazy bums. Treat my wife like a waitress will they?"

Weiss handed the tray of coffees out to everyone, then took up position against the back wall of the pilothouse with her sister and Neo. Ruby, Blake, and Yang had taken up positions along the rail, though Weiss caught Yang glancing at her every now and then as she sipped her coffee. "She keeps looking at me, all the time. It's not like I'm going to disappear again." Weiss muttered.

"Consider it from her perspective. It's pretty much random chance that your teammates got assigned this hunt. So that's the second miracle on top of the first miracle that you survived in the first place." Winter's scroll rang, and she pulled it out, scowled, then sent the call to voicemail before putting it away. "Part of her mind has to be having trouble believing you're really here."

"I see. I sometimes wonder if this is all real myself. To go from having nothing, no-one to having so much... it's overwhelming." Winter's scroll rang again, and before her sister could put the phone away, Weiss snapped, "Winter, either answer whoever it is or turn off your scroll."

"I... we had a fight. I'm not ready to talk to him again yet."

Weiss snorted. "If whoever that is knows you, then he probably knows I'm missing. If you tell him I've been found and that you're helping me, he might leave you alone for a few days."

"There is merit in your suggestion, Weiss. I will step onto the back of the boat for privacy and return his call. If you will pardon me."

"Stern, Winter," Weiss called out as her sister opened the door to the pilothouse.

"Excuse me?"

"The back of the boat? It's called the stern. Possibly useful information, considering we're, you know, on a boat." Remembering she needed to call the VBI agents, Weiss pulled out her scroll. "Agent Rowan? This is Weiss Schnee."

"Mrs. Schnee, how are you? I was going to call you this morning. Do you know a woman named Callie Bordette? She may be connected to this."

"Callie? Small-time local riff-raff. Stays just enough on this side of the law not to get shipped off to prison. I'm not surprised if she's involved. Ask the mayor about her, but be prepared for an earful."

"Thanks for the tip, I'll talk to him. Was there a specific reason you called, or just wanting an update?"

"My wedding ring, I realized I don't have it this morning. Have you found it?"

"Ring? We've found a few in Leshin's house. Can you describe it?"

"Uh..." Weiss slapped herself on the forehead as she realized she didn't clearly remember what the ring looked like. "I'll hand you over to my wife; she'd probably be able to better describe it. I have remembered some things, now, but I don't remember the ring clearly. One moment." Weiss stepped out to where the others were leaning on the rail, handing her scroll over to Yang and explaining that she couldn't remember what her ring looked like clearly. Yang nodded and stepped away to speak with Agent Rowan.

Ruby seized the opportunity for a moment alone with Weiss. "You okay, Weiss? Being on a boat, out on the ocean and everything."

Weiss leaned on the railing, looking outward towards the ocean. "It's okay, honest, as long as a storm doesn't come up. I worked on this boat for a while, remember? Everyone pretended they didn't mind when I was too scared to leave my bunk because of a storm, but I knew. So I found a job onshore. Waitress, sales clerk, that sort of thing."

"And you and Yang?"

"We're... getting reacquainted. There's definitely a connection between us, I can feel it, but I need to get used to her again." Weiss's eyes turned toward Blake, who was back toward the pilothouse. "What about the two of you?"

"We're talking. There's a lot of pain between us." Ruby let out a long, drawn-out breath, staring at the deck. "The fight, the one that broke us up originally, that was my fault, and it was something stupid. So she ran off to Vacuo with Sun, on a job, and came back six months later married to him. And I, I didn't take that well. I was pretty shitty about it, honestly. You were the one that pulled me out of it."

"I was?" Weiss was surprised.

"Yeah. You dragged me off on a mission, then chewed me out when I screwed it up because I was too busy moping about Blake."

"'We're Huntresses, Ruby, not lovestruck schoolgirls. We have a job to do and you had better get started. Yes, you and Blake breaking up is bad, but right here, right now, we have work to do. And afterward, we're going to go get extraordinarily drunk, cry this out, and possibly even get in a bar fight.'" Weiss blinked; she didn't know where the words came from, but they felt right somehow.

Ruby's laughter echoed across the deck, making Blake and Yang both look over at them. "Yeah, that's about right. You know, me and Blake go all the way back to Beacon? I asked her out on a date, before the Fall, so it wasn't that serious, but after, well, after Haven, I asked her out again."

Weiss whistled. "So before your sister and I even had our first date? I'm impressed."

"Y-Yeah, Blake was my first crush, and I kinda fell head-over-heels for her. But I took her for granted and fucked it up. I know better, now, I hope." Yang finished her call and wandered back over to Weiss, Ruby giving the pair a wink and moving over to lean against the pilothouse next to Blake.

"Rowan says no luck on your ring, at least not yet, but they'll keep an eye for it. I even gave him the name of the jeweler's in Atlas where I bought it; 'Bandier's should have records, and I'm pretty sure they even put a maker's mark on their stuff."

"'Bandier's? That... that's not cheap."


Weis smiled wistfully as she stepped through the front doors of Bandier's. It had an odd reputation, simultaneously one of the most famous high-end jewelry stores in all of Mantle, yet practically no-one actually knew where it was. It wasn't as if Bandier's deliberately kept anyone out, they just didn't advertise where the store was. And it was also almost literally true that if you had to ask where Bandier's was, you probably couldn't afford to shop there.

Weiss herself had once owned quite a bit of jewelry from here, at least before breaking ties with her father. Now, now the former heiress to the Schnee Dust Company had to make do with much more modest decorations. Not that she felt the need for many, these days. A few trinkets, gifts from grateful clients and a few would-be suitors sufficed for adornment these days. The more expensive ones she had largely discarded as easily as she had the mantle of heiress, although with far more true regret. "Welcome back, Miss Schnee," whispered a clerk. "Please let us know if we can be of any assistance."

Weiss's icy blue eyes scanned the room, looking for her sister. Now, where was Winter? She'd asked Weiss to meet her, sharply at noon, but Winter was nowhere in sight. Then Weiss caught sight of a familiar figure among the clientele perusing the shining display cases and glittering baubles and scowled

She stalked toward her girlfriend, stopping a few feet behind Yang, hands on her hips. "Well, where is it? Let's see whatever bauble you can't really afford that you've decided to grace me with this time, so I can tell you 'No' and we can get some lunch. How many times do I have to tell you, Yang Xiao Long, that you don't have to buy my affection? That I don't need all those pretty things you keep trying to buy for me to know you love me?"

Yang turned around, shaking her head, a smile on her face. "And how many times do I have to tell you, Weiss Schnee, that I don't buy them because I'm trying to buy you, I buy 'em because it makes me happy to do it. In any case, I"m really hoping you'll accept this one." The blonde reached out and gently took Weiss's hands in hers. "Weiss, you know you mean the world to me. You make me incredibly happy, and I hope I make you happy too. I never gave a damn about your family name, or all that wealth you cast aside, one way or another, I just want you." Yang smiled nervously and got down on one knee, producing a small velvet box from seemingly nowhere, looking up into Weiss's eyes as she opened it. "Weiss Schnee, will you marry me?"

Weiss's breath stuck in her throat and she took half a step back in shock. This move was... unexpected to say the least. The moment stretched out, frozen in time, and she could see doubt start to creep into Yang's mind. That was simply unacceptable. She regarded the blonde with an icy stare. "I see," she said, her tone colder than the northernmost reaches of Mantle. "I suppose I should give you an answer, one way or another." Weiss reached down and grabbed the front of Yang's jacket, hauling the dumbstruck blonde brawler to her feet and pulling her close for a deep kiss. The room exploded in applause, and when the pair broke apart, breathing hard, Weiss had a mischievous twinkle in her eye. "That was a 'yes' in case you were wondering, you brute. And very clever using my sister as a cover for this. Now I believe putting on a ring is in order?"

Yang just nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She retrieved the box from where she'd dropped it when Weiss kissed her and held it out for Weiss to see. It was a simple titanium band, with a snowflake and dragon inscribed on it. Weiss just held out her hand, knowing she was grinning like a love-struck fool and hating it. Oh, her dignity be damned. Today she wasn't just a love-struck fool, she was the luckiest love-struck fool on the planet. "I-I'll have to get you one to match, obviously," she stammered as Yang slid the ring onto her finger.

"'Bandier's will be pleased to provide our services, obviously," murmured the clerk behind the counter, and Weiss couldn't quite suppress a giggle as she recognized the manager, his jacket off and masquerading as a clerk.

"Whose idea was this little ambush?" Weiss asked as Ruby, Blake and, yes, Winter finally came into view.

Yang laughed. "They actually talked me down from my original idea. Can you imagine they called paying for every screen in Atlas Square to show the words 'Weiss Schnee, will you marry me?' needlessly extravagant? The very idea!"

"That might have been a bit extreme," Weiss demurred. Reaching for something to say next and not finding anything witty, she fell back on the mundane.

"Is anyone hungry? I, I was ravenous before I came in, and I suppose I should eat, even though right now my stomach seems to be full of butterflies."


"Another memory, babe?" Yang's voice broke softly into her reverie, and Weiss nodded jerkily.

"That day you ambushed me in Bandier's," Weiss mock-growled at her wife, and Yang couldn't help but laugh.

"Oh come on, babe, you've got to admit, it was a heck of a romantic gesture."

"Hey!" Merrin's voice came from the door of the pilothouse. "Hate to break things up, but Banshee Rock's dead ahead."