It was Jacques that found his voice first. "Willow, dear," he said, adjusting his collar as he stood, his lips suddenly dry, "I'm taking care of this. There's no need for you to be here. You can, you can go searching for your soulmate. I'm sure the three of us can come to some sort of understanding."
Slap. Jacques stepped back from the contact, recoiling not from the force of impact, but the shock. "Jacques, if I was happy with much of how you've handled much of, well, anything, over the last several years, your lawyer wouldn't be holding divorce papers. And as far as finding my soulmate, that's not necessary. Luckily they were close at hand when the soulfire started."
"Then why haven't you-"
"Witnesses." Everyone looked at Blake, and she shrugged. "Her husband, two of their children, a couple of lawyers, a magistrate, plus the rest of us. It's a battery of witnesses nobody will be able to argue with."
"For the record, I dislike being used in this fashion, Mrs. Schnee." The magistrate stood, her steely gaze level at Willow. "While I can understand your actions, it's inappropriate to use an officer of the court in this fashion."
"Understood, your honor, and I apologize. As she says, I wanted there to be enough witnesses nobody could argue about it. Plus I wanted to get my foot in the door for these proceedings and establish that my interests aren't the same as Jacques'." Willow turned back to Jacques, and she regarded him as one might a dead cockroach in their salad at a five-star restaurant. "Now I'd like to sit next to Weiss and the young lady next to her, who I'm assuming is her soulmate?"
"Just a minute. You said you'd already found your soulmate. So who are they? I think I deserve to know." Jacques stepped to one side, even as he scowled at his wife, his arms crossed.
Willow laughed, snapping her fingers. "Oh, I forgot that part, didn't I? Sorry, got a bit caught up in my own cleverness, he'll be angry at me for that. You can come in now," she called toward the chamber door.
In walked Klein Sabine, sporting pale blue soulfire to match Willow's golden brown glow. He took in the surprise on Weiss and Winter's faces, then the fury on Jacques'. "This comes as much of a surprise to me as it does all of you," he said with a laugh. "And for the record, Mister Schnee, I am hereby tendering my resignation, effective immediately." Klein held out a hand to Willow. "Though I do suppose there's one thing we can take care of now. Walking around glowing is annoying."
Bristling, Jacques started to step between the two of them. "If you think you can just walk in here steal my wife you traitor!-!"
"Oh shut up!" Willow snapped. "He didn't steal me, you abandoned our marriage a long time ago. I'm just sorry it took me this long to decide to be rid of you." With a decided air, Willow stepped around Jacques and took Klein's hand.
It was probably one of the most breathtaking moments Weiss had ever known. When their hands met, their soulfires flowed over each other, golden brown swirling with pale blue and mixing together. Then for an instant, it flared into an incredible brightness, then faded, leaving her mother and the man who had been a second father to her standing there, looking at each other in wonder. "Did it look like that when Blake and I-?" she whispered to Kali, who nodded with a smile.
The magistrate laughed, startling everyone. "Well, congratulations are in order, I believe." She paused, counting bodies and chairs and figuring floorspace. "I think this hearing is going to need to be moved to a somewhat larger room. Let's take a brief recess while I have them scare up a conference room for us."
"Thank the gods that's over." Willow slumped in her chair, hands clutched around a cup of coffee. "You have no idea how much I psyched myself up for that. It was pretty nerve-wracking." Klein laid a hand on her shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze, and Willow reached up to lay a hand on his.
"When-how-I mean, Klein, you've worked for us for years, how did this not happen before?" Winter shook her head in confusion.
He shrugged, not taking his eyes off Willow. "I was fairly surprised myself when it happened. But I did some research. Most bonds form when the soulmates are first in range of each other, but there are cases where it happens between people who already knew each other, sometimes for years, and no-one knows why. It's one of the great mysteries of how soulmates work in the first place, like why children don't bond, or why some people bond in trios." Klein smiled at Weiss. "In a way, we have you to thank for this."
"Me?" Weiss was baffled. "What do I have to do with you and my mother being soulmates?"
"Well, it happened after your text message yesterday..."
Klein nodded grimly as he read the text message from Weiss. Of course, her mother needed to know the truth about what had happened. He'd been keeping a low profile around the house, not hiding exactly, but doing his best to avoid Jacques' attention while helping the police learn what had really gone on at the Schnee home. He'd probably get discovered and fired eventually, but it was worth it if he helped take that smug bastard down.
Luckily Willow had decided on drinking alone in her suite this morning instead of one of the more public areas of the house. This was likely to be a rather loud conversation. Klein opened the door softly and crept in. There was no telling what Mrs. Schnee's mood was; he knew she loved all her children, but the pain of her husband's betrayal had driven her to retreat from life years ago.
"Mrs. Schnee? Are you awake? I need to talk to you," Klein called out as he peered around the room.
"I'm over here. Didn't expect them to send you with my wine. Almost done with this bottle" Willow muttered, and now he could see her, slumped bonelessly on the bench beneath the bay window. Her words were drowsy, but not slurred. Good, she'd probably just woken up and hadn't really started drinking yet.
He shook his head as he took a seat next to Willow. "I'm sorry, but I don't have any wine for you, ma'am. Weiss asked me to come to talk to you."
"Weiss? Haven't seen her in, in days. Suppose she's too busy for her drunk of a mother anymore. Children, they grow up and they abandon you, Klein. Never have children, that's my advice."
"She hasn't abandoned you, she's... what has Jacques told you, about what happened to her?"
"Nothing, haven't seen him since before I saw Weiss." Anger flared beneath the drunken haze in Willow's eyes. "What's happened to my little girl? What's that bastard done?"
Klein took a deep breath. Best to start at the beginning. "Weiss has found her soulmate."
"Actual soulmate? Soulfire and everything? This calls for a, a celebration!" Willow reached for the glass of wine sitting on the coffee but Klein gently slid the glass out of her reach.
"Ma'am, I'm afraid it's more complicated than that. When Jacques found out about the soulfire, he took it badly. He had Weiss confined to her room, even posting armed guards there with orders to make sure she didn't leave, to shoot her with stunners if necessary. I suppose he thought the problem would go away, if he just kept her locked up long enough."
Willow's head was bowed, looking down at the hands clenched in her lap now. "There's more, isn't there?"
He nodded. "Unfortunately, yes. Two nights ago, Weiss's soulmate arrived at the house, an invited guest to a reception Jacques was hosting. The peace talks between the White Fang and the Atlas government, remember? Weiss made a break for it, headed straight for the ballroom. In front of all the guests, she found her soulmate and completed the bond. Several of them took videos with their scrolls; I have one to show you." Klein hesitated before continuing. "I will warn you, Jacques and Weiss had a confrontation. There were a lot of witnesses."
"Show me," Willow hissed.
The white-haired woman was silent as the video played, but by the time it was over, she was seething. "He hit her?"
"Yes, ma'am. She was recording something else and got his reaction to finding out about the soulfire on the recording. It... it's bad."
"Play it."
"Ma'am, I don't think..."
"Play. It." There was a steel in Willow's voice Klein couldn't ever remember hearing before, and without a word, he played the copy of Weiss's first confrontation with her father for her mother.
Willow's hands were shaking as she reached out to pick up the wine bottle from the table. She turned it this way and that, watching the liquid flow in the bottle. Then, suddenly, she screamed and threw the bottle across the room. It bounced off the wall, tumbling to the floor, dark red wine spilling across the tiles.
"It didn't smash. I thought it would smash," she said softly, her words thunderous in the silence.
"Sadly, that never works like in the movies."
"Where, where is Weiss now?"
"She's staying at Winter's apartment. From the messages she's sent me, she and her soulmate had some scan or another done yesterday, to determine if they actually are soulmates. They passed, by the way."
Willow leaned back on the bench, staring at the ceiling. "I don't want to be here anymore," she whispered.
"Ma'am, you're not thinking of-"
"I can't be Mrs. Schnee anymore. I tried to tough it out, even though I knew he didn't love me, that he never had. For the children's sake, you know? But no matter how hard I tried, all I got in return was contempt, and it hurt, it hurt oh so much. So I looked for a way to numb the pain." She stood, picking up the bottle she'd hurled from where it lay in the puddle of spilled wine and started pacing back and forth, tapping on the bottle with one manicured nail. "But it didn't numb the pain, it just... pushed it away for a little while. And it took more and more to push the pain away, and it pushed the pain away less and less. So maybe the time has come for Jacques and me to part ways. I need a good divorce lawyer, one he can't bribe or bully. I know, I'll ask Lyssa Adel's advice, I should be able to trust her if she's still talking to me."
"Mrs. Schnee... Willow, you're glowing!"
Willow stopped dead in her tracks, noticing at the golden-brown glow covering her arms. "So I am! Is this... is this soulfire?" She looked up at Klein, wonder in her voice. "You're glowing too! Are we...? Why didn't it happen earlier?"
"I don't know," Klein said in a hushed whisper, playing with the blue-white glow wreathing his arms, turning this way and that, watching it dance like flames. "But I do know that right here, right now, I'm rooting for you. Call me the first member of Team Willow, if you like." He stood, holding out his hand. "Care to shake on it?"
Willow started to reach out her hand, only to jerk it back. "No, not yet. If we complete the bond before anyone sees it, Jacques'll claim it 's a fraud. We need, we need witnesses, ones he can't control. I don't think we can manage the crowd scene Weiss did, but we'll come up with something. You mentioned some sort of scan or something for being soulmates; we'll need one done, quickly and discretely. Money usually solves that kind of thing rather easily; it fills me with an evil sort of glee to think of using Jacques' own money against him. Now let's get planning..."
"...Klein? You stopped mid-sentence there. Are you alright?" Winter was giving him a puzzled look, but Weiss just shook her head.
"It's a soulmate thing. For a while after forming the bond, you have a tendency to stop in the middle of saying something, or you get distracted easily. I think it's your minds adjusting to being connected to each other. Like last night at dinner, Blake and I each ordered what the other was planning on getting. Down to our beverages." Weiss laughed. "We didn't even notice until Blake took a sip of 'her' coffee and spat it across the table."
Blake blushed. "I said I was sorry!"
Winter cleared her throat and said, "I don't want to interrupt, but I have to ask: What about Whitley? Does he know about this yet? Or about Weiss and Blake?"
"Yes, Whitley knows about me and Klein. And we've... done our best to correct what Jacques told him about Weiss and Blake. He doesn't believe it, of course; your father's had a lot of influence over him, unfortunately." Willow sighed. "But he's listening to me, and not rejecting what I say as impossible." She gave Weiss a sad smile. "Right now he's rather worried about his big sister. Jacques was very... particular about what he told Whitley about Blake, so he's convinced she's going to murder you as soon as the two of you are alone. How are the two of you doing, by the way? Klein didn't have a lot of details. Is Blake really White Fang?"
"Ex-White Fang, Mrs. Schnee. I was tired of hurting people when what I wanted to do was help people." Blake reached out and intertwined her hand with Weiss's. "I wouldn't go back now, even if I could. I've found something worth fighting for."
Weiss smoothed out her skirt as she sat in the living room of her mother's new apartment. When Willow Schnee had decided she was leaving both her husband and their home, she did so quickly and thoroughly. Klein had gone to visit first thing that morning; by dinnertime, they'd had the scan done, divorce papers drawn up, and a short-term lease on the apartment Weiss now sat in. Her mother was looking into different long-term options but didn't to settle on anything just yet.
For one thing, both her and Klein's and Weiss and Blake's soulbonds were newly-formed, and the two pairs were still deciding where their boundaries lay. Willow had firmly stated that she was willing to let Weiss and Blake sort things out for themselves, but drew the line at overnight stays, at least for the time being.
Which Weiss was fine with, and she was fairly sure Blake felt the same way. They were getting comfortable with each other, but every now and again, she'd do something and Blake would flinch, or vice versa or something just plain strange would happen. Like what had happened at lunch today. Weiss had reached for her water glass, only to find Blake in the middle of filing it. They'd blushed as they looked away from each other, but Weiss had felt more embarrassed for Blake than for herself.
A knock came at the door, and Weiss reluctantly went to answer it. Her brother Whitley stood there. "Hello, Weiss, it's good to see you."
"It's nice to see you too, Whitley. Not quite the raving madwoman father portrayed me as, am I?" She gestured toward the couch. "Have a seat. Klein and mother are out shopping right now."
"And your... other half, Blake, I think her name is?" Whitley asked as he sat.
"With her parents for the afternoon. We do spend time apart, you know. What did father tell you about, about what happened that night?" Weiss crossed her arms as she sat, looking at her brother.
"That something had gone wrong in your training, that somehow your aura had gotten entangled with that other girl's, and that the two of you weren't really soulmates, but she was a White Fang terrorist manipulating you to turn you against him." Whitley gave Weiss a challenging look. "And I assume you're going to tell me that none of that is true?"
"Well, part of it is true. Blake used to be part of the White Fang, but she left them, she's not with them anymore. The rest of it is pretty much bullshit. Blake and I are really soulmates, there is an analysis that can be done to confirm it, and we passed with flying colors."
"And what about fighting your way through our home to get to her? By what definition is that 'sane'? You turned our home into a battlefield!"
"He turned armed guards on me, Whitley! The very same men who are supposed to be charged with our protection were trying to gun me down on his orders. What kind of father does that? And if you've watched some of the security footage, you'd see that I didn't hurt anyone I didn't have to. I only fought to clear my way."
"Father hasn't let me. He says I don't need to trouble myself with such things."
"Would you like to? Or hear how he reacted, in his own voice, when he found out about my soulfire? He hit me, Whitley. Twice. That morning, he'd told me he wasn't going to let me go off to Beacon, that he was making me stay here, in Atlas, to study business. Gods above and gods below, Whitley, I've even got video of the first moment Blake and I met. What has father got against that? Any evidence?"
"It's foolish not to do as Father commands, sister."
Weiss leaned forward, a calculating gleam in her eye. "But isn't it also foolish to make a decision based on incomplete information? Isn't it wisest to be well-informed about something before making up your mind?"
Her brother opened his mouth, then paused, thinking. "Let me hear your side of things, then. But I will warn you that it's going to be very, very hard to convince me."
