After weeks of sitting out on the side, waiting to jump back into the fray, Weiss Schnee finally felt ready to play again. She walked into the school after coming in late from a visit with the doctors, her excitement secreting out of her like sap seeping out of a tree. When she walked in, she thought about the class she was supposed to be in at that moment, and soon realized that it was almost over anyway. So what Weiss decided to do, was head over to Professor Goodwitch was since she had a free period at that moment. If she was informed about her developments, then she would most likely be able to play in the game later that evening.
Weiss knocked on the door, then waited a few moments for Goodwitch to open up for her. "Miss Schnee, shouldn't you be in class right now?" Weiss was asked when the door opened.
"I actually just got to school a few minutes ago, since I had an appointment with the doctors concerning my leg," Weiss said. "I figured since there wasn't much time left in class, if I could speak with you about it before the next class begins."
"Very well then, please step inside so that we may speak privately about the matter," Goodwitch said, motioning for Weiss to step into her classroom. Once Weiss was in there, she closed the door and walked with Weiss over to her desk. "Now, what news do you have for me about your leg?"
Weiss cleared her throat, then began to recite what she was told by the doctor. "As I was told earlier by the doctor, my leg has healed nicely. While I may experience some minor discomfort, he said that I should be well enough to play in our game tonight."
After pondering her options for a moment, Goodwitch finally spoke up. "Well, in that case, I believe you will get some game time today, however I would rather decide if you are going to start or not at a later time, when I actually see how you perform during our warm ups today. Does that seem fair to you?" She asked.
Weiss nodded her response. "Of course, that's more than fair actually," She said.
"Very well then, I believe that you should prepare for your next class then," Goodwitch said. She stood up from her desk and walked to the door, opening it to let Weiss out. "Hopefully you are fully prepared for today's game, and I look forward to seeing you play hard like you have before."
With that, Weiss started to walk through the halls to where she knew Pyrrha would be. She figured that Pyrrha was wondering how she was doing, and so she wanted to surprise her. Considering that they had lunch next instead of another class, Weiss was enjoying the possibility of seeing Pyrrha as soon as she got the chance to. She walked through the hallways and eventually came upon the room that Pyrrha was about to come out of, arriving just as the bell rang to dismiss the class. A few seconds later she saw the door open, and students start to pile out.
Weiss saw Pyrrha walking out, looking like she was talking to someone. When Weiss approached her, the redhead didn't even notice her, though that was the idea after all. Weiss didn't see who she was talking to as she came up to Pyrrha and tapped her on the shoulder. When the redhead turned to look at her she got a pleasant surprise when she saw the face of a smiling Weiss Schnee.
"Hey, I didn't see you there," Pyrrha said, happy now that her girlfriend was around. "How did it go with the doctor?"
"It went well, and after speaking with coach, I should be able to play tonight," Weiss said smiling brighter than the sun.
"Well that's great, I can't wait to see it," Pyrrha said. Weiss was about to speak up again, but the person who Pyrrha was walking with earlier spoke up when he saw Weiss standing with her.
"Weiss? Is that you?"
Weiss immediately recognized the voice that just spoke up. She finally looked at who was walking with Pyrrha, and she realized that standing there, walking with the two of them, was a man she remembered back from her last school. Neptune Vasillas.
"Neptune? What are you doing here?" Weiss questioned. She had a lot of curiosities in her mind, and a few memories of when they were at school together before.
"I recently transferred from Haven after getting into a 'debate' with Cardin," Neptune responded.
Weiss could only look at him as if he just committed murder, wondering what was wrong with the guy. "You did what? Did you seriously pick a fight with Cardin and his idiot friends? Are you insane?"
Pyrrha could only watch as the two of them, who had apparently known each other before, got into an argument not even a minute after reconnecting. To her, this was all so strange and she didn't know whether to make heads or tails of it.
"Considering he was picking on Juno again, then yeah, I did," Neptune responded. He wasn't going to try and make a big deal out of it, the whole ordeal having been something he considered unimportant anyway. "You were always saying that I need to think of others before myself, so I guess that advice just stuck."
Weiss seemed surprised by what was said, and instead let her head drop a little bit. Pyrrha saw something she didn't expect to see from Weiss at that moment, guilt. "Sorry, I didn't realize,"
"Meh, it's fine," Neptune responded. He knew Weiss didn't mean anything bad by what she had said, so he couldn't be mad at her for it. "Besides, I'm here at Beacon with you now, so I guess it kinda works out." Pyrrha then tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to one of the classrooms. "So I guess this is where I step off then. Well, it was nice meeting you Pyrrha, and Weiss, I'm glad that I got to see you again."
"It was nice meeting you too," Pyrrha said. Weiss just gave a half-hearted smile and a small wave. Once Neptune walked into the room and Weiss and Pyrrha turned the corner towards the cafeteria, Weiss let out a long sigh and let her head hang back. She looked up at the ceiling as a million thoughts raced through her head.
"Is everything ok Weiss?" Pyrrha asked her, clearly noticing that something was bothering her.
Weiss looked over at Pyrrha and knew she had to tell her. Pulling Pyrrha off to the side where they could talk privately, she led her over to the library. As they walked in and over to the shelves of books where they could find a private area, Weiss thought of where she should begin with her friend Neptune. Soon they were far enough back that Weiss felt comfortable talking about it.
"Weiss, why are we back here again?" Pyrrha asked, questioning the suddenness of her girlfriends choice to bring her back here.
"It's so we could talk privately about what you just saw minutes ago with me and Neptune," Weiss said. She sat down on the ground, letting her back and her head rest against the bookshelves. "You probably know this already, but I used to know Neptune from before," Weiss said.
"How long ago did you know him?" Pyrrha asked.
"The last school I was at was Haven Academy, if you recall, and that's where I knew him from," Weiss said. "Funny thing was, when I first met him, it was because he pretended that I was his girlfriend to get a jerk named Cardin Winchester off of my back since he was bothering me." Weiss noticed that Pyrrha sat down next to her, waiting to hear what she had to say. "That's when we became friends, though he would always flirt with me like there was no tomorrow. I guess it must have worked after a while, because we ended up dating each other after all."
Pyrrha let out a low whistle when she heard that. "I guess things ended weirdly between the two of you?" Pyrrha asked.
Nodding, Weiss continued. "When I was told that my family was moving again, I said that to Neptune," Weiss said. "I don't know whether he thought it was a joke, or if he thought I was just trying to lie to him and break up, but he didn't appreciate what I was doing. The day that I moved, he came over to my house to try and talk to me. That's when he saw that I was actually moving away." Weiss brought her hand up to cover her eyes, she felt as through tears were starting to form at the memories of that day.
Pyrrha could tell that Weiss was really having a hard time recalling what had happened. Wrapping her arm around Weiss' shoulders, she reassured her that everything is fine. "Hey, you don't have to say anymore if you don't want to," Pyrrha said.
That caused Weiss to look up at her and speak almost instantly. "No I need to tell you this, you of all people deserve to know about my past relationships," Weiss said. "I don't want you to feel like I'm hiding anything from you." Weiss had to take a moment to relax and keep herself from growing upset at what she was remembering. "When he came over, I talked to him, told him that I didn't want to leave him behind, but that I had to so that neither of us would be hurt, being that we would be far away from each other. He understood, and he walked away looking defeated. I remember, calling out to him, hoping that he would look back and see how upset that I was over the whole thing, but he never did. I think it hurt him to have to walk away, just like it hurt me when he walked away. So yeah, things didn't end well between the two of us."
Pyrrha waited for a moment to process everything, before wrapping both of her arms around Weiss and hugging her tightly. "It's ok, now you have a chance to make things right with him," Pyrrha said softly into Weiss' ear. "You have a chance to become friends again now, and so you should try to do that."
"But what if he wants to get back together with me?" Weiss asked. "I know Neptune, he flirts with anyone he can, but he's respectable about people in relationships at least. Unless we tell him that we're together, I think he'll try to get back together with me."
"Well then we tell him," Pyrrha said. "I know you're concerned about people knowing, and I can understand if it's even harder to tell someone you used to be in a relationship with, but if he's respectable about people in relationships, then it's better to say it than to not say it." Pyrrha rubbed her arm against Weiss', comforting her as they had a heart to heart moment. "Besides, maybe he could be a friend to you once again after this."
Weiss then realized that Pyrrha was right, she did have an opportunity, an opportunity to finally set things right between her and Neptune. "I guess your right," Weiss said, smiling for the first time since they sat down in the library. Neither of them wanted to leave the comfortable embrace of each others arms, so they decided to stay there for a few minutes longer and let the time fly by in silence.
By the time the game was about to begin, Weiss was fully prepared for the challenge ahead of her. During the warmups before the game started, she finally practiced with the team and showed that she was good enough to play. The only thing about that Weiss felt would be a problem was that her leg still felt stiff, and there was a miniscule amount of leftover pain that was noticeable to at least Weiss. Goodwitch decided to air on the side of caution and told Weiss that she would play, but that she wouldn't be starting in the game. Of course, Weiss wasn't going to complain about it, she knew that this game was too important to take unnecessary risks on.
Unfortunately, being on the sidelines meant that you had to watch the game go on, while being unable to do anything about it while it was happening. She saw as their opponents managed to make their way past the defense, and take a shot on goal that Yang couldn't block. With an early lead, Weiss felt as though their chances were looking grim, but she tried to keep her head on straight and not lose hope just yet.
As the game went on, Weiss went in and out, playing hard when she was in, and getting as much rest as she felt she needed when she was off on the side. She watched from the side as her team scored, tying the game up for them. It was neck and neck at one goal a piece for the two teams and time was running out.
Jumping back into the game, Weiss gave it everything she had. Her team pushed down the field, keeping their opponents on their toes defensively. Weiss made sure that they never got a chance to catch their breath, keeping everything down on the other side of the field when it came close to their opponents breaking the offense. If anyone were seeing Weiss play for the first time, they never would have thought that she was just coming off of an injury, they would have only seen someone who played with a passion so hot that nothing was capable of stamping out the fire burning inside of her.
While down near the opponents goal, Pyrrha, Blake, Weiss and the rest of the offense were playing a game of cat and mouse, biding their time until they could get a shot off that worked. Having just passed the ball off to Blake, Weiss wasn't expecting what had come next. Without a second to brace herself for the impact, she felt one of the other players run full force into her,the player throwing her elbow into the side of Weiss head and effectively knocking her down to the ground harder than she had been knocked down before. Seeing stars as she stared up into the night sky, she didn't notice what the result of that play had done.
Pyrrha had seen what happened, and for the first time in her life, she was filled with boiling fury. Had it not been for Blake and the rest of the offense, Pyrrha would have surely gotten herself into trouble. Pyrrha was looking for a fight right there at that moment, and her teammates quick reactions to the situation were the only thing keeping Pyrrha in the game at all. Neo was down at the opposite end of the field keeping Yang from going into the fight herself, knowing that Yang could have a temper. Fortunately for them, the player who laid the hit on Weiss was ejected from the game for the action.
After Pyrrha calmed down enough, she looked over to see that Weiss was sitting up. Weiss looked like she was fine, but Pyrrha just had to be sure.
"Weiss!" Pyrrha shouted when she reached her, kneeling down next to the white haired girl and hoping she was ok.
"Pyrrha, I'm fine," Weiss said. She didn't even need anyone else to help her stand up, doing so on her own and balancing on her left leg to show that she was perfectly fine. "See, perfectly fine."
Goodwitch, who was just reaching Weiss as she stood up, decided that Weiss was good to play, and figured she could stay in for a little longer.
As a result of the play, Weiss was given the chance at a penalty kick, and so she stepped up to the line to take her shot. Everything was riding on this one shot, if she could make it then they would be in prime position to win, and move closer to the state championships. Weiss, after years of playing,was used to this kind of pressure by now, and actually felt like her odds were even better because of it.
She looked over to her teammates, stopping at Pyrrha for a second, before she gave a smile to her girlfriend, and then turned to the goalkeeper. With a confident smirk on her face, she ran forward and took her shot, watching as it sailed in just out of the goalkeeper's reach. When the shot sailed in, her teammates ran over to her and nearly tackled her to the ground in excitement. Weiss had pretty much set their victory in all but stone, and all they had to do now was hold the line for a few more minutes before they won, which in the end, they had managed to do successfully, giving them a much needed victory.
Back on the bus, the team was in high spirits as they made the journey back to the school. Weiss was sitting next to Pyrrha like she had so often before, and she was enjoying the victory. The two of them were talking amongst themselves quietly, they had so much they wanted to say to each other.
"God, my head hurts," Weiss groaned. Despite feeling fine after being hit, she was given an ice pack by Goodwitch to keep on her head, at least for a little bit.
"You did get hit pretty hard back there," Pyrrha mentioned.
"I know I did," Weiss continued, sounding pained as she spoke. "And I know that you were pretty pissed off after what happened." Remembering just how furious she was, Pyrrha just nodded silently, that was something she didn't want to remember too much. Thinking back on earlier in the day, Weiss still had to thank Pyrrha for her help from earlier. "Hey, Pyrrha?"
"Yeah?"
"I wanted to thank you."
Pyrrha turned her head towards Weiss, wondering what she was being thanked for. "I don't know why I'm being thanked but uh, you're welcome, I guess,"
Weiss laughed a little bit, resting her head on Pyrrha's shoulder. "Thanks for being there for me earlier today when I had that mini freak out," Weiss said softly from Pyrrha's shoulder. "I'm really glad that I have someone like you there to be with me when I need it, and I honestly wouldn't trade being with you for almost anything at this point."
Pyrrha couldn't help but smile at that. It was times like this where she could see Weiss for who she really was, that made Pyrrha smile brighter than ever before. The times when Weiss would show the gentle, kindhearted and caring person that she really was. "Of course," Pyrrha said. After a few minutes of silence, Pyrrha looked over to see that Weiss had fallen asleep on her shoulder. To Pyrrha she looked so peaceful, and so she was content just to let her rest there and enjoy some sleep. She deserved a nice rest after all.
AN: Welp, one last chapter after this and then an epilogue to cap it off. I gotta say I had a lot of fun writing this and it's definitely become one of my favorite works. Thanks to everyone for giving this a shot and I hope that you were able to enjoy it as much as I have.