A/N: Hey guys! Blue here! I'm sorry this is a day late, I got really busy yesterday. But we finally got a kiss! One where that wasn't painful haha. Again, wow! Thank you for all the reviews and support, you guys freaking rock! I'm hugging all of y'all with my brain (that sounds weird but you get what I mean)
I hope you guys like this chapter as well, some full disclosure between our girls. Lemme know what you think. Enjoy the Roses!
Chapter 12: Questions and Answers
"You're... Sure?" Weiss asked. She and Ruby were sitting on the bed together. The heiress had her legs pulled up, folded in the ladylike manner. Across from her, Ruby sat cross-legged. She was smiling at Weiss, but her hands told another story. She was nervous, her fidgeting gave that much away. Reaching over, the ivory-haired girl placed a hand over the restless ones. "You don't have to if you think it would be an issue."
"No, it's alright." Ruby reassured her. "We have a little less than two hours, but I'll answer any questions you have."
After Ruby composed herself, the two decided it was time for a talk. A real one in a room, rather than on a roof or behind the Schnee estate. Weiss tried to puzzle how they would get back into her room. They couldn't walk in the front door without raising suspicion. There was the drain pipe, maybe it was climbable after all?
Before she could finish puzzling it out, Ruby swept her off of her feet.
Literally.
The younger girl (actually, that might not be as accurate as Weiss used to believe) was carrying her, bridal style. Before she could ask her what she was doing, Ruby smiled and lifted them higher in the air. Her stomach dropped the higher they flew. In reaction, Weiss draped her arms around the angels neck and held on tightly.
The words 'Don't worry, I've got you' still played in her head like the sweetest melody.
Ruby lifted her in through the window carefully and then climbed in herself. So the drainpipe was a rouse after all.
"You do have questions, right?" Ruby asked.
"Yes, many."
"I figured." She giggled.
"God, your laugh is so cute." Weiss slipped out before she could stop herself. Her delicate hands came up and covered her mouth in shock. Silver eyes widened and the angel's face turned a brilliant scarlet. "I-I am so sorry, it just... Ugh, sorry."
Ruby laughed harder and squeezed the flustered heiress' hands.
"It's fine, really." She assured her. "Besides, I think you have the prettiest smile I've ever seen. And I've been around a while, Weiss. Seen a lot of smiles."
Weiss knew it.
This girl would be the death of her.
"Ahem, so." Weiss coughed, trying to get back to the subject at hand before the girl flustered her to death. "You're an angel. You are an angel, right? Not some avian experiment?"
"Avian?"
"You're not a bird person?" Weiss asked with a roll of her eyes.
"Oh! No, definitely not a bird." Ruby grinned. "I am an angel. Your guardian angel, or at least I was."
"Is that common? Angels walking among us? Surely someone would notice."
"It's not. Only in special cases, like yours."
"How was mine different?" Inquired the ivory-haired girl.
Ruby released her hands and extended them in front of her to gesture to something vast.
"The world is full of different people who have different destinies. It's all part of the grand design." Ruby explained. "Some people are destined to do amazing things for the greater good. Like you."
"Me?"
"I've always said you were special, Weiss. I mean it." She said. "But we saw you were... Slipping. They didn't want to risk having you fall down a dark path, so they sent me!"
"They?"
"Other angels. There is a specific counsel to each case, they observe to make sure all is going well."
"But, couldn't they be watching now?" She asked, panic laced in her voice.
"No, I... Tricked them into giving me some unsupervised time." Ruby told Weiss with a sigh. "I'm breaking so many rules."
Ruby dropped her arms and looked down into her lap. Clearly distraught, Weiss thought it best to change the subject.
"Well, have angels been caught before? Surely someone made a mistake before you." Weiss asked. She winced. That... came out wrong, but Ruby didn't seem offended.
"Oh yeah! But angels can wipe memories! It's what I did to Jimmy Junior."
"Jimmy?"
"Headmaster Ironwood! I knew his dad."
The heiress barely managed to bite back a giggle at the nickname for her headmaster. Thinking of the strong man as a 'junior' tickled her funny bone for reasons she couldn't quite explain.
"So that's why he lied to my father." Weiss put together after composing herself. "He didn't think it was a lie."
"No, he didn't."
"Is that what you are afraid they'll do to me? Make me forget you?"
Ruby closed her eyes and sighed. Clearly another touchy topic, but Weiss had a feeling more were just ahead. They didn't have much time, they had to power through them.
"I know they will. If they find out what you know, they will wipe it for sure." She told her. Her silver eyes opened again and locked with Weiss. "That's why you need to act like you know nothing."
"You want me to act like this didn't happen?" She asked. She didn't know if she could manage that. Ruby had changed her life, to act as if she was never there, to act as if she never learned what she was... "That... Won't be easy."
While Weiss was contemplating just how she would keep this secret, her angel leaned in and pressed a light kiss to her forehead, so soft and sweet. She pulled back, and rested her own forehead where she had just kissed, the warmest smile gracing her lips.
"I know. It's gonna be hard, but I know you can do it." Ruby whispered reassuringly. She pulled back and returned to her seated position. "What else do you want to know?"
Weiss stuttered incoherently for a moment before clearing her throat. She swore she could speak normally around the girl before. She used to have the vocabulary of a scholar around Ruby. And now? She was a babbling fool.
A babbling fool in love.
"S-so... You're an angel. Were you just... Created? Are angels created?"
"I mean, I was born if that's what you're asking."
"Born an angel?"
"Oooooh! No, I was born here, on earth."
"You... Were human?"
"Yes." She laughed. "Why? Is that so unbelievable?"
"N-no!" Weiss backpedaled. She shifted in her seat, afraid she had offended Ruby in some way. "I just don't know how all of this works. You were human and you... Um..."
"Died, yes." She easily answered. Like it was so simple, just an everyday topic. She supposed that, for Ruby, it was.
But she died! She was dead, Weiss was talking to a dead girl right now. Though, she certainly didn't feel dead to her. The way she held her, squeezed her hands. The way they kissed. Would a dead girl really be able to kiss like that?
And she was warm, god was she warm. The dead were supposed to be cold. Then again, it wasn't like she was a reanimated corpse, this was probably a physical representation of her soul. And she probably wasn't as young as she looked, she could most likely be any age she wanted to be.
Oh.
"Ruby?" Weiss tepidly asked. "When did... That happen."
"When did what happen? When did I die?"
"Yes... How are you so ok with the fact that you died?"
"It's kind of been a while, Weiss. Death is a natural part of the grand design, mine just happened sooner than most."
"When?"
"I died in 1938."
"I... I beg your pardon?" Weiss asked, stunned by Ruby's confession.
"Yup, I grew up in the great depression actually." She added with a shrug of her shoulders. "Not a great time to be alive, I'll tell you that."
"Ruby, that was seventy-two years ago!"
"Wow, really? Time flies I guess."
Weiss got up from the bed and paced around it for a minute or two. Ruby Rose was so much older than she knew. That thought hadn't occurred to her till just now. Angel, sure, but she always saw her as the age she appeared to be.
"Weiss, are you alright?"
"I'm... Fine... It's..."
"A lot, I know."
"How old were you when... Um..."
"When I died?" Ruby supplied, seeing that was one of the concepts that Weiss struggled to grasp. The heiress smiled, grateful that the angel understood her so well. "I was fifteen."
"That's so young! What happened?"
"There was a fire at my orphanage and-"
"Orphanage?"
"Yeah, I was an orphan." Ruby informed her. "Our parents died when we were really young."
"Our?" Weiss asked for clarification. So much new information about Ruby was being given to her in the span of a couple hours. Did she have other family members? Oh, they must have been so sad to lose Ruby.
Weiss knew that she would be.
"My sister, Yang." Ruby chirped, a bit too cheerful for the subject matter. "We went in to save some other orphans and... We didn't come back out."
"Your sister she died too?"
"Yeah, but it's ok! We both became angels because of our heroic actions." Ruby said, puffing out her chest.
"That's good, I suppose." Weiss muttered. This was officially the strangest conversation she had ever had. Never in her life had she ever thought she would tell someone that it was good that their sister died with them.
Ruby was certainly spinning her life around in weird wild ways, but also some wonderful ways too. After all, if it weren't for her, she would still be sulking in her own self isolation. And that was the best case scenario. Worst case, she would be have having a veeeery different conversation with Ruby.
She wouldn't be the only dead girl talking.
"She's been worried about me lately. I've been acting... Weird apparently." She told her with a pathetic smile.
"What could have caused that?" Teased Weiss. "What are you gonna tell her?"
"What can I say? 'Yang, I know we decided to dedicate our souls to being angels and saving other people, but I met this super pretty heiress and she twists my wings into a tizzy and my heart goes all jumpy jumpy'? That wouldn't go over well."
"Probably not." Weiss said, a deep blush appearing on her face once again from the angel's honesty. Ruby was too good at eliciting that reaction from her. "So angels can't date?"
"That is a big N O." She confirmed. "We had our time to live, we aren't allowed to use this as a second chance to live. No eating, no unauthorized visits, and absolutely no falling in love."
"You can't eat?"
"That's what you fixated on?" She laughed. "We can, but it's frowned upon. I don't taste anything anyways."
Silence. The question was there, it clung to the air like a vapor, waiting to be inhaled and expelled. They were both afraid of this one though. The rest of them were more for clarification. But this one? This was the scary one.
Weiss breathed it in, let the concern bubble and brew in her lungs.
And then...
"What happens when an angel falls in love?"
"They get their wings clipped. I don't know much about it, complete angels such as myself aren't allowed to talk to them." Ruby said in a low voice, her eyes never leaving Weiss. "But they become mortal again."
Mortal.
Alive.
The thought of that sent jolts of excitement throughout the heiress' body, starting from her chest, to her shoulders and hips and then to her extremities. She couldn't stop the smile from forming on her lips, even if she wanted to. Which she most certainly did not. She was just so happy. Here she was, thinking that Ruby wouldn't be able to stay with her, that Ruby would remain one age and have to watch Weiss die. No, she could live with her!
Weiss was so ecstatic!
But, Ruby did not seem to share her sentiment, her frown was evidence of that.
"Wouldn't that be a good thing?"
"Weiss, I would be completely disconnected from the other angels, from my sister." She said, hugging herself. "And I have no idea what would happen after... Well... I die again."
"Oh."
Weiss averted her gaze from Ruby. Guilt replaced the jolts of happiness, the feeling doused the other and she nearly drowned in it. She was asking Ruby to give up everything she had known for her. How selfish could she be, how sinful.
She was asking an angel to be a sinner.
"I... Don't know what I'm doing." Ruby admitted. "I've never felt this way about anyone before and I'm... Scared."
And then Weiss knew what she had to do. Every inch of her screamed to do the wrong thing, to beg for her to stay. She wanted to keep Ruby all to herself, her own personal angel. The girl who brought light into her life. She wanted to hold onto the light and keep it close.
That wasn't what she had to do though.
"They... They need you, Ruby." Weiss whispered. The words were hard to say, but she had to commit to them. "I don't anymore."
The angel looked as if she had been stabbed in the heart seven times. Not that it would kill her, but she looked that pained.
"It's not that I don't want you here, it's not that I don't... don't care about you." She continued to explain. "But I can't take you away from people who need you more."
The redhead looked to the ground, tears starting to spill from her eyes.
"So... This is goodbye, then." Came a broken response. The knife traveled from Ruby's heart right back to Weiss'.
"I guess it is."
They both got up from the bed and walked over to the window. It had almost been two hours, there wasn't much time at all. Ruby pulled Weiss in for a tight hug, squeezing with everything she had. The ivory-haired girl held her just as tight, tears spilling from her eyes.
The scent of roses crept into her nose once again. Somehow, she knew that no rose would ever smell as sweet as the one she held in her arms.
After finally releasing, Ruby spread her wings back out, casting a huge light all around her. She climbed onto the windowsill and perched there, ready to leave at any moment.
"Wait!" Weiss yelled. She walked over to Ruby and ran a gentle hand against her cheek. She brought the other up as well to hold her face. And then slowly, very slowly, she leaned in and kissed Ruby.
It wasn't like their first kiss, which was a disaster, and it wasn't like their second one, which was needy and sloppy. No, this one was soft and built into more passion. Her goal was to pour all her love out into Ruby on this last kiss and Ruby seemed determined to do the same. Weiss smiled against her lips, wishing the kiss could last forever.
Yet it couldn't, and they both knew that.
There was only one thing left to say to her.
"I love you, Ruby." She breathed. It was so quiet that the only reason Ruby heard it was because of Weiss' proximity to her face. The redhead choked a sob, but gulped it down.
"I love you too." She whispered, leaning in and kissing Weiss on the scar over her left eye.
Then, she pushed off against the window, hovered in the air a bit, and was gone.
Tears ran down Weiss' cheeks, but she found herself smiling instead. She was proud of Ruby, proud of all the good she had done and the good she would do. It was the most painful decision she ever had to make, but Weiss was certain she made the right one. She couldn't tell Ruby to stay, it would have been cruel to her.
Weiss would be happy, she would. Ruby said there was good around the corner, and she still believed her.
"Go, my precious angel." She called out, even though she knew Ruby wouldn't be able to hear her. "Be a hero."
XxXxX
Ruby wasn't sure how, but she stopped her crying by the time she made it back. Soon after she left, she stood in front of the counsel. Dry-eyed and stoic.
They were silently deliberating right in front of her, and she couldn't do anything but wait for them to finish.
She tried to think about how she would respond to their numerous questions (if they were talking this long, they must have a ton) but she could only think about Weiss and their bittersweet parting. Weiss' kiss was still on her lips, and though she couldn't actually taste anything, she imagined they tasted of vanilla.
Very sweet.
Very soft.
Very Weiss.
"How did it go? Does she need a memory wipe and a new guardian?"
"No, she's fine now." Ruby said with a smile. "She's wonderful."
They all went silent and eyed Ruby suspiciously. And here came the grilling. 'What was the issue?' She imagined one asking. 'What did she say exactly?' asked another in her head. They would keep asking till they got every single detail.
The angel would have to think on her feet with this one. Be like Yang, come up with some clever and believable lies. She was related to her, surely she got those genes. Was that how it worked?
Focus Ruby. She chided herself. She needed her head in the right mind frame, otherwise they would walk all over her. Especially the angel with the blue tips on her wings. She was especially cranky, like... All the time.
She would be ready. What ever question they asked, she knew she could roll with it.
"Ruby Rose." Green eyes started.
They used her full name. They never did that. Using her full name meant baaaaad things for her. She gulped, and tried to clear her mind.
"Y-yes?"
"You have been acting quite strange as of late."
"I have?" She asked. "This case was kind of long, must have gotten to my head."
She giggled and wrapped a knuckle on her head. They were utterly unamused, just looking at her with serious looks plaster on their ageless features.
"This is not like any other case you have worked on."
"O-Oh?" She stammered. "How so?"
"Ruby," He drew out. "You are aware of the penalty for falling in love, correct?"
Ice ran in her veins.
She wasn't ready for that one.
"Of course I do, why do you ask?"
"I think you know why we're asking."
Oh no, oh god. They knew! They lied to her! They were watching the entire time. She couldn't believe they would betray her trust like that. Although, she was doing that as well. But they promised.
"I-it wasn't what it looked like! I was... Was only kissing her to try and get her out of shock!" It was a partial truth, one they would hopefully buy.
"You WHAT?" Pink eyes yelled.
Oh no.
"We were not watching Ruby, but we saw signs of this." Blue eyes huffed. "And now you've confirmed it."
Oh god.
"Ruby, you have done a lot of good for us. You have followed the rules up till now. So we will give you a choice." Pale green calmly explained.
"A choice?" She timidly squeaked. Ruby didn't like the sound of that.
"Us or her."
"Wh-what do you mean?"
"You choose us, you stay a complete angel, but you are never to speak of her again. Never to see her, never to interact with her until she is dead, and even then."
Ruby would... Never see Weiss again? She couldn't even look down at her, watch her grow and have fun? That was torturous to think about. Ruby always thought that she would have that as a worse case scenario, but this was so much worse.
"Or." He continued. "Choose her. Become clipped and suffer the consequences of that. Disconnected from us, from ever being one of us again."
Never?
Why was it always extremes with them?
Either way, Ruby would hurt someone. If she left, she hurt Yang and the other angels. If she stayed, she would be hurting herself.
And then she thought of Weiss.
Weiss, the girl that she fell in love with. The girl that made her wish to be alive again, to actually truly feel her touch. The only girl she had ever loved like this.
Then she thought about the angels. They gave her this second chance, but had lost touch with any semblance of humanity. They were supposed to be the empathetic ones, and they couldn't even understand what Ruby was feeling. They used to feel warm, but no longer. The angels were cold and calculating.
The impossible decision wasn't seeming so impossible anymore.
But there was also Yang.
Her sister who had been with her through it all. Through their parents death, through their own deaths and beyond. All her life and even after, Yang was there. If she got herself clipped, she would probably never see her again.
Ever.
Was she really ok with giving that up? The blonde meant too much to her, she always thought she would be by her side. And now, she was at the precipice of making an existence-changing choice. To shut herself off to love, once and for all, or to fall from grace and live a mortal life. A full one this time (if she was lucky).
"I... Need some time to think." Ruby pleaded. "Can you give me some time?"
The pale green angel squinted his eyes at the angel on trial.
"An hour. Have the decision made by then."
"Earth time, or here?"
"Here."
"Thank you."
Ruby walked out of the cloud room, and it felt like it would be the last time she ever did.
That thought both frightened and excited her, but she wasn't quite sure which emotion was stronger.
An hour, that was probably a day on earth. Two? Time was weird and arbitrary. She hoped that Weiss would be ok all alone. Then again, she left her with the intention of never coming back. And if she took the angel's deal, she couldn't mention her or look for her anymore.
She wouldn't have to worry about that if she chose Weiss. If she fell for her.
But she would lose everything she had done, the existence that she made for herself. She wouldn't be able to save others anymore. She wouldn't be immortal anymore, she would feel pain again.
Yet, all she could think about was how she would feel Weiss' touch in full. She would feel how her lips brushed against hers, the complete sensation of the act.
The decision became progressively more impossible the longer she pondered it. She needed help, some advice. Advice from someone that always had her back. The only angel that might have some shred of sympathy.
Ruby headed over to talk to Yang.
