It was an interesting feeling for Ruby as she rode the bullhead back to Patch for the break between semesters. On one side, she had finished a semester at Beacon! Not only that, but she was doing good in her classes. On the other side, she'd have to deal with her dad again. That was something she wasn't looking forward to. She loved him, a lot, but he was never good at handling the fact that she was sick, and sometimes she feels as though she's already dead in his eyes. All things considered though, she was happy when the bullhead landed. She might not have the best of times with her dad, but she at least got to spend some time with him. That was more than some people could ask for. So it was with a small bounce in her step that she grabbed Yang's hand and dragged her sister off of the bullhead.

The older of the two sisters was surprised by Ruby's enthusiasm but decided to remain silent and let herself be dragged. After a quick look around the two realized that their dad wasn't there to greet them at the air docks. That wasn't all that unexpected. Patch was a small town on a small island, and everyone knew everyone. Not only that but with their training the two were both highly respected there. So the two didn't even miss a beat as they headed down the dirt path that would lead to their house, nodding every now and then in greeting to the people they were passing.

It only took them about half an hour to reach their house. A moderately sized wooden cabin with two floors and a large amount of windows. It even had a balcony on the second floor. They never could figure out if the windows were their dad's idea or one of their mom's ideas. Either way they both loved the windows and how far away they could see from the second floor. The sisters didn't enter their home right away, they never did. Instead they took a moment to simply stare at the place they'd called home their entire life and basked in the feeling of completion they got from being there. A few moments were enough though, as they both knew that their dad was aware of where they were. He always knew. Being an ex-huntsman he was an exceptionally tough person to sneak up on. Though Ruby had managed it a few times.

With a smile on each of their faces Ruby and Yang opened the door and walked into their home. The room they entered was exactly as they remembered it. Pictures of them and their parents adorned most of the walls in the room. The only wall vacant of pictures was vacant simply because of the fifty two inch holoscreen that would pop up in front of it if they ever felt like playing videogames or watching a show or something. Directly ahead they saw their dad turn the corner in the hallway and look at them.

"Welcome home," the tanned, blond man said with suppressed enthusiasm. "I've got lunch prepared if you want to eat before telling me all about your first semester at Beacon."

"Sounds good," Yang called out enthusiastically as she took off toward the dining area in the house, leaving a mildly surprised Ruby behind.

"Yang you're not supposed to run in the house!" She called out after her sister before walking at a quickened pace after the blonde sibling.

When she arrived in the dining room it was to see not just her dad and Yang, but also her uncle Qrow, sitting at the table with plates placed in front of them with mashed potatoes, fried chicken, and some biscuits. It took her a moment to find the plate that had been set for her as it was next to Qrow instead of next to Yang. Though that was probably because Qrow was where Yang usually sat. "Hi uncle Qrow!" the silver-eyed girl said happily as she sat down.

"Hey squirt. How's Beacon been?" the older man responded as he pretended to be adjusting the dark red cape on his back.

"Well… I beat up a bully. That's a good thing right?" Ruby asked with an innocent smile before asking her dad for permission to begin eating. When she received said permission she immediately started eating the mashed potatoes on her plate.

"Well from what Yang tells me it wasn't necessarily a good situation for you," the black-haired man responded.

Ruby gave her uncle a startled look before responding, "oh… she told you about that."

"She did," Qrow said with a sigh. "I swear… you're the reason my hair's going grey."

Ruby was cut off from responding by Taiyang beginning a conversation with Yang. He would ask generic questions about Beacon that could seem as if they were directed at both of his daughters. However, if you payed attention to his body language, it was painfully obvious that all of his questions were directed at Yang. Ruby was never able to find out if he did this intentionally or not, as she didn't really feel like she could ask him about it, but she did find out that he never got upset if she jumped in with an answer before Yang could. Though he would end up waiting for Yang to answer as well.

So that's what she did here. Every now and then as he asked a question she would jump in with an answer, earn a small response from her dad, and then continue listening to the conversation. That was fine with Ruby though. She actually enjoyed listening more than she enjoyed talking, as she felt that doing so allowed her to learn more about the people she was listening to. So she listened with a smile as Yang went about describing Beacon and the time they've spent there to the best of her abilities. One thing that Ruby had to admit was that Yang wasn't the best with words. If the younger girl was being perfectly honest, her older sister probably had the smallest vocabulary of any of her friends. The thing was that when Yang described things, the tone of her voice somehow enabled you to picture what she was trying to describe better than the words she was using.

Ruby was so focused on listening to her older sister explain their time at Beacon that she found herself getting lost in the memories that the blonde's descriptions brought up. She remembered all of the good times in Beacon, as those were the only things that Yang would describe. Yang had this gift where she could forget the bad and remember the good of any given situation or event. So Ruby found herself reliving all of the times where she first met her friends. After that she found herself once again living the perfect day she had planned for her team. It wasn't until her uncle Qrow interrupted that she was brought out of her memories.

"Hey squirt," the man with greying hair began as he stood up. "Want to go set some ice cream as dessert?"

"Of course!" Ruby said with excitement as she practically jumped out of her seat. "Who wouldn't want ice cream?"

"Let's go then," Qrow said as he started walking toward the front of the house with an energetic Ruby following him.

Yang's lilac eyes followed the two as they left the room. She continued to look toward the hallway until she heard the front door open and close. At which point in time she turned to face her dad and gave a sigh.

"Hey dad," she said softly. "Why don't you treat Ruby the same way you treat me?"

Taiyang sighed sadly as he seemed to sink into his seat. "I… I don't know Yang… It's … It's hard. I love both of you with all of my heart, always have, always will. With her though, when she was born, it was like she made my heart grow simply so I could process the amount of love I had for her. Then her mom died… and you saw how I responded to that. Do you know what made me start coming back to my senses?"

Yang shrugged in response and shook her head. She had a few guesses, but honestly had no idea if any of them were correct.

Taiyang nodded slightly as he responded. "I'm not surprised. I mean, I never told anyone so you'd have had to guess if you knew. It was you two. You and Ruby brought me out of that miserable place I was in. I had more love for the two of you than I had sorrow over Summer's death, and then we got the news about Ruby's condition. I had lost one of the three most important girls in my life, Yang, and then they told me that one of the two remaining wouldn't even survive to be a teenager… let alone live a full life."

"Wait," Yang said in shock. "You mean Rubes is supposed to be dead?"

A small nod was Taiyang's response. "There have been five confirmed cases of her disease. The other four all died when they were between nine and thirteen years old. So she's got that going for her at least. The only problem is no one knows what to do with that. All they can do is sit on their buts and ask themselves why she hasn't died yet." His fist landed on the table with a loud thump and the rattling of the dishes that had been left there. "It makes me feel so useless."

Yang kept her head down for a few seconds. "... That's no reason for you to treat Ruby like you do though," she said quietly.

"What?" Taiyang asked softly in confusion as he looked at his older daughter.

Yang looked up and glared at Taiyang. "I mean that she's still your daughter, and you should treat her as such. You've been treating her as an extra burden ever since you learned about her disease. Please at least from now on treat her like an actual daughter."

Taiyang paused as his eyes fell to his empty plate on the table. "You're right," he said with a sigh. "I've been a terrible parent all my life. Time to be a good one… for once."

Qrow couldn't help but smile as he led Ruby to the ice cream shop in Patch. That was something he noticed about her. No matter who you were, it was almost impossible to not smile if you had spent any real amount of time with the small yet energetic girl. He'd learned that when he had first seen Raven smile as she was taking care of Ruby as a baby. The sight had almost convinced him he'd had a little too much to drink that day. Funny thing was that, not five years later the small girl had convinced him to stop drinking all together.

It was with that thought that he entered the ice cream shop and asked Ruby what kind of ice cream she wanted.

"Neapolitan please!" She said happily as she walked over to a table and sat down.

"Got it," Qrow said as he walked up to the counter to purchase the ice cream. A mere moment later and he was sitting across from Ruby and they were both happily eating away at their ice cream.

"How're you feeling, Squirt?" Qrow asked in between bites of his Rocky Road.

Ruby stopped mid-bite before slowly swallowing and looking at her uncle."I'm assuming you're asking because of the 'overworking myself' incident."

"No. I'm asking because it's been all sunshine and daisies since I last met you," the grey-clad man responded with sarcasm dripping from his voice. "Yes, Ruby, I'm worried. Raven's worried. We just want to be there for you if you need it. Heck if it starts getting really bad, send us a message and we'll stop our work to come take care of you."

Ruby had been reduced to simply poking at her ice cream with a spoon as Qrow spoke. "Uncle Qrow… You know that every day is worse that the previous. Please let me have my good days be my happiest days."

"You know what? You're right. I'm being stupid by ruining such a good day as this with this kind of talk. Eat your ice cream. We're going to go back home and have a movie night." After Qrow finished that statement he took an extra large bit out of his rocky road ice cream, as if challenging Ruby.

Ruby responded by taking an equally large bite out of her neapolitan ice cream and trying to eat it as fast as she could manage. This prompted Qrow to also start eating his ice cream as quickly as he could. The result being the two leaving the shop with their heads clutched in their hands as they dealt with brain freezes.

"Every time!" Ruby yelled as they walked down the street. "You do this to me every time!"

"I do this to you?" Qrow asked in exasperation. "I just took a big bite. You're the one who turned it into a race. A race I won by the way."

"Well, was it worth it?" Ruby asked, head still clutched in her hands."

"Not at all… but it was fun."

That elicited a small giggle from the red-tipped brunette as she finally removed her head from her hands, the headache having receded to a manageable level. That was the main reason this happened every time. True they had to deal with a brain freeze, but it was fun and the brain freezes didn't last too incredibly long. "I'll have to challenge you to a rematch. I'll be sure to beat you one of these days."

"Don't plan on it, Squirt." Qrow said with a short laugh.

"I plan on it!" Ruby said while puffing out her cheeks in a small pout. "What movies are we going to watch tonight?"

"I was thinking something with explosions… lots of explosions."

"Sounds fun!"

The two proceeded to talk about which movies had lots of explosions until they got to the Xiao Long residence and walked in the front door. When they entered the house and called out to indicate that they were home, Taiyang entered the room, walked over to Ruby, and gave her a hug.

"I've been a terrible father," he said in a repentant tone of voice. "Can you forgive me for that?"

"Of course I can!" Ruby said with a bright smile. "Can we have a movie night? With lots of explosions?"

A smile found its way onto Taiyang's face as he looked at his younger daughter. "Of course we can."

A/N

Hey everyone how's it going? Yeah this chapter is a little short… and a little late. I say that because I generally try to get at least one chapter out every seven days. I don't even have a good reason to be late either. I'm realizing though that that may be a fool's goal as I seem to get a chapter out late more often than I actually succeed at meeting my own deadline :/ that's an annoying thing to have to admit. Well anyway let me know how you liked the chapter! Hopefully I'll actually be able to keep my own schedule this time.

B/N

So, another chapter down, and I personally rather liked this one. (Might be because Ruby wasn't in pain for once *glares Shaded122*). While it did take a while to get to you, I promise you all I won't allow Shaded to leave this story unfinished, so just have a little patience with us both.