A/N: to the guest reviewer I do thank you for the review just I don't want spoilers for anyone just checking the reviews before reading, why I wish I had more so the people on the fence might give my story a Chance, no more traps will be that predictable, unless I actually slip up, and I'm getting a bit better emotionally to cause I've been trying to keep myself busy so I'll definitely have more on the way, so anyways I'm saving the Ruby and Weiss moment for the next chapter, now is a snowbird-ish chapter.
Chapter: 21
Qrow and Winter arrive at their destination, Winter wipes the sweat from her forehead, each had a single travel bag.
"This will not be a pleasant hike, I hope you are prepared." Winter looks over to Qrow as he shrugs.
"Hey.. I'm fine, if you are Ice Queen." She took a deep inhale and exhale before snapping, she's told him countless time to quit the nickname but right now was not the time.
"Qrow.. we are in Vacuo, can you please pretend to be someone more, mature and less drunk."
He winks at her and starts walking "Come on we won't get anywhere sitting here at the air port." Qrow started making his way though the Deseret wasteland, Winter follows closely.
"Do you have any idea where you are going?" Winter questions Qrow as he replies with his best response.
"Nope"
"Then why are are you just waking in this direction!" He again shrugs his shoulders and continues walking.
"That' leads me to believe there is a settlement over there." Winter looks up and sees smoke from what looks like it could be coming from a settlement. "We head there and grab some more normal looking clothing, try to blend in more, get what I mean Ice Queen?"
"I wish you would reframe from the Ice Queen remarks.."
"Fine Fine I'm sorry, Winter." He starts walking again.
Winter follows again, Qrow leads them to the make shift settlement and heads right for the makeshift clothing shop, he taps the bell to get the attention to the clerk who comes to the small makeshift desk.
"Hello, are you travelers? Or new residents?" The clerk asks Qrow and Winter.
"Yeah, we are just passing though, seen your signal smoke."
"Oh!" He laughs "welcome to Vacuo then, what brings you and your beautiful girlfriend here?"
Winter softly blushed "we are not dating, we ar-" Qrow jumps in cutting her off completely.
"She's my Wife, we are here on our honeymoon and would like to know how far till we reach the city of Vacuo." Winter growled softly as she continued to blush, making plans to kill him later.
"Oh? Hmm... I'd say on foot a four hour Hike, if transportation comes about two hours or so straight that way to the north."
"Well, for your trouble here and my Wife and I would like some better clothes you know to fit in better." Qrow drops a few bills down for the clerk as he points them to the changing room.
Qrow smirks and head off to the makeshift changing room, Winter made her way over with a disgruntled attitude.
"How are you doing Ic- I mean Winter." He catches Himself before upsetting her with his little nickname.
"Fine birdbrain..." she changes from her atlas military clothing to what she could find to be a suitable outfit, Qrow comes out in a sliver t-shirt, black cargo shorts and a hat with a pair of sunglasses, still sporting his cape and a pair of tennis shoes.
Winter steps out next, in a white tank top, silver vest and blue dress shorts And tennis shoes, she also has a pair of sunglasses, and let her hair down which flows past her butt, she didn't want to let her hair down but it worked better with the sun hat she grabbed, she was also more toned then Weiss, more like Ruby actually but without her normal attire, if you looked for a moment you'd need a double take to know it was Winter. Qrow looks her over and smirks.
"Looking good there Winter, starting to see why Ruby hooked up with Weiss." Winter felt like hitting him but kept her composure cause she knew his whole thing was messing with her.
"Qrow... I'd like to start making our way to the city, now would you please stop and focus." He smirked.
"Fine Fine, come on." He starts making his path toward the the direction the clerk told him, but he stops. " we should grab some water." Winter pills some from her bag.
"A smart person packs supplies, but I can't expect much from you." She says coldly and walks past him, making him shake his head and follow now.
The hike really isn't too bad, thanks to their more summer like attires they do better then they first arrived.
Qrow pulls his flask out and Takes a swig, Winter groans watching him, he looks to her with a confused look.
"Why do you need to drink so much, I never understood why."
"Well.. let's say there are things I want to suppress is all."
"Not my business to pry, but what pray-tell are you trying to suppress." Qrow keeps walking, but replies with one simple sentence.
"The past."
Winter understanding his feeling on the past and accepts the reply for now, they continue the hike without much more conversation.
It's a few hours later and just in the distance, the city of Vacuo comes into view, and shade academy standing tall in the center, Winter and Qrow walk though the front gates, Qrow feels deju vu Come over him as he shakes his head free of any of the past.
"Well first stop secure a room for each of us, then we can leave our belongings and start the investigation." She looks to Qrow and he just keeps waking as the flash back takes over.
—Vacuo 30 years ago—
"Come on Qrow! Taiyang and Raven are waiting!" Says a perky young woman in a white cloak wearing all black, and bright silver eyes as she drags a much younger Qrow.
"Summer calm down, we are not that late.." Qrow whines after Summer had just woken him up and was dragging him to the Vacuo festival, Summer smiled and kept dragging him along.
Waiting at a noodle vendor, sits Taiyang and Raven and Tai waves to them to hurry up.
—present day—
"Qrow? Are you well?" Qrow sighs.
"Yeah.. just recalling a old memory."
"Oh, well did you hear me about the room?"
"Huh? Oh ah.. yeah I'll get us a room."
"Qrow I said rooms." She folds her arms over her chest, he rolls his eyes and head toward the closest inn, he stops and looks.
"Still looks as bad as it did back then... heh.." Winter comes up behind him.
"This is what you pick?"
"Yeah, it's not that bad." He enters and the little old lady running the front desk greets them both.
"Hello, you two need a room for the night?"
"Actually Yes, we need two rooms please." Winter's head drops once the little old lady replies.
"Sorry but we only have one room open."
"You can not be serious.."
"Sorry, but I am."
"Fine I'll go look for another inn, good day." Winter turns to leave but she stops her.
"Young lady! We are the only inn with a vacancy."
Winter drops her head, then turns around and walks back over, very annoyed.
"Of course you are... I swear... like someone is making this too predictable.."
Qrow shrugs and takes the key and puts a few Lien down for the little old lady and heads to the room, "and here we are, room 302." He unlocks it and walks in to the modest little room, it has one king sized bed, one big comfy chair and a small desk tv and a full bathroom. "Cozy" Winter walks in behind him and sets her bag down.
"If you say so." Replies Winter.
"Well.. guess we need to figure out who gets the bed, eh Winter?"
"Well.. what do you suggest?" Winter asks him as he sets his bag down.
"You can have it, I'm cool with the chair." He walks out and Winter smiles softly, she grabs a few things from her bag before leaving the room, Qrow walks back into the lobby as he starts zone out again.
—30 years ago—
Summer and Taiyang come walking in helping Qrow walk in, he's definitely drunk as he hiccups, "I wants you guys to know... I love you three! Even you Raven you pain in the ass..."
"I told you that was too much Qrow, why don't you ever listen!" Chastised Taiyang.
"Oh Tai calm down, he was only having fun." Defended Summer as they helped the clearly dead drunk Qrow in and his twin Raven following in behind them.
"To think my own blood is such a light weight..." she shakes her head as Qrow continued his drunken antics as they help him in.
—present day—
"Heh... god... just a couple of kids playing hero.." He smiles standing in the lobby, Winter finally leaves and sees Qrow standing like a zombie looking towards the door, she slowly walks beside him and taps on his shoulder.
"Qrow? Are you well?" He turns to face her.
"Oh, yeah I'm fine just reliving some old memories."
"What events?" Qrow takes his flask out and Takes a swig.
"Nothing for you to worry about winter, let's just go already.." he walks out and Winter starts to feel concern for him, she follows him and they start to look around the city of Vacuo.
The city is what you'd expect, hot and humid but very lively, there are vendors and plenty of people, humans age Faunus alike roam the street with young and old alike. Winter checks her scroll and looks to see how far away to their destination is.
"It's not far Qrow, just down this road." He nods and follows Winter and they slip out of town and down the road that is pretty torn up, they see a fenced off area that says Feuer mining company. Qrow walks up to the fence and sees the lock holding the gate shut, he pulls out a lock pick set and starts to pick the lock. Winter watches him work and the lock pops open and Qrow drops it and pushes the gate open.
"Age before beautiful." Qrow jokes as he walks in first and Winter follows once again.
"So.. this mine? It still active?"
"No Qrow, it's closed down. It closed around the time I joined atlas academy." Qrow looked at all the run down tools and machinery.
"What did make you want to be in Jimmy's military outfit?" Qrow's question brought up Winter's own past.
"Well.. it was ether that or be married to a man I didn't love." they reach what would be the gaurd tower, just outside the mine and mining office building built just next to it. "Qrow my father was and is a monster, he's more evil then any beastly Grimm you could find." She walks toward the office building and pushes the door open.
"So that's why you joined?"
"Well.. that and I the fact I didn't want to be in my father's shadow and let him keep mentally abusing me, Weiss picked beacon, I wasn't too happy with her choice of such a place.. but that's where she met Ruby... perhaps if I had..." she starts to trail off.
"Perhaps what?" Qrow asks her
"Never mind, let's look for any evidence we can." She walks into the first office and starts digging in the desks.
"Hmm... well alright.." Qrow starts digging too. They check pretty much ever room on the 1st-6rd floors finding nothing. Qrow checks all the books and and can't find anything amiss in any of the recorded dealings
"This is all useless.." Qrow groans in defeat and sits in a near by chair, Winter keeps doing what she can.
"Qrow there has to be something here, I know this family. They are so greasy, that if they sold it as a product you'd use it in your hair." Qrow just stares at her not even gonna make a response just as Winter finishes the last of the paper work within the desk she's sitting at.
"So far all this says it was a legitimate business." She stands up and dust herself off.
"Well what made Jimmy think this place would actually hold secrets, he didn't exactly say much more then his lead was in Vacuo."
"General Ironwood had found request for specialists, requesting us to locate missing family members."
"But you aren't the police, why would they send request to the atlas military?"
"Because Qrow.. they sent them to everywhere, but no one got back to them."
"Winter, that still don't make any sense."
"It does when you find out the missing family members are faunas, and the academy headmasters also found certain requests hidden under stacks upon stacks of other mission request."
"You think there is someone on the inside in each of the four kingdoms?" Winter nods, folding her arms under her chest.
"To shade academy alone there were many, stating men in Black cloaks dragging family members away. Some even saying they seen them trapped in here working the mines before it mysteriously shut down and all the workers vanished."
"Well just great, glad Jimmy told me, here I thought it was a simple raid. Turns out it's also a rescue mission too." Winter walks out of the room and stops just before the stairs to the next floor.
"Look.. I'm sorry I didn't give you a full briefing, I normally don't leave details out. I spare no expense, truth be told you are the only one I trust to take on such.. such enemies, but I didn't think you cared to listen to me, Perhaps it's because you spent more time messing with me then actually doing your job." She continues up the steps as he sighs and rubs his eyes and walks up the steps behind her.
The 7th floor is pretty empty, only some random rooms but there is one room that might have what Qrow and Winter are looking for, the bosses office.
"Hmm.. Kohle Feuer.. Vice President." Winter reads the name off the glass door, she clenches her fist before punching the glass out and it shatters and falls to the floor.
"Winter?"
"This is the bastard my father tried to marry me too." She kicks the door open, she walks in and spots his computer and walks over to it, Qrow looks around and checks all the books on a shelf as Winter pulls a small device out and plugs in the tower of the computer to the small device to copy all the files from its hard drive.
"What are you doing Winter?" Qrow asks as he's tossing books from the book shelf in the office, Winter looks over to him.
"I should be asking you the same thing Qrow."
"I'm looking for anything of incriminating nature."
"Well so am I, this device will power up the computer just enough to pull any and all files from it, then I can send them to Ironwood."
"Neat" Qrow replies as he tosses the last book and folds his arms too, puzzled as he looks around the room some more, Winter watches him walk around.
"Qrow can I ask you, what you mean before about reliving a old memory?"
"Well... if you must know.. our very first mission after graduation was here... we were hunting a pack of beowolves."
"What happened?"
"Nothing.. we were just a group of kids Is all, back when me and my sister still talked, Summer was alive and we were team STRQ, they were good times was all."
Winter's device beeps once it's completed it's coping of the computer hard drive files, she unplugs it and slips it back from where it came from.
"I noticed you bring up this Summer person from your team, is that person Ruby Rose's mother?"
Qrow leans against the wall with a paint now, and looks to the ceiling. "Yeah... there her.."
"You really do miss her?"
"Matter of fact I do, she was my teams leader, my friend and... my..." Qrow starts to trail off.
"Your What?"
"She was... my crush.. well it was more, I was in love with her." Winter stands up and looks closer, she can see a soft shine from his eyes.
"I didn't know you had this side of you Qrow, it's surprising." he chuckles.
"Thanks" is all he says as he stops leaning on the wall and he hears a soft metal pop, he looks back to the wall and using his knuckle knocks on it as he and Winter hear the sound of bone on metal. He grabs the panting and takes it off the wall and behind it is a hidden button.
Winter presses it, and the spot where Qrow was standing now opens up reveling a secret door, Qrow slips though then Winter as they use their scrolls to light up the room, inside there are tons and tons of books and safes and in the center of the room, a bunch of business ledgers, Winter opens the book and finds it Contradicts the other books and show a much higher gain and a much smaller payroll, it lost no miners only executives and other higher up members like partners and stock holders.
"Qrow I think I found something."
"You think you found something, look at this." He walks over and lays down a packet of paper.
"There is pictures of Faunus, and their price for sale, they must be the missing people, he must of been really dumb to leave all this, or perhaps he didn't think anyone would dumb enough to come in here."
"Winter Perhaps it's the latter, he closed this place down when rumors were spreading, they have two more mining plants in this kingdom, He probably figured anyone who would come here, wouldn't last long." Winter grabs one of the ledgers and the packet of profiles to run against the missing persons reports.
"What gets me is they were supposedly striking only the backwater settlements, but they apparently been doing it for much longer then we knew.." Qrow felt so bad as he thought of the families affected by such a horrid act.
"Is there anything on here to link them to the silver eyes case I wonder." Qrow looks a bit more but comes up empty, Winter has a thought as to why.
"If they had that here it wouldn't do any good for the mine, it's probably would only be in the hideout."
"You're probably right, well let's get out of here for now." Winter nods to Qrow as they do a double check and gather up all they need and slip from the building doing their best to stay from sight, they make it back to the inn quickly, Qrow locking the door and Winter laying out all the information and taking pictures of each piece for back ups, Qrow sits and and lets her fill the report out.
"Winter.. can I ask you a question."
"What is it Qrow?" She looks back to him.
"I wanna know, what you ment earlier, about perhaps it'd be different if you had gone to beacon," she turns to him fully.
"Perhaps... Perhaps I'd be settled down now myself, married with three children and a cozy home, a better home life then I had, and a loving husband who wasn't interested in me for only my name, but it was just a childish fairytale dream life is all it ever was.. it would never happen to someone like me anyways."
"Hey.. don't say that Winter, you're a catch, not many can be strong and beautiful, you just need someone more your speed, because It's not where you went Winter, it's who you hang around, the men you hang around aren't exactly people I could see you with."
"Well.. I don't know... let's just get back to work, dreams don't come true anyways unless they are in a movie." she goes back to the table and continue to document the evidence.
Qrow sighs and pulls his flask out. "You know when we lost Summer it damn near killed me, but I was I already heart broken before that cause she was with my friend Taiyang.. she died and I was more hurt losing her then my own sister turning on me, it's why I started drinking so much, I had this goofy dream we'd have a family too, I wanted so bad to just crawl into a shell and hid there, I was sure my bad luck had finally broken me then." He sets his flask down on the table next to him.
"I couldn't hid from it though, I had to be strong for my friend and his two children, Ruby was so young that we think she knew but we didn't want to tell her still, in away I still achieved my dream though, I had a family."
Winter stops working and continues to listen to Qrow.
"I helped raise Yang and Ruby like my own kids, it made me feel like I had done one thing right, in laundry list of mistakes I have one one thing I feel that I didn't mess up and that was being the best uncle I could be, and loving my nieces as much as I could, it's not the family i imaged, but it's mine." He looks at the clock and stands up and heads to the door, I'm gonna grab food now I'll be back he slips out and locks the door as Winter wipes some tears from her eyes.
"There is something so much more to him.. I can't believe it."
Qrow comes back some time later carrying in some take out, he spots Winter still at work, finishing out the report.
"Here got you something, it's not exactly proper but it's good." He sets down a burger and fries with a drink.
"Ahh... thank you, what Is it?" She asks looking back to him as he takes a bite from his.
"It's a Vacuo burger, it's pretty good." She picks it up and takes a bite, she surprisingly seems to like it, she actually makes quick work of it, compared to the food in atlas this was much more filling and good.
"What's the verdic, good?" Winter, cheeks full nods in agreement making Qrow smirk.
"Good, knew you'd like it." He sits down and finishes his burger, Winter sets her pen down once she's finished the burger and report.
"Where is the target tomorrow?" Qrow asks as Winter lets a yawn out.
"The next mining location, an active one."
"Well best get to bed then, enjoy the bed." Qrow replies as he hops in the chair and puts his feet up and gets comfortable and seemingly falls asleep.
Winter slips Into the bed, she watches Qrow fall asleep, she wasn't sure what was happening to her, but she was starting to see Qrow in a new light, a much more complementary light.
Winter turns away to face the wall, and gets cozy in the bed.
Qrow opens his eyes and watches Winter sleep now, he gave a soft sigh as he knew it wasn't smart for both of them to fall asleep, so he got settled in and kept watching over Winter.
A/N: well feeling much better now, and happy to bust this chapter out, I know my story won't ever be very popular to more then a couple people but I'll continue to keep going and making chapter. So I hope you all enjoy this chapter.