A/N: You guys mean the world. I have the best readers out there, I swear. Y'all are awesome, and thank you so much for sticking with me this far.

I started this chapter thinking it'd be lighthearted and kinda fun. And then the characters seemed to have their own ideas, and it got a little…heavy. Emotional processing and development ahead, but all related to things that have happened in the story thus far. Hope you guys like it.

An unbeta'd chapter ahead, but this is draft like… 3 or 4. Apologies for any mistakes.

…

Previously

She nearly jumps when a familiar voice cuts through the darkness. A silhouette of a tall, slender figure with a messy mop of hair steps into the hallway and leans up against the wall. It pulls something out of its pocket. Even in the dim lighting, the silver glints a little. It's a flask.

"Hey, Firecracker. Nice to see you're in one piece."

"Uncle Qrow?"

…

Qrow tips the flask towards Yang. "Sharp as ever."

Yang stares at him for a moment, trying to piece together why she's looking at her uncle in her dad's old cabin she'd previously believed to be abandoned. "What are you doing here?"

Even in the dim lighting, Yang can see the wry smile that tugs at the corner of his mouth. "And here I thought you'd be happy to see your old Uncle Qrow."

She shakes her head a little as a small, relieved laugh escapes her lips. "More than you know," she confesses. She allows the confusion to give way to relief. Right now, Yang decides she doesn't really care why her uncle is there, even as unexpected as it is. She's just glad that this unanticipated run-in is with a familiar and friendly face. After their narrow escape from the police raid the previous evening and their confrontation with the two White Fang members, Yang thinks she's had about all of the negative surprises she can take for now.

"You know, your dad told me your sister was staying with you," Qrow says.

At the mention of Ruby, Yang feels her shoulders tense all over again. She glances at her scroll tucked in the outside pocket of the black backpack at her feet. A part of her desperately wants to turn it on and call her, make sure they're okay, but the other part remembers that if Vale P.D are able to trace the call… then they're back to square one.

"Yeah," Yang replies, "but we had to split up. We're supposed to be meeting here. Ruby's with one of my coworkers. Weiss Schnee."

Qrow cocks an eyebrow, then pushes himself off the wall. "Huh. The Ice Queen's sister. I didn't know she was on the force."

"Wait, you know Winter?"

He waves a hand. "We have a history. Anyway, I wouldn't worry, Yang. Ruby's scrappy like her Uncle. And if Weiss is anything like her sister, I bet they can handle themselves just fine."

Yang sees her uncle's deep red eyes glance over her shoulder as he takes another swig from whatever he has in that flask. "Oh," Yang says, suddenly remembering that Blake was standing right behind her. "Sorry. Um, this is my uncle. Uncle Qrow, this is-,"

"Black, I take it?" There's no real malice in Qrow's voice as he ventures the guess, but Yang still frowns.

"Blake, actually," she corrects. "Blake Belladonna." She looks over her shoulder at the girl, whose amber-honey eyes look somehow sharper in the dark as her gaze narrows at Yang's uncle.

"How do you know who I am?" Blake asks Qrow, her voice low and guarded. Yang stops short, surprised at just how different she sounds compared to a few hours ago when she'd been telling Yang about her take on the whole tea versus coffee debate.

Qrow crosses the short distance down the hallway between himself and the two girls. "Last I had heard," he says, "my niece had quickly gone from the hero cop who brought in Vale's Most Wanted to a vigilante fugitive on the run with the very criminal she'd help bring in."

Yang blinks. "I can explain."

"'Last you heard'?" Blake shoots back at Qrow, ignoring the blonde. "Who'd you hear it from?"

Yang turns to face her, extending a hand in what she hopes is a placating manner. "Blake, it's okay," she says. Blake's bow twitches slightly, her eyes narrowed before she sends a cautious glance at Yang. They lock eyes, and a moment later, Yang sees Blake's shoulders relax ever so slightly.

When Yang looks back at her uncle, she's grateful that he seems largely unbothered by Blake's hostility. "We've… had a rough few days. Weeks really," she offers as a feeble excuse anyway.

"Well, first things first, kid." He reaches for the floor lamp and switches it on. Yang squints the sudden onslaught of warm, golden light that floods the room. "You hungry?"

"We're starving."

…

"That's when he pulled me off the case and brought in these two people called Emerald Sustrai and Mercury Black to interrogate her. If you could even call it an interrogation…" Yang says almost an hour later. The three of them were sitting at the counter island in the middle of the otherwise small kitchen. A skillet sits forgotten in the sink and a plate with scraps of grilled cheese sandwiches rests between them.

Yang glances at Blake beside her again, but the Faunus had been silent through the entire time Yang had talked. More than once, walking through the story again reminded Yang of questions she'd wanted to ask Blake. But… not in front of her uncle, and not when Blake was already so on edge. Even with the brief glances, Yang could sense just how tightly wound the other girl was.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Blake shift uncomfortably in her seat at the mention of Emerald and Mercury. Yang's stomach twists a little, her fingers curling around the cup of hot chocolate in her hands. Maybe she shouldn't have mentioned it…

Qrow arches an eyebrow, glancing between the two of them. "Bad interrogators?"

Blake speaks for the first time in nearly an hour. Her quietness does nothing to soften the edge in her voice. "They knew how to…extract information."

Yang swallows hard at the memory. She stares at the steam rising out of her cup, suddenly unable to meet either one of their eyes. "I think that Emerald girl used a deception projection semblance."

If it hadn't been dead silent in the cabin, Yang is sure she would've missed it. But she hears her uncle's quiet and slow inhale. When she glances up at him, his eyes are clouded over and he's looking at Blake. His expression softens almost imperceptibly.

"She knew you, didn't she?" It's not really phrased as a question. At Blake's very faint nod, Qrow's mouth pulls back into a thin line. "Those semblances are hard to fight. And if they know you, it's even worse. The things they can make you see…" Qrow shakes his head, then looks at Blake again. "How's the readjustment?"

Yang's brow pulls together in confusion. "Readjustment?" She looks at the girl beside her, but Blake won't meet her eyes.

Qrow sighs a little. "When someone screws with your head…makes you see things that aren't really there…it can take a while to re-learn what is and isn't actually happening." There's a heaviness to his words that surprises Yang. Qrow is usually the easy-going, light-hearted uncle.

Him being serious? That's new to Yang, and if she's being honest with herself, it does nothing to help the uneasiness in her stomach.

"But… the important thing is that what she saw wasn't real. Right, Blake?" Yang asks, earnest. She isn't sure if she's asking more for herself or to remind Blake of the fact that it wasn't real.

Qrow answers for her, his gaze lingering on Blake a moment before his crimson eyes meet Yang's lilac ones. "No," he says, but his voice is soft as if it might lessen the weight of them. "The important thing is how what she sees makes her feel. That's how they get to you. You see your worst nightmare unfold and it feels every bit of real because you are watching it with your own two eyes. You're a witness whether it is 'real' or not."

Yang's blood runs cold as the memories of watching those sessions with Emerald and Mercury come back to her. That's why the name Adam had sounded familiar to Yang when the White Fang members mentioned him. All over again, Yang hears the way Blake's voice had faltered when she'd been telling someone named Adam no. The way she'd sobbed when Emerald had involved her parents.

"I'm okay, sir," Blake says in response to Qrow's initial question.

She sounds like she means it, and Yang tries to anchor herself to that even as she can feel tears pressing against her eyes. She'd been so focused on the next step, and the next one after that, that she hadn't given herself much time to think back on anything. And now? Now, she couldn't believe how much had slipped past her, or how many things had fall through the cracks as she tried to keep everything moving forward. Sure, she'd made sure that her cuts were clean and no bones were broken, but… she hadn't even asked about how Blake was doing otherwise…

Had she really put so little thought into Blake's mental recovery from everything that had happened?

"Call me Qrow, Blake. 'Sir' makes me feel old."

Had she really been a part of the group of people that did that to her?

"Yang?"

Why didn't she step in sooner?

"Firecracker, you all right?"

Yang shakes her head and fights the urge to blink. If she blinks, she's pretty sure it'll make some of the tears fall, and she doesn't want that. Not right now. "Yeah," she says hollowly. "I'm just tired. I'm… I'm gonna get some sleep."

"Take the first room on the left at the top of the stairs," Qrow tells her, his voice sounding distant in Yang's ears even as she pushes back from the counter and hurries out of the kitchen.

…

A few minutes later, Yang hears a soft knock on her door. She's sitting on the edge of the full sized bed in the middle of the room, quickly brushing the few stray tears off her cheeks. The room is dim; Yang had only turned on the small lamp on the desk by the door. She has one of her gauntlets in her hands as she runs a cleaning rag over it. The other sits beside her on top of a cream white comforter.

"Come in," she says.

The light oak door opens slowly, and Blake steps into the room. Her black tank top she'd been wearing when they fled Yang's apartment two nights ago has streaks of dirt and mud caked into it from their time spent in Forever Fall. Her hair is knotted and tangled, the bow fraying on the edges. One of the loops of it is drooped just enough for the very tip of one of her cat ears to be visible.

"Hey, Yang. You okay?" Her alto voice sounds softer than Yang can ever remember it being.

Yang's gaze falls back to the gauntlet in her hand. "Shouldn't I be asking you that?"

Blake doesn't respond. Yang keeps her eyes trained on the work her hands are doing in front of her, but she hears the faint creaking of floorboards as Blake crosses the room. The bed dips beside her as she takes a seat. Their knees brush for just a moment.

"You're the one who got me out of there, you know," Blake says after a moment. "If it weren't for you, who knows what would be happening to me right now."

Yang shakes her head. She tosses the gauntlet beside the other one. The clatter sounds loud in the room, as if adding emphasis to how quietly the girls had been speaking. It's like the conversation they almost had last night, and Yang feels a little dumbfounded that Blake seems insistent on defending her. "I can't believe you're practically thanking me."

"Somebody should."

"I—"

"Yang, you gave up everything." She pauses, then releases a breath. Yang keeps her gaze trained on the corner of the oak dresser across the room. Blake's next words land softly between them. "I've… never had anybody willing to do what you've done for me before."

The silence that follows seems to echo against the light blue walls. The confession rings in Yang's ears until she eventually breaks the silence. Her voice is quiet and reluctant. Afraid that asking the wrong thing will send the girl sitting next to her out the door. "Blake, can I ask you a personal question?"

Blake doesn't respond, and Yang is already mentally kicking herself for bringing it up. But when she glances at the Faunus, she sees Blake nod.

Before she can lose her nerve, Yang lets the question tumble out of her mouth. "Who is Adam?"

The bed creaks slightly as Blake shifts. The Faunus sits back and pulls her knees up, and Yang can see her toes curling a little inside the white socks she's wearing. When she speaks, Blake's voice is quiet and careful. Yang holds her breath as if breathing too loud might keep Blake from sharing the answer.

"Adam was… someone very close to me who…changed. Subtly, at first, and then… eventually, to the point where I just couldn't ignore it anymore." The quiet chirp of crickets residing outside under the stars can be heard through the thin window beside the headboard of the bed. "He started hurting people. Innocent people."

Yang wants to ask if he hurt her, but she remembers how Blake had physically flinched when she'd hallucinated him, and Yang's pretty sure she knows the answer. For a moment, she thinks the nausea might give way to anger, but the Faunus interrupts her thoughts, oblivious.

"And I left. Like you did, Yang."

"What?" Yang finally looks up at Blake. The soft, golden light from the lamp catches the lighter shades of honey in her irises.

"When you felt that something wasn't right, when you knew people were getting hurt… you left." Blake averts her gaze. A few strands of hair fall past her ear and across her face. Yang has an odd desire to brush them away, but she doesn't. "And you did it a lot sooner than I did."

"Blake…"

"We should get some sleep," Blake says, the gentle curve of her mouth tugging upwards in an almost-smile. Yang lets her gaze fall back to her hands as the other girl stands and takes a few steps towards the entryway. It feels like an abrupt absence, almost like something is missing, when Blake walks away.

She stops just shy of the door, opening it and looking back at Yang. "Sleep well, Yang. I'll see you in the morning."

Yang can't help but feel like it's a promise.

"Sweet dreams, Blake."

…

Okay, so a bit of a shorter chapter. But… a heavy one, in a way, I think? I'd love to hear your thoughts on it! Meep. *covers my eyes*