Jacques Schnee found himself, for not the first time, paused in the doorway where Dr. Caitlin Schnee, too, found herself paused. Oh, there was more than a bit of animosity between the two of them – and it had very little to do with what she thought wrong between him and her sister. She knew him better than most people did, something that, also, had nothing to do with what went on between him and Willow. They both remembered their younger years, over twenty years prior, when the two of them had been young and she had been impulsive and reckless. So long before he and Willow had started dating, even. Only the two of them knew that they had once been together – if for only a short while – and that had left quite a bit of resentment between them as the years had gone by. It wasn't because, about two years after they had ended their relationship, he and Willow had met again by chance and their relationship had begun. It had been more than mutual, if anger ridden, and it had always been because of their volatile tempers.

The miscarriage she'd suffered after being attacked had been what destroyed everything. He had been as horrified as her by it, but, he knew, after all this time it still tormented her. They had been in a quiet relationship and were quietly engaged but it had been too much for them, not to mention that they had only been twenty three. It was too damn much, too damn fast, and it was too damn horrible.

He knew she hated that he had seen her at her most angry, her most bitter. She knew it, too. She hated that he had seen her vulnerability and recklessness following the attempt on her life by a former partner. She hated, too, that she had always lied and had pretended that she had only known Jacques from university when he and Willow had begun dating. Both of them knew that she had entangled herself in a web of lies to protect herself, and that was exactly how he knew that Alice had been involved, to some extent, in the Scarlatina assassination. When Caitlin lied, she lost subtle parts of her mask, almost as if they were whittled away and became pieces of paper that fell limply to the ground. What he had always found odd was that she didn't know it. She believed she was the master, that her years of study of the human brain and psychology had given her all of the insights she needed to manipulate anything the way she wanted. She had never held onto anger or malice, only used them as additional masks, and, happy as he was with the way things had turned out in his life and, as relieved as she was to have found her wife, this was a show. A front from both of them, as it happened.

"I heard you're going on trial," She said shortly, nonchalantly adjusting her glasses. "Or, to be more accurate, being forced to tell the truth about your company under oath. I have to admit, I'm intrigued."

"It's a front," Jacques irritably replied. "To embarrass me. It seems Cristal is getting quite the kick out of it."

Caitlin smirked. "It was my suggestion, albeit to Elizabeth, of course."

Jacques scowled. "That might be a new low for you."

"A new low?" She repeated, almost amused. "That's rich, coming from you."

"Is that so?" He snapped.

"Yes, it is," Caitlin sighed, pausing for a moment in thought. "Jacques, you and I both know that the things your parents did to you and your sister were awful but –"

"Don't start –" He said, already pained by the memories that were resurfacing.

"But you're not the man you were twenty years ago," She finished. "I may have thought you were a broken man I could put back together then…but you've proven me wrong. You are just as bad as they say."

"You've done your own share of wrongs," He reminded her.

She shook her head. "You're right," She agreed. "But you're not half the man you think that you are and you have never been able to fill those holes in you with all of the money, diamonds, pearls, and cars."

"I have done so much to get where I am," He snapped. "Don't act like I haven't."

"I'm not denying anything," She said, looking rueful for a moment and brushing tears away from her eyes. "I know none of us are clean…but, at the same time, I don't think I can ever forgive you for the things you've done."

"The things I've done?" He repeated incredulously. "Are you –"

"Jacques," She said, pushing past him and only turning around briefly once she had set foot in the mansion. "I know, after all this time, that you can't love anything unless there's something in it for you…and I sure hope that, when everything comes to light, you'll finally be handed what you deserve. After all, you can't hide behind that fucking facade forever."

He was about to respond, but she disappeared almost as quickly as she had arrived and he feared, if only a little, the things he knew she was bound to tell her niece and nephew about their father.


"Alice?" Karissa Mar eyed her sister-in-law for a moment and then shook her head. "You didn't hear a word I said, did you?"

Alice shrugged. "Vytal Festival?" She guessed.

Karissa sighed. "Not exactly."

"Great, I was close," Alice said, sounding lost somewhere between dry and upset. "Seems like I've got my head set on right, which, if you ask me, is probably a damn miracle."

Karissa was silent for a moment, knowing exactly what she meant. Cate had told her everything in confidence. She had been too scared to tell but too upset to keep it close to her chest. By now, essentially, the entire family knew what had happened. So much was tied up in what the former Torchwick patriarch had done to his children, but, even more disturbing, there was the direct connection that Alice had to what, she claimed, her brother did to Linena. It fundamentally bothered them all, yet they were far more concerned about Alice and whether or not her mentality of being untouchable would come back to bite her in the ass. Karissa and Spencer both had been wrestling with guilt since they had found out. They knew they were going to have to lie to their children, that they had to lie about so much for the family to save face.

What made everything worse was that, amongst all of the trouble, Edward was the conservative party's front-runner for the Atlesian presidential election set for the beginning of November.

Alice herself was conflicted as well, perhaps more than anyone. She would never come forward – that would be akin to signing her own death warrant – but she didn't know how to handle her remorse. It was selfish – everything she had ever done, it seemed, was selfish – but it had been the only thing she thought she could do at the time. She had felt powerless, and completely out of control, and that was what, she realized, had ultimately compelled her to get involved in the type of scheme she had. It had bothered her since the day it happened, yes, except it hadn't truly bothered her until she had seen the origins (or suspected origins) of her parents' experiments. That poor girl, whose body had been left to rot in the fucking attic, had never a chance to live beyond what torture she had gone through. Seeing that had brought a horrible revelation to Alice. It was the last thing she needed to see so she would realize that she, too, had never lived beyond the hells she had faced and, unlike that girl, she had a choice. She had thrown that away for one thing: vengeance.

"I've never felt so lonely before," Alice finally said, her voice little more than a weak whisper. "And even my wife can't cure this pain. It's funny…almost, anyways, because I had always thought things would work out after she and I made our vows. As it turns out…I was wrong."

Karissa shook her head. "You weren't wrong, Alice, you chose to mistake vengeance as justice."

"Yeah, I think I've figured that one out for myself," She buried her face in her hands, feeling dejected. "I just don't know what to do. I know I've hurt Cate…I just don't see any way to make it better."

"Personally, I'd be willing to bet that she's more okay with it now than you think she is because of how stressful your being hospitalized was for her," Karissa paused for a moment and adjusted her glasses. "At the end of the day, that probably reminded her of just how much she cares for you and let her set aside what you did…for the time being, anyways."

"She might be able to set it aside, but I can't," Alice said bitterly. "See, the one thing that I've realized from all of this is that I'm a Torchwick through and through."

"If you're suggesting that you're anything like your father, then you're out of your mind," Karissa told her, and Alice looked up at her in surprise. "I absolutely mean that. Honestly, you're not the kind of monster your father is. Your morality might be in question, but there's a long way to go from suggesting to your brother that he kill a political enemy and draining people within inches of life to make them quote unquote perfect."

Alice stared at her for a moment, completely unsure of how to respond.

"I sure hope that you're right," She eventually forced out, brushing tears away from her eyes. "Because I think I'm going to be stuck…for the rest of my life, however long that may be, making up for this. I'm not even sure I can come back from what I've done…and, if I can, will anyone but all of you be able to forgive me?"


The lighter in her hands had belonged to her grandfather, the man who had handed his secret business empire over to her husband years before. She had always hated it, but, in this moment, she hated nothing more than herself. All she wanted to do, knowing the truth of what had always been between her and Jacques, was run so fucking far that he couldn't ever touch her again. Their kids, too. Her happy ending had shattered right before her eyes, and she was laying in the rubble. Now, she was alone in the glass house, standing before the box with the dead rose inside. She had come out here knowing that, since it was a few hours past nightfall, no one would find her. There was nothing she could do to make things better or worse and, with the feeling of utter powerlessness threatening to subsume her, she opened the box. It held something she had once thought of as perfect, something that she thought could survive temptation and violence.

She had once thought that of her marriage, too.

Biting her lip, she flicked on the lighter and pulled out a delicate petal. It was curled, and wilted, and very much dead. She held it up to the flame, at first just staring at it, and then she lit it on fire. She delicately dropped into the gold and silver box, knowing the inside would not be harmed and that it would be contained. As it slowly burned and brought all of the remains of the rose petals to ashes. She still couldn't come to terms with what was happening to her. Willow's hands were shaking desperately, and she barely managed to turn off the lighter. She didn't want to set more on fire than the rose of the box. Her life was quiet, and she had very little to cling to, it seemed. All her life, she had been tied by a paralyzing fear of loss and change. She could handle what was stable (or even just semi-stable) but she could do nothing against whatever forces of nature threatened to kill her.

"I'm sorry…" She whispered, looking away from the dissipating embers and reaching up to catch the tears that were clinging to her heavy eyelashes.

The embers didn't respond, they only faded, but they didn't need to. She had already broken down and didn't have any way to make things better or change how things had gone. She was completely powerless and, recognizing that, was the worst possible realization for her.


"Chrissy?" Ozpin said, looking at his wife worriedly. She was curled up in their bed, a blanket tightly around her, and her glasses were almost as askew as her hair. "Was –"

"I have to lie so much, these days," She said, barely moving even when he sat down beside her and gently took her hand in his. "Whether it's about the PENNY Project, or about the Vytal Festival, or even…"

Ozpin sighed. "The group?"

"Yes," She said tiredly. "Well, that and the kids…with everything that has happened lately, I'm terrified."

"I am too," He squeezed her hand comfortingly. "But it'll be okay. We aren't the targets of whatever is happening right now."

"You know She's behind it," Cristal said softly, shifting slightly to meet his gaze. "And we are always going to be targeted by her."

"I know," He said, rubbing his neck for a moment. "I wish I could better stop her…but I don't how, not right now. Believe me, if I could have stopped her already, I would have."

Cristal said nothing for a moment, chewing at the inside of her cheek.

"Maybe I just need to try and relax," She finally said. "Honestly, I don't know what to do right now."

"You don't have to," He pressed an affectionate kiss to her forehead. "I barely know what to do either."

"So then what are going to do?" She said weakly. "We can't…"

"I know," He said, pausing in consideration. "Is there anything I can do? With the kids, or the baby –"

"Just stay with me," Cristal said, looking rather exhausted. "I'm scared for them all…and if something happens to them or the baby –"

"Of course, honey," He promised, pulling her in tightly. "You don't even have to ask. There's nothing that's going to change that. Okay? Is there anything else I can do?"

"Maybe not right now," She said with a sigh. "Although, if Emmett keeps chewing on my nerves…"

Ozpin chuckled. "He chews on my nerves too, but I can't blame him for being on edge."

"I can't either," She shook her head. "I just hope everything doesn't go to hell…and, honestly, I think that things might have already."


Anne Schnee felt rather distressed when she opened the door to her and Nick's row house and saw the girl – no, woman – standing over her. She knew without even needing a second look that this was her youngest child; the one that she and Nick had lost so much time on because of his job, the tension constantly felt between him and his father, and that didn't even mention all of the drama with their other kids. The amber eyed Schnee had always been rebellious and eccentric, to say the least, but she had been subtle. More often than not, Anne had found herself frustrated by her daughter's unparalleled ability to skirt any rules she or Nick tried to impose on her.

That mixed in with their eldest's volatile emotional state, coupled with Willow's romanticism, Cristal's cynicism, and Emmett's impulsive nature had always been a disaster waiting to happen.

"Heya, mom," Ashlynn Schnee said, letting herself in and plopping down on the couch with an almost bored smile. "Haven't seen you and dad in a long time, so I thought it might be nice to drop in."

Anne raised an eyebrow as she closed the door.

"Knowing you, Lynn," She said gently. "There is probably something else behind it."

Ashlynn shrugged. "I was widely viewed as the most likely to end up in jail before twenty-five and high school and, here I am, twenty-seven years old and never having even spent a minute behind bars."

She waved at her father when he stepped into the room, evidently drawn out of his study by the noise, and he, much like Anne, was more than a little shocked to see their youngest.

"For the record, I like being the forgettable child," Ashlynn stretched out on the couch, looking very self-satisfied. "It means I get away with more. I don't think Cate or Willow ever got away with anything."

"Lynn –" Anne started, probing her forehead in exasperation.

"I was just checking in," She protested, putting her hands up in mock surrender. "I was in Mistral, but I heard about all of the shit that's been going down here in Atlas. Did Linena Scarlatina really end up six feet under?"

Nick sent her a sharp look. "Don't go around saying things like that," He warned her. "You know all of our coms are tracked, at least on Wi-Fi."

Ashlynn blew on her hair rather irritably. "That's why I changed my name, dad. I'm Cinder Fall, now, not Ashlynn fucking Schnee. Besides, all of the connotations with your asshole father –"

"Ashlynn!" Nick exclaimed, completely shocked by her behavior.

"What?" She said, laughing. "Mom's said that like a million times!"

"Yes, I can say it," Anne said, setting a comforting hand to her husband's shoulder. "You can't."

"Stupid rules…" Ashlynn muttered. "Oh, well."

"What are you doing here?" Nick asked her again. "Other than supposedly visiting the rest of us even though you blew the hell out of dodge when you turned twenty."

"I'm investigating," She replied shortly. "I was contracted to do…some work for a few people I know in Mistral and I figure it was worth the boatload of money they were offering."

"I sure hope it's legal," Nick said darkly.

Ashlynn smiled. "Of course, daddy."

"I don't like the sound of that," Anne remarked, sharing a knowing look with Nick. "Usually –"

"You don't have to like it," Ashlynn told them, her voice almost uncannily even. "But that doesn't make it any less true. Truth's a funny thing, you know…and I think it's something we lost years ago."