A/N: Doc here, coming at you with an interesting TFTA that takes place after RU's conclusion. Joey worked with me on the ideas for this one, and while TFTA is technically less canon than RW/RU, I'm really digging the potential ramifications of this one.

Enjoy.

Title: A Blank Slate

Author: Joey

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" - only been a week since the massive riot in the Downside, and already the reports are flooding in - "

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" - estimated thirteen million Lien in property damage, to say nothing of the potential loss of life from the devastating -"

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" -odycam footage of the officer who allegedly fired upon the two young men has yet to be released, despite numerous requests by families affected by -"

Click. Click. Click click click click click...

" - despite numerous requests, Cinder Fall has been unavailable for comment -"

" - proves what I've been saying all this time! ADVENT! IS! A FRAUD! They're run by aliens who want to suck out our brains and -"

" - look, all I'm saying is if those two boys had just kept walking and hadn't bothered the ADVENT Officers we wouldn't even be in this mess right now. Hey, why are you all booing me? You know I'm - "

" - Ironwood has refused comment on the situation, citing how the chaos has attracted Grimm and how he needs to focus on keeping the kingdom safe - "

" - plans to open a chain of ADVENT-themed fast food restaurants have been put on hold for the foreseeable future - "

" - members of the legendary 'Ace-Ops' team have put out a call to arms for all able-bodied Huntsmen and Huntresses to assist them in clearing Grimm from the -"

"Hey. You should be resting."

A pair of dulled violet eyes turned from the TV to stare at the new arrival, a woman with long brown hair tied back into a ponytail and a jacket still stained with ADVENT blood. She dropped her scavenged stunlance into a box labeled "armory" and went to the fridge, stealing glances at the bed of the Winter Maiden.

Or rather, the former Winter Maiden.

"I slept for five days straight," said Blanche with a shake of her head as she turned off the TV. "Figured I'd try to see what was going on with my home while I was out...try being the operative word. How was your patrol?"

"Not too bad," said Jane Kelly, already pulling an MRE out of the refrigerator in the corner. "Maintained the perimeter with one of those 'Ace-Ops.' The Faunus one, the guy with the dog tail. He was nice, and pleasant. Tried to be all serious, but his tail gave his enthusiasm away. Oh, and he had a rifle that turned into a boomerang. Beags would have gotten a kick out of that."

The XCOM Lieutenant suddenly went quiet as she started stirring up the contents of the package into two bowls of lukewarm water. Right, Blanche remembered, XCOM had lost a lot of people in the riot and simultaneous raid on the top-secret laboratory. Not nearly as many as had been lost in the Downside, but Blanche had to remind herself that loss still hurt no matter the numbers. And the loss of one rather popular Captain seemed to hurt more than anything else.

She shook her head and brought the bowls of soup to Blanche, seemingly willing herself out of her funk as she handed the former Maiden the larger of the two servings. "Here. Eat."

Blanche took a moment to gaze at the disparate portion sizes. "You did more than I did, you should have the bigger -"

"Blanche," sighed Jane, "we talked about this. You need your strength to come back, and for that you need to eat. That fight with Cinder took a lot out of you, and whatever energy you had left was used up while you were in a coma. So for Christ's sake, eat the fucking soup."

Chuckling softly, Blanche did as she was told, bringing the spoon to her lips while Jane did the same. A silence fell between them, which was broken only by the sound of slurping and chewing. When all the good bits were picked out, Blanche sat up, dumping all the parts she didn't like into Jane's bowl.

"Never would have pegged the Hero of the Downside for a picky eater," said Jane Kelly with a laugh. "You sure you don't want the cabbages? They're the best part."

"Of course they are. That's why I saved them for you."

The Lieutenant rolled her eyes in mock exasperation. "You're impossible sometimes, you know that?"

For the first time in a while, a sweet bell-like laugh escaped Blanche's lips. "Oh believe me...I know that. I know that all too well. People have been telling me that for years."

Grinning, Jane set the now-empty bowls aside. "Really? And why might that be?"

"I wasn't always such an...upstanding hero of the Downside," said Blanche with a reminiscent smile. "Just the opposite, actually. Me and my team used to be a huge pain in the ass for Ironwood and the people of Atlas - we were 'honorable' thieves that took from the rich and gave to the poor. The poor, in those days, being pretty much just us."

Jane chuckled. "You were a regular Robin Hood, huh?"

"Hill, actually, but -" Blanche's eyes went wide. "How did you find out my old name?"

"I didn't," laughed the odd woman. "It's just a common story where I'm from...miss Robin Hill."

Blanche mumbled something about how her name was "always spelled wrong" before Jane spoke again.

"So how'd you go from being a 'noble thief' to the Winter Maiden?"

"Oh you know how it goes," said Blanche with a small smirk, "You're sitting there in a jail cell after a botched attempt to rob an armored truck, and you decide to try to get some shuteye. Then the next time you wake up your cuffs are frozen solid, it's snowing inside the precinct, and all the officers are panicking and trying to turn up the heat. It was...quite a sight."

"Must have been."

Blanche shook her head and chuckled, letting herself relive the moment of absolute panic and both the amusement and confusion it had brought. "Ironwood came and found me a few hours later. Told me all about the Maidens, about Salem, about Ozpin's inner circle, all of it. How the old Winter Maiden had passed peacefully in her sleep, but how her husband had been in her thoughts at the last moment, and so the power selected a new host randomly. Then he said he'd be willing to overlook my 'transgressions'...if I went up to the city of Atlas to work for him from that moment on."

"And what did you say?"

The white-haired woman put on a face that could only be described as a proud pout, letting herself relive the memory of that moment. "I said, 'Sir. If everything you've told me is true, and if I really was given this power to protect this world...then I want to use it to serve all the people of Atlas. Not just the ones in the sky, but the ones on the ground too. This power chose me for a reason...I don't know why it would pick someone like me, but I'll be damned if it goes to waste. And I want to start by making it up to all the people I've hurt - on my own terms.'"

Jane looked thoughtfully to Blanche. "And?"

"He just smirked and said, 'I think we can arrange that.'"

"So he let you handle stuff in the Downside while he ran things up in Atlas?"

"That was the general idea, yeah," said Blanche. "Took a lot of convincing the populus that I'd turned over a new leaf, though. It wasn't just as simple as shaking hands and kissing babies. I fought tooth and nail to help solve problems. Heating grid on the fritz? Pull some of the brightest scientists and technicians from Atlas to get it working before people froze to death. Grimm nests spotted too close to the walls? Coordinate with local Huntsmen and personally lead the charge to wipe them out. Miners upset that SDC outlawed Unions? Help them form a collective that allows them to fight for better working conditions legally. Jaques Schnee threatening to shut down 'nonessential' SDC services in the Downside so he can save a few Lien? Invite him to a one-on-one debate and thoroughly school his ass on why that would be a terrible idea in the long run."

"That last one must have been satisfying."

"It was all the kids in the Downside talked about for weeks," said Blanche with a grin. Then she looked off reminiscently.

"Throughout all of that, anytime I felt scared, or anxious, or discouraged, or didn't know what to do...all I had to do was look inwards, and I'd find a sense of peace that wasn't there before. It was like…having my own little conscience and confidant, right inside my own soul."

"The Winter Maiden power?"

Blanche nodded slowly. "I'm...not sure how it worked. I'm not even sure if it did work like that. I have no idea if the Maiden powers carry a little bit of their past hosts with them going forward, but it was comforting to think that they did."

She curled up, hugging her long bare legs to her chest, suddenly aware of how cold everything felt.

"I don't know what I would have imparted...if that bitch even cares."

"Blanche, it's not -"

"Don't you dare say it's not my fault!"

Jane blinked briefly as angry violet eyes glared daggers at her. "I was the one who was enough of a hopeful dumbass to try to talk down a power hungry psycho! I was the one who chose to go full-on 'War of the Maidens' in the streets of the Downside! I was the one who let my guard down and didn't notice the fucking Grimm arm until it was halfway through my gut! Every person that died during that riot...people from XCOM, the Downside, even ADVENT to some extent...all of those deaths are my fault!"

Blanche drew a ragged breath, eyes widening at her own outburst. She drew her knees even tighter to her chest. "Sorry…"

Jane nodded in understanding, reaching forward and putting one of her hands on Blanche's shoulder. "It's alright. And you've got every right to be upset. It's not fair that this happened to anyone, but it did. It's what happens next that matters."

Blanche seemed barely aware of the contact as she looked down. "I...don't even know what's supposed to happen next."

"You get better, is what happens next. And then we go out and fix the mess ADVENT left behind. Me as the arm of XCOM, you as the heart of the Downside."

"I don't know if I can."

"Well...is there a reason you can't?"

"Yeah...there is. One gaping reason."

Closing her eyes, Blanche tried to reach within for her Aura. All that happened was that a sky-blue sheen overtook her body for a split second, then vanished.

"...oh."

"Cinder wasn't exactly gentle when she did...whatever she did," said Blanche with a defeated tone. "When she took the Winter Maiden powers, it felt like...like she ripped out part of my soul in the process. Now I feel incomplete...half-empty. Useless."

Blanche reached for a nearby hand mirror and stared into it deeply, barely recognizing herself. Sure, the violet eyes and the long unkempt white hair and the beauty mark under her eye were still there...but they didn't feel familiar anymore.

"The Winter Maiden power made me into the Hero of the Downside...and without it, I don't even know who I am anymore."

A hand extended from outside her vision, gently pulling the mirror away from Blanche's unresponsive hand. She looked and saw that Jane had shuffled closer and was now staring at her, with an unreadable expression.

"You're Blanche," said the Lieutenant sternly, "You're the woman whose words down here carry more power than a thousand Winter Maidens. When you speak, people listen. When you command, people obey. And when you lead, people believe. You inspire people to be their best selves in the worst circumstances, you shake people out of apathy and selfishness, and above all else, you bring hope to people who've convinced themselves that hopelessness is the only valid mindset. I might not have known you for very long, but that's the Blanche I knew when I first arrived in the Downside - and that was all before you started flying and conjuring ice out of thin air. And that's the Blanche I swore to stay behind to help - the one sitting in front of me right now."

The two women sat in silence for a moment, eyes locked together as if breaking contact would cause reality to collapse. Then Blanche let out a long, heavy, relieved sigh and leaned forward into the Lieutenant, burying her face into Jane's shoulder as she - finally - found the tears she'd wanted to cry for a long time.

"Thank you…" she mumbled into Jane's shoulder. She felt Jane bristle at the touch, and briefly she wondered if she had overstepped some boundary. Her fears were unfounded when a moment later, the Lieutenant wrapped both arms around Blanche, squeezing gently and filling her with a warmth that the blankets couldn't match. The embrace lasted just long enough for the white-haired woman to reach up and return the hug with her own arms before Jane pushed her back down to the bed in a gentle way.

"Of course," said Jane Kelly with a soft smile. Then her stern face returned. "Now, I've kept you up long enough, so get some rest. I'm going out to see a friend of mine, see if I can convince him to pay a visit here. He might have an idea on how to fix your...soul problem. Just be advised, he's a bit of a snake. So don't be alarmed when you see him if he does come by."

Blanche nestled under the covers with a smile. "Any friend of yours can't possibly be that bad of a person."

The Lieutenant chuckled as she grabbed her gear and put her ballcap back on. "No, not like that. He's a good person, just...different."

"...so he's a Faunus, then?"

Jane Kelly gave one more evasive chuckle before she stepped out the door and into the cold of Solitas.

"Not exactly."