AUTHOR'S NOTES: One of these days I'll write shorter chapters. Really. I will.

This chapter blew up on me, to be honest. I had it mapped out: talk about what happened at Darvaza, Blake and Yang have a talk, Oscar and Ruby have a moment of some kind-something short and sweet-and Qrow and Pyrrha have a talk about Qrow's actions. Then catch up with Salem a bit. Boom, done. But then Oscar and Ruby decided to grab the story and run with it, and next thing you know, it's another 5000+ word chapter.

The use of fentanyl might give people with medical backgrounds headaches, but I took the story from the Moscow Theater Massacre of 2002, when Chechen rebels seized a Moscow theater. Russian special forces pumped some sort of gas into the theater to knock everyone out, but something went wrong, and several dozen people ended up dying of it. The Russian government at first claimed it was a fentanyl derivative, but it is now thought to be something much, much stronger. I went with the former, since otherwise Ruby Flight would be dead. I don't know if it's accurate, but sometimes you just have to chant the MST3K Mantra...

The part that alcoholics are actually resistant to sedatives I got from TVTropes.

Tehran Military Hospital

Tehran, Monarchial Republic of Iran

27 July 2001

Ruby Rose slowly came awake, but instead of the hard floor of the Darvaza lounge beneath her back, it was something warm and soft, and instead of an old window there was the stark white ceiling and the antiseptic smell of a hospital. Where the hell am I? she thought, then remembered.

The flight from Darvaza to Tehran had been a tough one, but they'd made it. The combination of oxygen and adrenaline did a lot to clear the fatigue from their systems, but by the time they'd made it to Tehran, the adrenaline had worn off and it was all Ruby Flight could do to land safely. Ruby had been so exhausted that for a second she had thought about asking Maria to land, before remembering that the older woman was practically blind. The approach through the mountains was indeed as hair-raising as predicted, though the weather was indeed clear and beautiful. Ruby remembered landing at Tehran Mehrabad, but barely remembered being helped from the cockpit, and nothing afterwards.

"Hey there, pipsqueak." Ruby looked over at Qrow, who sat in his typical sprawl. He was wearing what was obviously borrowed clothes; they hung over his lanky frame like a tent. "How are you feeling?"

Ruby took stock. There was a mild pain in her right arm; she looked and saw she had an IV going. She lifted the blankets and saw she was wearing a hospital smock, but thankfully there were no other tubes going into places she didn't want to think about, like the last time she had woken up in a hospital. "A little weird, I guess…but I guess I'm okay. Is everyone else okay?"

"Yep. They're in the other rooms. If they haven't woken up, they will soon." He reached out and took her hand. "You're going to be fine. Just exhausted, that's all."

"A little more than that, I'm afraid." They looked over as a older man in a doctor's smock walked into the room. He put out a hand to Ruby. "Doctor Mahmoud Kia." He smiled as they shook hands. "Sorry if that sounded a little ominous. You're going to be fine, Captain Rose. So will the rest of your unit." He gazed over the tops of his glasses at Qrow. "Including you, Major Branwen."

Ruby sat up a bit. "That's good," she told the doctor. "What happened?"

He flipped through some papers. "Major Branwen informed us of the details of what happened at…Darvaza, was it?" He checked the papers. "Yes, Darvaza. You're very lucky to be alive, Captain."

"How so?"

"You passed out right after they loaded you into an ambulance at the airport. So did everyone but Major Branwen and Colonel Calavera—and she fell unconscious after you arrived here. Don't worry; she'll be fine as well." He showed Ruby a paper covered in numbers, which might as well have been the Enigma code for all she could make out. "Toxicology report. You have trace amounts of fentanyl in your system." At her puzzled expression, Kia added, "Fentanyl is part of the same anaesthetic we use to put people under for surgery; it's an opoid. Everyone in your unit has that same trace to one extent or another."

"I don't get it," Ruby admitted.

"We were being drugged," Qrow explained. "Someone was pumping that stuff into the air in the lounge. Probably the same thing happened in every one of the buildings we saw."

"The bodies we found." Ruby did get it now, and she felt her knees begin to shake. "They went to sleep…and never woke up."

"Yep. The villagers probably had something set up for everyone who landed there. Darvaza is like a giant Venus flytrap, and we were the flies." Qrow's hand went reflexively towards a pocket, where normally his flask would be, but stopped halfway there.

"So why didn't we end up the same way? And how come it affected everyone differently?" Ruby shrugged. "I mean, I woke up…"

"Fentanyl can affect everyone differently," Kia told her. "Some people need just a little to be knocked cold for hours. I've had patients who took an hour to go under—and that's at much higher concentrations than your people got, and we mix other drugs in with it. You might not have gotten that much in your system." He consulted his notes. "Captain Schnee had the highest dose, followed by Captain Xiao Long. Depending on how the gas was introduced to the environment, it might have been as simple as they were closest to the vent or pipe, and you were furthest away."

Ruby twisted the covers in her hands. Being eaten by crazed villagers was not how she envisioned herself dying. "How soon can we get back to flying?"

Kia smiled. "That's the good news. Nearly all of the fentanyl has gotten out of your system by now. Your exhaustion wasn't just the drug; it was also a lack of sleep and a great deal of stress." He motioned to the IV. "That's just saline now, to keep you hydrated. We'll get that unhooked, have you sign far too much paperwork, and you'll be released within an hour or two. We are going to keep Colonel Calavera here overnight; a woman her age could suffer a relapse, though she doesn't seem to have gotten a very high dose. I suspect my government is putting your unit up in a hotel." He shrugged. "I wish I could give you a warmer welcome to Iran, Captain Rose. You're not seeing us at our best, I'm afraid."

"Doc, I'm just happy not to be someone's lunch." Ruby shook hands with him again. His smile widened; he nodded and left. Ruby sank back into the pillows. "So let me get this straight, Uncle Qrow. The locals were cannibals, and they slowly leaked this gas into the barracks. We fall asleep, they come in and shoot us in the head, then freeze us like TV dinners and munch on us later."

"That's about the size of it," Qrow replied. "They were probably coming to get us when we surprised them by being up and around. Since Weiss got the worst of it, that explains why she was so groggy and bitchy this morning."

Ruby snickered. "Actually, I think Weiss is just bitchy anyway." She rubbed her eyes and stretched as best she could. "How come you're up and around?"

Qrow didn't reply at first. "I…the fentanyl didn't affect me all that much."

"But you were out cold." Ruby wanted to believe it was the gas.

He got up and walked towards the door. "I was out cold because I was stone drunk, Ruby. The fentanyl didn't affect me as much because sedatives don't tend to work on alcoholics as well as regular folk." He didn't meet her eyes. "We'll talk about that later, pipsqueak. Glad to see you're okay."

Tehran Grand Hotel

Tehran, Monarchial Republic of Iran

27 July 2001

Blake nearly jumped out of her bed when she heard someone banging on her hotel room door. "Come in, Yang," she called out, then realized her door was locked. She growled to herself, set aside Bartleby's diary, and opened the door.

Yang gave her a lopsided grin and held up two sodas. "Want some company?"

"Um…sure." Blake let her in.

"How did you know it was me?"

"Metal on wood."

"Oh." Yang sat on the bed, and handed Blake one of the sodas when the Faunus got under the covers. "I thought about some beer, but after what happened in Spookytown…"

"Yeah." Truth to tell, Blake thought she could use a stiff drink, or maybe four, but all of them weren't going to forget Qrow's monumental lapse of judgement anytime soon.

It was uncomfortably silent for a long few minutes, then Yang asked, "So whatcha reading?" Then she saw, and recoiled like there was a snake in Blake's bed. "God, Blake. You should burn that damn thing."

"Don't think I wasn't tempted when Maria gave it to me," Blake replied. "But Bartleby probably has a family somewhere. This might give them some closure. We never did find his body."

"Probably because they ate the poor bastard." Yang shuddered.

"Poor bastard is right." Blake ran her fingers over the cover. "It's worse than we thought, Yang. He figured out what the villagers were doing, but they forced him to keep operating the base. They told him if he didn't, they would cook him…while he was still alive. They kept a sniper up in the tower, by the radios. If there was just a single aircraft with one pilot, they shot the pilot. If there was more, they let Bartleby put them in the barracks, then dosed them with fentanyl, like they tried to do with us. Eventually the poor man just went mad. Those corpses we found, the ones in the beds? He was taking care of them, as if they were just sick instead of dead. The villagers let him, for some reason. I think they killed him, though. That last entry…I think that was when they finally came for him." Blake picked up the diary, shut it, and set it aside. "There's a few more entries I haven't read, but that's definitely enough for tonight."

"Enough fucking period," Yang observed. "I'm not going to sleep worth a shit as it is." She cracked open the soda. "What happened to the planes that landed there?"

"He didn't say. Probably buried somewhere." Blake opened her soda as well. "Like you said, enough." She took a drink, knowing it wasn't the only thing Yang wanted to talk about; she felt the same way. "Uh…Yang?"

Yang stared into space. "Yeah, Blake. I'm here to apologize. I said some shitty things at that place." She let out a long breath. "Especially what I said when we were in the cellar. That was way out of line. Ordering you around like that, like I was…like I was fucking Adam or something."

Blake took a drink and set aside the soda, then drew up her knees to her chin. "Yang, it's okay. That gas was making us all loopy."

"It's not okay. We settled all this bullshit in Japan. We're friends. Period. And I fucked that up."

"You weren't the only one," Blake said. "I seem to be planting my foot firmly in my mouth lately. Back in Almaty, I told you that you were thinking with your heart instead of your head—right after I said you didn't understand what people would do for love. Then I told you I'd protect you at Darvaza." Blake shook her head. "Right after I talked about how Adam would gaslight and patronize me. So if you want to see someone who fucked up, check me out. I'm nothing but a damn hypocrite."

Yang chuckled sadly. "The funny part is, you're kinda right." She took a long drink. "Thing is, Blake, I don't know what it's like to love someone like you loved Adam or Ozpin loved Salem. Never had a steady boyfriend. Oh sure, I've slept with a few guys here and there—one-night stands. You know, some dude's good looking, we have a couple of drinks, and I decide I need to get that itch scratched. Never came away unsatisfied, so it's all good, but I've never really…y'know…loved someone. Like a husband or even a steady lover." She finished the soda. "So you're right there. Maybe I'd do something dumb for love too. Not start a nuclear war, maybe, but…" Yang crushed the can and tossed it into the garbage.

"I could've worded it better," Blake said quietly.

"Yeah, maybe. But me too." Yang looked at her and smiled. "So…friends?"

Blake nodded. "Always, Yang. Thank you. I think I'll sleep better tonight."

"Yeah, me too." Yang leaned back on the bed, scratching her stomach. While Blake had packed her yukata in her travel pod—amazingly, none of the pods had been lost through a dogfight, a storm, and attack by cannibals—but Yang just wore a yellow T-shirt and shorts. "Too bad Tehran doesn't have much of a nightlife these days. I think I could use that itch scratched."

Blake giggled. "You're not alone. Where's Sun when you need him?"

Yang exploded into laughter. "Oh my God, Blake! Are you saying you want a threesome?"

"Hell no!" Blake grabbed a pillow and hit Yang in the face. "I'm selfish. Find your own well-hung Faunus boy."

Yang tossed the pillow back. "Take me to Menagerie and I just might." She laughed so hard she kicked her feet in the air, then wiped her eyes. "Damn, Blake. I needed that laugh."

"Me too."

Yang held out her arms. "Hug?"

"Of course." The two of them hugged. Blake squeezed tight, needing to feel the warmth of a friend, someone that was alive after they'd come so close to death. When the mortar had deafened her and nearly knocked her out, she dimly remembered not really caring. It had been so tempting to simply lie there and let whatever was coming next happen, even if it meant her own death. No more problems, she thought, and hugged Yang a bit harder. There had been many times Blake Belladonna had considered ending her own life, but always she'd pulled herself back into life, no matter how harsh or depressing. It felt good to know that now she had friends to help with the pulling.

Then she rolled her eyes. "Yang…why are you grabbing my ass?"

"Because it's there."

Blake let go. It was good to see that maddening, self-confident grin on her friend's face. "For someone who says they're not a lesbian, you sure seem to have some other-team tendencies."

Yang shrugged. "Meh. I love everybody." She put on a look of deep thought. "Maybe I'm omnisexual."

"Still not a word." She pushed Yang playfully. "Okay, Yang. I'm going to go to bed and think some very heterosexual thoughts."

Yang got up. "Well, I wouldn't want to interrupt that." She walked towards the door, stopped, and rotated her butt in Blake's direction, then smacked it. Blake raised an eyebrow, though she was clearly fighting back laughter. With one last twerk, Yang sauntered out.

Oscar was also reading, though it was a sci-fi novel he'd found at the hotel mini-mart. It wasn't holding his interest, mainly because he was thinking the same thing everyone at Darvaza: how close they had come to death. Oscar felt fairly confident in the air nowadays, but he'd never fired a gun in anger; his experience with firearms came from basic training and shooting squirrels with his mother's .22 back on the farm. At Darvaza, he'd felt like one of the squirrels.

The hotel phone rang. He stared at it, then picked it up. "Room 69."

"Oscar? It's Ruby. Can I…would you mind if I came over?"

"Uh, sure! I'll unlock the door."

"Thanks." She hung up.

Oscar tossed aside the book and hopped out of bed, looked down at himself, and wished he was wearing something besides shorts and a loud T-shirt with PENSACOLA in bright orange letters. Then he thought he heard someone at the door, and rushed over to fling it open with such force that Ruby actually jumped. He stared at her. She was dressed in pajamas of sorts—a black tank top with a head-on shot of a red F-16, and white bottoms with hearts all over them. There was a pillow and a comforter under her arms. "Hey," she said.

"Er, hey!" he returned. "What's up?"

"Can I sleep with you tonight?" She winced. "I mean, can I sleep in the same bed with you tonight? Er…can I…oh hell." Ruby looked very sheepish. "No way in hell I can sleep alone tonight." She blushed. "I know…it's like I'm five years old and I had a bad dream…"

"Uh, no! No!" Oscar insisted. "Come on in!" He stuck his head in the hallway, but it was empty. The thought had occurred to him since Japan and Almaty that Captain Yang Xiao Long, USAF, might not like it if she even thought he was sleeping with her little sister. Such events might anger said Captain Yang Xiao Long, with lethal results for Ensign Oscar Pine, USN. He closed the door in a hurry, and would never know that another five seconds would have meant Yang would have seen her sister going into Oscar's room, as the older sister came out of Blake's.

Ruby tossed the comforter on the floor. The Grand Hotel was a fairly nice place in downtown Tehran, enough that the carpet was thick and clean. "Thanks, Oscar. I tried to fall asleep, and damn near jumped through the ceiling when the heater cut on."

"Yeah. I've been trying to read until I fall asleep." He held up the book.

"Snowbird Chained?" Ruby nodded. "You're starting in the middle of the series."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah! Snowbird Ascendant is the first one. Not as good as the others, though…takes the author a few stories to find his stride." She fluffed the pillow and knelt. "Well, you can leave the light on. I don't mind. In fact, it might help."

"Ruby, I'll take the floor. You sleep in the bed."

"It's okay! I'm used to roughing it."

"Hey, it's the least I can do for the woman who saved my life."

Ruby looked at her feet. "I…it wasn't like that."

"Yeah, it was. If you hadn't woke up…" Oscar didn't even want to think about it. There was a lot of things he didn't want to think about lately. In the last 48 hours, he'd found out his father had started World War III, that he was an accident from a man on the rebound from the woman now trying to destroy the world, and he'd nearly become a literal snack. It was a lot to take in.

He caught himself staring at Ruby. Most of the time, he saw her in uniform or a flight suit, neither of which really flattered her figure. Unlike her sister's rather endowed proportions, Ruby was rather small breasted, but the pajama bottoms hugged her nicely, leaving the outline of a pert bottom and slender legs. He quickly put his hands in front of himself. Then he noticed something else: Ruby was staring right back at him, with those depthless silver eyes. There was no way she hadn't missed what she was doing to him.

For her part, Ruby felt her heart beginning to pound. She'd never been this close to a man she wasn't related to, much less someone who was clearly getting rather excited at her. Ruby didn't know what to do. She'd always compared herself to Yang, who was a blonde knockout; the other girls of Ruby Flight were no different. She didn't have Blake's exotic Faunus beauty, or Weiss' regal bearing and flawless skin. In fact, Ruby regarded herself as rather plain, maybe cute but nothing more, and she was neither exotic, regal, nor flawless; in fact, Ruby was fairly certain there was a zit on her forehead under the fall of her short hair, and a bruise on her shoulder from the Moisin. And yet, here she was, turning on a guy. Worse, he was having the same effect on her: unlike Oscar, who could only fantasize, Ruby knew exactly what he looked like naked.

She stood, her mind telling her that she needed to say this was a bad idea and leave, but instead, she found herself getting closer to Oscar. The kiss seemed to take forever, but when their lips finally locked, it sent electric shockwaves to her toes. Their hands came up of their own volition, grabbing at cloth and backs, and both jumped as their tongues met. They felt themselves floating down to the bed, and pressing into each other. But when she felt Oscar's hands getting rather bold under her tank top, Ruby suddenly pushed him back and sat up. "We've got to stop, Oscar," she said, on the verge of tears. "I'm sorry, but we've got to stop."

Oscar went from bliss to horrible embarassment in the space of a second. "Oh, shit." He sat up too, putting his face in his hands. "I'm the one who's sorry. Dammit, I'm sorry, Ruby. I shouldn't…shit, you're my superior officer…it's just…" Oscar decided to hell with it; he was already in enough trouble, so he might as well tell the truth. "You're just…you're beautiful."

If it was possible to turn any redder, Ruby did. No one had ever called her beautiful except her father, and this was in entirely different circumstances. She reached out and put a hand on his back. "I want to, Oscar," she said in a small voice. "But…I can't. I don't know why, but it's—"

"—it's a bad idea," Oscar finished. "Not here, not right now. I mean, I didn't even bring protection or anything."

Ruby hung her head. "I'm just such an idiot."

"I'm the bigger idiot. I started this."

She couldn't help but smile. "You know, I've never done that to a guy." She laughed a little. "Kinda flattering, actually."

"You mean kissed?"

"That too, but…well…" She pointed at his groin.

Oscar groaned. "I…I couldn't help it…"

"It's cool. Really, it is." She watched him, and wanted to kiss him more than anything else in the world. She also knew that if she did kiss him, this time they wouldn't stop. And she found that scared her almost as much as being eaten by cannibals. "I'm so sorry, Oscar. You probably think I'm a tease."

"No, not at all!" Oscar insisted. "You're right. It's not a good idea right now." His body screamed otherwise.

So did Ruby's, but she knew she could not do this. When it came down to it, she still didn't know him all that well. "Yeah." She sounded far from convinced.

"We're both just scared, because of what happened this morning," Oscar said. "Kind of like a…rebound…" He was silent for a moment. "So that's what happened with Mom and Ozpin." He could not call Ozpin Dad or Father. The words just weren't there, just like Ozpin hadn't been there. "So that's what that feels like."

Ruby cursed under her breath, then reluctantly got to her feet. Part of her very much wanted to strip off her top and just go for it—it was what Yang would do—but she couldn't. She was, simply, too scared-not of the act itself, necessarily, but what it could lead to. "I'm going to go back to my room. I…I think I'd better."

"Yeah. You going to be okay?"

Ruby sighed. "Yeah. I think so." She gently touched his face, once more fighting back the desire. "You're a good dude, Oscar. I wish…I wish we…"

He touched her hands, and dared greatly by kissing both of them. "You're a beautiful person, Ruby. I do too. Maybe someday."

"I won't tease you," she told him.

"I know."

Ruby quickly gathered up her stuff and left, with one last melancholy look back. She cursed herself all the way back to her room. "Gonna need a cold shower," she grumbled. At least she wasn't going to be thinking about Darvaza now.

In Oscar's room, he was thinking exactly the same thing.

Pyrrha Nikos was not in her room. She was sitting in the hotel's business center, a map spread out in front of her, jotting notes on a pad. She heard the door open and quickly folded the map into a folder, then saw it was Qrow. "Oh. Hello."

"What's up." He crossed over to where a coffeemaker hummed and poured a cup. "Hmm. Not bad."

"Persian coffee." Pyrrha took a sip herself and sat back. "Can't sleep?"

"Don't think anyone can."

"Ren and Nora can, but they have…well." Pyrrha smiled. "You know."

He sat down across from her. "Pyrrha, listen. I need to talk to you." He glanced at the door; it was closed. "I screwed up last night. Bad."

"I don't need to know, Major—"

"Yeah, you do. Because you're the next highest ranking officer after me. Maria's retired, so she's not in the chain of command." Qrow stared at the coffee. "Pyrrha…I should probably be court-martialed."

Her eyes widened. "It's not as bad as all that, surely."

"It is. I got drunk. I was supposed to be on watch. Oscar woke me up for my shift. As soon as he went to bed…I tried, sort of. But I got into the base booze stash at the barracks. Had a lot of good stuff. Ruby and Weiss tried to keep it quiet about the stash, but I went exploring while they were getting some blankets after we fueled the birds. I got so drunk I passed out. Ruby was the one who saved our asses this morning, not me. In fact, I lay there like a piece of shit until the shooting started." He smashed a fist into the table, causing Pyrrha to jump. "Dammit! I knew better, Pyrrha! I knew! And I did it anyway because I needed to. Ever since…" Qrow realized that Pyrrha didn't know about JINN's knowledge yet. He decided not to tell her; it probably didn't matter anyway. "Let's just say since my own damn sister tried to kill us all, it's been tough keeping it together. I guess it just…shit."

Pyrrha was silent for a moment. "You got drunk the night before last too, didn't you? That was why Ruby Flight was late taking off."

Qrow ran a finger around the rim of the coffee cup. "Yep."

"Major—Qrow," she amended, "there's no easy way to say this, but…I think you're an—"

"—alcoholic," he finished, with a wry smile. "Yep again. I've been one for a long time." Since Summer disappeared, he wanted to say, but that was not a secret he felt like sharing. "Functioning alcoholic, true. I can fly and fight with the best of 'em. And I don't drink in the air. On the ground…" He spread his hands. "Hell, Pyrrha. Let's be honest. If it wasn't for Ozpin, they'd have bounced me out of the Air Force a long time ago."

Pyrrha rubbed her temples. Most fighter pilots drank, herself included; she was no slouch when it came to drinking. She sort of remembered the night she'd gotten horribly drunk—and sick—on ouzo, when Jaune had found her. Most pilots, however, might tie one on now and then, but were not alcoholics. Qrow wasn't the first one she'd known, however. "If your drinking has gotten to the point of it endangering the lives of this command, then yes, it's grounds for a court-martial. If you drank and passed out while on designated watch in a war zone, you could be shot. I mean, I don't think they'd do that, but still—it's definitely grounds."

"It is," Qrow agreed. "And I'd plead guilty. I'd get cashiered, maybe even get some jail time. My career would be over." He shrugged. "Maybe it should be. I've never done anything like that. Maybe I've lost it." He drank about half the coffee. "You're next in line for overall command, Pyrrha. You want to bring me up on charges when we get to Incirlik, I am totally okay with that." He paused. "Well…actually I'm not totally okay with it, but I damn sure deserve it."

"Maybe I don't want to bring you up on charges," Pyrrha said harshly. "Maybe you should take some damned responsibility and turn yourself in."

Qrow stared at her for a second, then slowly nodded. "Yeah. You're right."

Pyrrha opened the folder and began looking at the map again, mainly because she couldn't look at Qrow. She was angry, but she wasn't sure if she was angry at him for being a drunk, or angry at herself because that could just as easily be her. She didn't have a drinking problem—yet. But there had been many times since Beacon, when the loneliness and the self-loathing had gotten to the point where the bottle was very tempting. She heard him begin to get up, and said, without looking up, "Qrow, forgive me for prying, but…did you lose someone really close to you? Is that what started this?"

Qrow sat back down. "Yeah," he said finally. "Ruby's mom. We were close." Pyrrha went pale as a sudden thought came to her. Her head jerked up and Qrow actually laughed, waving a hand. "No, no…I know what you're thinking: Taiyang's got blonde hair and Ruby's got dark hair. Nothing like that. I'm not actually Ruby's father. Geez." He laughed again. "That would be weird. Nah, she looks just like her mother, Summer Rose.

"I won't deny it," he said, half to himself. "There were a lot of times I thought about asking Short Stack out, even taking her to bed. We weren't related, after all—technically, we're still not. I'm not really Ruby's uncle by blood; I'm Yang's. But she was always in love with Taiyang, and dammit, I was not going to come between them. Even when Tai was married to Raven, Summer still carried a torch for him. I might be a drunk piece of shit, but I wasn't going to take advantage of my friends, either of them. And when Raven ran off, Summer and Tai ended up together, like it always should've been, really. Tai was too good of a friend for a guy who doesn't have a lot of them; no way in hell I was going to move in on Summer, even when she wasn't married. But when Summer disappeared…I'd always liked to drink, but I never needed to." The words came pouring out: they'd been saved up for awhile. Qrow felt better for saying them.

Pyrrha didn't answer at first. She ran her fingers over the map. There but for the grace of God go I, she thought. She could easily become Qrow Branwen. He'd lost Summer, she'd lost Jaune. But whereas she'd only had Jaune for a few weeks, Qrow had been friends with Summer for over a decade. They'd flown and fought together far longer than she had with Jaune. "Qrow," she finally said, "how long have you been flying combat? If you can tell me."

"No big secret. Let's see…1977, at least."

"Have you taken any breaks? Long ones?"

"I take leave every now and then. Go see Tai and the kids, when they were all in Patch."

"But no long term breaks. Easy duty, like training or desk duty."

"Fuck no. Boring as hell. I used to train down at Signal, but only between missions for Ozpin."

Pyrrha nodded slowly. "So you've basically been on extended operations for the past twenty-four years."

Qrow gave that some thought. "Yeah, guess so."

"My God." Pyrrha wondered how Qrow hadn't completely cracked up. High stress job, for years on end? No one could take that, not even adrenaline junkies like so many fighter pilots were. Qrow had seen things Pyrrha couldn't even dream of. She took a sip of her coffee, and closed the folder, then put away her notes. "Major, with respect…go to bed."

"Huh?" Qrow wasn't sure what that meant.

"I'm not going to bring you up on charges, Qrow. You should be, yes. But you need rest, not jail. When we get to Europe—if we get to Europe—I'm going to get General Ironwood to put you on leave for a few months."

"What the hell am I supposed to do with a few months?"

"I don't know. Go see the castles. Cruise the Rhine. Hook up with Weiss' sister that we're not supposed to know about." At his startled look, Pyrrha chuckled. "Weiss doesn't know—at least I don't think she does. But I think everyone else has figured it out. Anyway, get some actual rest. And for God's sake, and your nieces, and mine…stop drinking."

Qrow got up. "Fair enough," he said at length. "No court-martial."

"Not unless you decide to turn yourself in. But I think that would be a waste of potential."

He sniffed. "Now you're starting to sound like Ozpin."

"Someone has to."

He threw the coffee cup in the trash and nodded at the folder. "That where we're going?"

She smiled. "Algeria is pretty this time of year."