"Winter, this does the opposite of put me at ease!"

"Weiss, please," she plead with her sister as she pinched the bridge of her nose. She knew this turn of events would be upsetting for her, but she didn't necessarily foresee to what extent. And yet, it couldn't be helped. "I didn't mean to upset you and I apologize. But can you at least try to see my motivations behind it?" A tired sigh drifted over the line, one that sounded far too exhausted as she imagined the familiar curl in her sister's shoulders that had become the rule and not the exception in her mornings as of late.

"I can," came another tired sigh. "I do. I'm sorry, and I'm not angry at you.. Thank you for keeping me in mind." She was relieved at that. "I'm just.. it's fine. It'll be fine." She felt that last utterance wasn't for her.

"It will," she reinforced. "I asked Whitley if he could take you, and he wanted to. Just remember what I told you yesterday," she comforted.

"I do. Sorry for blowing up on you."

"It's alright," she assuaged. "And I apologize as well," she offered over a slight twinge of guilt. "I don't want you to think I have an agenda to force mend you and Whitley's relationship. It's just that he was someone I could count on to know you'd be taken care of," she admitted.

"I understand." More relief. "I'm going to finish my morning.. I'll call you a little later on"

"Alright." The call ended there and she placed her phone on the surface of her desk before relaxing back into her chair. The past month and change had been a taxing affair, undoubtedly for her sister and most certainly for her brother, but as she gave herself to the silence of her office, the weight of how taxing it was for her was something she finally allowed herself to dissect fully. Terror and helplessness wasn't something she found herself entertaining often in her thirty years of life, but over the past month she had found herself quite entangled in those states in ways she would never have thought possible. She found herself casting the blame over her own shoulders for being blind to Weiss' suffering, for not seeing that something was wrong, but Dr. Ozpin was able to succinctly assuage her of some, if not most of that guilt when they spoke before her transfer to Beacon. 'Help can only be given when we know it is needed,' he had said to her. 'And you were there right when she needed you to be.'

She sighed and allowed herself that peace, turning her focus to the few photographs that adorned her desk. The first was a photo of her, Weiss, and Whitley, taken by their attendant Klein in the gardens of their small country house in England about a month before she left to attend the US Naval Academy.. about a week before their mother passed. She would often treat her siblings to a picnic in the gardens in the months leading up to her departure, wanting to spend as much time with them before a world separated them and all she had were letters and phone calls. She loved the photo because the three of them looked so happy and carefree in the candid capture, picturesque of youth: Whitley's surprised and comedic expression in response to Weiss attempting to feed him a spoonful of chocolate pudding only to nearly miss and cover most of his nose with it, Weiss' surprised and toothy laughter at her mishap, and her own laughter obscured slightly by her hand at her sibling's antics. They were still children then, carefree and innocent, but that would change, they would change not long after, and she would be a world away becoming a soldier, split in two as she was by the grief of separation and loss.

The second was a photo of her and Weiss (the family now stateside) when she had come to visit them on leave, her sister absolutely beaming as she embraced her, her own mannerisms a bit subdued from her time in the military, yet joy still radiated from her. She and Whitley were in.. ninth grade, if she remembered correctly. It was before Weiss had her scar. That terrible scar. She had never fully gathered what had happened, perhaps even neglected to despite the pieces scattered about that she could put together if she wanted to know the truth. But even after all this time she had decided not to. Something about it all was private, and this privacy was something she decided to respect. Officially, all she knew was that her sister's injury was sustained by glass from a mirror, that it would leave a lifelong scar, and that she would never truly see out of that eye again.

'I'd rather you throw another mirror at me!'

The third was two photos in a small, obtuse, v-shaped frame that made a horizontal diptych of Weiss and Whitley's senior portraits. Whitley was captured as a dashing young man, features not as jagged as they were today, but they did detail that handsomeness that would become him as he grew into the young man he was today. Hair neatly combed and his features placid, yet commanding of attention. He looked so much like their father. Weiss, still without her scar in the photo (though it loomed not too far in the future from when this was taken), was beautiful, elegant and poised in her presentation of herself. He long hair trailed behind her against the dark background and her black dress, with a singular braid trailing over her shoulder and down her front. She had marveled, when she first saw the photo, at how much she and Weiss resembled each other, but also at how the subtleties of her features and the expression on her face in the photo showed how much she resembled their mother as well.

With an involuntary sigh she turned her attention to the fourth and final frame on her desk. Willow Schnee sat with her hands clasped elegantly in her lap, that elegance and poise present in Weiss in her senior portrait a recreation of the elegance and poise that Willow exhibited in this photo. This photo was without a doubt her most favorite portrait of their mother, her staff portrait from when she taught poetry at a small University in England. The deep royal blue dress that she wore, the one that accented her eyes so as her fair, shoulder length hair framed her face, hung in the back of her closet at home. An heirloom of sorts. It was a simple photo, but there was a certain regality about it, a regality about her that was captured in that portrait that was so quintessentially her. So much so that she could never gaze at that picture without experiencing a pang of loss and yearning for a world were her mother still lived and breathed. And more recently, a pang of terror when she looked at that photo and saw Weiss reflected in her mother's form.

That was one of her very few experiences with terror and helplessness, made more poignant these days in the wake of her sister's diagnosis: the car accident. She would never forget the alarm she experienced when she received that call from their father in the dead of night. He rarely called her and seeing his name on the face of her phone so late at night had caused her to start. The alarm she experienced morphed into a full panic when he spoke those few words to her, informative yet concise:

'Your sister was in a car accident.. She's been hospitalized.'

It was almost nonsensical, given that she had spoken to Weiss just a week before after her surgery.

"It's annoying having Whitley drive me everywhere. And despite my best efforts, I still can't get him to listen to good music." She had laughed at that. "The Doctor says there's a good chance I'll be able to operate heavy machinery once I heal. Think Father will let me trade in my car for a forklift to get to classes?"

Why had she been driving? The answer to that question was one that eluded her. The circumstances didn't make sense. She was unable to take leave immediately, but was granted a brief one a few days after the accident. Weiss was still in hospital at that point, and she wasn't fully prepared to see her sister, her dear sister, laid up in a hospital bed, body marred by cuts and bruises. One of the most terrible of them was concealed by her gown, but the other was a deep purple one that marred the left side of her face. A left orbital fracture, she remembered, that required surgery.

"Why were you driving, Weiss?" Her question was delivered softly, delicately as she tenderly ran her fingers through her bangs, but she wanted, no, needed to know.

"Stupid reasons," was all she managed to get as her sister leaned into her touch, holding onto her wrist as though to convey that she wanted her to stay at her side. And so she left it at that.

She shook the terrible memory from her head. Time was getting away from her and she had a significant amount of work to catch up on that she was more than willing to bury herself in. Hours passed her by. The sun's position changed and the shadows grew in her office, causing her to resort to the unnatural lighting in the room as the sun waned in the sky. Her eyes had started to hurt from staring at seemingly endless paper and electronic documents. Funny, how she could read a book for hours upon hours and not experience such ocular fatigue. She was already on the verge of deciding to call it for the day, supposing she could take the remainder of her work home with her, when her phone buzzed off to the side. Smiling at the name the screen, she answered. "Making good on your promise, I see," she teased.

"Less of a promise and more of a well intended agreement, but this is me calling you nonetheless," Weiss playfully combatted over the line. She seemed in better spirits and with more energy at her disposal.

"How was your day?"

"It was.. good. Fairly good, actually," Weiss confessed. "Ruby just left. We had a bit of an impromptu pizza and movie night that I didn't know I was in dire need of."

"I recall us trying to have one after you came home from Beacon, though you only made it through the previews if I remember correctly," she teased again.

"I remember at least an eighth of the plot. Though if you want to try again, I've found it's better to start earlier rather than later."

"That can be arranged," she laughed before hesitating ever so slightly. "How was your morning?"

"It was.. also fairly good." Her sister paused. "Meeting with Dr. Ozpin went well. He's.. weaning me off of one of my morning medications because he thinks it might be interfering with the one I take at night."

"Interfering?"

"Yeah. He thinks it might be attributing to my excess tiredness in the morning. Or keeping that particular side effect from abating as quickly as he thinks it should be."

"I see," she said before humming in approval of Dr. Ozpin's diligence in his commitment to her sister as a patient.

"Whitley and I.. also faired a bit better than I initially thought we would," Weiss confessed. "We talked on the drive back and I think it put us in a better place to move forward than we were before. We're having lunch together tomorrow, to talk more, I suppose."

"I'm glad to hear that, Weiss," she said with a smile, her chest filling with a warmth at hearing that her siblings were paving a way towards amends.

"Yeah.. I'm glad too," her sister agreed. "I'm sorry again, Winter, about this morning. I was more afraid than angry, and I shouldn't have lashed out at you."

"It's alright, Weiss," she assuaged again. "You had reason to be upset with me, but I'm glad that your morning turned out the way it did."

"Me too." She could hear the subtle smile in her sister's voice. "When are you coming home?"

"I'll be heading that way tonight," she informed her sister. "Though you will probably be asleep by the time I arrive."

"Well before then, I'd argue. I never imagined I'd ever be going to sleep faithfully by nine o'clock every night. Which reminds me, I'm putting that relic of yours back in your room. I nearly demolished it this morning, it was so aggravating." She laughed at that.

"It may be a relic, but it's reliable."

"Yet a relic nonetheless. But I'm going to let you go. Drive safe? I've come to realize that I rather like having you here when I wake up in the morning."

"I will, Weiss," she said, her resolve strengthening as she turned to gaze nostalgically at her diploma from the Naval Academy on the wall. "Goodnight, and I'll see you in the morning."

"Goodnight Winter."

The call ended and once again she relaxed back into her seat, her mood elevated and her mind clear, save for one thing. She had been giving it ample consideration, real consideration, over the past weeks. Now though, she felt as though she had her mind made. Between duty and family. Now she was sure of which one to choose. Rising from her chair, she made for the door. She could probably still catch General Ironwood before he left, and if there was anyone she wanted to seek counsel with about this decision, it was him.

….

Author's Notes:

Hello all, a while it has been. But I took this while to brainstorm the intricacies of the trajectory for the next portion of this story, all of which usually takes place in my head over the course of many a daydream and mental shuffling. The fever is back though, and I'm excited to sweat it out.

As always, thank you for reading, please look forward to more, and any and all fireflies recievedare honored,

Ivel