Two blonde big sisters watched from the shadows in the kitchen doorway, as their younger siblings pored over papers with details concerning the Argus military base. The team meeting over the plan to steal an Atlesian airship had concluded hours earlier, but the leaders had continued to try and refine every aspect of their heist. Occasionally, one of them would glance up, looking at their fellow leader across from them. If they happened to do so at the same time, they would flash a small smile or nod to each-other, before looking back down at their task.

Saphron thought it'd be cute if it wasn't for the unhealthy work ethics. She had been filled with pride with how dedicated her little brother was to his mission and his friends, but it had been overtaken by sadness with how hard he was being on himself. Saphron's own big sister senses could easily detect the concern radiating off of her fellow blonde. "They need a break," she whispered to Yang, taking in the pair's increasingly frequent yawns and their dull, unfocused eyes.

Yang made a noise of agreement. "The plan is good...or at least it's the best we can achieve. We've got a couple of days to rest up now, they need to at least try to take it easy."

Saphron looked back towards the table. Whilst the dark cloud that seemed to have been hovering over her brother's demeanor had begun to dissipate in the time he'd been in Argus, the stress of such a risky plan was clearly beginning to weigh on him. Whilst she didn't know Ruby all that well, she had been able to work out that Jaune's fellow leader clearly meant a lot to him. Possibly to at least the same extent his own teammates did, judging by how he'd been checking his scroll almost constantly when he'd first arrived, and often saying 'Ruby her team' when referring to Team RWBY. She had detected some awkward, almost angry tension between the pair the second night they'd been there but then they had disappeared together for most of the afternoon the following day, and though they had returned with bloodshot eyes and tear-streaked faces the air between them was considerably lighter.

As the two blonde women continued to observe, Terra entered the house as she returned from work. "How's the new crime gang coming along?" she asked dryly. "Is our jail time looking long at the moment?"

"Right now our little siblings need some time off," Yang responded, sadly looking at the new lines of stress crossing Ruby's face. She really was growing up too fast.

Saphron glanced over at the clock. "4pm," she murmured. "Not too late to start."

"You got an idea?" Yang asked.

Saphron smiled and nodded, quickly wrapping an arm around Yang and her wife's shoulders, pulling them both into a conspiratorial huddle. Hushed whispers, inaudible to the pair of leaders, emanated from the group.

At the table, Ruby groaned, rubbing her temples. Hours of checking every small detail again and again to ensure nothing was missed was beginning to give her a headache. Jaune, across from her, didn't seem to be faring any better. They paid no attention to Terra heading upstairs behind them.

Suddenly, the papers were swept away from them. The two whipped their heads up, as Yang neatly piled them together before slipping them into one of the drawers.

"Yang, what the heck!" snapped Ruby, quickly standing and pacing towards her sister, "We need to make sure the plan is good!"

Yang turned from the draws and put her hands on Ruby's shoulders. Looking her in the eye, she spoke, "The plan is already good. We all agreed that this morning." She looked over at Jaune, still sitting, and continued, "Both of you stressing yourselves out like this isn't going to do us any good, and we need everyone to be in their best shape when we go through with this."

Ruby breathed out with a huff as she rubbed her palms down her face. After a few moments she clenched her teeth and said, "Fine. I'll go upstairs and read or something." She went to head up the stairs, but Yang held onto her arm.

Yang shook her head. "Nope," she grinned, and pulled Ruby towards the couch, sitting her down next to Jaune. "Saphron and I have decided you two deserve a night out."

"What do you mean by a night out?" Jaune asked with trepidation. "You better not be thinking of a club or something."

Yang held up her hands. "No no no! This is just a night for you."

Saphron walked through from the kitchen at that moment, phone in hand and just beginning a conversation, "Hello, can I book a table for two for 7, under the name of Arc? Excellent, thank you so much." she hung up the phone and smiled at the rest of the group. "Ok, you two have a table booked at The Sapphire Reach later tonight!"

"What?!" Jaune exclaimed. At Ruby's questioning look, he explained, "That's one of the highest rated restaurants in Argus. I've seen it when the family's visited here before."

"Yes it is," Saphron concurred. "We have three hours to get you both ready."

"Ready? What do you mean by that?" Jaune questioned, just as Terra walked down the stairs, with Adrian in her arms. Ren & Nora trailed behind, with Weiss, Blake & Oscar following right behind them.

Ren moved over to Jaune and explained, "Apparently Mrs. Cotta-Arc wants me to accompany you and her to a clothing store over in the shopping district. And since I'm going, Nora has decided she has to come too."

"I'm not letting you two have fun without me!" she declared.

Terra turned to Weiss and handed Adrian over to her. "Will you three be ok with him for a couple of hours?" she asked firmly, eyeing Blake & Oscar as well.

"Of course we will," Weiss answered, smiling and looking at Adrian, cooing, "We'll have fun won't we, you little cutie?"

"We'll give you a call if we need anything," Blake assured.

Terra nodded, and gestured for JNR to follow her as she went over to the door. "We'll meet the rest of you later," she said to Saphron as the group walked out of the door. As he reached the threshold, Jaune paused, turning back to Ruby and shrugging, before Nora grabbed his arm and yanked him away.

"Terra's taking Jaune clothes shopping? For a night out to a fancy restaurant?" Ruby gulped. "Please don't say that means…" she trailed off, as Yang and Saphron both grinned deviously. Ruby sighed, and stood back up. "Fine, let's get this over with."

Ruby grumbled as Yang thrust another dress, a black one, into her arms. "Yang, I think I've tried enough on by now!"

"Tough," her sister replied. "Now try this one."

"I can already tell you I don't like this one," Ruby drawled, removing the light pink dress she was already trying on. Saphron chose that moment to reenter the changing room, several shoeboxes in her arms. Ruby, down to her underwear, squealed and held the dress to her body. "Saphron, give me a warning when you do that!"

"Sorry!" Saphron smiled, clearly not apologetic in any way. She placed the pile of shoeboxes on the bench, Ruby glancing at them tiredly.

"We're trying on shoes too? If our booking's for 7 there's no way I'll have time to try all of these and decide."

Saphron checked her watch. "We've still got an hour and a half. Plenty of time to try on this lot and make a choice." Eyeing Ruby as she folded up the discarded outfit, she continued, "And maybe give your other wardrobe choices a review as well."

Ruby glanced down at her underwear; plain dark red sports bra and boyshorts. Growling, she snapped, "Sorry, spending so much time on the road or fighting doesn't give me much time to think of fancy underwear styles!"

Saphron chuckled, and continued, "It's a shame though, I've seen my little bro's computer history and let me tell you, he loves something fancy!"

Yang laughed and slapped Saphron on the back. "Hey, I'll have you know I'm the only one allowed to corrupt my little sister!"

"Well, I say it's always a good idea to plan for the future," Saphron chuckled, winking slyly.

Meanwhile Ruby blushed, her cheeks flaming bright red. "W-why does what Jaune likes matter?" she stuttered. "He's not gonna see 'em!"

Yang just chuckled. "Ahh Ruby, innocent Ruby, I'm pretty sure I gave you the talk on what happens when two people love each-other very much-"

"Shut up!" Ruby hissed sharply, Yang & Saphron pausing their teasing, the former surprised at Ruby's uncharacteristic outburst. A few moments of silence followed as Ruby collected herself, then she asked, "Is this really just supposed to be a night out? Because all...this seems too fancy for two friends hanging out," she gestured to the discarded dresses behind her. "And you seem very keen on me impressing him with my undies. Are you trying to set us up on a...date or something?"

"Ruby, no," Saphron said. "We're not trying to incite anything. All we think is that you should have a little break."

"Yeah," Yang agreed, "This night is whatever you want it to be."

Ruby let out a deep sigh. "I'm not sure if I know what I want."

"Ruby, you just asked if we were trying to set you up on a date with Jaune. You seem to have some idea of what you want."

Ruby didn't say anything for a few moments. Finally, she spoke, "Did Jaune tell you where we went yesterday?" when the two blondes shook their heads, she continued, "He took me to see Pyrrha." At Yang's confused expression, she elaborated, "There's a statue of her in one of the squares. He told me he spoke to someone when he found it. Whatever they said, I think he's starting to move on. But...he's not ready." she let out another tired sigh, before she continued, "Maybe I'd like him to be more than a friend to me, but right now, that doesn't matter. He needs time." She sat down on the bench, inhaling deeply through her nostrils as she buried her face into her hands.

After several seconds of silence, Ruby felt both women take a seat either side of her. Yang wrapped an arm around her back, whilst Saphron reached up to gently move Ruby's hands away from her face, pulling them down into her lap.

"Ruby," Yang said, "Jaune's one of your best friends, right?"

"Best guy friend, yes," Ruby responded. "What's that got to do with it?"

"If you think that for now, a friend is what Jaune needs, then that's all you need to be."

"We'd never force you to do anything you wouldn't want to do," Saphron added. "Sure we love to tease, I mean, that's a part of us being big sisters. But If you really would prefer to go back to the house and keep looking at your plans, we won't stop you. In the same way, we don't want to make you and Jaune 'hook up'. We just want you both to relax this evening. And we think you should have a real experience."

"Exactly," Yang agreed, "You should know the value of taking a break, Ruby. You're our esteemed leader after all." She smiled, and Ruby giggled lightly in response. But her expression quickly turned morose again.

"I know you're right. But I don't want to make Jaune uncomfortable."

"Yeah, I understand," Yang replied, giving Ruby's back a rub. "But this might be the only chance you'll get to do anything with Jaune anytime soon. When we get to Atlas, I doubt we'll get much downtime."

"If we get to Atlas."

"Ruby," Yang said, her voice becoming serious. "This plan will work. I trust you, and Jaune as well. It's the best it's going to be. You two deserve a little bit of time to yourselves."

Ruby let out another exhale, her longest yet. Eventually, she nodded, "Ok. I'll go out with Jaune tonight, and I'll make sure we both enjoy ourselves."

"That's the spirit!" Saphron smiled. "So, any you like?" she indicated the piles of discarded dresses.

"Urm, this one is my favourite so far." Ruby said, pulling one out of the smaller piles, a mostly black affair, but decorated with a red rose pattern.

"Appropriate," Yang said with a laugh.

"It's cute!" Ruby snapped, but she was smiling nonetheless.

"Alright, if you want that one, we'll stop trying dresses now," Saphron said. She grabbed one of the shoeboxes and opened it up, revealing, much to Ruby's distress, a pair of high heels. "It's time to find some shoes to match."

All Ruby could do was groan. "I can't decide if you're better or worse than Yang."

With Yang's support, Ruby stumbled her way to the agreed meeting spot. Jaune, along with Nora, Ren & Terra, were already waiting for them. "Hey Jaune!" Ruby waved with her free arm. His eyes widened slightly as he glanced over at her. Ruby herself took in Jaune's look, a navy blue suit with white shirt and yellow tie. It suited him.

"Hi Ruby," Jaune responded as he walked over to her. "You look good."

"And you look...nice," she said hesitantly, letting go of Yang and managing to hobble her way over to him.

"You're really scraping the bottom of the barrel for compliments, aren't you?" he chuckled.

Ruby responded by punching his arm. "Hey, take the compliment!" She was laughing however, and Jaune very quickly joined in.

Yang & Saphron gave each-other a knowing glance, and as their dorky siblings laughed at their own dumb-assery, they gestured to the others to quietly slip away. It was only after several seconds that Ruby & Jaune realised they were now alone.

Jaune shook his head, smiling fondly. "Saph…" Ruby tried to turn to see if she could spot the others, but wobbled and nearly topped thanks to her heels. Jaune quickly caught her. "Come on, let's sit down for a moment," he said, helping her walk over to the nearby bench.

"Thanks," Ruby said, rubbing her already sore calves.

Jaune took the seat next to her. "So, yeah. Sorry about my sister," he said.

Ruby just waved him off, "No, it's alright. It's just like having a second Yang around." After a short pause coupled with a sigh, she continued, "They're right, though. Forcing ourselves to think of nothing but the plan is just going to wear us down."

"I know. I just want to live up to...to what would make Pyrrha proud of me. Of all of us."

"She'd want us to do everything we can. But more than that, I think...that she'd want us to take care of ourselves first."

Jaune smiled slightly. "Nora & Ren said something similar to me." he pulled his scroll out of his pocket. "It's 6:30 now, and it'll probably take around half an hour to walk to the restaurant so we should probably get going now."

Ruby gestured down to her obnoxious high heels. "In these shoes? We'll be lucky if we get there tonight!"

"Oh yeah, that reminds me," Jaune said, reaching into one of his inside breast pockets. Ruby only just then realised there was a bulge coming from one of them. "I guessed Yang and Saph would try to force you into heels. So while I was trying on suits with Ren, I got Nora to run off and get these for you." He pulled out a pair of plain black flats, simple in appearance but would easily pass the standards for fancy dining establishments.

Ruby swiped them from his hands. "Jaune, thank you thank you thank you!" she cheered, joyously kicking the heeled shoes off and sliding the flats on. "Ohhh, that's so much better!" without thinking, she leaned over to plant a kiss on his cheek. Jaune blinked in shock, and she immediately realised what she'd just done, her face flushing even brighter than it had before.

Traces of pink dusted Jaune's own cheeks, as he cleared his throat. "Yea-yeah, no problem," he said, awkwardly moving his gaze away from her eyes.

Ruby gulped and glanced towards the ground, quickly saying, "Sorry, I wasn't thinking!"

"Ruby, it's alright."

She shook her head. "No, it's not! I-I shouldn't have done that, you don't need-"

Her frantic words were cut off as she felt a gentle hand cup her cheek. She looked up just in time to see Jaune lean in, and place a small kiss of his own on her opposite cheek. He moved away, smiling and looking into her eyes with an expression filled with what she could only describe as love.

"It's alright," he repeated, and after a few moments, he leant in, embracing her in the gentlest of hugs she could imagine. The energy of this hug was different to all their other ones, even the one when they had reunited a couple of days earlier, and she realised what he was trying to say.

She wrapped his arms around him in response, and whispered, "When you're ready, I'll be here."

She felt Jaune nod against her hair, and he whispered back, "So will I." almost to her disappointment, he slowly moved away from her. Jaune, still wearing a soft smile, held out his hand and said, "So, my dear lady, would you like to accompany me to the restaurant tonight?"

Ruby giggled, reaching out to take the proffered hand. "Why, I would be honored, dear gentleman."

Hand-in-hand, the pair walked off. Anyone looking would assume it was just two young teens on a date, but in the pair in question knew it was just a friendly outing, that perhaps, one day, could mark the start of something more.

With this, I wanted to show that there is a mutual interest between them, but also that they aren't ready to take that step yet.