A/N: Wow, quick update turnaround for once. This was a fun chapter to write (I do like machines. And girls. Kind of a lot.) Enjoy!
Ruby can't sleep.
She misses her family and she doesn't want to be here and she's going to go crazy if has to wear pink for one more day. And there's someone walking outside, just pacing up and down the corridor, their footfalls a little too loud on the thin carpet.
Ruby rolls over and puts her pillow over her ears, but then she's suffocating. She tries thinking about her machines; that sometimes helps when she can't sleep.
Uncle Qrow's truck, that he calls a fixer-upper and everyone else calls a piece of junk. He's had it for thirty years, and it coughs and sputters and drinks too much oil but runs surprisingly well. Some of Ruby's earliest memories are of handing Qrow his tools as he worked on the truck, tripping over her own feet in an effort to be useful. These days, Qrow trusts her enough to let her do most of the maintenance work. The fuel injector is acting up, the way it always does in hot weather, and she knows the drill. Add more tape, see if the tape helps, cuss at it, insist that they don't need to call a mechanic, repeat that a few times, then take off all the tape and start from scratch. Eventually, the tape does help, most of the time.
The footsteps are getting more erratic, and it's driving Ruby insane.
Okay, just think about machines. Yang's bike needs a tune up, but she's insistent that Bumblebee needs a real mechanic. She takes after Dad, who can change a lightbulb but not much else. Ruby's trying to rewire their toaster so it doesn't burn the bread on one side, but all her adjustments just made it burn both sides. Yang thinks they should just get a new toaster, and "let Ruby fix the old one if she wants, but some of us have to eat." Ruby knows exactly how to fix it: just swap out the gear in the timer for a smaller one so it runs down faster. But Dad probably got a new toaster since she's not home to beg and plead to keep it.
And that stupid toaster pushes her over the edge into tears. Not the quiet kind of tears that she could easily camouflage, but ugly sobs where her nose runs more than her eyes.
Ruby slips out of her bed and into the corridor, mystery person be damned. She's not going to cry and wake everyone up and have Yang think she really wasn't old enough to come here, not after she made a whole presentation about how she was mature enough to help.
Mystery person turns out to be Penny, who doesn't even report Ruby for being out of bed after lights out, and that makes Ruby cry more. She smiles at Ruby and offers a perfectly ironed white handkerchief, which is soaked in seconds.
"Why are you crying?" she asks, keeping her voice low.
"Nothing," Ruby says. "I miss home, I guess."
"Oh, Ruby, we all miss home." It's dark, but there's moonlight filtering in through the ugly curtains, and there's enough light to see that Penny isn't smiling.
Ruby pulls herself together, or tries to.
"Tell me about your family," she says. "What do they think about you being here?"
"My grandfather raised me. He had very kind eyes, that crinkle up when he smiled. Like yours." Penny extends a hand to trace Ruby's face.
"People say I have my mom's eyes," Ruby says automatically. "She smiled a lot too. Or, I think she did. She's always smiling in the photos we have."
Penny nods, and Ruby sees tears sliding down her face, shining in the moonlight.
"I never got to say goodbye to him. I was so proud that I'd graduated the camp, and I thought he would be too. But he never came back, and I – I just stayed here. I didn't have anywhere else to go."
Ruby wraps her arms around Penny, pulling the smaller girl closer.
…
Weiss is having nightmares. That isn't anything unusual, really. This one is more surreal than the standard.
Glynda's getting taller until she towers over Weiss, eyes flashing red. Weiss tries to run, but she falls, and keeps falling. The plastic flowers grow into a hedge of thorns on every side of her, catching at her hand, making it bleed again.
Then she reaches the ground, or the sky, or somewhere white. Ruby smiles at her and dismounts from a white horse.
"I've been waiting for you," she says, and her voice is deeper, less squeaky.
Weiss should say something, but Dream Weiss just stands there, looking at Ruby. Ruby's hair is blowing in the wind like a shampoo commercial, her eyes sparkling. Ruby kisses Weiss, and Dream Weiss doesn't move. Weiss is not okay with this. But also doesn't really mind.
Then Ruby's hands start wandering lower and – really, Dream Weiss, no response at all? – Weiss wakes up in a cold sweat.
This is problematic. Weiss is trying to get cured, and having those kinds of dreams is not going to help her. She needs to take a cold shower, go back to sleep, and be ruder to Ruby than usual until all those inconvenient emotions wear off.
Nobody needs to know. They're still only two weeks into the program; Weiss's inconvenient feelings should disappear soon, so there's no harm in indulging them now.
Of course Blake chose tonight to stay up and read under her covers with a flashlight. And Weiss – doesn't want to disturb her, to say the least. That would be an uncomfortable conversation. She slips out into the hall, risk of getting caught be damned.
For a moment, she thinks she's still dreaming.
Ruby and Penny are in the hallway. Kissing. Degenerates.
Weiss gasps and they jump apart. Ruby grabs Weiss and clamps one hand over her mouth. Weiss struggles a bit, but she has a grip like iron.
"Don't tell anyone," Ruby hisses. "I will make you wish you'd never been born. And my whole family are Marines, so don't think you can win a fight, if it comes to that." Penny, behind her, has eyes as wide as saucers. Her hands are over her mouth.
Weiss nods hastily, and Ruby gives her one last glare and releases her.
"Go back to the dorm," she says. Weiss nods again and hurries back in, sliding back under the covers.
Well, if Ruby can convert someone who's been deemed heterosexual enough to help out at True Directions, Weiss's daydreams certainly won't do any harm.