~~-Aspen Maiden-~~

Jaune's apprehension only grew as he went further into the facility. Clover still had the lead with Elm flanking them and Harriet half a step behind him on his left. He could feel her impatience as she likely would rather be in bed than babysitting a student. It was like she was trying to push him along faster with her intimidating presence. It was working.

As they passed a non-descript door Jaune was drawn to look in the porthole styled window at the old lady frantically waving. She was in what appeared to be a medical style bed with machines surrounding her, like a hospital room. He couldn't get a clear look at her, although he felt like she looked familiar. He stopped walking only to get a rather rude push forward by Harriet. "Keep moving kid, I want to get this over with."

"But the old woman… What is she doing down here? I thought this was a prison." Jaune reluctantly moved forward at a slower pace while craning his neck back toward the room.

"No. It's not a prison. It's more of a holding area for items of high value. A vault. But currently the only things here are 3 people. The old woman and your two 'friends'." Clover Turned walking backwards nonchalantly as he signaled Harriet to lay off the boy.

Clover's eyes widened in surprise as the door to the Winter Maiden's room opened and the old woman crawled out into the hallway. "Amber! Amber! You-whooooo!" The old woman lay on the floor half out the door waving frantically.

"Nanna Fria?" Amber whispered in his mind.

"I'll call for the orderlies." Harriet reached for her scroll as Jaune moved to go and help the old lady. Only for Elm to grab his arm and stop him.

"No one is allowed to make contact with her. She has a dangerous semblance." Elm wasn't mean about it, she looked sympathetic to Jaune's desire to help, but still her grip was like iron and her tone a little gruff.

"We have to help her though!" Jaune turned to Clover desperately.

"Help me, I've fallen, and I can't get up!" As if agreeing with him, the old lady called down the corridor to them. It was too much for Jaune who tore his arm free form Elm his Aura crackling to prevent a bruise as he did.

Clover moved to assist Jaune as Harriet looked to Elm in frustration. "Our orders specifically say we cannot make contact with her!" Harriet shouted out in frustration with her leader.

"No, the orders specifically stated that no FEMALE members of staff, other than specialist Schnee, are allowed to make contact with her. Jaune and I should be fine. We'll help her back into her room, you go get the medical team." Clover shouted back over his shoulder, a bit of a smirk on his face as Harriet huffed in annoyance.

Jaune wasted no time rushing to help the old woman kneeling at her side as Clover stood behind him.

"It's good to see you again Amber. I thought I would never get the chance. It warms my spirit to see you so young and healthy again. But why did you dye your hair yellow?" Fria reached out a hand to his hair. She looked Jaune over critically, but with a warm smile and sparkling eyes.

"Let's get you back to your bed and we can talk about it there, okay?" Clover stepped up and with help from Jaune attempted to lift the frail old woman to her feet, only for her to gasp in pain as she tried to move.

"I think I hurt my hip when I fell." She looked at Jaune apologetically, before grimacing in pain when she shifted into a more seated position.

"I have a healing semblance that boosts Aura, maybe I can help her?" Jaune looked to Clover who gave him a nod.

"Jaune I don't think that's a good…" Before Amber could finish her thought Jaune had already activated his semblance, flooding his Aura into the old woman.

A pale blue glow surrounded the two of them before it took off like a wildfire. The glow became a raging inferno of ethereal power swirling around them before the energy seemed to rush out like a pressure wave, the temperature of the air dropping rapidly as snow and ice exploded outward. Then the violent energy rebounded back crashing into Jaune like a tidal wave of bluish-white light that blinded all three of them.

Clover shook his head to get rid of the spots that obscured his vision, quickly checking his six to find the hallway blocked by blue crystalline ice. He turned back the other way to find that side encased as well. He looked to Jaune only to be met with wide and slightly terrified eyes.

"She has a very powerful semblance." Clover's voice was laced with awe, and lacked its usual confidence.

Jaune just nodded dumbly as both he and Amber were dumbstruck by what had just occurred.

Nana Fria, as Amber had called her however looked very happy, smiling brightly as she got to her feet stiffly. "Thank you Amber. I feel so much better. It's such a relief. I have been so worried. But finally, I know it's safe." She sagged a little the two men reacting to steady her. "I think I'd like to go back to bed now. I'm a little tired."

Jane and Clover helped the old woman back into her bed and adjusted the sheets and blankets to keep her warm in the now frigid room. Fria sighed contentedly, Holding on to Jaune's hand with a frighteningly strong grip for someone so frail looking.

"Ma'am you shouldn't have exerted yourself like that." The old lady's eyes seemed to dull for a moment before narrowing as she regarded Clover with a renewed focus.

"Ahh, it's nice to see you again young man, what was your name? Shamrock? Cedar? I can never seem to remember names… Oh my, you are a handsome one though, aren't you? Have you met my friend Amber? I think she is still single." Fria waggled an eyebrow.

"Ahhh…. It's Clover. And, no ma'am. But I would love to take her out for a little while, if that's okay with you. We just wanted to make sure you were doing alright first." Clover shot Jaune an apologetic look.

"Who? Little old me? I'm doing fantastic. I haven't felt this good in a very long time. Seeing my little Amy again has brought me a great deal of peace." The old woman lay her head back letting Jaune's hand go with a little squeeze before crossing her arms on her chest and closing her eyes. A peaceful look on her face as she once again sighed contentedly.

"That's good to hear. Why don't you get a little sleep? We should get going, don't want to be late for that date." Clover stepped away from where he had been at the foot of the bed to stand by the door.

"Goodnight, Nana Fria." Jaune whispered earning yet another joyous smile.

Fria was still all smiles and waving as Clover escorted him out of the room.

Back out in the hallway Clover softly closed the door. It locked with an electronic beep. "I'm sorry about that. It must have been very shocking for you. Mrs. Fria has an incredibly powerful, and potentially dangerous semblance. And unfortunately, she also has advanced Alzheimer's. I'm sorry you didn't get to meet her on one of her more lucid days."

"Um yeah. No problem." Jaune clenched his fist behind his back and closed his eyes briefly conjuring a bit of fire to counter the ice spreading across his gloves.

"Jaune you need to pay attention. Focus on this thing with Emerald now, we can talk about what happened with Nana Fria latter." Jaune snapped his attention back up to the annoyed Soldiers around him.

"Sorry, what was that?"

"ID, please." The soldier before him held out his hand expectantly, despite his professionalism, his annoyance at having to repeat himself was evident. Jaune quickly retrieved his scroll, fumbled it briefly before recovering and presented it to the officer who scanned it and handed it back.

"Okay, Mr. Arc, it looks like you are expected. Opening on three!" He shouted out the last bit and Jaune flinched as no less than a dozen soldiers, took up shooting positions behind cement bulwarks positioned around the room. There was a lot of clatter of magazines being inserted and bolts slapping into place as they readied their large automatic rifles. In a very short period of time, they all had their weapons trained on the door Jaune was about to enter. Even the specialists escorting him took ready stances as the soldier manning the door held up three fingers slowly and silently counting them down until he pulled the lever and the door opened with a hiss.

Jaune was hurriedly ushered in, the door closing behind him with another hiss followed by a loud and reverberating clank as the locks engaged.

Inside was a large room with a high arched ceiling the top of which was shrouded in shadow making the scale of it difficult to determine. In the center of the room was a dais which appeared empty aside from a small alter of some kind. But what really took up his attention were the two metal boxes on either side. Each about 30 feet square and 12 feet high. They looked to be made of thick solid steel plates and were surrounded by hard light barriers as well. Each one had a single door with a hard-light air lock of sorts forming a small alcove in front of them.

Clover led him to the one on the left while Harriet pulled some sort of device off the wall to the side of the door they had entered. She came over to Jaune and held it out expectantly. When Jaune looked at her in confusion she rolled her eyes.

"Hold out you arm." Jaune did as instructed, and Harriet clamped a bracelet of sorts around his wrist. "This will track your vitals. If anything happens the room will be pumped full of tranquilizer gas as well as sounding the alarm. If you need assistance the big red button will alert us." She stepped back taking a position with Elm guarding the door.

Clover led Jaune into the airlock and the hard-light barrier that covered the door shimmered out of existence while a new one formed behind them, trapping them in the alcove. Clover knocked on the door and activated a speaker system. "Evening miss. I'm sorry if we've awakened you, but you have a visitor. Please step up to the door." Clover opened a little slot in the door and a pair of hands were stuck out from within. The specialist secured a pair of sturdy cuffs around them before the hands were withdrawn. "Step back miss." He watched on a video monitor beside the door as Emerald stood in the middle of the room.

"Over-watch, clear to release?" Clover keyed a radio and waited until a light above the door changed from red to green. Satisfied he opened the door and ushered Jaune in.

"The General said we were to guard but not surveil. This meeting is to be strictly off the record. All monitoring devices other than your wrist band have been turned off. You have thirty minutes. Play nice you two." Clover smirked as he pushed Jaune forward, the door closed behind them locking with another loud clunk.

Jaune looked around the room. Mainly because Emerald was just standing there in her bright orange jump suit, looking just as uncomfortable about the situation as he was, and he needed something to do to keep himself from saying or doing something stupid to fill the silence.

The room was actually pretty nice. Furnished more like an apartment rather than a jail cell. It had sheetrock walls, painted in a neutral cream color, but otherwise undecorated. And a pair of doors on one side of the dining slash living room he was in, led into what he assumed were bath and bedrooms. The living area had a small couch and a large projector screen. And the dining area had a small rectangular table with 4 chairs and a mini-fridge with a coffee machine on top. Next to that a small cabinet with a microwave on it. A couple of false windows projected scenes of softly falling snow on a dark city scape, it looked like an actual live stream of the Academy above them, giving the illusion that they were very high up rather than hundreds of feet underground. All in all, Jaune was pleasantly surprised, not that he thought the general would mistreat her, but the accommodations were quite nice, better than he could afford to rent back in Vale anyway.

"A nice prison is still a prison." Amber seemed to summarize his feelings as he looked around.

Ignoring her for the moment he turned his attention back to Emerald and cleared his throat nervously.

"Ohh, sorry. Do you want to sit down?" Emerald gestured awkwardly to the dining table, using both hands due to being cuffed.

"Why are there four chairs?" Jaune's mouth was faster than his brain, but luckily it seemed to break the ice a bit as Emerald pulled out a chair and sat down at one end of the table. Jaune taking the other end.

"I asked the same thing. Apparently, the psychologists suggested that having only one chair would reinforce feelings of isolation and loneliness, two chairs makes it seem like someone is missing and/or like it's for interrogations, and three just looks odd." Emerald shrugged trying to use one arm to grip the bicep of the other across her chest but being hindered by the cuffs. She let her arms settle awkwardly in her lap instead. Jaune just nodded and the awkward silence returned.

After a bit Emerald seemed to have had enough of the silence and let out a mirthless chuckle. "This is so weird. I feel like I should hate you. You killed the only person who I ever thought might have loved me. You took away my freedom and everything I have ever owned…. But I don't."

"Yeah… Sorry about that." Jaune winced.

"This is not how an interrogation is supposed to work." She huffed loudly, expressing her annoyance at him. "You are supposed to be asking me questions or yelling at me. I… I'm not sure what we are supposed to do." Emerald sighed and looked at him, annoyance replaced with insecurity, a look Jaune understood well, but that was out of place on Emerald.

"Well how about you tell me why you called my parents?" Jaune watched as Emerald seemed to shrink in on herself even more. Like that was what she knew was coming and had been dreading it.

"Okay. But first, do you know what my semblance is?"

"Illusions, right?" Jaune's curiosity was piqued by the sudden change in where the conversation was going.

"Kind of, but not exactly. I don't change what you see, but rather how your mind perceives reality around you. It's more of a memory altering semblance. Like that big dude we fought in the doubles match. Only mine is very limited to extreme short-term memory. I can't change your actual memories, but I can change how new memories are made and stored. My 'illusions' are basically formed by me interfering with the read/write aspect of how your brain process information. By rewriting what you see, hear, touch and feel, in real time, so when your brain processes it, what your brain thinks is happening is what I wanted you to see. But to make it real I need to start with something relatable, often something from my memories, or something from your own memories that gets overlaid. Usually, your own mind starts connecting dots to past memories to try and make sense of the information it's receiving. My semblance takes those and weaves them in to make it more believable. Does that make sense."

"Kind of…" Jaune's expression gave away the fact that he was barely able to comprehend what was being said.

"So, my semblance is Memories, not Illusions. When you did that thing with your Aura and saved my life. Thanks for that by the way…"

"No big deal."

"It kind of was, actually... The point is, you connected my Aura to yours. And simultaneously boosted mine to an insane degree, it sent my semblance into overdrive."

Jaune nodded to indicate he was trying to follow along.

"So, when our Auras sort of merged, my semblance let me see and experience everything you had. I experienced an entire lifetime of memories from your perspective. That's never happened before and is probably a unique side effect of how our two semblances interact." Emerald sighed in mounting frustration at the glassy eyed look Jaune was giving her.

"I basically got bombarded with all of your memories at once. Your life literally flashed before my eyes. Everything you remember doing, or seeing, or reading about, got jammed into my head." She wrapped on the side of her head for emphasis. She was clearly frustrated at having settled on a gross oversimplification to try and get her point across.

"So, you have all my memories? Everything?" Jaune was torn between being shocked, nervous and embarrassed. It was bad enough with Amber. Jaune looked at her with wide eyes as the ramifications of what she said hit him.

"No. Not anymore. Well… not everything. It was a lot of information at once, like cramming for a test, I forgot most of it shortly afterward. Or, at least I think so." Jaune sighed a breath of relief, before he realized 'most of' was not the same as 'all of'.

"Most of it?" Jaune swallowed in trepidation.

"Sometimes I get confused about why I know certain things or dream about things I'm pretty sure you did…. and people only you would have known. It's kind of messed up." Emerald looked up at him forlornly.

"But, other memories, mostly older ones, are still pretty clear. Like Copper trying to confess to you, that was hysterical by the way." Emerald smiled, her eyes alighting with laughter. It was a good look for her, one Jaune couldn't say he had ever seen in any of his previous interactions with the green haired girl.

"What? I don't remember that?" Jaune scratched his head in confusion. He honestly couldn't remember experiencing what she was talking about.

"You don't remember the good looking deaf girl telling you she likes you before trying to kiss you?" Amber's words matched Emerald's expression.

"I remember her signing that she liked me, before Celest came in with my sisters. I think it was Gris who grabbed her. But I think Copper got knocked forward, I got a split lip when her teeth crashed into mine, and then in the struggle with Celest and Magenta, I ended up getting elbowed in the nose. And then there was a lot of apologizing and a lot of blood on my shirt. But it wasn't a confession. She was just saying how she liked me. I liked her too, she was nice and a lot of fun to hang out with. It was a shame she couldn't come around anymore after that, Celeste said she got hurt falling down some stairs and something about bad influences. Then a few months after, she moved away to go to college."

"Oh, my gods! You are so impossibly dense."

"How can you be so dense?" Emerald and Amber's words overlapped, unknowingly teaming up to pile on the shame.

"Why do all the women I meet say that?"

"Jaune, you didn't think that you taking the time to learn a whole other language just to be able to talk to her, wouldn't make her just a tad appreciative, and maybe, just maybe, that would develop into feelings beyond friendship?" Amber took the time to put her disbelief into words. Emerald just gave him a look that screamed 'Are you kidding me?'

"I was younger back then." Jaune looked down at his lap, fidgeting with his hands.

"You were 14." Emerald's deadpan look only intensified. It was much more like the girl he remembered her being.

"Anyway, your hopelessness is not what I was trying to talk about. I have had a lot of time lately with nothing to do but sit and think about my life. I have come to realize that I have only 5 memories that I can consider to be truly happy ones. And 4 of them are not really even mine." She met Jaune's eyes briefly before letting out a long sigh.

"The only one that I can call my own is this time when I was a kid, maybe 8? I was watching this family in the park, they were having a birthday party for their brat, a really spoiled little monster, and all his obnoxious little friends. He threw a tantrum when he didn't get the present he wanted. So, when everyone was distracted, I stole what was left of the cake. That cake was the single most delicious thing I had ever eaten. It was a huge cake and almost half of it had been untouched, and it was sooo fresh." The girl sighed smiling and mouth watering from the memory.

"Ever since, I have used that day as my birthday whenever I needed to fill out any forms, it's not like I know what my real one is."

"That is the sweetest and saddest thing I have ever heard." Amber suppressed a gasp as she tried not to tear up.

"The other 4 memories, like most of the things in my life, were stolen. All of them involve your Mom and your family." She looked off to the side, unable to maintain eye contact. "I had never understood how people like you and your friends could be so happy. Like constantly happy! I used to think being like that all the time would be exhausting, and I figured they had to be faking it." Emerald had a look of exasperated frustration.

"But now, I know." Emerald sighed and took a moment to collect her thoughts.

"I can't remember ever having had my own family. I think I must have; I can vaguely remember someone unlocking my Aura before I had to run away from the Grimm. I would have been about 5 or 6 maybe… that wasn't you right?" Jaune shook his head and Emerald's desperately hopeful look collapsed. She just sort of folded in on herself.

"Cinder was the closest I'd ever had. I thought… I thought she cared for me. I hopped she might have even loved me. But then she threw me away the second she thought I might get in her way. I honestly wasn't even surprised really, shocked, but not surprised. That's what people do to one another after all. I learned very young that it's a kill or be killed world, and everyone out there will gladly step on your back just to get a better view." Emerald craned her head back and stared up at the ceiling.

"I thought I had everything figured out. Then you came along and showed me a completely different world than the one I knew." She looked at him almost accusingly. Jaune could only look back in muted sadness, as her expression morphed to one matching his own.

"I guess… I guess I just needed to … I needed to know that these memories were real. That it wasn't a trick. I just needed to hear her voice…" Emerald's voice caught, and she brought her hands up to wipe at her eyes.

"Um… Would it be okay if I gave you a hug?" Jaune looked at her with concern as he stood and made his way around the table.

"No! Guys aren't allowed to touch me." Emerald stiffened.

"Ohhh. Okay…." Because of her outburst, Jaune was unprepared for what happened next. Without any further warning, Jaune was catching her as she crashed into him, sobbing loudly. Since she was cuffed still, she couldn't put her arms around him, but Jaune's quickly encircled her slender frame. He rubbed gentle circles on her back, trying his best to do what his mother did to comfort them. After a bit she regained her composure and mumbled into his chest, "Mercury can never know about this."

"I promise to never tell a soul. Arc's word."

Emerald backed up and shrugged, glancing up to check the clock. "So that's it. If you want to tell Ironwood that I'll cooperate you can. But I need to be off the record, and just him or professor Goodwitch, maybe that Qrow guy if he is in the loop. Problem is they probably won't let me be in a room alone with people that important. They know how my semblance works; even if it's unlikely, I could learn things I'm not supposed to know."

"I'll see what I can do." An alarm on his wrist band chimed and Jaune turned to leave the cell. He paused at the door when Emerald called out to him.

"Jaune. I was wondering…. Gods this is embarrassing. How do you even ask something like this?" Emerald looked to the side before hardening her features and closing her eyes she turned to him to just blurt it out.

"Is it all right if I think of your Mom as my Mom too?"

"Ehhh? I mean… sure. I think she would love another daughter." Emerald beamed as Jaune smiled back at her. She continued to radiate happiness as Jaune stepped from the cell, Clover securing the door behind him, and escorting him out of the outer enclosure past the armed guards with weapons at the ready, before the outer door was also sealed.

"I said it before, and I'll say it again, that was some of the saddest yet sweetest things I've ever heard!" Jaune struggled to keep his emotions in check with Amber practically bawling in his head. He winced as she loudly blew her nose. Causing Harriet to regard him warily.

Clover guided him to the dorm where his friends were staying, but Jaune wasn't really paying much attention to the route they took. At least once they had left the secure area and the path had turned into more of sidewalks and cobble stones.

Clover left him on the doorstep, warning him not to stay out in the dangerously cold night air, but Jaune didn't head in yet. He had a lot to sort through and he wasn't up for the flurry of questions he knew were going to come.

Instead, he made his way out into the garden and sat on a bench in the center of the courtyard. The fountain that was the focal point of the area had frozen over forming a beautiful ice sculpture. It was amazing to look at, although it is doubtful many of the kids in the academy ever took the time to do so.

"Amber, did we just take the power of the Winter Maiden?" Jaune lowered his voice whispering to himself, the brisk winter wind masking his words from any eavesdroppers. Not that there were any, the cold and time of night preventing anyone sane from being out. The cold no longer seemed to have any effect on Jaune however, as he watched his fingers shimmer with tinny ice crystals.

"I think so... If I had to guess it's a side effect of your semblance evolving to move magic around. I feel a lot more powerful. And, it kind of makes sense. If the legends are true, the power once belonged to one person, before the Wizard forced it to split. If your semblance has the ability to move magic around, it stands to reason that it would naturally recombine into a single entity again. Doesn't it?" Amber started off sounding so knowledgeable and sure of herself, but at the end he realized that she was not any more of an expert on how magic worked than he was. She was making only slightly more educated guesses.

"I guess we know that it's the magic of the Maiden's I'm moving and not just your aura that is dragging the magic with it."

"Hmmmm. Yeah. But what does that mean for me? Am I tied to the magic or is the magic tied to me?"

They sat in silence for a long time, before Jaune stood up and moved to the fountain.

"Amber." He whispered, breaking her from her internal contemplation. "We are going to break her out."

"Nana Fria?"

"No. Emerald." There was a strength of conviction in his voice.

"What? Why? I mean I feel sorry for her too. But she tried to kill me. She did some really horrible things; she deserves to be in there."

"Okay, but to be fair you tried to kill her too. You knew her Aura was down, and you were going to stab her with the fire end of your staff before Cinder shot you. But that doesn't matter anymore. She is a girl who never got a childhood and now will never get to experience anything that life has to offer. It's tragic. And they are not trying to reform her or anything, they are just locking her up forever. But she is different now, things have changed."

"Not that different. Why not just ask Ironwood for some clemency? Advocate on her behalf? You don't just skip straight to a jailbreak. Am I missing something here? What's changed so much that you are willing to violate just about every conceivable law to break an international terrorist, one who was working directly for evil incarnate I might add, out of a classified, secret, supper maximum security prison?"

"She is family now."

~~-Aspen Maiden-~~

AN: Boom, Emerald redemption Arc kicks up a notch. Still haven't seen any of volume 8 yet, but I understand Emerald is coming away from the dark side. At least that's what I picked up from a few fanfics I've perused. I'm glad I didn't go with my original plan to kill her off.

And Yes, Jaune is now a double Maiden, he is both Winter and Fall now. Surprise! At least I hope it was a surprise for most of you.

Not to bring down the tone, but… I want to note that Alzheimer's is horrible. It literally killed my Grandmother and Aunt, and honestly terrifies me that I'll have to watch it happen to my Mom before it eventually gets me too. I watched my Grandma slowly be killed as her body forgot how to do stuff like talk, swallow, and eventually breath. But during the earlier stages what I learned is that how your mind sees and interprets reality is just like my take on Emerald's semblance, hence my choice of the chapters title. Sometimes if you alter your own view of reality you can actually see where the crazy stuff comes from, and from my experience a lot of it is coming from the brain's attempts to reconcile reality, but the disease crossing connections. Like my Grandma hearing the rain and wind beating on the window and it reminding her of a marching band, then trying to figure out why the band would be playing in her backyard during a rain storm, and then wanting to help them get to shelter. That happened, I let her get a raincoat and we went out to look for the band, it was funny at the time, grandma was laughing about it too. My Aunt had early onset Alzheimer's, and the first thing the disease destroyed was her ability to be anything but happy. Which doesn't sound so bad, but trust me, it was awful. Point is, my take on the Winter Maiden Fria, is somewhat humorous, but I want to point out that what at first appears as a completely senile moment, if viewed from her eyes is totally real, she sees Amber not Jaune, because Jaune is Amber. She is just the only one who can recognize that, and her brain tries to reconcile that fact with reality leaving her somewhat confused. This is what Alzheimer's does, and for the person it affects the confusion can be terrifying.

Update schedule is still going to be sporadic. Life has been busy, and shows no signs of slowing down any time soon.