Part 1/2 - maybe someday I'll write something a little more ... exciting (read: an actual plot), but for now, more subtle whiterose stories. If you have critiques, please do let me know, it helps me achieve the real goal: expanding the stories of some of my favorite TV characters, and improving my writing :)
Something was … different lately, something Weiss couldn't quite put her finger on. Over the past few weeks, whenever she and Ruby were in a room together it was like there was a thick cloud hanging in the air threatening to suffocate her. She often found herself feeling jumpy, nervous, and a little … awkward (it pained her to admit, Schnees weren't...awkward!)? ... around her team's leader. Nothing had changed that she remembered. This rift, for lack of a better term, just seemed to have sprung up around them overnight. Normal conversations were frequently ending with awkward silences, which were uncommon for Weiss, but nearly unheard of for her younger friend. The strangest thing though, from Weiss' perspective, was the fact that she had the distinct impression that their conversations were dying with something left unsaid, like Ruby had decided against saying something at the last second.
It was the missing thought that bothered Weiss most and was the thing that had been causing her to obsessively wrack her brain for days in a vein effort to trigger some epiphany, some memory of what she might have done to cause Ruby to be so uncomfortable around her! It just wasn't like the girl to keep something like that inside.
Weiss scowled to herself. It was unfortunately a mystery she couldn't afford to think about right now. Shortly after class had begun, Professor Oobleck had surprised them by announcing a quiz on the content from their most recent class. Weiss couldn't claim that their History of Remnant course was her favorite course, but she knew the content well enough that the quiz shouldn't be a problem, however, the problem now was that she was struggling to focus on the task at hand. Looking up at the clock on the wall, she realized that she had already wasted five of the precious minutes Oobleck had allocated to the quiz.
Weiss took a deep breath to settle her nerves, and then skimmed the page in front of her to the first question.
What two nations were involved in the first battle of the Great War?
Really? Was there anyone in the class who couldn't answer that? Maybe this would be even easier than she expected. Without thinking about it, she snuck a peek at her partner sitting just one seat over. Ruby had one foot up on her chair so that she could rest her chin on her knee. The raised foot was tapping away and she was nervously chewing at the end of her pencil, a worried look on her face. Weiss' concern grew, surely Ruby couldn't be struggling with the rather pedestrian questions on the quiz, could she? Something else must be wrong, likely the same thing that Weiss had been worrying about for days. She suddenly felt very guilty. She must have said or done *something* to make Ruby act this way, she just wished she could figure out what it was!
In her moment of distraction, Ruby looked up and caught her eye. Immediately all the nervousness washed out of the girl's face, and she gave Weiss a big, genuine smile. Instead of returning the smile however, Weiss' reaction was automatic. Her eyes darted back to her paper, and she tried to pretend that she'd been looking there all along.
"Dammit," she thought to herself, "now Ruby will definitely think you're upset with her." Weiss looked back over, but Ruby had already returned her focus to her paper, a dejected look on her face. Weiss' heart sank at the sight. Silently she returned to her own quiz, but internally she continued to berate herself for being so damn ... reticent, that was the right word, right? She scowled to herself, she'd find a way to make it up to her, for now, she really needed to focus, she was burning time quickly. It absolutely wouldn't do to fail one of Oobleck's quizzes.
Shoving Ruby out of her mind for the moment, she started powering through the questions in front of her. Thankfully she was able to quickly make up ground after wasting time before. Oobleck's questions didn't get much harder over the length of the exam, so Weiss was able to keep up the steady pace until she reached the last page of the packet. Sneaking a look at the clock, she found she had plenty of time to wrap up the last few questions. Suddenly, Ruby rose from her seat, grabbed her quiz, and made her way quickly to the front of the room, the heavy combat boots she was wearing causing her footsteps to echo throughout the lecture hall.
"How on earth did Ruby finish first?" she thought as her attention was dragged to the other girl. Ruby was typically the most prone to distraction (with competition from Yang, of course) of the four of them, and regularly finished her work with mere seconds on the clock.
Weiss watched as Ruby dropped the packet on the desk in front of their professor and give him a small nod. Oobleck, his mug at his lips for a sip of coffee, returned the slight nod, and Ruby turned to leave the hall, her eyes down to the floor as she made her way up the strains that bisected the two halves of the rows and out of the lecture hall, without a glance towards her teammates.
Once Ruby was out of the room Weiss turned her head and caught Yang and Blake's eyes. They shared a look, concern on both of their faces. They communicated silently, but the meaning was clear: something was wrong with Ruby.
"Ladies!" Oobleck stated suddenly, standing now at the edge of the first row of seats on their half of the room, unfortunately looking directly at the three of them. He took a quick sip from his mug. Weiss gulped.
"Eyes on your own papers please," he continued, "perhaps you three should spend less time on, well, whatever this is" he motioned in their general direction," and instead focus on following your leader's example."
Yang looked like she was about to say something, but thankfully Oobleck had already turned and was returning to his desk. Weiss saw an angry look flash across the girl's face before it faded, and her eyes returned to her paper, but not without a barely audible muttered phrase making its way to Weiss' ears. Weiss rolled her eyes, but Blake looked like she had to actively fight to contain a laugh as she also went back to her own work.
It didn't take long for Weiss to finish up her work, and with a look to her teammates she quickly made her way to the front of the room, dropped her packet at Professor (Doctor, ugh) Oobleck's desk, and turned to leave, barely able to keep herself from running up the stairs in the middle of the room. Outside a cool fall wind rushed through Beacon's campus, carrying red and gold leaves along with it to their resting place on the impressive expanse of lawn outside the classrooms. Weiss shivered slightly, but silently thanked her morning self for deciding on the thick white wool sweater she was currently wearing, which deflected a reasonable amount of the cool fall air.
Now to find Ruby and figure out what on earth was going on with her.
Weiss started across the grounds at a brisk pace, following the winding walkways back to the dorms. The grounds were relatively empty today, with just a handful of teams out for light training. Ruby was nowhere in sight though. Beyond the grounds, there were two places Weiss figured Ruby was likely to be currently: in their dorm, or in the cafeteria. Weiss gambled first on the dorm, since even Ruby had a limit when it came to food, and they had eaten a large breakfast before Oobleck's class.
When she reached the outer door to the dorms and went open the door, the door swung out to meet her first, and she carefully stepped out of the way as the better part of team CVFY made their way out.
Coco caught sight of Weiss as they passed and stopped, reaching up to lower her sunglasses and give Weiss a curious look.
Following Coco's glance, Velvet noticed Weiss as well, and gave her a small wave.
"Hello Weiss!" she said in the soft but kind voice that Velvet brought to nearly all her interactions, "sorry about the door, we didn't realize you were there."
Weiss smiled back and put her hand up to feign brushing something away.
"No apology necessary Velvet," Weiss started. When Velvet and Fox turned to leave though, Weiss had an idea, "Wait! Before you go: have any of you seen Ruby?"
Weiss noticed the Coco's eyes were still locked onto her over her sunglasses, boring into her in a way that made Weiss shift a bit in nervousness. She couldn't think of something she had done to offend the upperclassman, but the look she was giving her didn't seem to be one of fondness.
Velvet didn't seem to notice though, and nodded her head, "we actually just passed her on our way out of the dorms."
Velvet frowned slightly before continuing, "she looked a bit upset; did something happen?"
Before Weiss could respond, Coco jumped in, "yeah, we don't usually see you two apart. We were worried something had happened to you, but we didn't get a chance to talk to her before she took off."
Now Weiss understood the look she was getting from Coco. Coco thought Weiss had done something to upset Ruby. That was ridiculous … wasn't it? Weiss frowned. She couldn't think of anything, but maybe she just didn't realize what she had said? She had spent months working on kicking the habits of her upbringing: the effortless criticisms, the natural suspicion, the vicious defensiveness, all things necessary to grow up as part of the most powerful family in Atlas, but not the traits of a friend, a partner.
"I'm not aware of any reason she'd be upset, "Weiss stated in a way that came across as far curter than she had intended. Silently she cursed herself as the two other girls stared her down, before Coco reached up and pushed her sunglasses back over her eyes.
"Well, if you catch up to her, tell her to let us know if someone did something to hurt her. She's got some heavy hitters in her corner," Coco said, looking over to Yatsuhashi to make a point.
Weiss glanced over at the boy's large blade strapped to his back and gulped. Among the many amazing traits Ruby had, the ability to win over just about everyone with next to no effort was among the most impressive. Outside her team and JNPR, even the upperclassmen looked out for the girl. Weiss truly did pity the person who caused Ruby trouble at Beacon.
"I'm sure she's fine," Weiss said, this time keeping her voice level and friendly," but I appreciate you looking out for her,"
Coco nodded, and the rest of her team followed her lead as they left to continue about their day.
Weiss continued into the dorm and up the stairs to their floor, moving at a brisk pace. A touch winded at the top of the stairs, she slid past Jaune in the hallway, completely ignoring his greeting, and arrived at their door before pausing with her hand just over the door handle, the sound of voices from inside the room giving her reason to pause. Taking a quick peek around the abandoned floor, she leaned forward and lightly pressed her ear to the thin wooden door, being careful not to make any noise that might alert whoever was on the other side of the door.
For once she was thankful for Beacon's paper-thin doors, which meant she could hear and make out the voices inside the dorm clearly. As expected, one of the voices belonged to Ruby. The other was Pyrrha, unless Weiss was wildly off base. That was ... unexpected. Ruby and Pyrrha were friendly, as all the members of JNPR and RWBY were, but it was a bit odd for them to be together without the rest of their teams, especially in absence of training gear and weapons. Pyrrha had become a bit of a confidant for Weiss over the last two years, and in that time, she had never picked up on this level of closeness between her and her own team leader. Her interest piqued, Weiss leaned closer to the door, before stopping herself and stepping back.
What was she doing? Eavesdropping on Ruby and Pyrrha's conversation was unbecoming of her, and anyway, what did she think she was going to hear? Taking a quick step back, she briefly considered leaving. Looking around at the empty hallway however, her curiosity got the better of her, and she leaned back against the door.
"Maybe I'll get an idea of what's been off about Ruby lately," she tried to justify to herself, although her efforts to convince herself of that justification were fruitless.
From inside the door, she could hear a light giggling sound, undoubtedly from Ruby. Weiss frowned again, where had Ruby's bubbly, happy self gone around her, and how was it that Pyrrha was able to bring that out? She felt a pang of jealousy that she quickly shoved away. What was there to be jealous of? She was simply curious why her partner had been so sour lately.
"It's so hard to say!", she heard Ruby say, before she heard the girl devolve into a fit of giggles again. She heard Pyrrha let out a short laugh.
"I'm listening, Ruby" Weiss heard Pyrrha say, with the distinct sound of a barely controlled laugh.
"Ok, here it goes, let me try again!" Ruby again before pausing and audibly sighing, "Well, we've been friends for a few years now, and I've really enjoyed it, and I think you're really amazing, and sweet and so, so talented, and I really just wanted to know if you'd have any interest, in, you know … maybe going and getting dinner … just the two of us?"
Weiss took a step back from the door, a weight dropping in her chest.
"Oh...", she thought to herself, "so that's why..."
She heard giggling from the other side of the door, but didn't wait to hear how Pyrrha responded. Instead, her legs on autopilot, Weiss raced from the dorm. She wasn't sure where she was going, and why, but she knew she had to go, now.