A/N: I am so sorry for the delay in updates. I finished up exams last week and just got completely burned out, so it took me a while to get back to updating. Happy pride, and enjoy.

When the truck is visible, a few miles away cresting a hill, Ilia gives up on subtlety. She gives up on hiding. Blake is close, at last. She doesn't find a sheltered place to sleep during the day, instead dodging from shadow to shadow, following the tracks.

She catches up with the truck in the late evening. The sun is scarcely visible, the horizon painted a deep violet. There are four people silhouetted against the fading light.

Blake is sitting comfortably on the roof of the truck, coat wrapped tightly around her although it's a warm night. A short girl with hair that almost glows in the faint orange light has her legs draped over Blake's lap. She's talking to two taller women, the occasional exclamation or burst of laughter carrying to Ilia's position half-sheltered by a rock monolith.

Ilia waits. The White Fang are powerful, and they are feared, but they have enemies. Any team out here has had a skirmish or two with a patrol. The White Fang's numerical superiority prevents any direct attacks from all but the most foolhardy, but a team would gladly take down a single member drifting the desert. Ilia doesn't know what lies Blake told them, but she doesn't have the freedom to lie. She'll wait, keep waiting until she can speak to Blake without interference. Then –

Then there will be nothing stopping them. They'll escape into the desert where nothing and no one can find them, and they'll live in peace. Blake will smile again, and it will be because of Ilia. They'll never have to concern themselves with the White Fang again.

Ilia has enough experience tailing groups. She knows how to keep Grimm attention away from her, how to avoid revealing her position by being attacked. She knows how to wait and watch and hope.

Ilia settles into the hollow behind a rock and decides to catch a few hours of sleep. She'll hear the truck starting up if they decide to move.

…

Winter taps the monitor again, hoping that there's some kind of mistake, that she's found a tabloid article posted to the wrong site. No such luck.

Scattered sentences jump out at her as she scans page after page of reports.

The Council is deliberating on the prospect of additional nuclear attacks to the surface.

Deliberations were interrupted by a protest that swiftly became an armed insurrection, as marchers stormed government offices demanding that the final solution not be considered.

Insurrectionist currently in custody Robyn Hill states that "We made a mistake in the war. We'll never be able to atone for that mistake, but we can at least try to make amends. We need to contact those below and offer them space in the Cities, rather than mindlessly wiping them out."

The Council have released a statement on the issue, stating that talks will continue.

Political theorists have hypothesized that due to the increased controversy, the matter will be put to public vote. Others disagree and claim that defense is the purview of the Council and the Council alone.

Robyn is smart, and driven, and she has a significant voter base of dissatisfied young people, enough to propel her to a lower-ranking seat on the Council. Robyn could have kept her head down and gotten a stable job, and a chance to fight against the laws she hates. But Robyn has never been one for working within the confines of a system. Robyn's only real solution to any problem was to tear down corruption, and look where that got her.

None of this affects her, Winter reminds herself. Their research vessel will be long gone from the surface if a bombing occurs. Winter's specimens will die, as they would have anyway. Robyn's committed another felony, so it must have been a week or so since she last got out of prison. Winter will survive. She's a scientist with ties in the Council; nothing can harm her at this point.

Winter has spent decades carefully dealing with her emotions in a way befitting of a scientist. They just have an unfortunate tendency to keep bubbling up. She hopes the specimens have found their families, or are at least safe far away from the Cities' influence. But of course there's nowhere they can go to escape what they'll call the final solution, to avoid having to say the real word. Genocide.

Winter has the money and the resources and the connections. She can bail Robyn out, and let her – let her what? Keep protesting and get herself killed? Raise a mob or two before the council makes its decision and everything they do is worthless?

Winter knows that fighting against the bureaucracy is useless, regardless of strategy, but it's the first time she's felt that impact. The government is still nominally a democracy, but no popular effort will ever make change to a law that the Council wants passed.

Winter twists the scalpel in her hand and stabs the corpse of the bearlike creature a bit harder than technically necessary. This one isn't being taxidermied and sent up, so her autopsy doesn't need to be pretty. There's nothing new to learn from this creature, just as there was nothing new to learn from the last half a dozen. Patchwork DNA, internal organs functionally and structurally indistinguishable from an ordinary animal, and bones exposed that evidently have no ill effects on the creatures. Winter still methodically cuts it open, taking the requisite tissue samples and images. The same endless routine that changes nothing.

The scalpel clatters across the floor. The autopsy can wait.

Robyn's in an incredibly advanced prison, heavily guarded by both people and robots, accessed through layers of retinal scans. Winter herself is no hacker, particularly not when she's miles away from the actual system. Winter needs to call in a favor.

She searches through her notes for the newest contact information; he switches devices and wipes the hard drives every two weeks to avoid detection. She sends one single message.

I need your help.

He calls himself Qrow. She doesn't know his real name. He's one of the best, and will do any work if there's enough money involved; she got in contact with him initially to scrub records of Watts' experiments, and got him an alibi when the information leaked. The prisons have never been hacked successfully, but if anyone can it will be Qrow.

This is her last chance to make things right.