Chapter 1: The Shadows
Adam was gone.
This should have made Yang feel happy. At the very least, it should have brought her the wave of relief she had been expecting.
But Yang didn't even get that. She just felt the familiar weight she had grown accustomed to, ever since she'd been to Taiyang's. She didn't have a name for the feeling, but she knew it well. Mostly, she was numb. Like she was still at Brunswick Farms and the Apathy was still right there. But there was always a hint of something she could only describe as pain. Sadness didn't quite suit it, and neither did anger. Despair, perhaps.
It seemed like Yang's brain never cooperated with her anymore. It was always replaying the most painful moments, the ones she desperately wanted to forget. Her mother's disappearance, the moment with Adam, and now, Blake sobbing on the cliff.
Yang didn't know how to feel about Blake anymore. Just looking at the other Huntress beside her on the ship caused her heart to sink. Blake's departure was a reopening of the old wound her mother had caused. Blake had hurt her, maybe even more than Adam had.
But another, deeper part of Yang yearned for Blake. Craved her like water to a drowning woman. God, Yang missed what they had before the fall of Beacon. She missed sleeping together in the bottom bunk. She missed the secretive kisses they would share whenever they could get a moment together. Ruby had known, of course, and Weiss had taken the news well, but Blake was never comfortable going public with their relationship. She had told Yang that she wasn't ready to come out as a Faunus, much less bisexual. Yang had always respected that boundary, even though she hadn't really understood why Blake felt that way.
That was before Adam.
The thoughts were getting too much again. She was getting close to a flashback. Yang gasped for air as the panic constricted her chest.
Weiss, thank God for Weiss, noticed immediately. "Yang, breathe with me, okay?" Weiss's voice was the pinprick of light that punctuated the suffocation of darkness. Yang held onto it with everything she had.
She was calming down now. Yang unclenched the fist she didn't know she had made. Deep breaths. Her brain needed oxygen. Just relax, she told herself. Relax.
"Hey," Blake's voice came into focus.
"We're in Atlas."