Emerald removed her medical mask from her face as she backed away from the examining table on which Reaper's arm lay. It was a mostly symbolic gesture, given the circumstances. No fabric filter was going to stop a Grimm from doing what it wanted, and no disease Emerald could be carrying was about to make Reaper's situation worse. But there was procedure to honor—practically ritual after medical school—and the mask made her feel more doctor-y than any signed piece of parchment.

Reaper shifted uneasily after a moment beneath Emerald's empty stare. "So—" their voice cracked with disuse and fear. "So, Doc, what's the diagnosis?"

The clawed appendage had been oddly subdued for a Grimm. Cinder's had wreaked havoc for weeks before she'd acclimated to it, yet Reaper's hadn't so much as torn a pillowcase. It even balled into a fist alongside their other hand as though it had always been there.

"I don't know if anyone's told you yet," Emerald leaned in close, her eyes darting back and forth with conspiratorial caution, "but there's a Grimm on your arm," she stage-whispered.

It was a stupid joke. A stupid joke that got a tired laugh from Reaper, but a stupid joke all the same. If Reaper could stay positive the Grimm's spread would be stunted, and Emerald wanted to be able to say she did something to help the situation today.

"Succubeetles are more 'in' than 'on'," Jei piped in almost automatically from across the bed.

"Correct. These Grimm don't play nice and act like gloves—outside of extraneous circumstances anyway." Emerald began wrapping a single layer of the gauze around where Reaper's bicep would be, just below the line where the Grimm began. She could feel the slick flesh through her gloves, and it sent a shiver up her spine. "This gauze is a rough estimate of where your arm now stops. Past that it's all Grimm."

Reaper looked at the band, then to Emerald, then back to the band. "I can still feel it, though." They brought their Grimmified hand up and unclenched it from its fist before tapping the fingertips together. "It's a little bit numb, feels like a weird rubber glove or some shit. But I can still feel it."

"Jei or one of the experts down the hall can probably give you the specifics on how or why later, but that's just the Grimm doing its thing. That arm doesn't even have your bones in it anymore. Or any bones for that matter. It's basically a really angry gummy worm."

Reaper's eyes lit up in equal parts wonder and disgust at the news. "So weird."

Jade didn't show the same blasé attitude, sitting at Reaper's less-Grimm side, apparently disappointmented that Emerald wasn't here with some magical cure-all. "Is that all you can tell us? Why did they even ask you to come if that's all you know?"

The words stung like few others in Emerald's life ever could. She wished she was the woman who knew what to do here. No one in Reaper's shoes wanted a doctor to say they didn't have an answer. And no one in Emerald's wanted to crush their hopes. But…

She took a deep breath, counted to five, and tried to let the emotional barb go with the air from her lungs.

Here, in one of the most well-funded medical centers in the world, where experts on trauma and Grimm and nutrition and not-reproductive-endocrinology came to move their fields forwards by leaps and bounds, Emerald had been asked to look at Reaper Abyss's new Grimm arm. An affliction that, after Cinder's well-documented case, had a very well-documented treatment..

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

Emerald wasn't this kind of doctor. No amount of hopes or crushed hero worship could change that. Not in the course of an examination, at least. "In all seriousness—Cinder recommended me as an outside expert for your situation. Unfortunately, she's exactly the person I would call in as an expert for your situation." Emerald resisted throwing her hands down in frustration, but she couldn't quite keep it out of her voice. "I'm a Doctor in basically Dust archeology. As far as my medical skills go, I work with Dust as it applies in pregnancies. You're not looking to get pregnant just yet, I assume? Doesn't mean I can only work in that field, but it does mean that most of my education isn't going to help much here ." Emerald punctuated her meaning with a wave at Reaper's afflicted arm.

"Miss Fall said you might be able to do something with old Dust, though." Jei wasn't about to let her off the hook, it seemed.

Emerald shook her head, deliberate and slow. "Your mom is more likely to know what to do than me. She's actually gotten rid of one of these before. I do historical Dust research. Old pots and tapestries—ancient rituals. Not modern medicine."

"But my dad told me…" Reaper failed to hold back tears at the realization they were going to lose their arm. There was no way around it. No ifs, ands, or buts.

Jei tried to be comforting. Really, she did. But she kept—very noticeably—avoiding contact with Reaper's monstrous appendage every time she went in for a hug or stood on that side of them. It wasn't an incorrect response—Grimm burns could form quickly, and the oily texture of the 'flesh' didn't do it any favors—but given the circumstances, she was only making Reaper feel worse.

Despite not loving the feeling of Grimm flesh herself, Emerald had no such reservations of putting that aside; not after Cinder. "Your dad told you to have hope." She laid her hand atop the affected arm in as soothing a manner as she could. "That the adults would have an answer. That he would know someone who could make your problem disappear. Don't blame him for being a dad, or for being himself."

Jei wasn't having any of Emerald's attempt to keep Reaper calm. She shoved herself out of her seat and pointed an accusatory finger directly at Emerald. "He didn't tell us to have hope! He lied! He should have had another backup! You should have kn—"

"Jade." Emerald leveled a hard glare at one of her oldest friends. She understood that Jei was just frustrated and looking for a target, but also knew better than to point that out. Heightened emotions were exactly the problem right now. "You can be furious at me, or your moms, or the gods, or whatever. But you can't do it here. Now I would personally recommend doing your best to support your friend through what I can tell you both right now is going to be one of the worst days of their life. If you can't do that"—Emerald pointed towards the door with a harsh authority channeled straight from Salem herself—"then leave."

Jei snapped her mouth shut with a clack. Emerald could see her jaw muscles—and her fists—clench and loosen in thought. She'd grown up in a house of Huntresses, and Emerald knew for a fact she'd been taught two things by that experience: how to fight; and how to keep from unintentionally riling up every Grimm in a mile radius.

She made her choice,sitting next to Reaper and sighing. Emerald watched Jei's shoulders slump, but also saw her reach for Reaper's hand. They entwined their fingers and Emerald saw a squeeze pass between them.

Reaper appeared to draw strength from the contact. Their red eyes hardened with determination as they turned back to Emerald. "Alright, Doc, spill. You said today is gonna be 'one of the worst days of my life' just now. Does it get worse than learning my chances of being in the big tournament got nixed 'cause I got a Grimm instead of my hand now?."

Emerald nearly fell out of her chair at just how accurate and completely off the mark Reaper's reaction was. "Well that's the most meat-head interpretation of 'my arm has been eaten' I've ever heard, but it's not wrong."

They shrugged. "Dad always said I had a knack for 'getting to just left of the heart of things.' Losing my arm might suck big ole' Ursa titties, but you said the Grimm already did that part. Lop the little fucker off and let's get me a shiny robot one."

"The part that sucks is more the 'how' than the 'what'. Only way to get rid of that arm completely is by sustained exposure to Silver Eye magic, like the kind Jei and her mom can produce." Emerald motioned towards the observation window, both to point out Cinder watching from the other side, and to signal Ruby and the medical staff who'd been waiting for her to wrap up that she was nearly done. "It's not easy on the body; just ask Cinder's left side."

Reaper looked towards the scarred woman intently. "You mean that wasn't from some fight or evil torture thing?"

"Not far off, but it's mostly from getting a particularly comfortable succubeetle burned out of her. I'll get her to tell you the story later, but right now I'm trying to keep you from ending up in the same situation." Emerald scooted to a nearby trash can and disposed of her exam gloves. "These Grimm work pretty slow compared to most, but your chart is telling me they want it out before a day passes."

"What happens after a day?" Jei asked as Emerald stood from her stool.

She shrugged and held up the chart in question, displaying the large '20, 21, 24h!' written in red ink across the second page. "I honestly don't know what difference it makes. Cinder's was in for years by the time she got rid of it, and that's the only real reference point I have, but I trust Doctor Lavender when it comes to Grimm." It was odd that she would give a set of times though, that was mor—

—Interrupting her thought and confirming her half-formed suspicion, the door to the hallway banged opened to admit a Hazel-sized man in a medical apron and his coterie of nurses, along with Ruby, several monitoring machines, and supply carts brimming with all kinds of apparatus she didn't pay too much attention to. Doctor Bloodbutton's bespeckled eyes lit up as he approached the trio of room occupants. "Aha! Emerald, it's been too long! A day before the Hallows, too." His deep voice carried across the room like rolling thunder dipped in honey.

"It really has, Pythagoras, but we'll have to catch up later. Cystine, too."

"Of course, of course." He nodded and looked over Emerald's head towards Reaper and Jei. "Hm. One too many. Or one too few. Nine is a bad number for this, unless I…" he trailed off in thought as the nurses maneuvered around the room preparing everything for Reaper's procedure.

"What are you counting?" Ruby asked almost immediately. Emerald didn't blame her— Pythagoras was a hard man to read on a good day. His propensity for 'good' and 'bad' numbers of seemingly unrelated things made it all the harder to understand his reasonings most of the time too.

"People. There are already six rings of Bonding Dust needed for the new cybernetic cap to work properly," He explained as if it clarified any of his reasoning.

"Well 'people' is a problem I can solve for you." Emerald turned back to Jei, Reaper, and the recently-arrived Ruby. "Doctor Bloodbutton will handle everything from here. I'll be upstairs if you need me."

Trusting the situation was well in hand, both medically and emotionally, Emerald made her exit from the hectic exam-turned-magical-operation room and moved to the observation space above.

She kept mulling over Jei's accusations that all the research she'd ever done was practically worthless. She was right, sort of. Outside of understanding long-dead cultures who practiced them, nothing about old instructions on how to mine specific types of Dust, or use it in warding off the Grimm, or worshipping a god by painting their limbs had a lot of real world applications. It wasn't often she considered any of her work a waste of time, and she still didn't think she did. Do I?

At this point, Emerald wasn't sure what she was trying to ask herself. Was she even trying to ask one? Seasons and Cycles, she was tired and thinking in circles.

She needed coffee before she could try to unravel whatever midlife crisis this was supposed to be. Opening the door to the observation room, she spied an answer to her prayers in the form of a—probably old and stale—pot of whatever brew Beacon stocked.

She started for the coffee machine when Cinder's metal arm interrupted her path with a cup of the bitter nectar. "Three sugars, two cream, right?"

"Nope," Emerald said as she grabbed the foam cup and took a swig anyway. The coffee itself was nothing to write home about, but it was the perfect temperature; not burning her tongue on the way down and still spreading that lovely warm feeling through to her bones. "Thanks."

Cinder's shoulders sagged as she looked back towards the observation window. "Thank you for trying down there. I'm not sure what I was hoping for."

Emerald barked out a laugh. "Since when do you hope for anything? You either get what you want or throw yourself against the wall is blocking you and it until one of you breaks." I've always loved that about you.

"I don't… Yeah, that's me. Self destructive and convinced I'm right." Her already sour expression turned into a full sulk, slowly fiddling with her own coffee cup as Emerald watched. "Even when I don't even know what I want."

Emerald could relate with the sentiment, and knew just how much of a downward spiral it could lead to if left unchecked. So she took a deep, sighing breath, put down her coffee on a nearby chair, and drew on her recent night out with Mercury for courage and inspiration. "You are undoubtedly a self-destructive bitch. Angry. Egotistical. Abusive. Homicidal and downright psychopathic too.

Cinder shrank with each word. To the point that Emerald was worried she might be taking it too far, and Cinder might lash out or worse in response. But she needed to get this out. They were words—no, truths —that festered and corrupted any chance of healing between the two of them.

After her encounter with the Fake, Emerald was done shoving those words down and letting them rot.

"The fact you're trying to curl up into a ball right now means you don't want to be all those things anymore." Please don't want to be that person anymore. Emerald placed her hands on Cinder's shoulders, making sure to keep a tight hold as she made a weak attempt to flinch away. "Do you?"

She didn't respond for what felt like an eternity but eventually Cinder crossed her arm over her chest and placed her hand over top of Emerald's own. She didn't try to push Emerald away but she also didn't move any closer.

Emerald could feel every muscle in her body tense as the seconds ticked by without confirmation either way. She hoped she hadn't just let all of her suppressed feelings out wrong. Or let them out right to an unmoved Cinder. Or.

Ororor—

"Not anymore." Cinder gave a small smile and squeezed Emerald's hand "I'd rather be dead than live like that."

Relief flooded through Emerald from head to toe—just like coffee. All the tension and stress of the last hour, day, week, month, year, decade seemed to melt off of her shoulders, leaving her exhausted and weightless. She hadn't known just how much she'd wanted to hear those words out loud. They were such stupid, simple words too. She'd had so many hopes pinned on two stupid, common words from this stupid, extraordinary woman; she didn't even know what else she could ever ask for.

A rational part of her mind knew this was just the beginning of Cinder's… Whatever this was. That this didn't fix everything she'd ever done. But that rational part was currently drowning in a sea of desire to hold onto this new Cinder like one of them was about to fall off the face of Remnant.

So she did exactly that. Emerald wrapped her arms around Cinder's neck and pulled her in close until their faces met in what had to be the best kiss of Emerald's life.

It was quick and emotional, and she didn't know which of them had initiated it, but she wasn't exactly in a state of mind to ask questions when the world was going Silver around them.

Emerald only noticed by the glow through her eyelids.

A/N:

Hey! I didn't get the 'ronies. Just had lots of life changes and no work ethic for my hobbies.

This is not the end of the fic. I might not get the next chapter out for a little while, so don't think it just ends here. I mean, how else am I going to freak you all out with the crazy levels of foreshadowing I have for some of this stuff?

I see you out there. surviving another day. you're alive and sometimes that's enough. you got this.

Big thanks to the crew of Betas that make this fic so much better than I could alone. WhatOtherPlanet, ShockFactor, and Mellow Leave them comments. I love them. and I love you.