AN: Here's the real chapter.

The walk back was awkward to say the least. After Blake was outed, Weiss took very cautionary steps around the catgirl, and tried to keep the sisters between her and the heiress. Back there, when Ruby let her knowledge slip, the first thought to cross her mind was the worst case. That Blake was part of the White Fang, the terrorist group that has set its sights on her and her father's company. That now that everyone knew, she could turn any minute. As the minutes passed and it became increasingly obvious that was not true, Weiss did relax. She was no bigot, no idiot like her father. Winter made sure she knew better than that, but it didn't change the fact she had no idea what to do in this situation.

Blake kept her head low in acceptance of her situation and dread for the inevitable conversations. In her mind, she was scared. When Blake was called up to that stage and stood beside the heiress of the one and only Schnee Dust Company, she knew she could never allow knowledge of her heritage to get out. When Ruby let it slip in the forest, it felt like everything she had tried to build was coming crashing down around her. Despite her quiet, "leave me alone," demeanor during the banquet last night, she enjoyed the company, and the merriment she felt from her team and team JNPR. Even the heiress, whose ignorance of who she was made Blake comfortable enough to read a little. She had sacrificed a lot to be here at Beacon, to finally live her dream. Ruby nearly ruined that for her, and depending on the next few days very well might have.

Yang's mind was just as plagued with horrible thoughts. It was now clear that the infamous Xiao Long anger that both her and her father had was also present in Ruby, though lessened. While her little sister didn't burst into violence right out the gate, the shouting was there. But, worse than that, it didn't explain the Reaper's lack of reaction to the blood. That was what worried the brawler. For now, all she could do was blame Qrow and wait to see what it could mean.

Team RWBY walked through the sloshing mud and rain, which just got muddier and fell harder when they exited the treeline. In their hurry to get out of the rain, Weiss nearly tripped several times; her heels made the path a mess to walk. On the fourth tumble Ruby rolled her eyes and lifted the heiress off her feet. The girl's lithe form was no heavier than Crescent Rose. As much as Ruby enjoyed the idea of holding this beauty in her arms, she didn't want to make things more awkward. With a bright blush on her face and small eep from Weiss, Ruby zapped them over in front of the dorm building, and gently let her down.

As soon as Blake and Yang caught up, they walked in, left their boots by the door on the tile, and took the two rights and a left that brought them to RWBY dorms. The room was just as they left it, the beds crammed together two-by-two, with each smashed up against a desk, the two in the middle pulled inward diagonally. Desk, bed, bed, desk, desk, bed, bed, desk. The walking space at the foot of the beds wasn't great either. It would barely fit a desk and occupied chair without any walk-room between, should they put the desks at the foot of each bed. To top it off, Yang has already managed to sneak a couch into the room—two seats with beige leather cushions and mechanical leg rests—and Weiss has a makeup stand and mirror, "on the way."

"So what was the problem exactly," Ruby asked, her voice oozing sarcasm. "What is it with you two and having so much stuff?"

"Hey, homebase is homebase. It has got to be luxurious," her sister said, drawing out the last word nearly sensually.

"Finally, something I can agree with the brute on." Yang mock gasped at the insult, and threw a surprised face at Weiss for just a moment before shrugging at her sister.

"Why can't you be like me and Blake," the young leader asked. "We both have the bare minimum, and it does us fine."

A deadpan voice returned, "don't bring me into this."

Yang reached put and swept the ninja up in a one-armed hug, "you're apart of the team. Get used to it, kittycat."

"Don't touch me, and don't call me that."

Neither command was respected, "sure thing kittycat." Another argument broke out between the three eldest members of the team. Something about Blake claiming the nickname was racist, while Yang defended it as jest, and Weiss watched on in an attempt to understand the problem, occasionally throwing statements into the mix that get torn apart. Ruby just rolled her eyes and turned towards the problem at hand. It almost worked as it was. If the two middle desks were but a scant few inches short, everything would fit. Minus the awkwardness of sleeping practically on the same bed as another, of course. Separating each bed by a desk wouldn't make any difference spacewise, which left the only plausible fix.

"We could just make bunkbeds."

Silence erupted into the room as fast as though Ruby just said the world's most poorly told joke. The sentence seemed to slowly register into the team's minds. Weiss's face contorted with fear at the thought. Blake was too far gone in brooding over the unwanted contact and figuring out how best to escape. Yang, however, tightened her grip ever so slightly on Blake and smiled excitedly at the thought.

"Oh not you, too." Weiss groaned, the realization that she was outnumbered now three-to-one instinctively brought her hand to make contact with her forehead.

"What? It would be efficient, it would let Yang keep her couch, you keep your mirror-desk-thingy…" Ruby let her sentence fall off, her mind already filled with ways this could best be done. "Look, each bed has wooden posts. Two hours tops in the workshop, and I could machine some stakes to keep the beds stable. All that's left would be to drill holes in the posts and then problem solved!"

"Works for me. What do you say, Blake?" The blonde—still dressed in her nightwear from this morning—laid her eyes on the girl's visage. Her ears were pulled back in annoyance, face fallen into deadpan. "Oh come on, don't look so up in arms about it!" Yang immediately found herself pushed onto her behind by the catgirl, the room filled with the sound of her crash and two facepalms that echoed out from the red-white duo. Her pun—which the blonde found quite masterful—was rejected by her team.

"Oh come on! That one was good!"

"Does she do this often," Weiss asked, directed at the red sister.

"Unfortunately," Ruby returned after a lengthy sigh. After a moment of silence, the reaper turned to Blake, "so, your thoughts?"

"Yeah yeah do whatever. I'm going to wash the pun off my body." True to her words, the cat-in-black hurriedly grabbed some clothes and a towel, before she hopped into the shower behind a locked bathroom door.

The blonde—still on the floor—harrumphed in mock-sadness, before she lifted her face towards her sister again, "alright, but these beds are kinda short. There won't be enough space between beds to sit." The two sisters spent the duration of Blake's shower discussing the plan. Though Yang doesn't outwardly seem smart, she had to engineer Ember Celica from scratch at Signal, just like Ruby did with Crescent Rose. The brawler knew her way around the design process, but her sister was the one between them who enjoyed it. When the two settled on an idea, Ruby left to build it, followed by the heiress shortly before Blake came out of the bathroom. The catgirl capitalized on this silence, book in hand and pages flipped before she sat on her bed.

The workshop Beacon had to offer nearly sent Ruby into nerdgasm. The school was known throughout the Hunter world as the best academy for their line of work, and this room contributed quite well to that title. From an anvil and furnace for weapon repair, to table-saws, drill-presses, a lathe—every single appliance that could be imagined was there, updated models and all. Ruby could only imagine the niche circumstances in which every one of these was used over the course of Beacon's history.

Naturally, she brought her kids with her. To keep them out of the way, she set them up outside the door so they could warn her when someone approaches. All that left her to do was put her headphones on—a red pair with her rose emblazoned on the left speaker, which she got as a birthday present from her uncle during her stay—and get to work.

Noon approached, some two hours after she had started, and she had one set of four done. Now that she had it down to—practically—an art form, the next four would be done in the next hour. Having skipped breakfast, however, the reaper started to feel hungry. She stopped her work momentarily to compare the four "leg extension stakes." They had to be roughly the same size, or the top bunks would rattle slightly while sleeping in them. Not by much, but noticeable enough when you're sleeping in them.

'Owie!' Sköll's cry stole Ruby's attention, yipped out loud, and spoken across their mental connection. The mental connection wasn't something to be heard, it was more of a thought, which allowed it to be acknowledged clearly over their mother's loud music. Despite that, she still turned her music down a little in a futile attempt to make communication slightly easier.

'Hah! Payback,' Fenrir yelled back. 'That's what you get for the bedwarmer comment.'

'What did you do?'

'He bit Sköll's tail,' Hati returned in a tattle-tail tone, reminiscent of human children on playgrounds.

'Fenrir, stop antagonizing your brother,' the reaper sighed, which only got a noise of pure smugness from the guilty wolf in question.

"Hey Ruby?"

"Holy F-" her flinch caused a few tools and a box of nails to fly off the table Ruby had sat down at. Crimson hair whipped in front of silver eyes, her neck whisked around, which caused her headphones to narrowly avoid falling off. Stood a few feet away with a slightly amused smile was the heiress, two foam trays of food in her hands. "Oh hey Weiss. What are you doing here?" At the same time, she chastised her wolves, 'stop rough-housing and pay attention next time!'

"Well, I went to Professor Glynda's office to have a little chat with her, and then I went to the cafeteria seeing as it's lunch time. I thought I'd see you there, seeing as I had a question. You weren't, so I grabbed some food for the both of us and tracked you down." Ruby cleared table space for the two trays and offered the seat next to her, which Weiss graciously accepted.

"Well, okay. That's fair enough," Ruby replied, her arm outstretched to grab the fork, a faint blush on her cheeks, stamped down before it could cover her face. "I was actually just about to go to lunch anyway, but thanks for bringing it to me. You said you had a question?"

"Before we start, I must preface this by saying, you weren't exactly my first choice for this. As I said earlier, I visited Professor Glynda, and only her because I thought Headmaster Ozpin was busy enough with his duties. Professor Glynda told me to ask someone on my team instead, since that's what you're here for." Weiss stopped her sentence there, opting to take a bite of the potato salad she grabbed.

"That makes me feel so much better, now that you've explained that you didn't want to talk to me." The reaper rolled her eyes, then moved on, speaking over her attempt to open her milk carton. "Why do you call our teachers by their full titles like that?"

"They're our superiors, are they not? It's only respectful," Weiss said, as if it should have been obvious, to which Ruby nodded in acceptance, "But back to my question. It's about Blake. What should I do?"

Ruby's face contorted in confusion behind the carton she was drinking from. She asked tentatively, "what should you do about what…?"

The heiress's eyes narrowed, but elaborate she did. "I'm not my father. I despise that man more than a lot of things on this world. Yet, his bigoted views have subconsciously drilled themselves into my mind. I want to this team to survive, so I don't have to go back to Atlas and the company. To do that, I need to not act like an idiot. So, what should I do?" Weiss made it really difficult to ascertain her mood, her back rigid, arms in her lap, and face void of emotion. A more perceptive person would have been able to see the cracks in her facade—the embarrassment breaking through the professionalism—but Ruby was not that person. The reaper's lack of social skills from being a shut-in at her uncle's house for a year and a half certainly wasn't helping, though her more recent friendship with Jaune had helped build up some of what was lost.

There was a total flip in her composure, for it was thanks to that lack of social skills, Ruby began to stutter. "...I-I, uh, why me…" she ended meekly, the question just barely squeaked out. Weiss's left eyebrow shot up in confusion, not expecting… whatever that was.

"I didn't want to ask Yang. I… realize it seems petty, but I wanted to ask someone who would take me seriously, not the brute." The heiress was getting really tired of having to elaborate so much, but given her options this was worth the time.

"Literally any other topic would have been easier…" Ruby whispered to herself, before she attempted to regain her composure. She was appointed team leader by the headmaster himself. She could do this. A cough into her elbow and a drink of the carton of milk from her lunch, and she turned back to her partner.

"I… don't know. Honestly, if I were in your situation, I'd just tell Blake, and ask her for guidance. I don't think there's a better person on the planet to tell you how not to be… well, racist." Ruby's face slowly started burning up as she talked, a blush spreading on her face in full force. The heiress didn't seem to notice, or if she did, didn't care. Weiss turned over the advice with a slight hum, before she nodded to herself.

"I hadn't thought of that. I'll do that after lunch. Thank you Ruby," was all she said, before she returned to her lunch. Ruby quickly flipped her hood up, and sat the rest of the time in silence. Her blush slowly died out, and before she knew it, Weiss had left.

The reaper got straight to work to take her mind off her surprise blush. It didn't make sense to her—she was doing so well, then the heiress mentioned another person and her focus crashed.

Weiss hurried back to the dorm room, the only place she knew Blake would either be at, or return to soon. She opened the door to an empty room, and opted to wait on her misplaced bed. After a few minutes, the artificial light grated on Weiss's eyes, which led her to open the curtains and turn off the overhead. In her boredom, she cursed her father's parenting, opened her scroll to the SDC stocks, and simply studied the system's update progress over the last week.

An hour passed, with Weiss carefully combing through the data. The room was dead quiet, only the sound of her own breathing and the occasional noise from the hallway were audible. Low, droning noises emitted from outside lead Weiss to the conclusion Ruby went back to work on her solution.

Jiggling came from the dorm room door—the sound of a person unfamiliar with the new doorknobs of Beacon. Blake slipped in, the only sounds she made emanating from the door itself. The team's resident ninja was covered in sporadically placed red spots, and her book was close, her bookmarks moved at least a hundred pages since they last talked at lunch.

Blake's eyes fell on Weiss' form, and she asked quietly, "do you have any sunscreen? The leaves here aren't as effective at blocking sunlight as I'm used to."

Weiss' eyes widened slightly, "no. I hadn't thought about sunscreen. Atlas doesn't have that problem. Maybe Ruby or Yang has some?" She nodded, and turned for the door again. Weiss called out, "wait! Listen Blake, I want to talk."

"I don't."

"It'll be just a moment." Blake stopped and turned fully around, signaling Weiss to proceed, "I wanted to ask for your help. See, my… father… instilled his ignorant behaviors in me from a young age. I know better now, or rather, I like to think I do. Just, whenever you catch me saying something stupid about," Weiss mentioned towards Blake, "faunus, pull me aside and explain what I did wrong. I don't want my father's bigoted views to fill my perception of the world." Her entire spiel was said staring directly into Blake's eyes. A few moments passed, the shock of the situation slowly eased out of the girl's visage. Then, she smiled.

"Okay, I can do that. Thank you, Weiss."

"Why are you thanking me?"

"I didn't expect that from a Schnee. Makes me hope for the future. This morning, when Ruby blurted… my identity out, I was actually kinda scared. I had worked so hard to have this opportunity, and I thought it was all about to fall apart," Blake explained, then turned for the door without a moment for response.

Before the catgirl could touch the door handle, it was thrown open by the boisterous blonde. Lilac eyes scanned the room, her arms up trying to undo a ponytail and a track-and-field outfit in place of her normal get-up.

"Did I interrupt something," Yang asked, muffled by a hair tie in her mouth. Ruby popped into existence beside her sister, five blocky creations and a drill in arm and a veritable storm of rose petals that followed in wake.

"No. We just finished talking." Weiss smiled at the reaper in an attempt to nonverbally thank her, but she simply blushed and looked down. Now that she thought about it, Ruby did that a lot when around her. The heiress wasn't sure what it was. Did she embarrass her? Or something more? She didn't know.

White, black and gray hounds followed in Ruby's footsteps as always, one contraption in each mouth. The reaper set all six items in her arms by the door and, one by one, thanked her children for helping her carry the pieces. She began with the rightmost pair of beds, drilled into the posts and stacked the beds with the help of Yang. Then, after Weiss had gotten up, the same happened to the second pair. While still not perfect, the space saved from her idea was easily noticeable and a good start to be sure.

After Ruby made a quick trip to drop off the borrowed drill, team RWBY settled down into random bunks, no deal spoken about who got what bed. The gently wafted smell of pine slowly became less prevalent, and with a few hours left before the dinner call, Yang decided to act on an idea she had earlier.

"Hey Ruby, since we're all gathered around, why don't you explain your pets to everyone? I would like to know who stole my sister from me for a year and then some." The blonde sister's tone betrayed a sense of both sarcasm and near anger. Ruby got the point, however, instilled with a refreshed sense of guilt.

"Well, you know the beginning of it. I found them alone in the forest. There were no tracks leading to their den, and the last snow storm was at least a week before. Thinking back on it, I think that was probably when I unlocked their auras, though I didn't know that animals had auras back then."

"Does that mean they have semblances," asked Weiss, perplexed.

"Yeah," Ruby replied, jumping down from her bunk above the heiress to pet and find solace in her children, "I didn't think it would've been possible, either. Heh, imagine my surprise when Sköll first used his semblance. Big flaming rock formed in the sky and smashed an Ursa that was threatening Hati. Even though I've practiced with him to try and get that to happen again, Sköll hasn't been able to keep the rocks solid since."

"What about the other two, do you know theirs," Blake asked, her head sticking out above her book.

"Nope. My uncle said he had some theories, but never told me."

"How do you communicate, then," Yang asked this time.

"I don't understand it, but I can talk to them telepathically, like those superheroes I used to watch on TV back at Patch when I was younger." To prove it, Ruby mentally commanded Fenrir to grab her scythe and bring it to her. Blake seemed most surprised, whereas Weiss has seen this happen during the initiation already. Yang simply nodded her head.

Ruby continued, "they treat me like their alpha. I always take the first "bite" after a hunt—though I bring a granola bar for that instead—and they generally listen to and obey me."

Yang hummed, then spoke, "I think I have an idea. For the black one's semblance, I mean. Yesterday, when he found us in the forest, he jumped at me, but he looked ready to fight. His teeth were bared and claws out. Next thing I know, I was on the ground being loved up by and oversized Zwei. Maybe that was his semblance, and it is Fear-based?"

Ruby looked at Fenrir and considered this, humming and hawing. Without a word, she stood and commanded Fenrir to stand and try to scare her. The ebony wolf did as told, on all fours and nervously growling at his Alpha, clearly uncomfortable with the idea of challenging command. Nearly a minute later, the reaction she was looking for happened, though a bit... more.

To Weiss, Blake, and Yang, nothing happened.

To Ruby, however, the shadows in the corners twisted and crawled towards Fenrir. Both upper fangs grew to sabretooth-size, and the claws became more pronounced, glistening in shadow beneath the fur. Fenrir's concentration lasted but a second, and both Ruby and her son jumped, completely frightened by what they witnessed.

"Yeah I think you're right. That's enough for today, I'mma go have a lie down," Ruby said, then nodded to herself. She looked down at her kids, then at the bunkbeds again. An idea sprung into her mind.

"Hey Blake, can we trade bunks? I want to be able to let my kids in at night, but I know you don't like being around canines. You can take the top bunk and be completely out of their reach!"

Wordlessly, Blake hopped from bed to bed, not even touching the ground where the wolves were currently laying down. Yang smiled. Perhaps this team wasn't doomed to fail after all. Perhaps she could still salvage the Ruby she used to know.