"Yang, can we talk?" Ruby asked.
"Sure. What's it about?" Yang leaned forward and set one of her arms on the table. She was dressed in her usual combat gear, fully armed, having just finished training. However, Ruby decided to rest, wearing a white t-shirt and her favorite pair of shorts.
Painfully aware of the fact that they were in public, Ruby looked around before answering. "It's about Torchwick."
Yang immediately slouched and looked back at Ruby with a deflated look. "Look, I already told you."
"I know, I know. I tell you everything or I tell you nothing."
"Does that mean you're going to come clean?" Yang opened her water bottle. "Because if you aren't, I don't want to hear it."
"No, I think I can get it out this time." Ruby inhaled as deeply as her lungs would allow. Breathing didn't do anything to settle her nerves. "Oh, God, where do I start?"
"How about the robbery?" Yang seemed annoyed. Ruby tried to have this conversation with Yang so many times before Yang decided it wouldn't help anyone if she didn't know anything—it just left the both of them more frustrated than they were when they started the conversation.
"Okay, just one condition."
Yang sighed. "I don't tell Weiss or Blake?"
"Yeah."
"You got it."
Ruby's back straightened. "Wait seriously?"
"Whatever you haven't told me has been eating at you for days, and at this point, I'm really worried that this might be more than I thought."
Ruby slightly nodded, deep in thought.
"So why were you at the bank at four in the morning? You didn't just decide to go on a walk."
"Right," said Ruby. That question cut right to the point. "Uh, you can't freak out."
"I'll try to contain myself."
Deep breath. "I got a text. Telling me to go to the East Ordinance bank ASAP."
"From who?"
"Don't freak out."
"I won't."
"…Neo."
For a moment, Yang sat quietly, just trying to process the information, but then it sank in. Neo texted Ruby directly, and that's pretty damning. Yang looked like she was going to scream.
Instead, thankfully, she defused herself, gritting her teeth. "Why?"
"She needed help, and I was one of the few people she could reach out to."
"Wait a second, this is making no sense. What do you mean? Why would she reach out to you?"
"When we were in Junior's club and everything caught fire, she showed me the scar on his face and asked me to help carry him out."
"But you came out alone. There's only one exit."
"There's two, actually. Not that it matters anymore."
"Why does the scar matter so much?"
"It was the exact same."
"What if that was just a really good coincidence? Both times, you were hocked up on adrenaline thinking you were gonna die."
"Because she was the one who pointed it out, not me."
"Wait, how does she know?"
"Maybe they talk about it behind closed doors."
Yang pressed her palms into her eye sockets. "Even if that was the case, why would that change anything?"
Ruby shrugged. "I don't know."
"How would you not know?"
"I don't know," Ruby resigned, "She just didn't try to kill me when she saw me."
"But Torchwick did?"
"Yeah, but neither of us knew what was going on."
"What is going on?" Yang asked. "Neo didn't shoot you on the spot because of some incident six years ago? I don't buy it. There's something else going on."
"That's what I'm thinking," Ruby pointed. "Each time we've spoken, I've had this nagging feeling that they're hiding something from me. At first, I thought it was just because they were criminals or something, but then I realized that it goes deeper."
"Have you asked Neo directly, 'What aren't you telling me?'?"
Ruby shook her head.
"Why not?" asked Yang.
"I'm strangely paranoid that something bad is going to happen to me if I do. But I have really good reason to believe that."
"And what's that?"
"When I told Neo that I was going to tell Torchwick who I was, she freaked out. She said it'd be the last thing I do."
Yang's eyebrow quirked. "What the heck is that supposed to mean?"
"My theory is that she'd only tell me that if Torchwick would kill me himself. So I think if he's willing to do that, the information could jeopardize his life."
"How exactly would the knowledge that Roman Torchwick saved your life be dangerous to him?"
"I have no clue." Ruby leaned back into her seat. "I think if I want to fill in the gaps, I have to ask some really dangerous people some really dangerous questions."
Yang looked away for a moment. "I'm not going to tell you not to because I think it's your choice to make, but do you really want to take that risk?"
"I don't know. How am I supposed to know if it's worth it?"
Yang shrugged. "I'm seventeen. I don't have any good answers to a question that deep. I'd recommend seeking the help of someone older, but I think just about everyone who fits that description would immediately go to the police. Weiss and Blake are probably going to feel the same way."
"Why don't you then?" Ruby pondered. Yang seemed to be really cooperative with the whole skeletons-in-the-closet deal, so what gives?
"I'm always going to be on your side. You're my sister," Yang stated, her tone reflecting the sincerity in her words. "You have never given me reason not to trust you. You have always had my back, and now I'm going to cover yours." Yang smiled.
Ruby felt herself blush, but she paid it no mind and smiled back. When Ruby remembered, her face flushed, eyes wide. "Oh crap."
Yang's face fell. "What is it?"
"That restaurant was foreclosed," Ruby whined. "I'm so screwed."
"I don't follow."
"So what was a Beacon student doing in there?" Ruby predicted. Yang was right—somebody is going to ask a lot of questions Ruby doesn't want asked. She had the strangest feeling of being a criminal, praying that the cops would overlook one particular piece of evidence and getting sick to her stomach over it. She hated it.
"Relax, we can come up with a story for this," Yang consoled, pressing her outstretched hands in Ruby's direction as if she was trying to contain Ruby's paranoid mentality.
"Yeah, like what? I was robbing them? I wanted to play the hero?"
Yang pointed at her. "You've done that before."
"Well, it's going to sound like crap the second time around, especially because I suck at lying."
"How about you tell the truth?" Yang suggested.
Ruby scoffed in dismissal, but Yang pressed on.
"I'm serious. Just tell them that you heard gunshots, and you ran inside to help. When you saw Torchwick injured, you helped him out."
"What about the fact that it happened at four in the morning?"
"Say you snuck out. Couldn't sleep. I'm sure you're not the first person to sneak of campus in the middle of the night."
"And then someone called to me, and they said they'd help him, so I put him in the van and they took off."
"See? It's not that bad. Besides, that evidence is circumstantial at best. They'll have a hard time pinning anything on you."
"Except there's the fact that I got in the van with him. I drove it so Neo could remove the bullet in his chest."
"So?"
"I was at his place all day until, what, three o'clock? No one saw me all day."
"No, I did. I thought you felt restless and decided to take a walk. You came back after first period. I decided to wait up for you, and I did, and you said you thought you could use the time to rest. So you did."
"That's a lie," Ruby stated in a matter-of-fact tone.
"Which you won't have to tell." Yang leaned closer. "Just stick to the stuff that's true. If they ask you about after, refer to what I just said."
"I know where he lives, Yang," Ruby complained. "I have sensitive information."
Yang leaned back. "No, actually, you don't. You are not in any way affiliated with Roman Torchwick, and unless you want the police to get suspicious, you shouldn't offer that up."
Ruby pursed her lips. Lying to the police, acting as if she wasn't prompted to action by a criminal—wasn't that criminal behavior? Would the real story make her an accessory to the crime? Because Neo had her number? And worse, can they see that activity on her scroll?
Either way, Ruby was banking on the hopes that she wouldn't be called in for questioning.
I think it's unhealthy to be looking at a computer screen for this long. Oh well.
