A/N: Actual updates! Crazy, I know. Progress might be slow for a while, but I'm going to at least try to finish this. Enjoy.
The figure – Blake, as Yang learns – is better at blending into the nightlife of Vale than she'd expected. Blake can slip through a crowd like a shadow, leaving Yang in the dust more than once. They make their way to Yang's apartment in fits and starts, doubling back or ducking down an alleyway when a police patrol appears.
Blake doesn't talk, after she answers Yang's question about her name. Yang's attempts at small talk go ignored. Blake doesn't seem happy, but it doesn't seem like a grudge either. She's just waiting.
They're in the elevator, the walls of the building flashing past through the gaps in the door that are going to get fixed any day now, when Blake does speak.
"Thank you."
She's looking straight at Yang and there's an intensity in her eyes, a fire behind them, that makes Yang uncomfortable. She feels her usual confidence drain away.
"It's no problem," she says, breaking eye contact and pushing the toe of her right shoe farther into the scuffed carpet. "You needed help and I did what any decent person would have done."
"You saved my life." Blake crosses the elevator in one long stride and takes Yang's hand in both of her own, holding it tightly enough that her fingernails leave marks.
Yang winces, but she doesn't really try to pull away.
"It's not a big deal," she mutters. "Just shelter for the night and some food for someone who needs it."
"It's more than that." Blake is still staring at Yang with eyes that don't seem to blink as often as they should. "You care about the Faunus. You want to be out there fighting for us. I can tell."
Yang pulls her hand away. Blake met her an hour ago, and they've barely spoken. She doesn't know anything about Yang.
She's right, of course, and that makes things worse. Yang's always had a temper that flares up too quickly, and she's always cared too much and been unable to see the bigger picture, and there's nothing she'd like more than to march into Mistral and break the shackles with her bare hands.
But sometimes there are more important things to consider. Yang is okay in Vale. She makes money, she gets what she needs, and she has people she cares about. Tai and Ruby – they can't lose someone else.
"If it were safe, I'd do more," she admits, a little reluctantly, and Blake nods. She doesn't let go of Yang's hand.
The elevator halts at their floor and Yang tugs her hand out of Blake's grasp. In the flat light from the cheap fluorescents of the hallway, Blake looks worse, her bruises turning green. Yang can't help that much with the meager first aid supplies they have, but doing nothing is no longer an option.
By the time Yang remembers her roommates, she's already unlocked the door.
Oh, this is not good. Any of them could call the police for safety's sake. Ren barely talks, I have no idea what he thinks, Pyrrha's nice but she's still Mistrali and she gets worried too easily which is just a bad combination –
Yang opens the door and walks in, Blake following after her. She can't exactly walk away now, and if worst comes to worst, she can almost certainly beat any of them in a fistfight.
Ren and Nora turn to face them slowly. Nora blinks once or twice, then shakes her head like she's trying to get water out of her ears. Ren's eyes move quickly, taking everything in. Yang can't tell what either of them are thinking.
Ren stands up wordlessly and takes half a dozen steps into the kitchen, then turns to face them again.
"I'll make you both eggs," he says.
…
Normally Yang would dive straight into her food after a shift, but the adrenaline is starting to wear off and be replaced by fear. A quiet, unobtrusive sort of fear that stays in the background, but it's still fear, and Yang hates feeling afraid.
There's an escaped Faunus at her kitchen table, wolfing down eggs like she hasn't eaten in days (which is probably the case). They weren't cautious enough on their way back; they avoided the most crowded areas but all it takes is one concerned citizen with a camera pointed in the right direction to find them. Getting found would mean prison time in the best case, and in the worst case getting shot by some vigilante.
Pyrrha would know what to do because she always does, but Pyrrha isn't back yet. Ren and Nora combined make one functional person, but half of that functional person is busy peppering Blake with questions about space and the other half gets far too satisfied about people liking his cooking. And Yang has no idea what to do. She doesn't really do moral dilemmas, if this even is one.
"I have to leave," Blake says abruptly, shoving her empty plate away and standing up. It's three or four in the morning by now, dark, the time when all the sober people have gone home and no one will even notice someone in the shadows. The ideal time. And Blake is leaving of her own accord, so Yang doesn't have to weigh all kinds of complicated moral questions any more. Yang still doesn't want her to leave.
It took Yang months to fit in to the larger-than-life world of Vale. She was content to go to work and come home and go out once in a while on her days off and barely even think about politics. She was content with putting bigger problems out of her mind. And maybe it's fucked up that it took an escaped slave to make her really care about Mistral, but that's how it happened. It's much easier to ignore what's happening if it's far away and the victims are faceless.
Yang protects people, because they need to be protected, and she can't protect someone who leaves. Letting Blake leave is safer for both of them in the long run, but Yang can't shake the feeling that she's failing somehow.
"If I can help, you know where to find me," she says, and it feels like far too much and still entirely inadequate.
"It would be best for all of us if you forgot I was ever here," Blake responds. "A lot of people want me dead, and they don't care about civilian casualties."
Blake is gone before Yang can process that sentence or formulate a response.
"Civilians?" Nora says out loud, breaking the silence. "Why'd she call us that if she's not in the military?"
"Best not to dwell on it," Yang says, shushing Nora when she tries to speak again and carrying their plates to the sink. "She told us to forget about her."
They don't care about civilian casualties.
No bounty hunter or Mistrali police force would be so cavalier about murder in the pursuit of an ordinary runaway slave. Something big is happening.
Yang tries to force it out of her mind, scrubbing the plates with steel wool as if she can scrub her memories away. It's much too dangerous for her to get involved in. Helping a runaway who just needed food and a place to hide is wildly different from getting mixed up in smuggling or terrorism or whatever this is. Blake is on her own, for better or for worse, and there is nothing more Yang can do to help her.
Pyrrha comes home later than usual, and she's too exhausted to notice how nervous Yang seems, which is lucky. Yang gets her a mug of tea and stays silent through the half-hearted conversation that happens whenever they're all home and should probably get some sleep.
Yang's never been any good at forgetting.