AN: Just in case you guys didn't see the update to the last chapter's end Author's Note, I will repeat the big announcement here. I decided to put my Bleach/RWBY Fanfiction up for adoption. This story is now my only focus. That being said, this chapter is shorter than others, mainly because it is the finally chapter of the "Childhood Arc". Next chapter, we're moving on to Volume 1. This is more of a transition chapter to finish establishing all of the relationships going into the events of canon, which will have things changed around because of what happened in this first arc.

At the end of the chapter, I will go into my overall thoughts about Volume 7.

Enjoy the chapter!

Chapter 10

The warm glow of the morning light gently woke Aqua from her slumber. She felt the soft sheets against her bare skin, and felt a distinct warmth against her back. She quickly took note of the arm draped over her stomach. Heat instantly filled up her cheeks, and she slowly turned around to look at her partner. She saw a bare chest, covered in chiseled muscle that couldn't ordinarily be seen under his shirt, and she could only assume that he was just as nude as she was under the sheet. She looked higher on the man's body to look at his face. She saw the black hair, but couldn't see his red eyes since he was still sleeping.

She had never seen Qrow look so peaceful.

She could definitely say it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

She gently leaned forward to place her lips against his, giving him a quick chaste kiss, being careful not to wake him. She snuggled up closer to him, burying her face in the base of his neck. To her delight, the arm wrapped around her instinctively pulled her tighter against his body.

She couldn't help but think back on what led her to this blissful moment as she let sleep take her again.

Yesterday…

Okay, something was definitely up. Everybody had been acting weird all day. Ever since she went downstairs that day, Ruby and Yang kept giving her weird looks and looking at each other excitedly. If she was being honest, it was making her a little anxious. Tai was no better.

Their father had come back from what was at least considered a successful stint in rehab, whatever constituted that. He was doing well so far at staying clean, but he hadn't even begun to get any of his confidence back. As long as he couldn't do his job as a father, Aqua was going to be there to pick up the slack. At least he wasn't drinking anymore.

Baby steps, she supposed.

Tai seemed oddly happy, which she figured was nice, but that combined with how constantly excited Ruby and Yang were, and she couldn't help but be suspicious. Just what were they so excited about? And why did they keep looking at her? And why did Tai keep smirking like that? It was enough to drive her insane.

All the odd attention was making it a little hard to watch T.V. with the girls, but she was granted a welcome reprieve when there was a knock on the door.

"I'll get it!" she called out, practically flying out of her seat and running towards the door. She let out a sigh of relief before opening the door.

And then she felt her heart skip a beat.

She wasn't sure why she wasn't expecting it, since he was the only one that ever seemed to visit, but standing on the front porch with a smile that practically made Aqua melt was Qrow.

"Hey, there," he said, and Aqua felt a flood of emotions that were starting to become all-too-familiar to her as she returned his greeting and let him in. She felt excitement, happiness, and nervousness all at once. The feelings served as a wonderful and yet frightening reminder of reality.

She wasn't sure when it happened, and she wasn't entirely sure how it happened, but it had now been made abundantly clear.

She was in love with Qrow Branwen.

What started as respect and appreciation for everything he did for his family and her personally had had evolved into admiration, a need to spend time with him, and now, there was no denying she was in love. Could anybody really blame her? He was surprisingly sweet, had nothing but respect for her, and was great with kids. Him overcoming his fear of his Semblance to help her raise the girls was really just the first indicator of how amazing he really was.

And damn was he sexy.

A year ago, even a few months ago, she would likely bury her head in the ground in shame for ever admitting to even herself that she thought about him that way. But the heart wants what the heart wants. There was just one snag.

She hadn't told him yet.

She wasn't a fool. Not telling Terra was the biggest regret of her life, and she was putting herself in a similar situation. She was in love and didn't tell him. She knew that was a huge mistake, but at the same time, she had no idea how to broach the topic with him.

She couldn't just walk up to him and say "I love you", could she? She doubted it.

After Aqua and Qrow walked into the house, he and Tai sent knowing smirks at each other, which restarted Aqua's suspicions, before he walked into the kitchen, Ruby and Yang getting up to join them.

Seriously, what was going on?

After only a few minutes, Ruby and Yang came rushing out, each grabbing one of Aqua's hands.

"Aqua!" Ruby yelled excitedly. "Let's go start our training!"

"Yeah!" Yang yelled, "Let's go!" The enthusiasm the girls showed would normally delight her, but with how weird everyone was acting today, she immediately saw what they were doing. They were trying to get her outside the house for some reason. She couldn't fathom why, though. And so it was with confusion that she let the girls drag her outside, Qrow following suit. As odd as this whole day had been so far, she already had something in mind to teach Ruby, so it wasn't too big of a deal.

If only she could figure out what was going on…

Aqua blocked an attack from Ruby's Keyblade with her own. The sparring had been ramped up recently, and she was very pleased by the 7-year-old's progress. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Qrow and Yang doing some sparring of their own. They were both unarmed, with Yang throwing her little fists wildly at her uncle. Obviously, she wasn't hitting Qrow, as he was far too good for that, so he was mostly just pointing out what she was doing wrong, with the 9-year-old blonde not really listening.

After Tai came back from rehab, Aqua decided that it was time the whole family knew the truth. So she told them everything. About the Keyblade, about other worlds, and about Ruby's destiny to bring Remnant into the Realm of Light. In order to do that, she had to venture across Remnant and find the Keyhole, the doorway to the world's Heart. If she could seal it with the Keyblade, Aqua figured that would do the trick. Ruby, predictably, had been ecstatic at the prospect of a world-spanning adventure. That was when Yang asked if she could be trained, too. When Aqua asked why, she told them that if Ruby had to travel Remnant on this dangerous quest, she wanted to support her every step of the way.

Aqua was so proud.

So, Qrow and Aqua had both decided to train the two of them up.

Before long, Aqua was staring at Qrow. She didn't notice it until Ruby bopped her on the head with her Keyblade.

"Gotcha!" she yelled triumphantly, as Aqua rubbed the bump on her head. The girl giggled when Aqua sent an indignant glare her way.

It wasn't her fault. She got distracted. Stupid Qrow. She signed internally at her own excuses. She got distracted. Plain and simple.

"Good job," Aqua praised her student, who was feeling awfully proud of herself for actually landing a hit on her teacher. "All right, now that the warm-up is over," Ruby's eyes widened in fear at the prospect of more training, "I've got something new to teach you." Ruby's apprehension was replaced with excitement.

"Really? What?"

"Since we were attacking each other, I can teach you how to Style Change."

"Ooooooooh," Ruby said. "What's that?"

"Here, I'll show you," Aqua said, and surrounded herself with a bright light. Energy exploded out from her body, covering herself in a blue glow different from her Aura. Impressively, her Keyblade was floating an inch away from her hand.

"Oh! I saw that before!" Ruby yelled happily.

"Yes, you did," Aqua nodded. "I used this to fight that Heartless in Raven's camp a few years back. This is a Style Change. This one is called Spellweaver. As you attack enemies, the energy you create is stored in the Keyblade, and you can release it to change your fighting style and abilities during battle. Which Style depends on what attacks you use. This one is the most basic, since all I have to is whack things with my Keyblade."

"So cool," Ruby drawled. "I wanna try! How do I do that?!"

"Reach out and feel your Keyblade. After our spar, it should have absorbed plenty of energy. It should feel like a balloon that's ready to burst."

"Okay," Ruby said.

"Now just release it." She saw Ruby concentrate her attention on her Keyblade, clearly trying to draw her attention on her weapon. Aqua expected to see the usual explosion of energy that came with a Style Change. What happened instead made her jaw drop.

With the sound of grinding metal, the shape of Ruby's Keyblade itself changed. The shaft of the weapon expanded, easily doubling in length, and instead of being shaped like a sword, it turned into a Polearm. The Rose emblem on the end of the weapon unfolded, turning into a scythe blade. When it was done transforming, Ruby was holding a large scythe, colored black and red.

Aqua was speechless. Ruby, on the other hand…

"THIS IS SO COOL!" she screamed, causing Yang and Qrow to stop what they were doing to look at what had the young girl so excited.

"Holy shit," Qrow said.

"What is that?!" Yang yelled, running over to her sister to get a look at the new weapon.

"It's my Keyblade!" Ruby said, displaying it proudly.

"Awesome!" Aqua barely heard Qrow approach her from behind.

"Not expecting that, huh?" he asked her, snapping her out of her shock.

"No, I've never seen the Kayblade do that before," she said.

"So, the student does something the master doesn't even know about. I don't know if that says more about Ruby's natural talent as a Keybearer, or your natural talent as a teacher." Aqua turned to face him, but the smile on his face caused her to avert her eyes from his in embarrassment.

"It's probably her," she said sheepishly.

"Give yourself a little more credit," he said. "Yeah, she's probably a prodigy, but even prodigies need a good teacher. You're pretty incredible, yourself." And just like that, it felt like her face was about to explode from heat. She turned around to face away from him completely, and looked back towards Ruby. She gave an embarrassed cough before speaking.

"Well, then, Ruby, let's, uh, work on using that new form."

In the end, Qrow taught her more about fighting with a scythe than Aqua could, since his weapon also turned into one, a point he stated with pride. She thought it was kind of funny how excited he got that Ruby could use a similar weapon to him. It was pretty cute, too, how proud he looked.

The four of them were walking up to the front door of the house, the others letting Aqua open it first. She walked into the living room, and was greeted by a homemade banner hung up on the doorway to the kitchen.

"'Aqua Appreciation Day'?" she read aloud from the banner.

"Yup," Tai said, stepping out of the kitchen, which smelled distinctly of baked goods. Ah, so this is why they wanted her out of the house. "The girls came up with it."

"Of course they did," she chuckled. "But why?"

"Today is the two-year anniversary of the day we found you in the woods," Qrow said, surprising Aqua. "They wanted to show you how much they appreciated everything you've done for us since then, and I couldn't disagree." Had it really been two whole years since she arrived on Remnant? If that was the case, then her twentieth birthday came and went and she didn't even realize it.

"It's been two years already?" she asked.

"Yeah, time flies," Qrow said. "Hard to believe."

"Hey, girls," Tai called from the kitchen, "Why don't you give Aqua the thing while I finish up the cake?"

"Alright, Dad," Ruby said, as she and her sister ran upstairs to get something. Ruby had decided after turning 7 that she was too big to call her father "Daddy" anymore, so now he was just "Dad". All three grown-ups missed the old way. This was much less cute.

"You might want to sit down," Qrow said. "What they've got is a bit of a doozy." Aqua gave him a weird look, but sat down on the couch anyway. No sooner had she done that then the sisters came back downstairs holding a paper in their hands. They enthusiastically handed it to Aqua, and she took a look at it, wondering why Qrow told her it was a "doozy". The piece of paper had a drawing of the five of them, with Aqua in the center, and the girls on either side of her, with Tai and Qrow taking up the ends. There were words written above the drawing, and Aqua finally understood.

"Thank you for everything you do, Mom."

Aqua's eyes widened, and she read the sentence again just to make sure she saw that correctly.

"Mom". She looked up at the girls, who had huge smiles on their faces.

"Mom?" she asked them, just to confirm that this was real. The girls nodded happily. Aqua was speechless. Yang decided to fill the silence.

"You've been taking care of us for two years. You've been everything for us, and we love you."

"So, what do you say?" Ruby asked. "Will you be our mom?" Aqua's only answer was to pull both of them into a hug, tears of happiness streaming down her face.

"Yes," she managed to say. "Yes I will." She kissed each of their foreheads and pulled them tighter. "I love you both so much."

"We love you, too, Mom," Ruby said, and Aqua's heart soared. She couldn't remember the last time she had been this happy. All she could do was sob happily holding her daughters close.

Not her students. Not her wards. Her daughters.

Aqua was sitting at the dinner table, enjoying the meal that Tai had cooked for them, still thinking about earlier. She was a Mom. She had two daughters now. Tai was giving some speech that she was sure was sweet and all about how grateful he was to her, but all she could think about was her new-found motherhood. She did feel bad about not really listening, though. She just had a lot on her mind.

Tai did a surprisingly good job with both dinner and her cake. Granted, it wasn't as good as the one Cinder made for Ruby's birthday, but still.

The thought of Cinder brought Aqua's mood down a little bit. It had been over a year since she left them, and they hadn't heard a single word from her. Aqua was still worrying about her, especially after Qrow took it upon himself a few months ago to head to Mistral and try to find her. When he came back with only an assurance from Lionheart that he'd let them know if he ever got word of what happened to her, they resigned themselves to the worst. Of course, they hadn't told Ruby or Yang yet, but it always tore her up inside when they asked if she had contacted them yet.

She was taken out of her thoughts when Qrow tapped on her shoulder. She turned to look at him, only to realize that their faces were only a few inches apart.

"H-huh?" she elegantly articulated to the handsome man next to her, blush on her cheeks.

"You okay?" he whispered. "You look like something's bothering you." He even noticed that she had something on her mind. How was it possible for one man to be that perfect?

"I was just thinking about Cinder," she whispered sadly. His face drooped in understanding.

"I know you're worried, but all we can do is hope that Leo can find her."

"I know, but I'm just scared."

"Me, too," he said, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder.

Try as she might, she couldn't stop the blush.

Later that night, after the "Aqua Appreciation Day" Party was over, the woman herself was sitting on the edge of her bed in her pajamas, looking at the drawing that Ruby and Yang made her. Her daughters. That still felt so good to say. She heard on a knock on her bedroom door, and she got up to see who it was, careful to step over her shoes, which she had just kicked off right in front of her bed. She opened up the door to find, you guessed it, Qrow.

Wait, why was he at her bedroom?

"Can I come in?" he asked. Aqua felt her brain stop working as he said that. There was no way this was happening. The man she loved was asking to come into her bedroom? She must be dreaming.

"Uh, sure," she said, stepping aside to let him in. He walked past her to stand in front of the foot of her bed, and she closed the door behind him. She took a few seconds to catch her breath and calm herself down. They were alone now.

Alone in her bedroom.

She had to fight off the flush in her cheeks.

This might be her chance. If she could figure out how to phrase it, she might finally be able to tell him how she felt. She closed her eyes and turned around. She had no idea what she would say, so she was just going to wing it. She opened her eyes, ready to tell him everything.

And the words promptly died in her throat.

Dangling from chains on the ends of each of his index fingers were two Wayfinders. The glass that they were made of were alternating blue and black glass. One Wayfinder had more black than blue, and the other had more blue than black.

"W-Wha-?" She tried to ask, but couldn't find the words.

"'Aqua Appreciation Day' ain't over yet," he said with a smile. "There's still one more person that loves you."

"Love?" she squeaked. He held out the Wayfinder that was mostly blue and gestured for her to take it. She wordlessly walked towards him and reached out for the Wayfinder.

"I remembered what you said about these things," he said. "That if you share them with someone special, it creates an unbreakable connection." She was still speechless as she took the pendant in her hands and inspected it. It was beautiful. It might have even given the ones she had made a run for their money.

Her brain finally caught up to her. Him giving her this pendant meant…

She wasn't sure she ever felt happier. Unfortunately, she was still too stunned to let that show on her face. Qrow kept talking.

"I haven't felt this way about anybody in a long time. Hell, after Summer, I didn't think it was possible. But you proved me wrong." His smile made her heart soar. "You are the most incredible woman I've ever met. You're kind, compassionate, strong as hell, and you've bent over backwards for me and my family. I felt this way before and didn't say anything. I'm not making that mistake again. So, what I'm trying to say is…"

"Yes?" she whispered.

"I love you."

She just had to repeat it to make sure she heard him correctly.

"Y-You love me?"

"Yes, I do. I made these Wayfinders for us to let you know that I want us to—"

She interrupted him by grabbing the color of his shirt and pulling him towards her, sending his lips crashing into hers. After a few seconds for his surprise to wear off, he wrapped his arms around her waist to pull her closer, deepening the kiss. She, in turn, wrapped her arms around his neck to link them behind his head. Eventually, they had to come up for air, breaking the kiss but still holding onto each other.

"Wow," he breathed. "Does this mean…?"

"I love you, too," she whispered. The smile that appeared on his face was probably the biggest she had ever seen. "I've been trying to figure out how to tell you for a while."

"Well, I'd say this got the message across."

"It did." She took a step forward to press her body closer to his, but her feet got tangled up in the shoes that she left on the floor. With a yelp, she fell onto the bed, dragging him down with her. The next thing she knew, she was lying on her back with Qrow on top of her. She looked up at him with half-lidded eyes, and roamed her fingers up towards his shirt. This moment was just too perfect. She reached the top button of his shirt and started to undo it, a hunger in her eyes.

"Are we doing this?" Qrow asked, making sure Aqua was certain about what they were about to do.

"Yes," she said. She paused, reached behind him, and summoned her Keyblade. She pointed it at the bedroom door, and a beam of light shot out from the tip of her weapon, resulting in the door making a click sound. Qrow looked at her in confusion.

"No interruptions," she said in a sultry tone that surprised even herself.

"Yes, ma'am," Qrow said, leaning down into another kiss. She kept unbuttoning his shirt, and then, for at least a little while, the two became one.

AN: And I've got to stop it right now since this is a T-rated fic. Some of the stuff I have planned honestly might require me to change the rating to M, but I don't want to do that quite yet.

So, Aqua's officially a Mom now. Not just in role, but in title as well. We also got a little more training with Ruby and Yang, and Ruby can Form Change instead of Style Change like Sora can. I'm sure most of you saw that coming, though.

We also had Aqua and Qrow finally getting together, and boy was it a hell of a way to kick off a relationship. Now, I know some of you are going to say that it felt rushed, so allow me to explain why I had their relationship written like this. For right now, it's more important for me to establish that they are together rather than how they got together. This story is not meant to be a fluffy family story, even though that's what the last few chapters turned into. These first 10 chapters were just to establish the important parts about relationships and what happened to these characters in the past to set up for canon. For those of you who like the fluffier stuff, I will likely include more of this and show more details of Aqua and Qrow's relationship later on as bonus chapters, or omakes, stuff like that, but right now I needed to establish before Volume 1 starts that they are together.

So, as I said before, next chapter we will be jumping ahead about 8 years to the beginning of Volume 1. Hope you guys look forward to it, because I am.

As always, thanks you guys for reading, and I'll see you next time.

SPOILERS FOR RWBY VOLUME 7 AHEAD!

So, the season ended with Ironwood going off the deep end, the heroes were branded traitors, Team RWBY beat the Ace Ops, Clover was killed, Qrow and Robyn were arrested, Neo stole the lamp from Oscar, Ozpin's back, Penny's the new Winter Maiden, and Salem is about to wreck shit.

Overall, this has been the best season of RWBY so far. I had a great time watching this, and unlike the last couple of seasons, I never felt that a single episode was a waste of time. The fights were great, the pacing was just right, and the plot was fantastic. It did a great job of making the situation feel hopeless. However, there is one thing I gotta say.

Fuck Winter.

I left this season with an absolute hatred for her. She proved that she is a raging hypocrite and that she really is no better than the rest of the Schnees, barring Weiss of course. The fact that she turned on Weiss so easily made me so mad. I actually think she's worse than the Ace Ops were in regards to her loyalty to Ironwood. They were just mindless tools that didn't even question orders, but Winter took the time to acknowledge that she didn't agree with what Ironwood was doing, and still decided to do fuck-all about it. She said that she left the Schnee family to take back control of her life, but that was clearly a lie, since she placed herself in a position where she still can't make her own decisions.

And think about this from Weiss's perspective. Winter was the only person in her family whose approval she actually cared about. She was taught by her to always stick with her convictions, and had shown pride in Weiss for doing just that. However, once "follow you convictions" meant "disobey Ironwood", Winter immediately turned on her. Can you imagine the one person in your life that you wanted to please looking at you with pure hatred and disgust for doing what they always advised you to do, especially when they don't have the guts to do it themselves? This was probably both devastating and eye-opening for Weiss.

Plus, Winter was clearly furious at Penny for getting the Winter Maiden's power, even though Penny was just making sure Cinder didn't get it. It was supposed to be hers, and she's mad she didn't get it like an entitled brat. That's actually more in line with Cinder's way of thinking. Like how Cinder felt that the Fall Maiden's powers were rightfully hers (even though she had to steal them) and had a bit of a personal vendetta against Pyrrha for daring to think that she could have any of it.

Just Fuck Winter.

Okay, rant over.

I'm eagerly anticipating Fall of this year so we can see Volume 8, and I haven't been this excited and impatient for a new RWBY season for a long time.