Sorry, It's been some time since I last updated this story I've just been hella busy with work and other stuff I wish I could ignore. So for this chapter, I changed it to Ruby's POV. I'd appreciate any feedback on how I did since this the first time I've used this style of writing. The reason for this change was to try something I haven't done before and see If I do better with this form of writing over being a narrator.

Ruby

(No Narrative)

Boarding the bus, Leo and I take a seat close to the center of the bus. I pulled out my scroll to check the time.

9:25

I cringe because since it was almost ten, there should be...

5 Missed Calls

I clicked the tab to see that my dad pop up five times at different timeframes. Yep, that seems about right. I notice several unread messages from him, asking where I am and reminding me that my curfew is coming up and should head home.

"Is it your bedtime already?" I turned to see Leo smirking at me.

"I'm not a kid anymore, Leo! I don't have a bedtime!" I pouted at him, smacking him in the arm though he was right it was my bedtime, although I'll never admit.

"Are you gonna call him back?" I think about it though I shake my head.

"Ooooo Is Ruby Rose in her rebellious phase?" he quipped, ruffling my hair as he chuckled.

"Leo, come on, your messing up my hair!" I swatted his hand away. "And no, I am not rebellious. He's just been kind of..." my voice lingers, looking for the right words.

"Pain in the ass?" I nod though I hit him as well for swearing.

"Ever since he brought back my sister, he's been kind of like a prison warden always asking where I am what I'm doing and stuff. When my curfew hits, he wants me back home on the dot, not a minute over. It's so suffocating. Like I understand why he's doing this, but I can take care of myself. I'm not a defenseless little girl anymore."

Bzzzzzzzzz

Speak of the devil; I look at my screen to see DAD Calling in nice big, bold words. I huff and decline the call letting it go to voicemail.

"See?"

"Well, your gonna have to go home eventually to pack your stuff for the trip. Are you sure it's a good idea to piss off your dad right now?" I stay quiet, looking at my scroll. Leo's right. I don't want to piss off my dad when we have this trip were planning though we are going to go behind his back to go on this trip.

Bzzzzzzzz

Uncle Qrow Calling I sigh as I see the caller ID when I don't answer my dad. He calls my Uncle Qrow to contact me. There's no point in dragging this out, and I click answer.

"Hello?"

Hey, wouldja look at that your phone works!?

"Yup, it sure does," I rolled my eyes at his sarcasm.

Care to tell me why you aren't picking up your dad's calls?

"Ahhhhh, no?"

Ruby

"He's a pain Uncle Qrow; ever since he came back with Yang, he's been suffocating me," I hear a low gruff from the other end though it didn't sound like it was from Uncle Qrow.

Ruby, I know your dad's been a little...overprotective these last few weeks, but not answering his call and messages isn't going to make it better.

"I know..." my voice was low and meek. It sucked when Uncle Qrow was right.

Now, what time are you coming home?

"...I'm not sure I'm sorta busy at the moment," I lied. I could have gone straight home; however, I just really didn't want to go home right now.

And what exactly is keeping you busy at this hour?

"Activities people my age do." the moment the words leave my mouth, I realized I screwed up.

WHAT!?

I hear a loud voice that isn't Uncle Qrow's then static for a few seconds before he spoke again.

Well, uh didn't mean to disturb ya, Kid. Though if your with who I think your with, I recommend you don't come home till the old man calms down-

Again I heard static on the other side cutting off Uncle Qrow; then nothing, the call was ended. I turned to Leo, who was laughing, "Nice wording there, Ruby."

"I'm so grounded when I get home," I lean back into my seat as I say that.

xxxx

Stepping off the bus, I look at the route leading to my home. If I go home right now, my dad will not only ground me for Monty knows how long; he'll lecture the living crud out of me for seeing Leo after he specifically told me in a not so pleasant way not to see him anymore.

"Come on, Ruby, let's go," Leo swept me off the ground into his arms, walking the opposite direction from my house.

"Where are we going?" I ask, letting myself snuggle into his arms.

"My place," he says bluntly.

"Leo, you know my dad might want to murder you right now. Maybe taking me to your place is not a good idea."

"Ehhh, I'm not too worried. If he comes, then we run away."

"What about trying to talk to him?"

"Ha! What am I going to say? Sorry for banging your daughter after you told me to stay away from her?" I pull Leo's nose as hard as I could.

"Owowowow Ruby, that hurts!" he whined

"Then, don't use such crude language."

"What can I say? I'm a crude person." I roll my eyes at him. He's such a dumb goof.

"Listen here, mister; you say that to my dad, and I'll dump you in a heartbeat.' I say with the most serious voice I can pull. Though, by the massive smirk on his face, I don't think it had the effect desired.

"Did I ever mention you look cute when your trying to sound serious?" damn it, he made me blush. I looked away, trying to hide my reddish face from him before he teases me even more.

"Meanie," I mumble under my breath.

xxxx

"Leo, what are we gonna do?" I ask as he sets me down near the door of his apartment.

"Do you still want to go to Menagerie?" he replies with a question as he fishes for the key.

"I do, however, if I go home, my dad isn't going to let me out of his sights with the stunt I pulled."

"Then, don't go home. Stay at my place for the night," with a click, he pushed open the door to his apartment, gesturing for her to come inside as well.

"But my dad-"

"We'll be long gone by the time he comes crashing through my door."

"We can't leave with the clothes on our back, Leo! Traveling outside Patch without the proper supplies is extremely dangerous!" I explain to him as I entered his apartment. "We need spare clothes incase our current clothes get wet or damaged, plus I need ammo as well as my maintenance kit for my scythe."

"Great! That means you finally have a reason to take your junk out of my room."

"What junk?" Leo pointed to his side, where I saw several magazines for Crescent Rose and instruments I use to maintain my baby piled neatly on the desk he used for his school work. "That's not junk!" I yell as I run towards my stuff. "This is all the stuff I've been missing. Where did you find them?"

"In my room." He picks up a stray bullet that rolled off the desk handing it back to me. "Every time you came over, you left something here. It started with just a bullet like that one, but eventually, you started leaving tools, magazines, and even clothes."

"Why didn't you tell me? I've been looking for some of these tools for ages!" he bonks me on the head softly.

"I have many many many times. You always say I'll get it eventually."

"Well, that's because you always made it sound like it was something small like a pencil or something!"

"No, course not, I would have just thrown that away. Are these supplies going to be enough for our trip?" In total, there are six magazines on Leo's desk, all in good condition, including the bullets loaded inside add the two magazines I'm carrying right now for a total of eight magazines. A reasonable amount of traveling. I'm missing some tools I regularly use when maintaining Crescent Rose, but I can make do with these for the time being. "Yeah, this should be enough for our trip."

"Awesome. Now for your clothes, there should be some sweaters inside my closet and some shirts inside my drawer next to it." How do I forget clothing?

Opening the closet, I immediately see my favorite red hoodied that I thought I lost forever.

"How did I forget this!"

"How should I know."

Opening the drawer next to the closet, I see various shirts that happen to be mine, which baffles me because if I came wearing them and left without them, what was I wearing?

"You were wearing my shirts," Leo stated bluntly as if he read my mind.

"Aren't you like a couple sizes bigger than me? How did I take your shirts without noticing?"

"Easy I suck at washing clothes," he pulled out one of his old shirts and unfolded it, showing the once XL shirt was now an M. "I never read the tag when I wash them, so they always shrink a few sizes.

"So, in my drawer back in my home, I have-"

"Yep, a bunch of my shirts." Ah geez, so that's how dad found out I was at a guy's place back then. Looking at his shirts, they match my color preference, and when they shrunk, they were the perfect size for me.

"Geez, if you had told me I was taking your shirts, this would have prevented my dad from figuring out that my sleepovers weren't with other girls."

"Well, you didn't lie when you told him you were staying over at a classmate's place for the night. You just didn't mention said classmate was a guy you were in a relationship with."

"That didn't stop him from lecturing the living crud out of me and giving me the talk." God, I hate remembering that day I wanted to crawl into a hole and die.

"What's done is done. Come on, pick the clothes you're going to take." "Do you have a backpack I can put them in?" Leo reached under his bed, pulling out a bright red backpack with a rose on the back and tossed it to me.

"Is this?"

"Yep, it's yours."

"I could have sworn I dumped it in my closet when we graduated from high school."

"Nope. You left it here when we went to the graduation party after we graduated, remember?"

"I remember the party, just not the backpack part."

"You really need to keep track of your stuff." he lectured.

"I know, I know." Opening the backpack, I see several of my old notebooks, binders, and folders I used for class stuffed inside. Without thinking, I turned the bag downwards, Letting everything spill all over Leo's bed, making a mess.

"Ruby, did I ever mention that I love it when you make a mess on my bed?" he said in an annoyed tone.

"No, I don't think you have," I give him a cute smile that makes him huff and grumble something under his breath I couldn't hear.

"I'm going to get my stuff ready. Try not to make any more messes please, and thank you."

"Kay."

Opening the bag as wide as I can, I started cramming everything inside with clothes first, then the extra magazines I couldn't carry on my belt, topping it off with my tools. The bag looked like it was going to explode once everything was inside. It wasn't ideal, but it have to do for now. Setting it aside, I started cleaning up the mess on Leo's bed, and by cleaning, I mean tossing everything into the trash. Notebooks, reports, homework I never turned because I never did it all to the trash.

"Alright, that should be everything!" clapping the dust off. I turned to check on Leo when something caught my eye. A tattered notebook on the floor near his bed.

"Oops, almost forgot one," picking it up, was about to trash it when I saw the label on it.

Operation: Make A Bunch Of Friends!

"No way...I completely forgot about this," I opened it to see the pages all crinkled and yellow. The writing faded but still legible for me to read.

"Find something that brings back memories?" I jumped from Leo's sudden voice.

"Geez, Leo, you scared me. Yea, I did. I found this old notebook." I held it up for him to see. He read the label but looked baffled, which wasn't surprising because I never showed him the notebook till today.

"Is it special? He asked.

"Sort of, this right here is where I put all my notes on how to be friends with everyone!"

"Notes on how to be friends?"

"Yeah, take a look," I handed him the notebook for him to read. He flipped to a random page and read the first few sentences.

"Alexis is a quite person never really talks a lot, just like me. He enjoys reading Red vs. Blue comics, so try to talk about them when the conversation goes dull to keep him interested. Don't bother him during lunch. That's when he likes to be alone. He hates every class but social studies. His favorite color is yellow, and loves pineapples." He stopped reading and looked at me, giving me a worried expression. "Ruby, were you stalking this guy?" he says bluntly.

"What!? No! Course not, I was trying to be friends with him!" I defended.

"Well, lemme tell you the way you wrote everything says otherwise. Like right here, you wrote down when he's finished with class, he goes straight to the bathroom. Then goes to buy a Dr. Pepper with some lays from the vending machine. From there, he heads to talk with his friends in the quad till his next class." I cringed. Yeah, it kind of does sound like I was stalking him.

"Okay, maybe it does sound a teeny bit like I was stalking him, but I wasn't! My intentions, where pure!"

"Yeah, sure that'll hold up in court." he quipped. "Damn Ruby, you kept tabs on everyone in your class, even Ike and Trish.

"W-well, I wanted to be friends with everyone."

"With the dirt, you found on some of your classmates, you could probably blackmail them into being your friend." I smacked him on the arm.

"I did not find dirt on people!"

"Really? What about this bit right here you wrote stating you saw your math teacher Mr. Drake whos married, get into a relationship with one of his female students? Sounds like dirt to me."

"Okay, maybe I did collect some dirt on people, but it was with good intentions!"

"Surrrrreeeee. So did you end up becoming friends with the people you were stalking?"

"I wasn't stalking them! And no, I did not sadly."

"Lemme guess they thought it was weird how you always knew what they like and stuff?"

"What! Naaaaaaa, it definitely wasn't that! We just weren't compatible!" he rolled his eyes, not buying what I'm selling. In my defense, isn't it a good thing if someone already knows what you like before you guys even meet? Like wouldn't that save time for other things we could be doing? Or is that just me?

"Hm?" Leo reached the end of the notebook but seemed surprised as if he missed something.

"What's wrong," I asked.

"Well, you stalked Ike and Trish, but not me. Just wondering why that is?" shoot, I completely forgot Leo wasn't in the notebook, and the reason for that wasn't easy for me to say. He must have noticed my troubled

expression because he closed the notebook shut, placing it on the drawer. "It's fine. I'm not too worried about it. Come on; let's get ready for bed." I let out a sigh watching him enter the bathroom to wash his face. He never presses me for answers whenever I don't want to talk about something. Which is great, don't get me wrong, but at the same time, it makes me feel like he doesn't care. Though if I tell him, it will hurt him because when I first saw Leo, my honest thoughts where I could never be friends with him.