She had said she was not alone.
"Good," he said, urgently, his hand on her should tightening. "I promise that— I'll never— I'll never do what they did. If you want to go, then go, and if you want to stay, then stay."
Her one-eyed gaze used to catch him off-guard with the sweetness and the hardness of it. She was always two things at once, terrifying and beautiful, kind and cruel, funny and sincere. He should have feared her and instead he searched for her, he should have told her to go yet he wanted her to stay. One eye was sealed shut, the other open and watching him watching her.
She said, then, "I know."
"Yeah, you're always one step ahead of me." He could not help smiling. "For better or worse." At that, she grimaced, but he tenderly flicked a finger under her chin as if to shake the thought from her head.
"I expected you to lord what you did over me, and use it against me. One more piece on your side. And you told me, even hating me, you would not. I know I have no reason to fear you. You don't need to tell me that now. I already know."
He rubbed his thumb over her shoulder. The cotton was worn, and her skin felt softer underneath. He did not know, not really, what he was doing. He was just touching her because it was the only thing that made sense.
Her low voice melodic, she added quietly, "I feel safe with you."
"Ah," he squeaked, his cheeks flushing. He ducked his head. "Well. That's all I want."
"I thought," she said carefully, tilting her head, "you wanted nothing."
It was her memory, of course. The eyes that saw it were smaller and sadder and lonelier. The place was bleak and anaemic. Without you I am nothing, repeated over and over, chant-like, until it only became nothing, and until Salem coaxed it out of her, the other half: because of you, I am everything, that without Madame or her new master she would never be very much, nothing much at all. It was as she was, in front of him, that he saw everything.
"That was in return for helping you. I wasn't talking about anything else," he said, evasive. He thumbed her shoulder again. He wanted too much. He was supposed to help Ruby stop Salem, and figure out how to help Vacuo. He was not supposed to keep Cinder in his room and want to protect her from the things she would do to them. It was never meant to go like that. But how else would he see who she really was? Yang had said there was no excuse for what Salem had done, putting her hidden hurt on everybody else. Then why did Jaune feel for Cinder so desperately? If there was no excuse? If there was no forgiveness?
Was there any for her at all, if she wanted it?
She saw it still, writ all over his face. "You've got to stop doing that," she said.
"Doing what," he said dumbly.
"Why did you want to see?"
"Because I wanted to know why you hurt." He swallowed. "I could help you with that once."
"But it won't change anything. It might make a bitter pill easier to swallow. All you know now is I have reason for what I'm doing. Why I want the Maiden powers. Why I wanted to see Atlas fall. It doesn't change anything at all, it just— makes it harder for you to fight me." Her voice broke near the end. He tried to pull her a little closer. "I know you. You're a bleeding heart. And you get it everywhere."
She was stuck on a one-track mind, he could see that. Once she did something there was absolutely nothing which would tear her away. She was dark and determined, and he liked that, even though he had seen what it had wrought. But he had seen what she had done for him now, too, the armour she had brought back for him when he, silly and almost childish, had wanted to run away from it. The way she had pulled him back up from the most horrible thing he had done, because of her, the irony of it so absurd he had to laugh. He had helped her in that little burning alcove and now he carried the memory of it in chest as if to remind himself who he really was, nursing it. The single-minded way she had helped Mercury without even considering what she really did, other than that she had to do it. He had recognised it immediately as she called on him— he had felt her call, a polite tug on his wrist— from how she had stood proudly, and determined, a whiff of something heroic about her he had never seen.
It was like seeing a vision from another life, the one she said would be where they stood on the same side.
Her silver-armoured arm had shone so bright and pretty, protecting the Aura-unshielded, vulnerable Grimm arm. Her whole outfit was resplendent. She had looked like somebody who had made up her mind.
So he settled on, "Focus on what's in front of you. Tyrian's our problem, and the other Summer Maiden, apparently. Mercury's safe with Emerald, Salem's asleep…" he trailed off.
Thunder clapped. It was a dry storm, and lightning made the darkened room flash bright white before it slid back to silent black. Jaune didn't know it had been coming; he thought he would have felt it in the air.
"I suspect I won't be flying in that," said Cinder. "I wonder if I could stop it."
"I'm sure you could try."
"It does look cool."
He huffed a little laugh at that. She was looking out the window with something that approached wonder. She liked lightning, then. Fire, too. "I loved thunderstorms as a kid," he said. "More annoying when you're going on foot to Mistral."
"I was scared of them."
"Do you want to make it even?"
"Make what even?"
"I could show you a memory," he said. "I saw yours. Maybe I could show you a happy one."
"You're— really too much for your own good," she muttered. "Fine. If you want to."
"No, no, that's alright, if you don't want to," he said, coy, and at that she lowered her lid at him and crossed her arms. "See, is that so hard? I just want to give you something."
He should not have felt delighted at how the colour rose to her cheek, but he did.
He said lowly and rough, "Come here, then," and he did what she did before, forehead to forehead, but it was easier and made him less self-conscious this time. He didn't even know what he was saying, just gently, almost cooing, "That's it," before he let her in.
The heatwave had not let up for days. It had come in and had not left, and the cows were all in the barn because they couldn't be out in this sort of weather, and Dad had been ragging on him for days for doing nothing other than lying on the floor and hoping he could get out of his skin. He didn't even care how many arguments they had. Mom ran the farm when Dad was gone doing Huntsman stuff, which he'd picked up again now Jaune was a little older and all of his sisters were too.
Oh, yeah, there are seven of them. I know. Sapphron's in Argus with Terra and Adrian. You were near there when we were? That's— funny. Yeah, that's Adrian. He's a little baby but Sapphron still acts like I'm the baby. Don't give me that face. I'm not a baby!
You are a little bit.
Well, fine. I'm not showing you the rest of it—
So Jaune had been lying there and Sapphron had been mercilessly annoying him, and he was really, really bored. When he stuck his nose up against the pane of the window in his room he saw how black the sky was. Really black, purple, blue. It was so vivid he nearly didn't believe it, and it was so exciting and so scary he did the first thing that came to mind and that was run to it. He leapt down two stairs at a time and ignored the conversation his sisters were having in the lounge room and it really was silly, but by the time the thunder rang out he already felt a strange sense of peace, like the meaningless afternoons meant something. He hung out on the verandah until he went further out on the acreage to find a vantage point, higher up the hill, to see the big storm. There was lightning in the distance and he counted until it hit. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, then boom. It was so dangerous and so lovely. He wondered if he would get hit, but each strike seemed to miss him. He kept counting between strikes until it rained and the heat broke. There was a funny smell in the air, metallic and pretty, like ozone or jacaranda petals…
Petrichor.
There's a word for it?
Obviously. I just told you.
So he stayed out there until Mom yelled at him to come in. It was nice, though. The sunshine and the rain, the black sky. He missed the heat.
He blinked a few times and said, "It's not much, but I always liked summer thunderstorms."
"You have… sisters."
"I think I got a little carried away showing you, and that was weird, I talked to you with my— head," he said.
"You have a nephew."
"He's cute." Jaune drew back. "Kind of cheeky."
"Yes," she agreed, "very fat cheeks."
"Is that supposed to be a pun?"
"Inadvertently. And… thank you," she said. "It was… nice. You have a big family. You haven't… seen them in a while."
He shrugged. "Cost of what we do, I guess."
"No, it's more than that. You cheated into Beacon. Well, you certainly ended up more heroic than they could have expected. I doubt you need to worry about what they think. And if you're at all worried about them," she said, something mysterious edging in her tone, "only the school is surrounded with our forces. They're probably safe as can be. Sapphron, too. For the time being."
She was, in her own strange way, trying to reassure him. He could sense her longing, though. She had no family. He did not need to ask her that question, because she had already shown him. There was nobody ever coming for her, not unless they already wanted something of her.
"Do you want a family someday?" he asked. The thunder rattled the window frame.
She reared back a little, in either fright or surprise. "What sort of question is that?" she bit out.
He immediately felt bad, and said, "I just thought— okay, I thought, well, you don't have any, but you could have one still."
"No, I can't," she said very, very quietly, with absolute surety.
He wanted to pull her close and put his arms around her, but she had gone stiff and silent.
He lifted a shaky hand to tuck her hair behind her ear. The scarred side of her face did not reach that far. He gently slid his fingers over her skin. It did feel a little dry, as he had thought. For all of her hard edges, she felt delicate. He let his hand trail back to her hair to run his hands through it. It was thick and shiny, like raw silk, just a bit rough, a bit soft. There was a hint of white at the tips.
"Do you remember on the beach…" he said and trailed off, hoping she would finish for him. She narrowed her one eye. "The first time we talked you ragged on my hair?"
Her shoulders reared up to her ears defensively. "Don't."
"No, no, I think it's worth exploring—"
"Don't—"
His hand skittered up her scalp and then with his fingers in just the right spot she made a noise.
That was not a noise like might be heard in the middle of a fight. He froze. Not out of embarrassment, or fear for her reaction, which looked embarrassed— he had never seen her look that mortified at all, ever— but because with a strange sense of immediacy, he realised he liked making her feel good.
So of course he had to lower his hand and apologise, meekly. She said nothing but she inched just a little closer, head lowered, so he could not read her expression.
He lifted his hand back slowly, and she moved closer, so he curled it again against her scalp, and let his fingers circle her skull. He had been inside the delicate folds of her head. He could touch her, if she let him. Only if she let him. His breathing came heavy and he tried not to think about it. He focussed on the thunder rumbling on still, and the memory he showed her, and the feeling of her long hair brushing over his bare skin. For a moment it was like they were not anybody else except two people in one bed. He liked touching her. He liked protecting her.
So it went on. Jaune helped the nurses out, but he had no real nurse's training, which meant sometimes his only job was fetching lunch. Ren and Nora came with him, and even Oscar and Nora, if they were all willing to chat to patients and listen to nurse Ochre tell them about her grandchildren (numerous, at least six boys and five girls, which, Jaune, with as many sisters as he had, found it not difficult to keep track of, though occasionally he mixed a few of them up. His mother used to mix him up with his sisters, so he figured that was fair).
Then he would be on Grimm duty, or civilian escort, and those rounds were somewhat miserable: sand in the eyes if he left his Aura down for a moment, like that fairy tale where the old man puts sand in your eye to make you sleep; hot, if he let his Aura down for a moment; the Grimm not as numbered as he would expect, given the Relics, but perhaps Salem's slumber influenced the matter; sometimes the way the roster worked, Jaune wouldn't see Ruby and the others for days, though today Weiss and company had managed to corner him. She slapped a piece of paper on his chest, which flattened against his chest plate.
"Dance party," she said. "Be there or be square, et cetera."
"Fancy dress?" he asked. He had no fancy dress.
"Of course."
"It's to make everybody co-operate," said Ruby. "And togetherness! That first." Her spiky hair bounced as she nodded, though her silver eyes were extremely serious.
"That, and drinking usually helps smooth things over," Weiss said.
Weiss had been mumbling about a dance since they had arrived in Atlas, so he should not have been surprised. Ironwood was not inclined to that sort of thing, though the cake for their Huntsman licenses had been oddly cute. Now he was gone. Cinder had said she had seen him, and mocked him for his failure to save anybody at all, and how they had done so well at that anyway.
"Jaune?" Ruby said. She reached a hand out gently to touch his forearm.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm fine," he said.
"What happened to your sword? You didn't get the other fixed?" Weiss asked. Her nose was turned up, inspecting him. It smacked of when he first met her so strongly he nearly laughed.
Midnight was sheathed inside his shield. It was just a black sword to them.
"I just found this one. Is there a blacksmith around? Maybe I can fix mine," he said, but he was not sure if he even wanted to use it. He did not say so.
"Yeah, there are a few, but you know how it is: Atlas, Mantle, Grimm, everybody needs a sword," Ruby said. "Not everybody can use a high calibre sniper scycthle. I mean, not that I blame them."
Ruby was being funny, but he squinted and looked a little harder. She was keeping something from them just like he was. Nora had said as much, but it was more than that, the same way he had been straightforward and lying at the same time about his way out from the beach. He had just let them assume.
Maybe Ruby assumed he had seen Pyrrha on the beach because she had seen her mother. That must have rattled her. She never mentioned Summer. He remembered Qrow's addled speech when they carried him to Kuroyuri: Tai… she's not coming back. Jaune knew well enough about those who did not come back, but Ruby had grown up with that. She saw something on the beach that made her joke, and Weiss pretend to act haughty, as if to make things more normal.
"I'll figure something out," he said. He brushed a hand gently over Ruby's shoulder. "Maybe I'll add flames to it or something."
"Now that'd be cool," Ruby said. "Flames. Glow in the dark stuff. Oh, what if it had two blades?"
"Like an oyster fork?" Weiss added.
"Well, no. I don't know what an oyster fork's for."
"For eating oysters, obviously."
Jaune left them to it. A dance party. Ren would be excited, at least. Maybe he and team SSSN would come up with something. Jaune was not so sure he could pull off a second dance number.
Usually by evening she would be back. It was not like he sat there forlornly waiting for her, but he did bring back something for her to eat and would hope it not go cold. By the time she turned up and he pulled her through, avoiding the window-problem and a recall of it with Emerald, she would use her Semblance to heat it up anyway.
He was strangely satisfied watching Cinder eat. Maybe it was just the vague incredulity he regarded the most basic of her actions with: he had grown comfortable with her, still, in watching her move or talk or breathe or eat or take her clothes off and put them back on or look at him, yet he found himself constantly fascinated, like it was some sort of natural event, a waxing moon near fullness, or a thunderstorm, or the blooming of a flower which only did so once every few years, and in her own way, maybe it was true, as a Maiden. In another way, it was true, because it was her.
"What?" she said.
He shook his head. "Nothing."
Her legs were stretched out in her front of her on the floor, boots abandoned by the door beside his shoes. He sat with his knees up resting his chin between them. He was not being subtle about watching her.
She raised a brow at him and then looked away. She said, "How do you get away with taking food every night?"
He shrugged. "I just do it casually and hope for the best. It's not like they'd even guess the right answer for why I'm doing it."
"That you have a stowaway in your room?"
He muffled a laugh in his knees. "Well, the identity of her, anyway. Maybe if anybody asks, I'll just say I want to pack on the pounds."
She snorted half a laugh, like out of pity. It was not that funny anyway. He saw her attention on the pamphlet Weiss had given him earlier that day, and he reached over to bring it closer. Not like it was any strategic tool, if he knew she knew they would be holding an inter-kingdom solidarity dance party. He was not entirely sure it would work, but nice clothes and good food worked for morale anyway.
"A party," she intoned, squinting at the curly text. FANCY CLOTHES ONLY looked somehow threatening, pseudo-cursive and all-intimidating. What would happen if he turned up in a t-shirt? Probably publically drawn and quartered by Weiss herself.
"I don't even have any nice clothes."
"Get some, then."
"Like a suit? I don't want to wear a suit."
"Fancy, not formal. A nice shirt, button-up, ironed." She hummed. "Dress slacks, but maybe jeans would be fine." Then she appraised his current outfit, the Vacuo-allotted sweatpants and shirt which they had handed out in droves for all of the influx Huntsmen and Huntresses.
He hid between his knees again. "You want to play dress-up with me."
"I'm helping." She set the plate down and he heard rustling, then she jabbed his calf. Once, twice, before he looked up and— he could even divine this now— she pretended to be annoyed at him. She offered a hair tie. "Tie your hair back."
"Now?"
"Yes, now. I need to figure out if it looks refined or makes you seem like—"
"One of those types of guys," he finished for her.
She stifled a smile and pushed at his leg again. He took the tie and then determinedly did not look at her as his gathered what he could at the nape of his neck, just a bit of it refusing to co-operate and hanging loose. It was easy since he used to help his sisters sometimes with their hair, when they were not trying to braid his, and one holiday Sapphron had been really into elaborate hairstyles that most of the time she could not do without his help. He still did not look at Cinder when he was finished with the ponytail.
"Verdict?" he asked sullenly.
She cleared her throat. "You should wear it like that."
"Suitable for fancy dress?"
"Yes."
"Cool," he said. "Yay."
She was shuffling in her seat unusually. After a quiet beat, she said, "Well. Enjoy your party."
He softened. He knew it was sort of ridiculous, but he felt bad she could not go. He said, at that sad expression, "I won't buy anything for it without your say-so, how does that sound?"
"Are you serious," she said.
"What? You sounded invested."
"I simply have opinions."
"Yeah, you've had those for a while," he said slyly. She crossed her arms and turned away from him. Any time he so much as mentioned the beach and the first thing she actually said to him through the bond, she would close down. More than any of the murder or other horrible things she or he had done. That was easy. He had always wanted to know why she was the way she was, and she wanted to talk. He knew from seeing inside her that nobody had ever liked her talking, not Madame or Salem, not unless it was to guide her into a trap, and even before that he had known he had liked the sound of her voice. He only liked it more.
"Would it make you feel better if I told you I like your hair?" he tried. Her shoulders tightened.
"No, you don't," she muttered. He rolled his eyes. Her hair was dark as night and it was pretty. She had always been alarmingly beautiful. If he even let on how beautiful she was to him, it would probably shake their armistice loose. If she knew how long he wanted to run his hands through her hair. More than to soothe her, more for the sheer joy of it and how the feeling arrested him. The shape of her scalp. The sigh of her body. The heat of her.
"I thought that maybe months had passed by the time I saw you, and I'd lost track," he said. "With how long it was. It had been short the last time I… saw you."
"Fought me," she corrected.
"Yeah," he said roughly. Her profile was pensive. Her nose was sharp. Her lashes fluttered. She looked at the hard floor, her right hand drawing aimless shapes. "Do you know the crazy part?"
"Which part?" she said drily.
"The part where you kept me sane."
Her hand ceased movement.
"I don't think I would have left," he added. "Or moved at all. Or found the others, the way I was down there."
"It was because of me—"
"That I didn't lose my mind or sense of time. Then you told me how to do my hair. And you got me out of there."
She ran a hand over her face. He could not tell what she was thinking. She said, "You really won't let up on that, will you?"
"Nope. You noticed."
"It was— offensive. To the senses. That's all."
He bit his lip. "You know, Weiss got me to cut my hair. She said it was too girly how it was."
She snorted. "Girly."
"And then you went and told me to go grow it."
"Well, you did." She turned to him and now looked smug. "It's not my fault you took my observation seriously. Or do you just listen to random outside opinions? What next? One of your friends tells you to shave it off?"
"I'm not shaving it off! I'd look like an egg!"
"So, what, if the Schnee tells you to cut it again—"
Well, he knew why she did not like Weiss now. But he cut in, "I wouldn't. And you shouldn't just call her 'the Schnee'. There are at least four of them now."
She said nothing and stared at him.
"I like it how it is," he added. "And I like yours too."
That was one way to put it. She kept staring. She said, eventually, "I was— taken aback. That you were there again. It was the first thought that entered my head."
He huffed out a nervous laugh as he searched for a clever reply. It was ridiculous. He accepted that answer, finally. Still, she noticed. "It works now when we call on each other. Why do you think it happened randomly?"
She shrugged. "It might happen at odd times now. Or maybe we're better at it. It's sort of like when your Semblance begins to emerge, I imagine. It's not in control." She winced and tried to hide it, but he already knew why she did. "Yours… was triggered by…" she trailed off, then sourly said, "Weiss."
"Well, it was around before that. I just didn't know."
At that, she grunted. "Do you see how this keeps happening? Every time we try to talk about something, there's some horrible thing I've done to you, or you've done to me. You wanted me dead!" she snapped.
"Hey," he said, reaching across to slip a hand on her shoulder, tentatively. She let him so he tightened his hand. "I'm sorry."
"What are you apologising for?" she said, blandly.
"I'm sorry. For hurting you. I wanted to make you hurt the way I did, but you already were. It wouldn't have done anything, even if you… weren't… already…" he said, awkwardly searching for what to say, her brow only furrowing deeper and deeper, "even if that hadn't have happened to you, I'd still— want to apologise now— because I don't want to hurt you ever again."
She shook her head. "You have to stop," she said brokenly.
"I don't want to," he said, but as to what she meant for him to stop, he was not sure, but he referred to all of it: touching her, being inside her, feeding her, protecting her, watching her, what else— none of it he ever wanted to stop.
She raised her left hand to her chest, and the armour clinked as she rubbed at her sternum.
"You shouldn't bother apologising for trying something you'll attempt someday again," she said. "We both know how this ends."
"Cinder," he said, liking the path his tongue followed of her name in his mouth. Its euphony was almost sing-song. "One way or another, I'm never hurting you. I don't care about the rest of it. I promise I'll protect you."
"You can't promise that," she said, but her voice had gone soft. He had heard her rough and snappish, high and angry, and when it was slow like this he just wanted her to talk and talk and talk.
"I do," he said, as solemn as a vow.
She looked at him, full in the face. Her eye was so bright and warm, the other hidden, but still revealed to him. "You're making it harder than it should be."
"Which is?"
He was still touching her, and he could feel her shoulders slacken. "What do you think happens after Vacuo? We take Vale. I find the Vault. We keep the Relics from you, and Salem does what she wants with this world. I get the other Maiden powers. There's no— there's no— you won't be with me. Not then. I'll be dead or you will be, and—" she gasped then, "you can't come with me. You— wouldn't want to. I wouldn't want you to serve Salem. It's—" then he slipped off the bed, joined her on the floor, and put his other hand on her shoulder. "You'll fight until the end and I'll watch you die." She laughed, hard and mean. "Do you think that's a just enough punishment for me?"
She seemed just as hurt as he was at the thought of it. He wanted to make it better.
She had to know the truth. He had not been sure when to tell her, or how, or if she would have been receptive at all, if she trusted him.
This was their room. This was their silence, their secret. He thought of it no longer as his, and he did not mind it. She could wear his clothes, and sleep in his bed, and eat his food, and he would use her sword, and wear her clothes, and sometimes his skin would burn the way her Semblance did.
"Do you trust me?" he said quietly. She swallowed.
"Yes."
"Sit on the bed," he said, and they moved. She was watching him curiously. The dead of night poured in, and he tried to figure out how to start. "What did Salem tell you she was going to do? And Oz?"
Her one-eyed flutter betrayed no thought but confusion. "Salem intends to make a world in her image. I don't have any interest in it. She has helped me attain… my goals… and brought me up from nothing. The old man intends to bring the old gods back, with the Maidens out of his control preventing him. What is this a test for?"
"She really just added that in to salt the wound, huh," he said to himself. "Do you remember when you figured out we'd used Jinn's last question?"
"Yes. What the old man was keeping from you."
"Cinder," he said her name again. "When we found out the truth it drove me— into a rage." He sighed. "Everything that had been kept from us because it was too messy to tell. Because there was no plan, no way out. So you tell me: do you want to know what I know, or just— keep on going as you are?"
"I—" she started, and stopped. "I don't know what you mean."
"Have you ever wondered what she really wants?"
"She wants to die," Cinder said. "She told me, when she found me. That she was just like me. That only we know the value of life Oz resents."
He nodded. Well, there was some truth to that of what he knew. "She's going to take us down with her."
Cinder stilled.
"Oz doesn't want to call the gods back. Salem does. Oz had no plan to stop her. Because she can't be killed."
"I know that," she bit out.
"Why don't you look surprised?"
"Because of the boy! On the whale! He wouldn't shut up about it! Salem would have killed him if he had not Oz in his head," she said, and threw her head in her hands. "I— thought he was just trying to manipulate Hazel. He never liked killing. He liked to think he was protecting children."
"Well, Oscar was trying to do it with the truth, anyway." Jaune half-smiled, trying for levity.
"It doesn't change anything," she said.
"Why?" He ran a thumb gently over her.
"You can't stop her. You said so yourself. You're only holding off the inevitable. There's no winning." She turned away. "It doesn't matter."
"No, you're right," he said. "We don't really know how we'll fix this. So there's no guarantee I have to fight you. Nobody can make me ever hurt you. I'd rather lose than win that way."
She shuddered. "You can't—"
"I can," he interrupted, "and I will." He ran his hand up her neck, very dangerously, cataloguing the softness of her skin and going slowly, so if she wanted to stop him she could. She only inched almost subconsciously towards him, so he let his hand rest on the scarred side of her jaw. He had chipped her mask once. He had wanted to kill her. Now he felt her blood thump, and her pulse, and her breath, the movement of her head to toe. She would never die. If not, never because of him.
"You're stuck with me," she snapped, wrenched from her. "And I— am— aware— you did not go out of your way to do this. To make the bond. As we have exhausted the truth of. The only reason we did not fight is because of it, and now you're…" She infinitesimally shook her head, eye closed.
"Now it wouldn't matter if we had it. And I won't let anybody else hurt you in my stead, either."
"You have to stop," she said again.
"Tell me what to stop." He ran his thumb over her cheek. "Tell me."
"Being kind. Acting like there's a way out of this where we both survive." She opened her eye. "I'm not even sure if I'd call it victory anymore," she whispered. "But it's all I have."
"Then just stay," he said. "Come when you want. Go when you want. But just stay. Let me keep you a little bit, and you can have me." He could not help caressing her cheek again and again. "And don't think for a minute that I would treat you differently outside. I won't fight you. I won't hurt you. I'm sick of it."
"Sick of what," she said.
"Sick of pretending like we're still enemies," he said decisively. "You slip it in here, and bring up things just to try to see if it hurts me and then you get angry when it doesn't, because I should be angry with you. I'm done with it. Do you think I'd treat you this gently just to turn around and try to hurt you?" His voice tightened, and so did his hand. "I'm never turning on you. I'm not. I don't care. Find my sword at your feet. You kill me first if you really want it."
He had said it.
There was a sense of determination in the tilt of her jaw. Her mouth bitten red. She was endlessly, endlessly beautiful. He had watched her expression transform as he had spoken: from mild alarm to proud defiance finally settling on something unnameable.
"I would never," she said. "I— I won't. I won't kill you. So what are we supposed to do?"
It shook him. His other hand, then, came up to touch her waist. Just lightly. She rested her flesh hand on his wrist. He said, "We'll figure it out. Aren't we supposed to be the two good at planning?"
She huffed. "Few of mine have gone well in recent memory."
Then he moved both hands to her waist. "What does this count as?"
"Disastrous," she said, breathlessly.
"Oh, really?" he said, pretending to nod and agree. "Alright, then. I'll sleep on the floor tonight—"
"Don't be dramatic."
"No, you said it was disastrous—"
"You didn't intend for any of this—"
"Cinder," he said. She stopped and turned her head away, and he inched closer. "Go shower and come to bed."
She grumbled and rolled off the bed, like she did it everyday. Well, she did. So he set to texting Ruby about clothes for the dance to distract himself from that. They would make a day of it. It would be normal. Something approximating it, anyway.
Of all the things he never expected to learn about Cinder, it was that she sang in the shower. She had this whole spiel about not letting on there was another person in the room what with two of them showering, and then he had looked at her funnily and just said, "Use the water if you want." The more evenings she spent there the less subtle they got. What were the others going to do? Guess he kept her in his room? She did not climb up into his window anymore. The worst they could assume was that he had developed some sort of obsessive cleaning disorder.
So she sang. He was not sure if she knew she was singing, or if it was one of those unconscious sorts of habit. Most of the time the songs were ones he recognised, but not from the radio, folk songs his mother had liked and even older ones his grandmother had. He did not know if she listened to the radio. Now there was a thought. Her listening to a radio. Mercury had broken the one in the airship they had taken from Salem's fortress to Vacuo, she had said. So maybe she did. Or she never got the chance to.
He had to get her something. They could play chess together, perhaps.
Maybe it was disastrous. She sang. She snored. She laughed.
"I don't want a dress," said Ruby.
Jaune crossed his arms as he flagged Blake over to help her find a nice shirt and slacks that would fit. Weiss had already picked out an outfit, apparently, before anybody had caught official word of the do, so she was mostly helping wrangle Nora into something wearable with Ren, which had ended up involving a lot of sequins, and then Sun was offering commentary on said sequins and wanting in on what she was wearing. So they had a real disaster on their hands between the two of them.
There was a type of mall in one of the high, columned buildings outside of the school, opening into the northern leg of the Vacuo markets. The now-familiar fragrance of tea musk and woodsmoke wafted up the whole centre. Jaune still had to figure out what he was going to wear. It was delightfully mundane. He rifled through a rack of secondhand clothes and found a shirt which looked like would fit him, and he called on Cinder and surreptitiously held it up.
"No," she said.
He pouted.
"Too much pattern," she explained.
He put it back and then found another. It was too large. Then, once Nora had finished showing him a hat she had found (befeathered, shiny) he found a dove-grey shirt with the faintest of sheens to it, soft to the touch. She nodded at that, so he took it with him once he found a pair of plain, light-wash jeans that looked near enough to his size. He went in the last free changing stall (he was pretty sure Ren had been in his for a while) and then noticed Cinder was hanging around again, and it was a tight fit.
"Um," he tried. He just started taking his shirt off and hoped she got the picture.
She got the picture. She stared at his chest and shoulders.
He put all his attention to slipping on the shirt she had dimly approved of and then all of his might into doing up the buttons. It took concentration. She kept staring. The buttons would not go in their requisite holes so she stepped forward and began from the bottom. She wore a sweet moue of concentration as she beat him eventually to the top, and then she undid the top two.
She nodded in approval, once he had put the jeans on. "Good," said she.
"Well, if you say so," he muttered.
She smirked at him, but it was not mean. He staggered out after righting himself back into his proper attire and paid for the Cinder-approved outfit with money Ochre had given him under the table. She had insisted he get himself something nice. She knew about the dance. So whilst he waited for everybody else to finish up, he eyed the cabinets by the register and noticed something pretty. He got that too.
Ruby chattered to him about this and that when they left, idle and happy. The others were all laughing together, and it felt like a good day. The sky was clear, and it was just hot enough to be comfortable, and nobody had died, and nobody needed to die. They had Grimm to ward off later, and Theodore's moods to mediate, and he had Cinder Fall hiding in his room, but all of it seemed surpassable. In fact, one of them was not even really a problem at all anymore, or had not even been so to begin with.
Jaune and Ruby tuned in to catch Sun's boisterous storytelling: "… and we were out there right on the western edges, you know, the outermost part you're supposed to go, and we were like totally gonna die! Obviously we didn't." Jaune raised a brow at Ruby and she giggled. "Considering I'm telling you this story… anyway, there were huge Grimm, like I'm talking Nevermores that settled down and had chimera babies with Sphinxes, and Neptune was like Sun! and I was like Neptune! and Sage was like Sun! and I was like—"
"Sun," Blake cut in, but she sounded amused.
"No, that was what I said, I said Sun! But point taken. Then there was a huge wave of fire! It came out of nowhere! There was a really big storm which was going to eat us up from the side and then bam. Fire. My tail got singed and the fur's still growing back." For good measure, Sun gestured with his tail. Sure enough, the tip's fur was shorter. "So we had no idea what happened. But it was crazy. And then we lived! Still, I don't recommend going any further than Theodore said to."
Jaune kept walking and tried not to let on what he was feeling, which was exasperation and also mild endearment to the person who had sent a wave of fire, saving Sun and his team. A dust storm had hidden them. Whyever would they be out there, by themselves, helping? How silly that they might do that and not reveal themselves.
He bid goodbye to them all as Blake was in the middle of her own story, something which involved Yang, Gambol Shroud's ribbon, a bet, and one too many Grimm. It seemed like it did not turn out in the Grimm's favour, by what he caught at the end.
Jaune unlocked his room and slid the door quietly behind him. He placed down his hunt and got comfortable, taking his shoes off, and said hello to his roommate. That was certainly one way to think of her.
"You didn't go out today?" he asked.
"My arm's sore," she said, mildly. At least he did not have to ask twice what was bothering her anymore.
As he went through his bag, he said, "Well, one of these is sort of a present but it sort of also counts for me too, but I think you might like this." He cleared is throat. "Not that it makes up for the— you know. But."
"I know." She quirked half a smile. "What have you gone and done now?"
The tissue paper crinkled as he passed her the first package. She looked at him suspiciously as she unwrapped the tape.
"You like chess?" she said.
"I mean, you're in here all the time, so I kind of thought we could both play." He ran a hand nervously over his knee. "I would've got a more extravagant board game, but I thought maybe you wouldn't want to play."
"Like what?"
"Oh, well, there's this one where you simulate a farm in real time— which now I think about it is kind of funny because my parents actually have a farm— anyway, I can never get anybody to play it. I didn't think you'd…" he put his face in his hands. "I'm explaining a stupid board game about farming to you. Sorry?"
"I would play it," she said. "I would also have to win, of course."
He snorted. "Big surprise."
"You would lose," she added. Her eye crinkled with her smile.
"Okay, do you want me to go back out and see if I can find a copy?"
She rattled the chess board in response. He went over and got the other tissue wrapped present. It was much smaller, and fit in her palm. The crease of her furrowed brow was so— something. He liked the way her hands ran over the paper and peeled the tape back with careful uncertainty, even her Grimm arm carrying some delicacy. It only shook a bit.
"I just saw it and thought of you," he said. "It's probably too much, but there's the dance, and you won't be attending, and I got some nice clothes and I thought you might like something nice." He squirmed in his seat. "I knew it'd be weird."
She unfolded the jewellery box. The pearl drop earrings were not really over the top. The silver was shiny and pretty, and the overgrown freshwater pearls had a lovely sort of imperfection to them. He had got matching silver ear cuffs because the black would not match the pearl.
"You only wear one, but they came as a pair," he said, when she did not speak. Her expression was measured. He was about to open his mouth again and say he could take it back when she reached up to her ear and unclipped the black glass earring, and the remaining cuffs. She slipped in the silver cuffs first, and then finally added the pearl. In the light, taken out of the casing, it shimmered brilliant colours: here and there catching pink, blue, and even green, yellow and orange. It would have matched her armour, if she were wearing it, but she just looked like a sleepy princess with her pretty earring, and his clothes.
"You said you thought of me," she finally said.
There were many ways he could have replied to that, all of them the ones he could not say. So he simply nodded, and did not meet her gaze, and ignored the flush on her cheeks. She might have thought he were trying to bribe her. Maybe she thought it came with strings attached. He had just seen it and wanted it.
She closed the box with her old jewellery inside it. The sharp snap made him look up at her. The pearl suited her.
"So this is where you draw the line," she said, sort of like a question but not.
"What do you mean?"
"Of weirdness," she said. "You're fine consorting with the enemy, even helping her and saving her from death, but you draw the line of self-consciousness at getting her something pretty."
"Well, when you put it that way, I just sound silly."
"That's the point," she quipped.
He crossed his arms and pouted. "Okay, fine."
She huffed a gentle laugh. She said, "Now tell me about your day."
She usually insisted he do that. He thought that maybe she would startle at the mention of Ruby, like she had once, and idly comment on her demise, but now she expressed open curiosity. Maybe it was intelligence gathering. He was not sure how much could be gleaned from Ruby pulling pranks on Weiss and Yang, or Blake pitching in to help her, or Nora making good friends with the Happy Huntresses, so it was mostly harmless. He left out Emerald and Mercury, mostly because he did not know what they would think if he were gossiping about them with Cinder, and they had been covering for him, after all.
She liked stories, though, and she seemed to like the way he told them, especially when his sarcastic comments bordered on being too mean. He liked her confused pout when she tried to picture Nora's new hat. It really was borderline hideous, but it made Nora happy, especially when she strongarmed Ren into wearing it and took photos as evidence. He showed them to Cinder on his Scroll, and she leant over him to look.
"Truly dangerous," she said. "Brightly coloured, like a poisonous frog to ward off predators."
"I think Nora would say that's a feature, not a bug," he said. Cinder laughed. When she laughed, he felt like he had won something. This laugh was not malicious, in fact it was sweet and twinkling, like windchimes. He liked it. He liked making her laugh. He liked when she smiled softly like that.
How she tried to hide herself, and he found her anyway.
"Why are you out fighting Grimm?" he asked, cautiously. "I thought maybe you'd be going out searching for the Summer Maiden…"
She said, then, tensely, "I am. Where did you get the idea I'm not?"
He told her what Sun had said. She came close to sulking, but definitely grumbling.
"It was an accident," she said. "The Grimm are unusually busy, even for Vacuo. You know well why. You came back exhausted helping all of those wounded, because you're a bleeding heart. I just… two birds, one-stoned it. I'm looking for the Summer Maiden. I don't need dead academy students to clean up after. Neither do you, for that matter."
"Me," he said very quietly. Her body language had closed off, and she was shooting him suspicious glances, like she had done something wrong. He quirked a smile. "You worried about me."
"Don't act surprised," she bit out, as if he had levelled an accusation against her, something damning. He toyed with his hands and picked at his nails.
"I just didn't think you would," he mumbled.
She scooted closer on the bed and broke the respectful space he had left. He did not want to crowd her, after all, and her spot was tightly away in the corner, pressed at the wall. She raised a hand, as if she were going to touch him, and then thought better of it when it slackened. She said, her voice dropping low and heavy, "You think I don't want to keep you safe?"
He bit his lip. "I don't know if you can."
"What was it you said…" she mused, "I think it was something like… if I have to win that way, then I'd rather lose. Try that."
"You don't like losing. And I don't think you ever had reason to protect anybody but yourself. So why change now?"
That hand which had hovered uncertainly made contact with his arm. Her fingers danced, as if not sure how to touch him. Then she grabbed his hand gently, so gently, and lifted it to her chest, where her heart thumped. "I don't know," she said. Thud-thud, thud-thud went her heart, melodic in its repetition. She felt hot, even through the shirt. She always ran hot, fire-blooded.
That day, Jaune had to mind a little girl when her mother had been injured. The Shade Academy medic wing had expanded to accommodate the increased population, given a city or two had been dropped on it, and it meant that sometimes there were problems Jaune could not fix with Aura, but he could give the nurses a little relief.
He still felt a bit odd, as his training was decidedly in the offensive department, and he really had no clue how to administer a blood test or insert an IV, but jobs like these could be picked up. He made a doll for her from bits of stray twine wrapped around paper clips he had stretched out, in the approximation of a stick body. She drew eyes with pen, which were beady and piercing, but she had fun playing with it. Jaune wondered what would happen to her.
"And how is the little one doing?" Ochre said, coming up beside them, where he entertained her in the visitor's room.
"I am very busy," the little girl said.
"We're very busy," Jaune agreed.
"Well, we have a very important person for you to see, madame," Ochre said, "I think she's your mom, actually."
"Then I will show her my doll," she said seriously, and she ran along to see her mother. Jaune let out a long breath. He did not know why he wanted to cry, but he did. It was always the little ones that made him want to go and throttle Salem's door. They were the ones which made him think about an after, the one where nobody had to go to their death, not early, not before they were meant to.
Somebody had started a fire in his room. Cinder's eye glowed with Maiden light, nursing a fire over a glass hearth as she held his sword— the broken sword, the one he did not use— and heated it bright red.
"I can explain?" she said. He was glad he at least had managed to shut the door.
"You're trying to set fire to the school," he said. She rolled her eye, and he hummed, pretending to think. "You're performing an arcane spell to summon a demon to eat the school?" She huffed. "Oh, I know. You like playing with fire and got bored because we didn't finish our chess game."
"Yes. That one."
"You were two moves from check and your queen had my knight. I saw it coming."
She smiled one of those coy smiles. She continued to hold the sword over heat, as she manipulated the melted blackness. It was Midnight. She was using her Semblance and the Maiden power to singlehandedly blacksmith his sword into fullness. Shadow and light danced over her face, firelit skin reddened, full blushed cheeks. It did look arcane. He was pretty sure she was controlling the metal somehow, too, and not just with heat. She always did that clever thing and made glass swords out of air.
"Ochre said I could clear out early. She had the grandkids coming around," Jaune said, hovering near the door. Cinder had commandeered most of the space in the room, which was not much.
"I'll need you to try it for weight when I'm done. I doubt it's wrong, though," she said.
The Maiden fire from her eye, though. It was a different sort of fire. It was the fire which did not burn, only glowed prettily. It was the same intense colour as her eyes, which he never seemed to settle on a colour for: warm orange, the best of colours, and sometimes, when he looked hard, he could see a sort of acute yellow— bright, and light.
He liked watching her work. He was glad he had come back early. He was not sure how long he stood there, but he had a good reason to stare at her without catching him. She was so intent on the sword and flame in hand, her mouth pursed, her gaze steady.
She rapidly cooled the sword with more Maiden power: ice, which he had never seen her use. She seemed guilty about it, as if she could tell what he was thinking. Then silently she held out the sword with both hands, one at the pommel, the other the edge of the blade, palms facing upwards.
The handle and the base remained. She had simply fused Midnight with it, a clean merging, black and near-white. When he inspected it closer, he could see threads of the base mixing with Midnight, tiny, tiny glimmers. It was as delicate as embroidery. His hands shook just a bit when took it from her. It was perfect. It was not the same sword, and it looked strange, like it had bathed in blackness and then stayed like that, but he liked it for that reason. It was not the same sword, and it would never go back, but he could still use it.
He said, voice near breaking, "Can you get my sheathe?"
She reached over for it, where it rested against the wall. She held it out steadily. He knelt down in front of her and guided the sword back in, where it had not sat for a while. It slid in with gentle ease, and then flicked his heavy gaze to her, and she looked back, her eye bright in the dark now the fire had cooled. His sword fitted just so. They sat there together, breathing quite heavily, him still holding the handle and her the sheathe, sure and strong.
"You fixed it," he said, stricken.
"Equally, I broke it."
He smiled. "You… used yours."
"I have another."
She was trying to deflect, and failing. He laughed and shook his head. She had looked so guilty when he came in, and here she was, fixing the thing he had mourned on the beach. He wondered what his father would say, with what he had done to the family sword. What would his father think, with the girl whom he had killed. What would everybody think, that the harbinger of his worst fears and his worst hatred would come around and make it better, and he would, most of all, want to keep her here, if she could stay.
"Now you have your sword back," she said. "You have your armour. I don't know how else I'm meant to insulate you from harm. Perhaps I should bubble-wrap you."
He shuffled in his spot. "Well, when I figure out how to do it, I'll let you know."
"It's… hard," she said, unusually honest. Maybe it was because they had not turned on a light yet, and the volume was quiet. "This is hard."
"I know."
"No, you don't," she said, and shook her head, something whirring in her mind ahead of him. He thought she meant the bond, and all the complications therein: her with him, no rhyme or reason.
"Then tell me."
She drew a hand up to her mouth and covered it, as if to contain what she would say. If she moved it, she might say too much. He could see it all over her. Then she burst out, "Just take the sword and be done with it."
"Cinder, let me in. Please." He grabbed her hand.
She shook her head, and he moved closer and pushed the sheathe away. He did not even second-guess the movement. He wanted to touch her.
He said again, "Please."
She inhaled. He watched her chest come in and out. "It's amusing, really. I didn't know I had anything to lose. I was used to taking, and never keeping. I took her from you, and I never felt bad about it, maybe only a little because she was supposed to be a Maiden. But even your anger made me feel nothing. I was furious you even tried to challenge me on it. Nobody had." She laughed, like she was doing so at herself. "Now here I am. I don't understand it. But it's the cleanest, bitterest irony, so perhaps it's fitting."
The hallways were abuzz with energy for the party preparations. Nora had a fight with a curling iron. Ren was knocking down Sun's door, asking if he was ready yet. Jaune had heard rumblings the rogue Ace Ops might be in attendance— they had not been seen since Raven left— and even Qrow was in high spirits, waltzing around smelling of heavy cologne. He really wore too much.
Jaune spied Blake patiently applying mascara as Yang passionately ranted about the custom shotgun fit of her gauntlets and the incompatibilities found in Vacuo supply, and then once he had passed Ruby helping Oscar with his tie, he went to ready himself. He struggled with the buttons again, and Cinder watched him frustratedly before she gave in.
"Let me," she grouched. Her flesh hand was so warm against his skin. The Grimm was cold. She had deft movement, though, and where she touched him he could help leaning into it a little.
She smoothed the shirt down when she was done, and he tried not to react. He pulled his hair back and tied it up, those stray strands hanging loose. He heard Cinder shuffle behind him, and he saw her in the bathroom mirror, arms crossed, her unobscured cheek bright red. She seemed discomforted.
"What is it?" he asked, and she just shook her head.
Then she pulled out a small tube, and applied it to her finger. She came up to him and hid her Grimm hand behind her back, reaching up with her right. He was confused, until she touched his lips. It was lip balm.
"Press your lips together." He did so at her command, and she nodded, satisfied.
She stood at the window, and he at the door. She crossed her arms and kept shooting him glances. At his legs, at his shirt, at his hair.
"No, come on," he said. "Do I look bad or something?"
"No," she said quickly. "No. That's not why. I'm— just thinking. That's all."
He laughed and scratched the back of his neck. "I thought I was the awkward one."
"I'm not awkward," she said.
"Of course not. I've never seen you awkward."
"Now you're just making fun of me."
"I'll give you a voucher to make fun of me in future," he said. He opened the door, and locked it behind him. He had a stupid grin on his face. He knew it.
"Umm, HELLO? Can somebody call the cutiepie police? We've got a rogue hottie on the loose!" said Nora. She was hanging off Ruby's arm, who looked content with her forebear. A rogue sequin had migrated onto Ruby's jacket from Nora's hat.
"I am not a hottie," Jaune said, pointing a finger and feeling very huffy.
The hall was bustling with Huntsmen and Huntresses, some he recognised, some he did not. The hall opened out into one of the rooftop courtyards, so there was space for starlit dancing, or to sit on the grass. It was much grander than Beacon's, and Atlas', with an impressive terraced window. Up this high, they could see out across the flat dunes of Vacuo, and the blinking lights of the surrounding settlements. The music thumped.
May greeted Nora and the rest of them, decked out in her finest.
"We're not actually doing security for this," she said. "I don't think Robyn's had a day off in weeks, so I think our only job is entertaining her."
"I'm very good at that," Nora said, with a grin.
Jaune had forgotten how loud the music was at parties. The bass thumped in his chest, and people talked and laughed. He searched for Ren, but he had already gone over to find team SSSN to bug. Weiss had needed convincing to let anybody mess with her music playlist that she had supplied the DJ with. She had banned Ruby from meddling with it, because she kept trying to add songs Weiss had released on her charity albums.
Jaune was not sure if it counted as three-wheeling when he loitered near Blake and Yang, with Ruby and Oscar. Maybe it was five-wheeling. Weiss was there too, and Neptune was bragging to her about his Grimm exploits, and Ilia was chatting to team CFVY, and Sun was hanging out with Ren and Nora was hanging off his side in between making faces at Jaune, and he realised, quite suddenly, everybody had a date, one way or another.
"Okay, Jaune," Sun said, putting an arm around his shoulder. Jaune sighed. "Man. Tell us. Who's the girl and where's your date?"
"There's— there's no girl," he said awkwardly. It was a poor defence, and a surrender of strategic defeat.
"Duuuuude. There's totally a girl," Neptune said. He put an arm around Sun, so there was an unsteady ring of side-hugs.
"Oh, are we gossiping?" Ren asked loudly.
"About Jaune's girlfriend!"
"Yeah, his girlfriend!"
Jaune pleaded with Ruby, wordlessly, but she just laughed and walked off to go dance with Weiss.
"Let me walk you through the clues," Neptune said, "it's detective time. First of all, you're dressed way too nicely. Clearly trying to impress somebody. But it's sober! It's very sober, like, you know, you don't want to overdo it for your date. Okay. Second of all, everybody knows you've had a chick in your room—" Jaune choked a horrified laugh, "—come on, come on, Ren could sense it—" at that Ren shrugged in apology, "— and you haven't come with anybody, and, well, everybody else did. So where is she?"
Jaune needed to do damage control. He sighed. He lied with the truth, "She's not coming."
"Aw, but we were totally hoping you'd finally spill the beans now!" Sun said.
"Why are you so invested in my— love life," Jaune snapped, "it's— very—"
"Complicated?" Neptune tried. "Yeah, from the sounds of it, definitely complicated, like in your room every night kind of complicated, if you know what I mean."
"I don't know what you mean," Jaune said.
"And I don't know how to explain the birds and the bees to you," said Sun. "When two people love each other very much—"
"I thought you were supposed to be the nice one."
At Sun's protestations, Ren added, "Gossip is a very useful social tool. It engenders a sense of familiarity and companionship on a shared point of interest." Then Ren said, at Jaune's baleful expression, "That, and we're nosy."
Mercury skirted past heading for the drinks and made a face at Jaune, which was sort of pitying and also laughing at him. "This about the chick Jaune's sleeping with?" he said, and cackled.
"I'm not sleeping with her!" Jaune near-shrieked.
"Is she hot?" Neptune asked.
"I swear—"
"Not to objectify her," he added swiftly, "just, as one guy to another, from a purely aesthetic perspective, totally non-objectifying…"
Jaune glared at him and said, "Yes." Then he burst out laughing and covered his face, maybe out of embarrassment, though he found their invasion mostly funny. It was just the fact that his constant angst had been distilled down to an easy question from Neptune. Forget about the rest of it, and who she was and who he was: she was hot, and he liked touching her, and of course he always noticed her and put it away at the back of his mind. But then it was almost not enough to describe it.
"I think we should let him go, what do you think, Neptune?" said Sun. "Besides, Ren, when did Weiss say we take over the music?"
They went away chattering and left him to it, satisfied with their catch. Jaune watched Mercury catch up with Emerald and start dancing with her, easy as you please, Blake and Yang similarly off together. They looked happy. Jaune liked that. Weiss looked less happy, if only because Ruby kept stepping on her toes, but Jaune was pretty sure that had nothing to do with her flat shoes or lack of grace, and more just to get a rise out of Weiss.
He smiled. They made him feel warm. He had been so afraid after Penny. Then scared more, with Cinder. They would figure it out. Maybe he needed to tell them. They welcomed Mercury, for all he had done to protect Emerald, and he joined them nearly as effortlessly as Emerald had. Even Yang had taken to liking him, which surprised Jaune, all things considered. She kept making jokes about their arms and legs matching.
So he should not have felt the longing and sadness he did. He watched everybody dance together and switch partners when songs changed, and eventually, once Nora had her fill, she came up to him and said, "Dancing with anybody?"
He fumbled his way through a silly jaunt with her, side to side, avoiding her feet. He said, "I think this is definitely your element."
"Food, drinks, dancing, music, everybody laughing. That's my element. I mean, what else is the point of all this?"
He nodded. "Yeah, saving the world in the name of sequins, and so on." He grinned. "I'm surprised your hat's managed to stay on."
"I pinned it," she said. "Now tell us about this mystery girl. What's she like?"
"Okay, well, you have to tell me about you and Ren to make it fair."
"Oh, it's good," she said, with a soft smile. "I'm getting there. See, that was easy. Spill!"
Where did he even begin? What could he tell her? "I mean, what do you… wanna know?"
"Where did you meet?" They dodged bumping into Weiss and Blake.
"On the way back," he said, which was sort of true, but still evasive. Cinder was his way back.
"And she's pretty, apparently. Ooh, I love this one," Nora said.
The piano in the song sounded bouncy. It narrated a naval assault on Vale which ended in decisive victory in Mistral's favour, from one of the battles before the Great War, but it was also a love song, released by a pop band from Atlas. Jaune was not quite sure how the two concepts mixed, but it was catchy enough.
"She's… more than… pretty," Jaune said awkwardly.
"Is she funny? Mean? Smart? She got you into these nice clothes, she must have good taste," Nora fired.
"Yes, yes, and yes. And yes. I don't really know how to describe her." He sniffed. "She kind of evades description."
"Is it serious?" Nora asked. She widened her eyes and pursed her lips, stage-dramatic.
"You don't think it's—"
"Jaune, we know what we've been through. I'm asking you a question about your girl. Is it serious? Can we meet her?"
He thought about how to answer, and swept the room, as if looking for her. He was, really. He did not want her to hear. He did not want her to know what he was going to say to Nora. He swallowed, and Nora watched him with open curiosity. Then he said, voice shaky, "I think I'm falling in love with her."
Nora whistled. "Whoa."
Then he hastened to add, "But she doesn't— I don't think she— you know, she doesn't and I don't think she would want to— I mean she can't know, it's kind of— complicated. Very complicated."
"Anybody would be very lucky to have you, big boy. But you're telling me she's in your room… and you don't sleep together… but she doesn't feel the same way as you? Then what do you two do?"
"I mean, we spend time together, I just don't think she would— or she's ready— and she's just been through a lot. And I wouldn't expect her to—" Jaune exhaled in frustration. "She's really been through a lot. And we've been through a lot. We haven't … talked about it. I mean, we sort of have—" like the bond, of course they circled around that topic endlessly, "— this is so painful, Nora."
Nora smiled in sympathy. "I see why you didn't mention it. It sounds tough. Does she make you happy? That's what I wanna know, as your friend."
"Really happy," he said. In the most impossible of ways.
"That's all we want. We all want you to be happy. I've seen you put yourself through a lot, and, well, we thought we lost you for a minute there. Look at us now! Dancing together! You've got a girl who makes you happy! Ren's gonna dance with me next! Oh, let's circle over to him—" they veered in the direction of Ren, and Jaune offered Nora's hand to him and mock-bowed.
"May I have this dance, my lady?" said Ren. Nora giggled and accepted his hand.
Jaune inelegantly made his way through throngs of bad dancers and good dancers up to the edge of where the party spilt out onto the grass, built up atop the rest of the ziggurat underneath. He was near the big window, and he could spy the whole room, taking note of all the couples dancing together: Ren and Nora, Emerald and Mercury, Blake and Yang, all happily gliding around the crowd between people he did not know, and he spied Ruby's head of black and red hair bouncing, and now most people were paired up again, except the teachers who were all sitting off to the side with Theodore, who had his head cupped in his hand, maybe bored or tired. Jaune crossed his arms, and turned his gaze to his feet. At one point someone sidled up beside him and asked, "Wanna dance?"
"Taken, sorry," he said, on instinct, not looking up. He heard a huff before they walked away. He was not dancing with anybody, no, but the music had turned slow and it was not the sort of dance he just wanted with anyone. He was not bitter, per se, watching everyone else, when he glanced up. She had said, in another life, like there was one where they went to school or grew up together, and what, she would be on their side, then? What else? Would she have wanted to be his girlfriend, and meet his family? Normally, not like this, where she had a Grimm curse and he had eased it and then bonded her to him. He ran a hand over his chest, where it hurt. Nora had asked him if she made her happy, and said that it mattered the most. Of course she made him happy, so acutely he sometimes did not even recognise the feeling. Of course he was falling in love with her in this life too. But his date was not here, and he was alone.
He tried to ignore the warble of the singing, and not think of hers, much more unconscious and not perfect but lovely. He tried not to think of anything. That was when he heard a distant whistling. Very distantly. He turned and looked. Maybe it was just the wind singing. He was about to dismiss the feeling again before the great window smashed right open. There was a crescendo, all the sound in the room amplified in this one crash, between the gasps and the roars and everybody stepping back from the figure that had crashed upon entry. It was not just a ballistic. It was a woman.
Jaune had the vantage point and pushed to the front, instructing everybody to get back, "Move away, come on," he said, funnelling students backwards, and as he stepped closer and the room pulled back, and the music kept warbling, he recognised the long black hair. Nobody else would know who it was, because she had worn it short, and her left arm was protected in that silver armour which clinked when she gestured with it. Ruby was already up with him, standing hesitantly back and controlling the crowd.
He knelt beside her, where she was shaking and convulsing. "What happened?" he asked. Why did she hate doors?
Then Cinder lifted her head, her face scrunched up in agony. "She's awake," she nearly cried. Jaune heard Ruby gasp and others must have recognised her too, her one-eyed, piercing stare, her hidden arm.
"Why did you come here? Why didn't you call me?" he begged, and then he, without much thought, reached out with his Semblance and found her Aura was completely shattered. Jaune had a terrible feeling as to who had done that.
She gripped her left arm, and the armour broke off in its own sick undulation. The arm was trying to break free. "I was trying to give you time," she said, "I couldn't— through—" and he told her to breathe.
The Grimm arm smoked. Behind him he heard commotion but he ignored it. He tried to strengthen her Aura but she snapped at him, "What are you doing? Go. Go! I was giving you a head start! Don't waste it on me!"
He tried to speak, but her arm grew and grew and grew, black upon black building and building from its palm, tendrils emerging. It thickened, putrid in visage, smelling of sulphur. Sickly-looking, made of no real shape, eventually it approximated a mockery of a figure: Salem writ large, a spectre over the hall. Like a ghost.
"Hm," Salem said, over the din. "A party. Well, don't allow me to interrupt." Her voice rang out, as clearly as if she had said it in his ear.
Jaune helped Cinder. He always did. He was good at that. He gripped her right hand, and she pressed it tightly back.
"I thought we had longer," she choked out.
"Hey, hey, it's okay," he said.
"You need… to get back…"
He shook his head. "I'm not."
"No. Salem will…" she gasped out, but did not finish.
"You know I can't watch you—"
"Cinder," Salem said. Her tone was careful. Every head turned towards her, and Jaune did not move. "What have you been up to?"
"I was gathering information on the Summer Maiden."
Salem hemmed. "She's Tyrian's business. So imagine my surprise when I awoke to find my Seer dead, and the Relics gone. What did you do with them, exactly? Lose them?"
A tremor ran down her arm. Jaune watched its slow descent of pain. "I borrowed them," she said.
"Fascinating. And what," Salem said, pausing for emphasis, "is he doing?"
Jaune looked at Cinder, and Cinder looked back. "Making a grave error," she snapped.
"Liar," Salem said.
"I don't know! He's not doing anything!"
"Cinder," he whispered. She shook her head.
"LIAR."
Amidst the torture threaded through her arm, Cinder said, unusually articulate, "She's going to come, now, the Summer Maiden and Tyrian too. It will be a siege of greater proportion than Atlas—"
"Why are you—"
"I'm protecting you," she hissed. She let out a choked gasp when it stopped. Jaune knew what Salem was doing. She controlled the most powerful of them all, and kept her weak.
"Cinder, Cinder, Cinder," Salem said. She shook her head, in a mockery of maternal disappointment. "What a terrible mess you've made."
That was when Ruby stepped in front of them, and Weiss, and Yang, and Blake. "I would suggest that you leave," Ruby said, coldly, voice very loud.
"Ah, and you yet live. I was informed that you had died."
"Not really."
"So it would seem. How wonderful." Salem smiled. "I'm so excited for what's to come next. Cinder, tell me, did you get frightened, being so alone in Evernight? Did you seek the closest comfort? Take heed in knowing they only value you for the Maiden power. Only you truly understand its purpose."
Cinder looked at Jaune again, and he mouthed, no.
"I made a mistake in asking you to watch over me whilst I slept. You don't make a particularly good guard-dog." Salem laughed to herself, and Jaune saw Ruby's shoulders tighten. "Surely, you'll be back on task now, yes? Maiden, Relic— oh, Theodore!"
Theodore was at the very back of the crowd, and Salem jauntily waved at him.
She continued, "I so hope the Summer Maiden has made her acquaintance with you yet. If not, I'll have her contact you soon. Her partner has an interest in… family matters. It is so good to be refreshed. Now, Cinder, shall I be seeing you?"
"Yes," she said, head bowed. Jaune gripped her hand still. Then Cinder added, "Without you, I am nothing."
"No you're—" he tried.
Salem disappeared, winding down, down, down, back into Cinder's arm. She gasped out in pain.
"Don't," Cinder said, "don't, don't, don't, DON'T. Go and prepare yourself. Do you think Salem was kidding around? It's all over now." Her gaze flickered around everywhere, manically, her mind clearly whirring, and Jaune had no idea what to do. Come with me, he wanted to say, we can stop her together.
"You want to stop the Summer Maiden," Jaune said, "come on. Stay. Don't just give us a head start."
"It's the only way, and it's the only option. Did you think it was ever possible for me to turn back?" She laughed, but it was a mean one. "I'm merely operating within my means."
There was a stampede of an exodus. Confused chatter building in crescendo. Salem's most public appearance yet. But he only watched Cinder. He did not even notice Ruby until she squatted before them, and said, "Jaune, are you going to explain what's going on?"
"Get back," Cinder said sourly. "Just— go. I'm not here for you. I don't care about you—"
Ruby raised a brow. She had never been very disturbed by Cinder, not the way Jaune had been.
Jaune searched for the right thing to say. He did not have it in him to pretend. He could not pretend when she was hurt. He could not ever pretend. He barely kept a lid of it. How he felt coloured everything.
Cinder sensed his apprehension, and she sighed. "I'll help you with this, I suppose. We have an Aura bond."
"Does that mean you're married?" Weiss asked. When the other three turned to look at her like, Weiss, come on, she added, "What? It sounds like marriage. Or is that like Oz and Oscar?"
"Hang on, let me get this straight: you're... with CINDER?" Yang burst out. "You have a— a— with CINDER?!"
"Wait, did she force you into it?" asked Blake. "Are you—"
"Is she your girlfriend?"
"Are you working together?"
"I don't think they're actually married—"
"That's not how marriage works anyway, Weiss—"
"Okay, enough, enough," Ruby cut in. She stood up and put her hands on her hips and seemed very determined. "I don't think we have any reason to doubt Salem, or Cinder, for that matter. She's coming. Why hadn't she done so sooner?"
"She was asleep," Jaune said. "I knew."
"She was asleep? You knew?"
Jaune had thought about this. "Okay, just hear me out for one second. How could I tell you? Would you believe me? Would you just think Cinder was using me? Would you think that she'd done something to me— what if she were planting false information? What if you— what if you made me—" He looked at Cinder. What if they kept me from you. "There were just too many variables and not enough time. I knew Salem wasn't coming, and we found the Summer Maiden, and they were scattered. When we helped Mercury…"
Mercury had sidled up beside the four, Emerald gripping at his sleeve, gaze steely. "This is the part where I save your skin. Cinder got me outta there. If she hadn't have called Jaune, I'd have been dead. So." At Ruby's confusion, Mercury added, "Woo woo Aura magic. I dunno." He shrugged.
Yang groaned into her hands.
"Are there any other surprises?" Ruby asked.
That was when Jaune saw Nora, whose jaw had dropped open. Ah, he thought to himself, there's one.
"I have to go," Cinder said lowly. Jaune was shaking his head silently at Nora, and then at Cinder, everything going wrong at once.
"No, no, just— stay. You could stay—"
"I can't stay. You know I can't."
"You—"
"Look at them," she whispered. "They loathe me. They know what I've taken from them. You might pretend to forget, but we both know which way this goes." He saw her lip quiver, and then something piercing and sorrowful and broken and old and pained entered her, marking her face the way the scars did. "For what it's worth… is it even something possible to apologise for? There's no forgiveness, and I don't think I even want to hear it. But it ends here, I suppose." She pulled her hand away.
"What are you… are you…" he tried, quietly, but she was two steps ahead still.
"You would have been happy. I can't imagine the life you would have led, but it would have been happy. I took that from you. And her." Then it was like a mask slipped on, heavier than the one she wore. She wiped her expression blank, her eye cold. "Now I'm going for a hunt."
He grabbed her gently and desperately at the waist and pulled her close. "What do you mean pretend? What do you mean pretend? I never pretended. I forgave you, hundreds of times over, before you even— you don't get it, do you? Didn't you listen to me? I'm going to look after you. I will. I don't care if you leave—"
"Stop it, stop—"
He took her hand and put it on his chest, and ignored the audience. "You're in here, sweetheart. I'll see you again."
The mask dropped. For just a moment he saw her again, and then she wrenched herself away, and the others moved forward, as if to stop her. There was very little stopping her. Weiss Summoned her Knight. Cinder left. Just like that. Always fire. The shiny stone was covered in ash. Inside him, his heart felt like it burnt.