"Cut it off! Cut it off now!"

Neo stared out at the frozen room through a tiny hole in her cocoon. The world around her was ice.

"Neo, cut it off!"

She blinked idly, feeling the weigh of the ice crystals that had formed on her eyelashes.

"Neo... help... me..."

She had saved herself. She had thought she was the only one left. And when she had resigned herself to freezing to death in the streets, she had woken up to the sound of someone else moving around. With all of her remaining strength, she pulled herself out of the bed, allowing her body to drop onto the floor. She didn't remember getting into the bed, let alone the pajamas Ruby said she found Neo in. All she remembered was being at death's door and then being awakened by someone sneaking around on the floor beneath her. In her desperation, she had alerted Ruby to her presence, which had without question saved her life. She'd repaid that kindness by not taking Ruby's life the moment she was able to move, which probably saved her own life again. Ruby didn't seem too keen on fighting while they were in this curious and horrible situation, and as much as Neo felt a strong distaste for Ruby, she knew her chance of survival was much better with another person beside her, even if only as someone to take the hit for her if something did happen. As much as she would hate to admit it, she believed what Ruby said about Roman's death. That didn't mean she wouldn't sacrifice Ruby for her own safety the moment the situation called for it. There was only one thing she had ever put ahead of herself, and that was gone now.

Beside her, bundled up just as tightly, Ruby leaned in closer to Neo. Her voice was hoarse, having taken damage from the cold air when she went to retrieve Crescent Rose. "Neo... is Neopolitan your first name, or is like, Neo your first name and Politan your last name? Or is it like a pop star thing where you only have one name?"

Neo responded by elbowing Ruby three times.

"Really? So it's your professional name, then. That's pretty cool." She went quiet for a minute before leaning in closer. "You know, I guess I always assumed you were just too smug for talking, but you really are mute, aren't you? Like, I'm really the only person here, and you still talk through writing and gestures."

That didn't especially matter to Neo, when she thought about it, and she had many times. Even if she could talk like normal people, she had long ago decided she liked it this way better and would only speak out loud to people she deemed most worthy of her voice, which came out to a grand total of Roman. To take it a step further, if she'd always been able to talk, she still didn't think she would be talking to Ruby right now. Nothing against Ruby, Neo just didn't like her. Granted, with it out between them that Roman had died at the hands of the Grimm, Neo's reasons for hating Ruby were melting away.

Ruby had apparently grown tired of sitting still. She shook her head until most of the clothes on top of her had tumbled down, a lot of them onto Neo. She held up a sock. "I wonder if this'll freeze midair if I throw it at the door." She threw the sock and they watched it flop through the air until it hit the opposite wall and fell to the floor. To their surprise, it didn't freeze over even then. Ruby pulled back the blanket a bit, poking her head out into the air around them. "I think it's starting to warm up?"

Neo wasn't about to test that theory, but since Ruby's face hadn't turned to ice yet she decided there might be some validity to it. She didn't stick herself out there nearly as much as Ruby had, but she shuffled around some of the clothes so she could get her hands on the plastic bag of sandwiches. The plastic had managed to stay warm enough not to shatter, which was probably the biggest blessing Neo had been given in a very long time. She pulled out a sandwich, not even caring what it had in it, and bit into it. The jam definitely wasn't as lucky as the plastic bag. It had ice crystals all through it. She could only wonder at what had happened to the honey. Still, frozen jam was practically a popsicle. Not the ideal treat given the weather, but far from a travesty.

Without warning, Ruby stood up. "Stay here. I'm going to see if it's safe."

That was horribly reckless, but it was an attitude that had gotten Ruby this far, so Neo allowed it. She also didn't want to get up and risk herself, so there was that. She watched, quietly eating her sandwich, as Ruby stepped forward. She stooped down to pick up Crescent Rose. It was stuck to the ground, but broke free rather easily. After a few moments of punching the heavy metal weapon to get the ice out of it, Ruby pressed a button and watched it unfold... part way. Ruby grumbled unhappily, but it didn't stop her. She started walking over to the door, only to totally lose her footing a moment later and crash down onto her behind, causing the ice under her to crack. From Neo's perspective, it almost looked like the floor itself had cracked. That was worrying.

"Owww... not safe." Ruby groaned in pain as she righted herself, not yet trying to stand. She looked back over her shoulder at Neo and forced a smile. "It's still cold, but the deep freeze is over. We made it." Neo rolled her eyes, but stood up out of the pile of clothes all the same. She didn't want to tear her beloved Hush by trying to pull it free, so she left it where it lay, instead reaching out her hand to Ruby. The girl's smile dropped and she stared in surprise at Neo for a moment. "Uh... thanks." She took the offered hand and Neo pulled her to her feet.

Plopping down on their nest, Neo reached down into her heavy coat and pulled out her pencil and notepad, flipping it open to begin writing. Ruby watched intently as Neo wrote, and she was writing a lot. She had a lot she wanted to say to Ruby. She didn't want to start a fight right now, and she didn't know how easy it might be to set Ruby off. If she was anything like her sister, Neo knew to expect an explosive temper, so she had to be careful how she worded the harder parts. Eventually, she finished and handed the pad to Ruby, who stood and read it quietly.

"I don't need to tell you my backstory, and you don't need to hear it. It doesn't matter if I was bullied, or abandoned, or orphaned, or abused, or raped, or tortured. All you need to know is that I was suffering for so long, it became all I knew. Then Roman came into my life. He took me under his wing and taught me, trained me, fed me and gave me shelter, and he cared for me. The only one who cared. Then he was taken from me. And you can blame the Grimm for it if you want, but that doesn't change the fact that I wasn't there by his side because of you. You claim that you care about people, you want to help people, but you really only want to help people who are in immediate danger from monsters, or 'bad guys'. But the people like me get left behind. We always get left behind. Roman was a hero. He was my hero. And he died because of you. That makes you the villain in my story. Wouldn't you agree?"

Ruby took a deep breath, looking back to Neo. The woman was glaring daggers at her. That was a lot to take in, but Ruby wasn't done reading. It went on.

"You only care about the people right in front of you, which is a horrible way to be and still pretend like you care about everyone. There's always a town being attacked by the Grimm. There's always someone dying, always someone being bullied, always someone suffering, and then there's the people who are the reason this system exists. You don't step in until they're the ones being threatened, and that's why you sicken me. That's why I hate people like you. You claim to be paragons of virtue, but refuse to admit that you can't save everyone. You stand atop a tower watching over the kingdom, ignoring the man raping the princess in the tower. People like Roman know they can't save everyone, and they admit it. They put everything into saving one person, making sure that person has a place to live, a place they feel safe, a place they're loved. People like you just take that one good thing away from people like me."

She doubted that was all of Neo's feelings, but it was enough for now. It was enough to understand where she was at right now. It hurt to be told that that was how Neo saw her, and every Huntress in history for that matter, but she could see how someone might reach that point of view. Especially given what hardships she must have gone through in her life. Ruby had always thought everyone had a spark of good in them, but she now realized at some point she'd subconsciously painted people like Torchwick and Cinder with a wide brush titled 'Exceptions'. If even Torchwick had, at some point in his life, seen a sad and broken girl and made the decision to reach out and help her, then, maybe, regardless what his reason was, he had indeed held that spark of good inside him. It stood to reason that, if Neo was the only recipient of that goodness, it would be the only part of him she really saw.

There was one more thing written on the page, the final thought in Neo's tirade. Added on in a way that told her this was Neo's conclusion, almost as if to say 'with all that being said', she had written six simple words. "Thank you for saving my life."

Letting out a sad sigh, Ruby turned and sat down beside Neo. "Yeah... okay. I get it. We're not friends. We probably won't ever be friends." She sat staring at the frozen floor for a minute before continuing. "I know I can't save everyone. I've always known I couldn't save everyone. To be honest, that's always been the source of my worst nightmares. That night, when Penny was torn apart, that's when my nightmare became real to me, for good. I never thought I'd see her again, and then what happened to Torch- ...What happened to Roman. And then Pyrrha. I've had dreams about saving them, and then I'd wake up expecting them to be right there and we were all friends and everything was fine. Like nothing bad ever happened. But then I would see where I was and it would pull me back to reality, like getting hit by a truck. I wanted to save them. I wished I could, and I've always wished I could. All of them. But I know that's impossible."

Before she could continue, Neo grabbed the notepad from her and wrote down a question, this time just showing it to her instead of handing the pad to her. "Why do you act like you can, then?"

Ruby thought about it for a moment, then shook her head. "It's not like that. I learned the hard way that we can't save people all the time. Sometimes, when you try to save someone, you have to stop protecting someone else to do it, and that's when the bad things happen. As much as I would love to be there to stand in front of every bullied child, to offer shelter to every homeless person, and feed every starving orphan, I can't. I'm struggling with giant monsters, trying to keep those people alive long enough for someone else to hopefully step in, but it doesn't guarantee that will ever happen. I'm not blind to that, and I don't think anyone else is either, but no one can be there for every person who's suffering. You can't ask that few people to do that much... but you can ask everyone to do a little." She stopped, turning to look Neo in the eye. "I'm sorry I couldn't save him. That's what I'm sorry for."

Neo stared at her for a while. She wasn't angry anymore, at least not visibly. She wasn't glaring, just looking. When she decided Ruby was earnest, or at least earnest enough, she closed her eyes and lay back in the nest. If Ruby could go that far, then maybe they could be a little more than mutual bait for the Grimm. She didn't think friends was a possibility, and definitely not any sort of real trust beyond just what they needed to stay alive. She still definitely did not like Ruby, and she would never forgive Ruby, but if she could go that far, then maybe Neo could stop hating her.