A/N: I'm late….again.

Sorry guys, that double chapter took a lot out of me, as well as a side project. I'll tell you about the project at the end if you guys want to check it out.

So here's the completion of the reunion. I don't know if I wrote it as well as I normally do, but I did enjoy writing it.

I'll repeat this at the end, but this is not the final chapter of volume 1. there will be one more chapter.

Okay, no more announcements until the end.

I hope you enjoy!

I don't own RWBY or RT.

Guilty Rose Chapter 23

Raven couldn't help but smile at two of the most important women in her life held each other for the first time in twelve years.

Her and everyone else in the hall had filed into the room when they heard Rose call out to her mother and the subsequent thud of one faunus running into the other.

Raven felt torn between joining them and staying put. But was leaning towards not joining, if only to delay explaining why she wanted to join them for a little bit longer.

Raven sighed softly and shook her head.

She looked over last, but not least, member of the list of women.

Yang looked so torn by the scene before them. Raven knew why. Yang felt guilty because of what she had to do to make this happen.

"Daughter like mother. Always worrying about useless stuff."

Raven grimaced, realizing that she had just called herself out as well. She glanced back at Summer and rose, weighing her options again.

"Well, no time like the present."

She heaved a sigh and took a step towards the pair. It was nerve wracking, but she knew this needed to happen.

On the second step towards them, rose's head popped up and she stared straight into Raven's eyes. Raven was momentarily struck by the molten silver pools, as the fact that this was the first time she was able to look into her daughter's eyes was not lost on her.

There was a potent mix of emotions in those big silver eyes. She clearly recognized Raven, but the fear and despair in her eyes spoke that she only knew Raven as the Branwen Tribe leader.

Summer noticed that Rose had started shaking and pulled away from the embrace to see what was wrong. It didn't take much for her to put things together.

"Ruby, it's okay, it's just-"

"Raven Branwen, leader of the Branwen Tribe, a tribe I attacked."

Raven could feel the pain in Rose's voice when she mentioned the tribe. Raven couldn't help but soften her expression.

It suddenly struck Raven that she might be able to help Rose forgive herself of this particular thing. It wouldn't be much, but it would be a good start.

"Ruby."

Raven grimaced at how Rose flinched at hearing her name. She grimaced harder as she walked closer and kneeled down next to Summer.

Raven brought a hesitant hand to Ruby's cheek, they almost pulled away from each other, but managed to stop themselves. Finally, Raven placed her hand on Rose's cheek.

"The Oni Tribe attacked the tribe, you saved their lives."

Rose seemed taken back by that response and seemed to search Raven's eyes for any sign of deceit. She wouldn't find any, so Raven let her look as long as she wanted to.

"But I helped to attack them?"

Raven brushed a stray tear from Rose cheek.

"No, you didn't. Vernal and your team told us everything."

Rose's eyes filled with sadness and she made a weak attempt to push away from Summer and Raven.

"So you know everything."

Summer immediately tightened her hold on Rose.

"Yes. And I'm so sorry Ruby, I should have found you years ago."

Raven put her free hand on Summer's shoulder and gave it a squeeze.

"We both should have."

Rose's face twisted in confusion.

"What do you mean?"

Raven let out a long sigh and looked around the room before her eyes rested on Yang.

"This is something that is a little too private to talk about here."

Yang returned her mother's stare before nodding her understanding.

"Weiss, Blake, would you two mind to breakfast without us? This might take a bit."

Both girls looked at each other with uncertain expressions, but still nodded to Yang.

….

Cinder watched as Rose left with her family. She smiled when Yang turned back to mouth a thank you to her teammates, and was shocked when the blonde did the same to Cinder.

Cinder managed to respond with a smile and nod back before she left the room too.

"Well, at least that went better than last night."

All eyes came to Weiss who let out a loud breath after she spoke.

"I'd keep your fingers crossed still, whatever they went to talk about sounded serious."

"You're probably right."

A sudden loud growl emanated from Neo, shifting all attention to her. She clutched her stomach and turned the brightest shade of red possible. Everyone wanted to chuckle at the girl's expense, but only Mercury had the audacity to actually laugh.

"I think we should feed the ravenous beast, before she eats someone."

Luckily he had the sense and reflexes to dodge the first textbook thrown at his head. Though he never saw the second one coming, likely because Emerald assisted.

The dumbfounded look on his face cracked everyone up, even Weiss and Blake. Mercury eventually recovered and scowled at them.

After the antics were over, Emerald and Neo grabbed their things and everyone headed towards the door.

Cinder glanced over at the box on her nightstand, an idea had been brewing in her head since she decided to talk to Weiss. She looked back at everyone else leaving the room and decided it would be best to carry out the idea now.

"You guys go on ahead, I need to take care of something."

"Don't take too long, it won't be long before Nora wakes up and cleans the place out."

"I won't be."

Cinder waited for everyone to leave the room before digging in her dust supplies for her burn, earth, and ice dust. For once, she was glad Salem had pushed her so hard to learn her semblance.

Her semblance was called glass, she could create item from dust with it. It was hard and painful to learn how to perfect it, especially the way she was about to use it.

The way she was about to use her semblance was particularly painful if she failed to do things perfectly as she had to focus so much on her semblance that she couldn't protect herself with her aura if the dust activated while she was molding it into shape.

Cinder poured ice dust into her palm, almost filling it. Then she added much smaller amounts of burn and earth dust. Making sure the proportions were perfect to achieve the results she wanted.

She took a breath to help her focus and slowly closed her hand. She called upon her semblance and focused on molding the dust into the delicate shape she wanted.

Cinder winced when several shots of pain came from her hand as the item took shape. She also felt blood slowly pool in her hand. But she pressed on, this was small amount of pain was entirely worth it for Rose.

After two minutes of channeling her semblance, her work was done. She opened her hand to reveal slightly bloody white fractal snowflake with a crimson rose at the center. The charm had came out perfectly and Cinder couldn't help but smile softly at it.

The ashen haired girl retrieved a handkerchief and carefully cleaned the charm before cleaning and healing her hand. She then walked over to the box on her night stand and opened it. Inside it was the last charm she made Rose on a sterling silver chain. The charm was her symbol with a crimson rose in the center.

Cinder nodded to herself, now she was certain she was doing the right thing.

Then her thoughts went back to her talk with Neo, and her talk with Rose in the CCT tower. Looking at the charms, she realized what she needed to do to protect Rose.

"I wonder if Emerald and Mercury will still follow me after I tell them?"

"You realize that Rose would blame herself if she found out you got hurt making that."

Cinder jumped and shrieked when Weiss' voice broke her thoughts.

"I was hoping not to tell her...especially because she'd press me to be entirely honest on how many times I got hurt trying to make this one."

"Most people wouldn't call this healthy."

Cinder stared at the charms for a moment.

"I feel like I should give some excuse, but all I have is that Rose is worth the effort."

"I'd be lying if I said I disagreed with you there. They are quite beautiful by the way."

"Thank you."

Cinder Smiled softly as she added the snowflake to the chain.

"Would you help me give this to Rose today, Weiss?"

Weiss looked at the pensively.

"Sure. As long as you give me your word that you'll talk to Velvet about that today."

Cinder giggled at the heiress trying to act so proper.

"Yes, I'll talk to the president."

"Remember, I want mine to have a frilly princess dress."

Cinder laughed and nodded her head while Weiss blushed.

….

Rose sat on her bed with her mother next to her, Raven and Yang were sitting on Weiss' bed. The mood in the room was a bit heavy as something seemed to be eating at Yang.

"Before you guys explain whatever it is you need to, I want to say something to Rose."

Rose looked at her sister quizzically. Yang looked back at her with such guilty eyes.

"Rose, I'm sorry for breaking my promise to you and calling them here."

"It's okay Yang, in fact, I'm sorry."

"I know you won't forgive me right away...wait, what?"

"I said I'm sorry...I've been forcing you, Weiss, and Blake to lie to mom about me… And I know it hurts you to do that."

"You had a reason for it though."

"No Yang, I didn't. I was just scared and letting my past control me."

Yang bit her lip, she didn't want to be absolved so easily, but Rose didn't look like she was going to take it back.

"You really didn't want me to find you, Ruby?"

Rose flinched at her mother's words before looking at her knees. Her first name still felt so foreign to her ears.

"I've never stopped wanting you to find me...I was just terrified of what you'd see when you did find me."

"Oh, Ruby."

Ruby was pulled into another hug by her mother and just relaxed into it.

"As sweet as this is, Summer, and it is very sweet, we promised to explain things to our daughters."

Summer released a growling sigh and reluctantly released Rose. Yang gave them a question in response to this.

"I get it that you two are together, I was really more curious about when it happened."

Summer cringed and Raven sighed.

"There's a bit more to tell than that, but we'll start there for simplicity. Summer and I started officially dating after she signed the divorce papers that Tai sent her."

"Really? So when did all this start?"

Raven blushed at the question.

"Would you believe if I said since we were students ourselves."

Summer's head shot to her lover, clearly shocked by this news.

"Really? But you were always with Tai back then."

"That was because of the tribe. They wanted me to find someone strong to have a child."

Raven suddenly turned on Yang as she finished her sentence.

"Before you dare think I wasn't in love with you from the moment I found out I was pregnant, I was."

"Then why did you leave me and dad?"

Raven looked at the ground.

"I mistook what Tai had for strength and I had to go back to the tribe, I was going to take you with me, but I knew that would only break Tai further."

Yang regarded her mother for a moment before sigh and accepting what she said.

"Okay, but what about you two."

"I...always admired Summer's strength, and the only reason I didn't get with her was because I needed to produce an heir and only knew the one way at the time."

"So wait, you've had feelings for her this entire time and what, struck when she was divorcing dad?"

"Not exactly Yang."

Raven stopped and tried to form the words to tell Yang the truth, but couldn't. So Summer decided to take it from there.

"Yang, I've known about your mother's feelings for me since I tracked her down after she went back to the tribe. She told me why she left, so I kept in contact with her while I helped Tai with you… Just after your first birthday, Raven came to Patch to deliver your present. We went out to have some drinks for old times' sake...and one thing led to another."

Yang cleared her throat to cut off her mother's rambling.

"So you to did it, had feelings for each other, and you still married dad?"

"No, she married Tai, because she found out she was having Ruby, who she thought was Tai's at the time."

"Thought?"

"Yes, before I visited Summer, I had found out about a Branwen technique that allowed Branwen to impregnate a female aura user without sex."

Yang's eyes went wide when she heard that, having now pieced together what they were trying to say.

Rose, however, didn't and tilted her head in confusion.

"So, what does that have to do with me?"

"Ruby… You are mine and Summer's daughter."

Rose took a moment to digest this, it was starting to make sense now, but only just.

"Can you actually prove this?"

Raven cocked an eye at her oldest, but figured her Branwen blood was getting the better of her. She turned back to Rose with only one idea to give immediate proof.

"Ruby, could you undo your braid?"

Rose grimaced at the request. But before she could decline, Raven spoke up again.

"I know, getting it back into that tight of a braid normally requires a shower, but trust me your mother can fix it back. So would you please do as I ask?"

"Wait, what does her hair have to do with anything?"

"Have you ever seen her with it down or touched it?"

"No, She never wears it down, and hardly let's anyone touch it...like seriously, I've only seen her let Weiss touch it once."

Raven gave Yang a knowing smirk before turning back to Rose, who was still mulling over the request.

"Mommy, can you actually fix it if I pull the braid out?"

Summer smiled softly at her daughter.

"I can, if you want me to."

"Okay then."

Rose pulled her braid over her shoulder and began gently pulling it apart. It took a few minutes of running her fingers through her hair for it to return to it's natural state.

Yang couldn't help but stare and let her jaw drop further with every passing second.

Rose had wild black and red mane that could only come from the Branwen bloodline.

Summer looked enamored by flowing hair and went to touch it. Unfortunately, Rose also had the Branwen sixth sense and snapped her head to look at her mother with a defensive expression.

"Oh come on Ruby! Rae and Yang let me touch their hair."

Summer gave a powerful pout, unfortunately Rose wasn't even looking. Though the expression on her face was no longer defensive, but sad.

It was the same she showed for a split second every time someone called her name. Raven couldn't let this continue.

Not without answers.

Luckily her time at Beacon taught her some tact.

"Rose, is there something with people calling you Ruby?"

Raven mentally patted herself on the back for broaching the subject so well.

Rose looked at her with a pained expression that told her she celebrated too early.

"It's not that something is wrong with it. I know my name is Ruby. But it just feels foreign to me, like you're calling me by someone else's name."

"Ruby, how could you feel like that?"

Rose looked at her mother.

"You know what they made me do in the Oni Tribe...I'm not the innocent little girl I was when I was taken."

Summer looked to Raven and Yang for support, only to find them with dark expressions that spoke their understanding. Rose looked bake at her daughter and wracked her brain for something to say.

Then it hit her and she pulled Rose into another embrace.

"Rose petal, you will always be my little girl, no matter what. So always remember that."

Rose didn't say anything, just snuggled into the embrace. Summer shot a look at the other two women in the room.

"And you'll always be my little sister."

Yang got up and joined the embrace.

Raven's face contorted a bit, but a silent argument with Summer convinced her to get up and join the embrace.

"And you'll always be my little Rose."

Raven cringed at her line, but Summer gave her a reassuring smile.

Suddenly, a deep growl emanated from the center of the embrace and everyone turned to Rose, who was pointedly looking down.

When a second growl came from Yang, Summer shook her head and laughed.

"How about we go join everyone for breakfast. After that, me and Raven need to have a chat with Ozzy."

A/N: Yeah, that's done with. No more feels for volume 1.

Next chapter will be a check in with everyone so the transition to volume 2 is a little more seamless. Also Ozpin will be eating his mug. I know a lot of people have been waiting for that.

So I've got nothing specific to say about the first scene, so I'm moving on. There is the touching Fallen White petals scene. Well, not really that touching, but still. Cinder willing to go through all that, just for Rose, making two charms like that.

Which reminds me, how many of you guessed that is what Cin's new charm would look like? If you don't know what I mean, you might want to go back several chapters.

Weiss and Cin are really an odd thing for me to write like this, not bad, just refreshing. I honestly haven't seen a single story with a dynamic like this. Which makes this a lot of fun to write.

Now, the end scene. The truth is told. Rose is a Branwen like I've been hinting/saying for months. I know some of you aren't entirely on board with this, but it's been a big part of my plans for this story for months. Also, yeah, Rose inherited the famous Branwen hair, but somehow keeps it bound(super hair ties, her own design XD).

I'd like to real quick explain the technique that led to Rose's conception in this story. A Branwen can flood the womb of a female aura user and impregnate them by putting their hand on the woman's bare pelvic region. Yeah it's pretty PG, but I thought it worked well enough for this story. Also you should probably take note of this.

And that's it for this story's announcements. Now for other stories.

I got dragged into a new story collab by RelentlessIce. He does most of the writing, I mainly edit and give ideas.

The story is called A Roses Second Chance. It's M rated for very good reason, i.e. the smut I write and his darker themes. Check it out if you feel like it.

I'm also still writing Loud Summer Quiet Winter with eden36, check that one out too!

Alright, that's everything!

I will see you guys in about a week!

Please follow, fav, and review!