Chapter 9

Blake had still been isolated in her little nook under the bed, blankets curled around her in the tightest bundle she could make when the knocks came. "Blake?" The soft pensive voice called out. "Blake, open up, it's me, just Penny."

"Go away." Blake groaned, rolling closer into the corner she had claimed under her bed.

"Blake."

"No Penn. I don't want to talk about it."

"I'm not asking you to talk about it."

"Then what in the hell do you want?"

"I wanna tell you something."

"How could that ever be anything but talking about it?" Blake burrowed her head into her blankets.

"It is proof, proof that you weren't lying to her. I- Weiss misses you too." Penny stammered.

"Weiss is convinced I am some horrible person. And, anyways, she's too stubborn for proof of any sort." Blake hated how well she knew the Schnee, how in only a matter of months they had grown to know each other so well. It… felt like wasted time, like all that she knew and adored of the other woman was but a constellation prise to taunt her with the chance at love she had lost.

"Please, just hear me out."

"Why?" Blake groaned. "It's not like anything you say could change it!"

Penny rolled her eyes, her finger bending back as a tool extended and picked the door's lock for her, allowing her to march on into the room without forcing Blake to open the door for her.

"Hey! How the hell did you d-"

"Long story, I'll tell you later when you and Weiss are back together."

"She is not going to change her mind, it is Weiss, since when has she ever listened to reason." Blake wished for a moment that somehow remembering that could soother the ache in her heart for the heiress; but that would have been far too easy. "You should know that by now. You are her roommate."

"She is stubborn, but she cares about you; enough to actually budge on this if she has even the slightest reason."

"Yeah, well I don't have thaaa!" Blake's mumbled griping interrupted by the robot woman simply lifting the bed up and yanking her out from under it. "What the h-"

"I have it. So you are coming with me back to Weiss and I's room, and waiting for her to get home." Penny pressingly lifted her eyebrows as Blake gawked at her.

"You- you-" Blake's eyes glimmered hopeful, momentarily forgetting the feat of strength and the way her friend so effortlessly yanked her out from under the bed.

"You two dorks should really learn to talk to each other." Penny rolled her eyes, something about the awkward nature which accompanied admitting one's feelings to a woman they had been masturbating in front of for months completely lost on the robot woman with a girlfriend innocent as a cherub.

"I tried to tal-"

"Really?" Penny leveled her eyes judging and doubtingly at Blake. "You tried to tell her sometime in the past two months that you liked her? That you weren't just doing this to prove you weren't her soulmate?"

"I! Well- no, but!" Blake retreated into herself defensive.

"We are going back to my room and waiting for her to ger home." Penny simply grabbed Blake's arm and began to drag the faunus along and back to the room.

Weiss's head drooped, exhaustion setting in with new heights. She hadn't been counting, but by her best bets, she had been waiting outside the door for a total of at least two hours. Eyelids so heavy, even the heiress with normally immaculate posture slumped over to a point that if it grew any worse, she might topple right onto her face and not even realize it because her eyelids seemed to have closed minutes prior. Occasionally Weiss would realize how horrible she had slumped over and shake herself slightly more awake, but that only lasted a matter of minutes before the cycle would repeat while only worsening every time. It wasn't till she was moments before faceplanting on the floor that the heiress was interrupted by the faunus duo towering above her and a rough jolt to the side of her thigh.

"Hey! Don't kick her." Velvet glared down to Ilia who was still cuddled up with the bunny faunus's arm thrown around her shoulder.

"I didn't kick her! I just nudged her gently… with my foot." Ilia snuggled into the warm woman as she retracted her foot only mildly shamefully.

"Be nicer to her." Velvet huffed gently as she pulled the chameleon faunus into her closer for a tight squeeze; as if that would assist in teaching her the lesson.

"Huh? I- I didn't fall asleep." Weiss jolted awake.

Ilia snickered under her breath and Velvet tried not to join in. "Umm, I think it looks like you might have, just a little bit."

"No Velvet! I did not! I was just- just resting my eyes! I! So what if I did fall asleep!" Weiss snapped.

Ilia glared down to the heiress with an angry expression that seemed like she might growl at her at any moment for snapping at her new girlfriend.

"No one said there was anything wrong with falling asleep. We just wanted to get some rest for the night and found you waiting here. I- by the way? What exactly were you waiting for Weiss?" Velvet asked calmly before Ilia could chime in and make it all sound a lot less calm.

"I- I was waiting for Blake to open the door. I! I just need to talk to her! Please! Ilia! Just open the door and let me talk to her! If she never wants to hear from me again… then… so be it! But! But I need to talk to her!" Weiss clambered to her knees, staying there for just a moment practically begging the faunus; something Ilia was far from upset to see, a Schnee humbling herself? That made Ilia's day only just the littlest bit more perfect.

With a glance up to Velvet, Ilia decided to go easy on the Schnee, pulling out her keys and nodding. "Well, Velvet and I need to go inside anyways, and it would really just be a tragedy if someone followed us along and got a chance to talk to her soulmate; but only if she actually tries to make things right and apologies to my friend for what she said." Ilia's glare softened slightly, but still conveyed that essence of 'I know what you said to her bitch' that she nailed so well.

"Of course!" Weiss lept at the opportunity, too exhausted and missing Blake too much to be disgusted at behavior that uncomfortably neared groveling.

Ilia just clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth and gestured for Weiss to stand and move over a little so that she could open the door for the three of them. Weiss uncaringly burst through first. As soon as the door had cracked open the heiress nearly slammed the door into Ilia in order to slip in just one-second sooner. Whipping around to the empty bed, Weiss refused to believe what she saw. Desperate, Weiss turned over the sheets before noticing the trail of blankets that lead under the bed and following to an equally devastating conclusion.

"She- she- she's not here." Weiss collapsed next to the bed defeated.

Ilia glanced around, half worried for both Weiss and Blake, but also half just relieved that Blake had managed the energy to pull herself out from under the bed. "I guess so? I wonder where she went?" Ilia earnestly wondered aloud as she began to snoop around the room for clues.

"Ill?" Velvet shortened her new partner's name in a concerned sounding question.

"Huh?"

"You mentioned that Blake said she didn't care if she flunked out, right? You, you don't think that she went ahead and packed up to go back to menagerie already do you?"

Ilia looked more than a little baffled, but nodded along. "I mean I guess she could have? But wh-"

"You think she already left Beacon?!" Weiss snapped up to her feet, latching to Velvet's shoulders to keep her up.

"I don't know, it couldn't hurt to go look and see if she's headed out tho?" Velvet shrugged, immensely calmer than Ilia had expected her to be about the topic.

"I- I have to go pack!" The strung-out heiress clambered to the door before scurrying out and sprinting back to her room.

"I- I-" Ilia's eyes darted between the ample evidence that Blake hadn't packed nor headed back home in the form of the fellow faunus's clothes still strune all around the room accompanied with all the other mess Blake had accumulated through the post break up cry and eat ice cream period. "Why do you think she moved back to menagerie?"

"I don't." Velvet shrugged and found herself naturally sitting on Ilia's bed.

"I- but, why did you say that?"

"A… couple reasons." Velvet tilted her head from one side to the other as her hands gently invited Ilia closer.

"Huh?"

"Well, first off, you clearly have some opinions about Weiss; Even if you are ok with Blake dating other people, you clearly aren't Weiss's biggest fan. So, I figured giving her a small scare would make you feel better and like you don't have to make so many jabs at the Schnee heiress for a while." Velvet took Ilia's hands and kissed either one of them.

Ilia blushed and nodded. She didn't want to admit it, but Velvet was dead right.

"And…" Velvet lingered in the word. "I may have wanted a chance, along with you to show you whey it normally comes in sequences of ten."

"It? Sequences of t- ohh!" Ilia turned a dark red from head to toe, entirely flustered.

"Come here." Velvet whispered, pulling in the other woman by the tie of her uniform.

With a yelp and a pleased hum, Ilia allowed herself to be yanked into the bed for ten or so delightful peaks.

Weiss near tumbled into her own room, completely missing the two bodies sitting on the bed across from hers as she found a bag and desperately stuffed two changes of clothes inside of it. "Come on, come on, gotta find Blake." Weiss mumbled exhaustedly to herself.

"I, umm…" Blake whispered, raising her hand as if to hail the heiress.

"Give it a moment." Penny whispered back, pulling Blake's hand down. "This could be fun."

"Come on, come on." Weiss grumbled anxiously in her rush. "Wallet, wallet, Wa- Blake!" Weiss yelped, hopping up on her bed as she spotted the two watching her.

"Hey." Blake waved her fingers idly at her soulmate.

"Blake! I! You! You didn't go back home!"

"Home?" Blake deflated. "I understand if you want me to leave, but Penny-"

"No! No! Don't! I- Velvet said you might have gone back to menagerie! I- I was going to go try to catch you at the docks before you left!" Weiss stammered, dropping her bag before plopping down herself just a moment after.

"I think you two need some privacy. And there's a good chance Ruby is alone back in her room anyways." Penny patted her knees before standing.

"She- yeah, Yang is… out in the woods tonight." Weiss coughed out.

"Good to know. Now talk to each other!" Penny teased before heading out.

Silence came over the room the moment Penny exited as if both were actively attempting to disobey the robot's orders. In reality, neither knew how to bridge the topic, what the other wanted to say, or how to salvage what was left between them best. Blake broke first. "You… you were looking for me?"

"I! I'm sorry!" Foreign words blurted past the exhausted heiress's lips.

"You- you're what?" Blake couldn't believe her ears.

"It wasn't you!"

"I… I mean, I could have told you that… I did… for months." Blake's head drooped towards the floor.

"I'm sorry!" Weiss half yelled.

"How did you?"

Weiss chuckled dryly at that.

"What's so funny!" Blake rose her head, still hurting and mad at Weiss in some ways, even if she wanted nothing more than to be held like she had been when she first told the other woman about Adam.

"I- it's not funny, not really, but… it is, kind of?"

"Weiss! I don't have time for games!"

"It's Yang. She… she was doing it to us. Trying to say something in morse code."

"Well of course it was a code… I just didn't know what type." Blake brushed aside. "I! I'm sorry, wait! What did you say?"

"Yang… Apparently, when Ruby is home she goes out in the woods to masturbate. I kind of stormed out there after Ilia tried to talk to me…"

"Ilia tried to talk to you?" Blake's eyes glimmered in appreciation, knowing her friend hadn't been entirely lost to her through the whole endeavor.

"Yeah, she did."

"And what? You just stumbled in on Yang flicking the bean?"

"Kind of, yeah." Weiss blushed.

"And she?"

"The times matched up. She even knew that what she thought was her one soulmate had recently been going for doubles and triples on Friday nights as of late."

"I knew you had been sneaking in a second one!" Blake grinned accusatorily!

"I…" Weiss blushed and hid her face by looking away. "Sometimes."

Blake laughed.

"So…"

"So?"

"Where does that leave us?"

"You are the one that kicked me out…"

"I'm not kicking you out anymore." Weiss pouted.

"It's not like you were the one who invited me here…" Blake looked away in an effort to hide how much that hurt.

"Please stay!" Weiss rushed to spit out. "There, you… you are invited now."

"I'm not sure those two things are exactly equivalent." Blake doubted the half-hearted plea.

"Please… please come here then." Weiss looked away but held out her arm and an open hand.

"Really?" Blake slowly slipped down from her perch on Penny's bed.

"I'm not going to say it again!" Weiss huffed but pushed her hand out further. When no response came, Weiss caved completely. "It's been horrible, and I've missed you! There! Happy! Now! I! I am so damn tired! I… I just want to cuddle and we can talk about everything else in the morning!" No sooner had she finished than did she realize Blake had already taken her hand and was moving in closer.

"Ok. We can talk the rest out in the morning." Blake settled pulling Weiss's hand into her chest and holding it there as things settled in; it would be ok, they could actually figure things out. "Just lay down."

"I- I'm all dirty. I spent half the day out in the forest." Weiss grumbled. "I at least need to-"

"No, just lay down." Whether Weiss knew it or not, they were the exact words she needed to hear. "We can take a shower in the morning, do the sheets, or go back to mine tomorrow. But for now, lay down." Blake guided Weiss down.

"I… thank you." Weiss whimpered.

"Now, scooch. You can't take up the whole bed if you want me to cuddle with you, now can you?"

"No, I can't." Weiss agreed as she inched towards the wall her bed was positioned against.

"There you go." Blake slipped in behind her as she wrapped warms around the exhausted heiress's weary body.

Weiss snickered.

"What is it?"

"This time, I'm the dirty one, faunus." Even exhausted, Weiss was careful to pause correctly in her wording to deliver the intended meaning.

"Yes, yes princess. Now sleep." Blake pulled Weiss in tighter for better cuddles. "Sleep tight."

End of Chapter 9

So! As has been the trend with this fic, I am posting one extra chapter ahead for free elsewhere, and then there are another 5 chapters beyond that that you can find on the web somewhere... hint hint, the links will be on my Tumblr: hopefulbadgerjunara