A/N: kind of a short chapter, but this was just difficult to write, and researching the forms racism can take is kind of a horrific experience, so I'm not in a great state right now. Enjoy!

"I'm sorry."

Weiss can't say she was looking forward to this conversation, but that's a step in the right direction.

"I – made some mistakes in the past, and people I care about got hurt because of me. I thought it was for the best that we parted ways for a while." Blake shrugs, still leaning against the table, refusing to meet anyone's gaze. "I abandoned my team when they needed my help, and it's okay if you don't forgive me."

Yang frowns and steps forward.

"I know it's a cliché, but we all make mistakes," she says, voice softer than usual, because apparently some Faunus scum – former scum, Weiss corrects herself – is more important than Weiss herself. "Welcome back."

Yang wraps her arms around Blake's shoulders, and Blake doesn't move away.

Weiss glances at Ruby. She made her concerns about working with a former terrorist very clear to her team leader, but Ruby kept insisting that forgiveness was the key to a healthy team dynamic, so Weiss isn't holding out much hope.

"The important thing right now isn't your past, Blake; it's your future," Ruby says, smiling. "We're glad to have you on the team."

"Thank you," Blake says quietly.

They're expecting Weiss to say something now, and she isn't sure what to say. The White Fang are savage, brutish thugs with vendettas against those such as the Schnee Company who had the ingenuity to rise from poverty. The Faunus aren't inherently bad, but they're more prone to crime due to their animalistic traits; it's just genetics.

But Blake is the one who protected Weiss, who rose above her compulsion to do evil and began to fight for the forces of good. And Weiss can respect that, even if she doesn't like it.

"I overreacted," Weiss says carefully. "I'm happy to work with you." She flashes her precise smile engineered to be friendly but distant.

"You're a good teammate," Blake says, not returning the smile. Weiss is all right with being called a good teammate. It means they aren't friends, and likely never will be, but that they can work together.

"All right. That's sorted out," Ruby says, apparently oblivious to the fac that Weiss and Blake are still giving each other suspicious glares. "Now, your, uh, friends. Thanks for helping out against Torchwick, but who exactly are you?"

The boy at the front of them, another Faunus, steps forward and flashes all of them a grin. Weiss instinctively checks her pockets to make sure he hasn't stolen anything.

"I'm Sun Wukong. This is Neptune, Scarlet, and Sage." The three he introduces all have hair dyed in a different, garish color, so they'll at least be easy to tell apart. They wear asymmetrical clothing, which is apparently the fashion for thugs these days. "Usually, we're in Vacuo, just keeping the peace and fighting bandits, making sure that everyone out there can survive. We know about you guys – I mean, everyone does – and we run into Qrow on a pretty regular basis. He's worried about major White Fang offensives in Vale, and he thought we'd be doing more good here for a while, so we packed up and hopped a boat. So now we're here to help all of you out a bit."

"Welcome to the team," Ruby says cheerfully, enthusiastically shaking Sun's hand.

"Shouldn't we be a little more cautious?" Weiss asks. This is all convenient, and Weiss doesn't like conveniences. If Blake hid her Faunus traits for as long as she did, who's to say that the newcomers couldn't do the same, and all secretly be White Fang operatives?

"Qrow sent them, and Qrow doesn't trust anyone, so if he trusts them they're trustable."

"Trustworthy."

"You get the point," Ruby says, scowling. "We appreciate the help. I'll get all of you started on maps of the city before we patrol again."

"Hang on," the one with blue hair, Neptune, says. "Primarily, we're here to solve one case that Atlas operatives couldn't work out. The heir to the Schnee Company got kidnapped, and the White Fang are assumed to be responsible, since they've been focusing a lot of attacks on SC property. No leads and no ransom notes for two weeks, so the White Fang don't seem interested in keeping her alive. Kind of an important case. Do your team have any leads on that?"

Of course people would assume that Weiss had been kidnapped. She doesn't care if her father never knows what happens to her. He and the White Fang can fight until one or the other collapses, and the world will be better off. But the rest of her family – Klein will miss her, since he always said, when Weiss asked, that she was his favorite, since Whitley was her father's favorite and every child deserved to be someone's favorite. Winter might miss her; Weiss can never tell how she feels, but Weiss loves her so much that she has to care.

But if Winter cared, she'd try to find Weiss herself, not let the ordinary Atlas police and some disreputable "hero" take her place. If Winter cared, she would never have left Weiss with her father. If Winter cared –

"Weiss! Are you okay?"

Ruby is looking up at Weiss's face, innocent greyish eyes filled with worry.

"I'm fine," Weiss says. "I just – my sister must be worried about me."

"If you want to talk to her, that's fine," Ruby says hastily. "One of us will just go out in civilian garb and pick up a burner phone that we throw in the river once you're done. You can tell her you're not dead, if that's what you're worried about."

"No, things are fine," Weiss says, choking back a sob. "You don't need to do that for me."

"All right," Ruby says. "Yang, Weiss, both of you are staying here until further notice; you're both injured, and I don't want you getting hurt more. I'll remap patrol routes, since there are more of us than I thought to man the city. Blake and Sun, you two can handle the docks."

Her team's voices fade into the background as they discuss routes and maps, tapping at the large touchscreen currently displaying a map of the city. Weiss can't even do anything to help them, and that's just a little frustrating at the best of times, but now she feels useless. Her powers aren't good enough to let her fight even with a splinted leg, or they would be, but she's too weak to control them.

They leave, talking and laughing. Yang sits next to Weiss and puts a hand on her shoulder. Weiss brushes it away and stands up.

"Don't you have better things to do than mock me?" she snaps. Yang likes to make jokes, and Weiss doesn't like the jokes, especially since most of them are at her expense. And if she cries in front of Yang, she is never going to hear the end of it.

Yang shrugs and watches Weiss leave. Weiss shuts herself into a closet containing Dust cartridges and more mundane cleaning supplies and tries to cry without smudging her mascara.

Not even Winter cared about her, in the end. This team may think she's full of herself, or spoiled, and she might always be out of place among them, but they're all she has left.