Atonement: Lincoln Clay

Episode 16: Time Keeps Dragging on

A/N: I'm for how long this took again, and how short this chapter is. I'm out of ideas on how to push the story forward, but I just can't skip ten years out of the blue. There's so many stories to tell in the 10 years before RWBY begins, but keeping things fresh is extremely difficult. I spent months agonizing over how to continue and this was the best I could come up with and it hurts when I hit stuff like this.

I appreciate all the help from the fine folks who read this story, Wombag, Vumanchu, and quite a few others. It means a lot, thank you.


[Vumanchu: Thank you. Yes, I am well aware my friend. I'm trying to do more but setting it all up is a severe pain.]

[Gamelover41592: Yeah it was. Exactly how I intended.]

[Wombag1786: Almost nobody messes with the family of Lincoln Clay and lives. Absolutely perfect song choice my friend!]

[Guest: Yeah, I'm sorry about that. The shortness is because of how hard it is to come up with ideas for this story that I can make work.]


-SAMMY'S BAR: THE NEXT MORNING, A FEW MINUTES UNTIL NOON-

A warm morning sun had settled over the city of Vale, the bright feeling of the new day gave most inhabitants of the city a spring in their step, but despite this cheerful light of day it did not change the somber mood in the neighborhood around the bar. Hefty odors of blood, death, and spilled booze permeated the air within the building that the Clay knew as their home, and many dried crimson stains littered the smooth wooden floor. Clinks from shattered glass could be heard Lincoln was busy cleaning up the damage from the events of the previous night. Smooth tunes echoed within the dining room from the jukebox in the far corner of the bar to provide some feeling of normalcy in the face of disaster, though it did very little in that regard. At the counter, Donovan was busy taking stock of the alcohol bottles that hadn't been shattered from all the chaos. Meanwhile Lincoln was sweeping up the chunks of shattered glass and he intended on mopping up the dried blood later, hopefully it wouldn't permanently stain the floors.

"What a fine fucking mess this is." Donovan said to himself.

"It's a bonafide shitshow, …this is my fault." Lincoln groaned.

"No my friend, I'd say it's quite the opposite. We knew what we were getting into when we started this." Donovan told his longtime friend.

"True, but I guess I didn't really take them into account, the kids. You and I chose this life, they didn't. They're my one weak spot in this messed up new world, damn it." Lincoln sighed.

"Don't second guess yourself Lincoln, I know you're better than that. Like it or not this is the way things are in this crazy wonderland, Salem knows you care about them so the only safe place is next to you. But then that's not saying much." Donovan snorted.

"Maybe you're right, maybe not. You bury something deep enough and it'll buy all the time you need." Lincoln retorted.

"Depends on what you bury and how you bury it. No one would know that better than me. I mean come on, you're speaking to the guy who puts the black markers to the paper." Donovan chuckled.

"Fair enough." Lincoln shrugged, the morbid meaning behind his friend's words was not lost on him though. He understood their dark meaning all too well, some sins and secrets couldn't be buried for long, no matter how matter how thick the ink was.

While the two men cleaned the bar, the home above the place was being tended to by the three children. Each child was busy with a simple task, vacuuming the carpet, picking up toys, or making the beds. Nora the little ginger hummed to herself while she worked away at picking up the various toys and or clothes from the floor, though as she worked a small twitch in her hands became a constant sight. To the untrained eye it would seem like all was well with her, but Ren had been watching her while he made the beds. From what he could tell as far as he knew his fellow adoptee, something was bothering the ginger. Emerald the apparent leader of their trio though, she seemed pretty much the same as ever despite the scarring aftermath of the amount of violence all three of them had witnessed last night.

Ren sighed and looked up at the wall, he examined the picture of all 5 residents in a portrait that was taken in front of their home. 'What was real?' He silently wondered to himself, while his reflection in the picture stared back at him. If Ren were to say he was unsettled, he'd make a gross understatement of the thoughts that swirled in his mind. He had to be strong about the situation, to appear calm and unphased for Nora's sake at least if he could not for his own.

Emerald seemed to pick up on the unspoken tension in the room and sighed to herself. "I know what you're both thinking…" She trailed off and turned to face the other two children.

"No, you don't, Emerald." Ren replied with a serious tone to his voice. "Last night was scary…. Lincoln was scary. It was… I just don't know what to say about what we saw. All the dead people, the blood..." His were covered by the shadow that his hair provided.

Emerald immediately scowled at her step brother for his fear, she took it as an insult to their stepfather. "He was doing whatever it took to keep us safe, Ren. You heard what that faunus said he was going to do to us, we all did." She pointed her finger at the boy as she spoke.

Ren looked uncertain for a moment; he considered his words carefully. "Ok maybe that's true… but what Lincoln did to all of those people, how he killed them all like he did. Well he could've made them sleep instead, oh what's the word? Knock out, he could've done that."

"Don't play dumb. All of them were bad guys, Ren! They deserved what they got, all of it!" The mint haired child snapped in fury at her step brother's disloyalty. "They wanted to hurt us, and Lincoln made sure they couldn't hurt anyone else again." She ground her teeth.

"But then why did he throw out the last one?" Nora interjected; her calm words seemed to derail Emerald's counter argument. "That one man who was leading them, he let that one run away."

"He… Uh… I don't know." Emerald's blustering had ground to a halt and the minty haired child fumbled to collect the words that would justify Lincoln's actions. "Probably so he could tell other bad people not to do that again." She replied weakly.

"Maybe, but not the best point to make. Just like you said, you know it and so do I." Ren crossed his arms while he thought over Emerald's words, which he could feel were a weak argument.

"SO?! We should be loyal to Lincoln, not scared. Whatever he does, he's doing it to protect us, and giving us everything we need. So, don't be stupid Ren!" Emerald barked angrily in response.

"I'm being smart, Nora and I don't know Lincoln as well as you do. You've only been with him a little while longer than she and I have." Ren retorted to the mint haired girl's rant to defend Lincoln.

"Grr! Why you-!" Emerald began to hiss at her step sibling, a spark of ire flickered to life between the opposing sides in their stare down. Little did the children know, their caretakers on the ground floor were listening to everything they were saying. Such a thing wasn't difficult given how loud the argument was becoming in its downward spiral.

"Should we do something?" Donovan looked at the ceiling, his lip curled in uncertainty. "It might come back to bite us later if we don't.

"Come on, let's fix this." Lincoln set his broom down and walked over to the stairs.

Back upstairs the disagreement had grown considerably worse and Nora, who had been watching the whole argument unfold in front of her, frowned unhappily. She took a calming breath, stopped what she was doing and approached her step siblings with a determined aura. "Stop."

Ren raised an eyebrow at Nora's intervention. "Nora? What are you-?" The boy started to say something but his speech was cut off by the ginger's next words.

"It doesn't matter. Got it? IT DOES NOT MATTER if we're supposed to be scared or loyal, what really matters is that we're family and so are papa Lincoln and Uncle Donovan. So, I don't want to hear any more of this stupid junk from either of you guys. We're loyal to what matters." Nora scolded her step siblings. During the duration of her little speech a scowl settled on the ginger's cute face as she faced down Emerald and Ren. The two of them looked at each and then back at her in confusion at sweet carrot top's change in demeanor. For them such a thing was certainly unexpected to come from her of all people.

"Nora, that is a very wise thing for you to say." Ren said with a bit of surprise in his voice.

"Wow, I uh don't know what to…" Emerald scratched the back of her head at the hyper girl's peacemaking actions.

"Well spoken. You took the words right outta my mouth Nora, I couldn't agree more." Lincoln said as he stood in the doorway of the kids' room with Donovan right behind him.

"Uh, how long were you standing there?" Emerald looked at the two adults with a slight bit of apprehension in her eyes. "We were just talking about-"

"The two of us have been waiting here just about long enough." Donovan told the three children. "We actually came up here to tell you that we were going to get some take out for all of us, but it looks like we need to talk first."

"Donovan, don't bother lying to them. They're too smart for it." Lincoln strolled into the room and sat down on a wooden chair beside the doorway, he gave a tired smile at the three orphans as he did so.

"If you say so pal." Donovan crossed his arms.

Everyone was silent for a moment while Lincoln hummed to himself about what he was going to tell the kids, an explanation was what they needed and he understood it was his job provide one. "Being completely honest, I wish all of you hadn't seen what happened. From here on out you all need to understand that Donovan and I are bad men. He and I have done plenty of things that we're not proud of, at the time we thought we did those things for the right reasons." He explained in the most sincere tone he could manage for the kids.

"For what it's worth, little gem there is right about us protecting ya. Yeah, we kill bad men, and we do bad things, that's just how this messed up world works for folks like me and Lincoln. Here's the rub though, we'll always protect you kids no matter what." Donovan smiled with his usual cool demeanor in an effort to charm the children into remaining calm.

"So, you're bad, but those men were worse?" Nora looked to Lincoln for an answer to her curiosity.

"We're bad to other bad people like the men I killed, and we're nice to nice people. But we'll never be bad to the three of you, that goes for everyone we call friends too." Lincoln explained to the sweetest of the three children. "To make it real simple we're bad men, but we're not bad… guys."

"Don't twist it that we won't spank you when you misbehave, but for better or worse we're raising you kids and nothing's going to change that." Donovan added comedically to ease the tension in the room.

Though somewhat annoyed by his old friend's playfulness in the serious situation, Lincoln closed his eyes and inhaled to prepare himself for the words that he would speak next. "I understand that what you saw scared you, if I had my way you never would have to see that for as long as I live. Can't always get what we want though, if you three don't want be here anymore I understand and I'll find somewhere else to take you in." He said solemnly, the tired and sad look in his eyes never left as he spoke to the three children whom he taken in as his own. If they wanted to leave for a chance at peaceful lives, he would not fault them for it.

"No Lincoln, I want to stay with you. You gave me everything when I had nothing, and saved me when I needed saving. I love you and I don't wanna go anywhere, this is home." Emerald hugged the big man with a tear trailing down her cheek.

"For what it's worth… thank you, Emerald." Lincoln hoisted the child into his lap and hugged her right back. "It means a lot that you understand what I'm trying to say."

"Nora, Ren? Do you two want to leave? We won't be mad if you do, but keep in mind that we're not perfect, and we do bad things from time to time." Donovan raised an eyebrow at the two of them.

"I…" Ren was uncertain of what to say, his still developing morals were conflicted. What kind of choice was that for a boy so young to make? Could he bring himself to stay with them despite what he'd been told? But before he could truly decide, Nora had chosen to answer in his place.

"I'll stay uncle Donovan, and Ren's staying too. Right, Ren?" The ginger replied to her foster uncle and then looked to her stepbrother for a reply.

"I just know I'm going to regret this, but Yes… I'll stay too." Ren said calmly after a bit of hesitation, though he was still visibly uncomfortable the boy had decided that he would try to give his new family a chance. But the question of whether that would last or not was something only time itself could answer for him.

"Thank you, all three of you for understanding." Lincoln said with a soft tone of joy as he embraced Nora and Emerald. The two girls smiled as they partook in the group hug, and Nora looked back at Ren for a moment and gestured for the boy with the pink stripe to join them. Resigning himself to his fate, Ren quietly approached and wrapped his arms around Nora and Emerald.

Donovan clapped his hands together and grinned at the sight of their little family binding, even if Ren seemed to be reluctant in participating. "Well ain't that the sweetest little picture I ever saw? Now come on, let's all take a break from cleaning and figure out what to do for lunch in a little while. I for one am craving some burgers from that joint down the road." The agent said jovially.

"Shh, you're ruining the moment uncle Donovan." Nora deadpanned.

"Meh, it's what embarrassing uncles do." Donovan shrugged in a comical manner. But his eyes then darted to Lincoln and narrowed for a brief second, the veteran was quick to spot that and nodded. The both of them knew that later they would have work to do later, the assault on their home was not going to be forgiven. Later on, the two of them would set about repaying the White Fang's rogue faction in kind for what they had done, but for the time being Lincoln just wanted to enjoy the moment in spite of all the cheesy vibes he was feeling.

-END CHAPTER-