As promised, the chapter 7 recap for those who chose to skip over it.

Before school, Jaune arrived at the school and was given a promised hug By Ruby, who seemed to have been getting more out of the simple act of affection than She let on. Jaune just figured she like hugs and let it go for the time being. At the groups Table Blake was already waiting for the group, wanting to discuss the group project before classes citing that her boyfriend was requiring her presence.

The group found this inherently wrong that Adam seemed to treat Blake as property, and was making demands of her to live at his beck and call, and Jaune had a private notebook conversation, hoping that she would share more with him if it was in writing. They learned about about the abusive relationship that she had been forced to keep quiet about, including emotional and physical abuse at the hands of Adam. Eventually the group got both Ozpin, and the police involved.

The end result was Adam being escorted from the school in cuffs. Jaune being introduced to Ruby's father with Yang. and Ruby and Jaune making plans to spend time with each other after class, partially so Jaune can get his mind off things, bringing us to the start of this chapter.


Summer Long, Mother of Ruby Long has always fancied herself to be a pretty open minded and accepting mother. Summer accepted she was not exactly mother of the year lets face facts. But while she loved Ruby to a certain extent. Summer Mostly just regarded her as an obligation she accepted to get Tai for herself. Almost a means to an end really.

So when she came home early to see that her daughter was mounting a young blonde haired boy who looked to have lipstick smeared on his mouth, she found herself concerned. She became more concerned when the pair stared at her with a look of shock and her daughter made signed something she didn't quite understand at her.

Something she figured was along the lines of "This is not what it looks like..."


A Few minutes earlier

Jaune leaned back as the he and Ruby were both sitting on the floor of her spacious living room, Ruby, as promised was showing him "Parasite Eve" the game she had just purchased and he honestly couldn't be less interested.

The game looked pretty fun, it was early in the game, and he thought it was cool that they were playing as a woman in a black dress as she blew the brains out of mutant rats in a New York opera house.

Ruby to was of course pretty engrossed in the game. Jaune figured he'd be more into it if he wasn't feeling far to reminded of the times he would sit with Pyrrha as they tagged team Chrono Trigger on her SNES a couple years back. If not for that he'd be having more fun right now.

Ruby turned and signed to him [Man this game is kinda messed up, did you see that clown guy burn up?]

Jaune signed back [Oh yeah, I'm still trying to figure out what this has to do with Mitochondria, I mean I know i'm doing that project on them, but I'm pretty sure they have fuck all to do with mutated floating bitches setting people on fire.]

Ruby started to laugh, the thing that Jaune always noticed about her was the fact she was not actually mute, she couldn't hear, but she made noises from time to time, and her laugh made him happy.

Once she finally stopped she looked at him [Your pretty good at making me laugh Jaune.] She said with a wide smile.

Jaune half smiled back at her, and felt a guilty stab in his chest as he reminded himself "Jaune, this isn't right, Pyrrha deserves better than this.". As the thought crossed through his head he shifted his eyes back to the screen, but he wasn't watching the game anymore.

Ruby seemingly didn't catch on this as she went back to her game slipping back into "the zone", Jaune started to drift to Happy memories of Pyrrha, mostly little things. He didn't get to enjoy this for long before he noticed that the the game was paused, and looked to have been for a minute or so.

When Jaune glanced back over to Ruby she was just looking at him with a look of confusion signing [Are you getting bored or something?]

[Oh no, not at all!] He signed back to her. [Just spacing out a bit. It was a long day]

Ruby signed [Well if i'm that boring, maybe you want to go hang out with my sister or something] before folding her arms and looking indignant.

[Oh no, it's not like that] Jaune signed [It's just with all that shit with Blake earlier, I'm still kinda reeling from it all] Jaune knew that it was a bit of a convenient lie for him.

Ruby read his face while rubbing her hands together before signing out [I know one really good way to take your mind off things] she signed before she crawled over to where he was sitting.

Jaune's eyes shot wide with the thought "Oh my god she's attempting to seduce me!"

Once she got close she looked right in her face and pulled something out of her pocket, a tube of lipstick which she carefully opened... Right before she pushed him on his back and finger signed with her free hand [Makeover]

"Wait a minute that's WORSE!" Jaune thought just before she climbed on top of him and started to try to messily smear Lipstick on his face. They went back and forth with Jaune trying to squirm and tickle her to get her off of the top of him while she tried to get makeup on him. Every time he would almost get her off she would power through it and smear more make up on his face.

That's when, As Ruby was on top of him, straddling his chest, holding him down. With Both of them sweating and with Ruby pinning his shoulders to the ground Jaune heard a "Cough" from the entryway to the living room they were in. His head turned and went pale as he saw what looked like an older version of Ruby standing in the entry way looking at the pair in stunned silence. Ruby turned her head towards the same person and went pale as well.

Ruby quickly signed out to the person [Uh mom, this is really not what this looks like!]

The woman just shook her head. "Look kid, I'm not sure what she just said, just tell her to knock it off before I end up with grand kids." and walked out of the room.

The pair looked at each other, Ruby gestured for a translation which Jaune provided. See Ruby blush hard caused him to start to laugh silently which caused him to laugh along with him.

A bit later, after they got cleaned up, Ruby offered to walk Jaune part of the way home, Something was eating at Jaune thought [Does your mom not sign?]

Ruby shrugged [Well I mean it's not secret she's kind of a bitch if i'm being honest.]

[Yeah, but not bothering to learning how to talk to her own child?] Jaune asked

Ruby sighed out in frustration [Well not all of us have great parents, my dad at least pretends to give a fuck about his kids]

Jaune's head unconsciously snapped back in surprise. That was the first time since he met her that she actually seemed upset about something. [Sorry, I wasn't trying to upset you]

Ruby just rubbed her neck in annoyance before signing [It's not your fault, My mom and I don't exactly get along you know? and dad spends a lot of time working so I don't see him as much.]

Jaune nodded as they walked suddenly a few things about her made sense. "Damn, she has it pretty rough, she must be starved for attention half the time."

As they continued to walk, Jaune heard the squeal of tires off in the distance, as he looked he saw head lights rapidly driving in their direction, swerving as if the driver was either intoxicated or just not in full control of the car. Ruby didn't seem to notice is and was just walking looking pissed off at her mom.

When Jaune saw it swerve again, this time at him at them, he realized that the driver wasn't going to pull out of it, and quickly ran to push Ruby out of the way. Ruby stumbled into a fall from the sudden jolt as Jaune pushed her out of the path. Jaune saw the look on Ruby's face as he braced for the hit.

Jaune got lucky, while he felt his body spin as he hit the ground and felt a sharp pain in his right shoulder from where he was hit, he didn't take a full hit from the car. He felt his head hit the ground when he landed and was momentary stunned by the blow. As he tried to get his bearings, he felt the broken side mirror of the car that hit him near him. Ruby was on top of him instantly looking him over for injuries, as Jaune saw the driver of the car get out and look at the pair.

A woman, very pale with long light almost white hair, looked to be older. looked at the pair and shouted some kind of apology before she got into the light colored car and started to get ready to drive off.

Ruby turned waved at the driver to stop. Jaune looked at the plate of the car, and repeated it in his head until he was able to pull out his notepad, and painfully, ruby quickly took it from his hands and started to write down info about the car, the plate number, make and model, and as the car peeled off into the evening night.

Jaune started to feel cold and felt his body shake as Shock set in, Ruby yelled out for anyone who was listening While resting Jaune's head in her lap.

Jaune just desperately tried to keep his arm still as he became aware of a wet feeling on his forehead. he touched his head and saw that he bleeding, must of benn from when he hit his head on the ground.

Eventually someone had called the police. Either that, or they were already chasing the woman.


Jaune and Ruby found themselves sitting in the waiting room of the local Emergency Room. Because Jaune was awake and responsive, it was decided that he didn't need to be rushed directly in, no one had told them what was going on, but it was apparently that someone more severely injured was rushed in a before the arrived.

Ruby was crying her eyes out, she came close to seeing her friend get killed in front of her, and while Jaune was feeling a bit better, he still held his right arm close to his chest so he didn't move his shoulder to much. his free arm was being used to ruby Ruby's back to try and calm his friend.

Ruby looked at him, looked at the dried blood from the scrape on his forehead, and started to tear back up instantly.

Using his good arm, Jaune slowly finger signed out [Hey, it's alright, were both going to be just fine okay?]

Ruby shook her head looking at him [Don't tell me it's going to be alright, Your hurt, you can't even sign properly right now! I should have been playing more attention!] Ruby's face contorted to anger more than once as she signed.

Jaune raised his hand to sign something out when he heard someone shout their names, he looked up past Ruby to see Yang and His own mother rush into the scene. Ruby was quickly hugged by Yang, and his mother painfully hugged him causing Jaune's vision to blur as pain flooded through his arm.

"Oh shit, sorry!" Mina said as she pulled away from him, "Are you in pain right now"

Jaune only nodded his head up and down pointing at his shoulder. Mina wiped her eyes "God dammit I hope they catch the son of a bitch that did this!"

As if summoned, Officer Long also approached the group, Jaune spared a glance at Yang as she watched her sister sign out to her what happened.

"Sorry for keeping you waiting, we had to take statements from another incident that took priority." Officer Long stated.

"What the hell takes priority over someone almost running over our kids!" Mina shouted out.

"The same person quite possibly having actually ran over someone, we think who ever struck your son, also ran over another student from the high school who was hit while walking home from cheer leading practice." Officer Long. "That being said she was not able to give us a solid description of who hit her, I'm hoping you two can help us out?"

"My god are they going to be okay dad?" Yang asked

"Yeah, she's going to live, she's in surgery right now." Tai said to the group. "Jaune, Ruby, if you two can, walk me through exactly what happened, I'll let Yang and Mina interpret for us."

Ruby and Jaune took turns explaining what happened, the group was interrupted when a doctor finally took Jaune back to treat his injuries.

Yang explained "So, you pushed Ruby out of the way when you saw that the car was going to hit you both?" Yang glanced at Ruby "Man she really owes you one after that."

Jaune just shook his head and hand signed out [No she doesn't, she would have done the same for me.]


Jaune, Ruby, Yang, and his moment, about an hour later, found themselves in an examination room. Jaune was laid out on a bed with his shirt off. Everyone looking saw the large bruise that went from his shoulder to his elbow. The doctor came back after examining Jaune and performing a couple X-rays on his shoulder with his findings "Well it looks like you didn't break anything, you did pull several muscles in your arm, and that bruise bruise from where the car's mirror hit you is going to be there for a few weeks. but you don't need to be operated on, and you won't need a cast." The doctor handed Mina a prescription note "I'm going to prescribe some painkillers. Namely a strong over the counter aspirin. I'm also going to prescribe some muscle relaxers to ease the pain so he can sleep at night. But don't be taking these before school. I'm not going to recommend using a sling for his arm, it will actually heal better if he tries to use it more when the pain is not to bad."

The doctor just looked Jaune over "You got lucky kid." Before he headed out.

Tai asked everyone else to step out so he could have a word with Jaune alone. After everyone else stepped out he turned and faced Jaune "So this is, what the second time I've seen you today?"

Jaune just nodded his head. Tai kept talking "Look, I just wanted to say thanks for what you did for Ruby, and with that nasty business with the Belladonna kid this morning." Tai paused for a moment "Well, I just wanted to say your an alright guy in my book, and I hope we see more of you around you hear?"

Jaune just smiled and nodded. Tai waved and stepped out, having to go back to work. Jaune would then meet up with the others so they could part ways for the night.


Later on Jaune sat in front of his computer, he had his half of the project finished in front of him, he just hoped Blake would be able to do her part. He decided to log onto the internet for a bit to see if he could catch anyone online.

"No one is online, I guess it kinda late..." Jaune thought, as his shoulder throbbed he thought about what Ruby's dad said.

"See more of me, what is he trying to set me up with his daughter or something?" Jaune leaned back in his seat and stared at the ceiling. As he closed his eyes he tried to picture Pyrrha's face, he chose a happy time, just a simple lunch date, just the two of them. He looked back at the screen, and opened his AIM account and opened a new chat window for Pyrrha.

After staring at the small icon of a white mage sprite from that old Final Fantasy game she used to love he started to type.

DRKKNIGHTARC: I know your never going to read this. But I don't know what to do. I've been feeling guilty ever since you died. I wonder every day if I was there would you still be with us now?

After staring at the IM window for a few moments, and feeling rather stupid for doing so, he closed his laptop and just went to lie down for the night.


So quite a bit happened this chapter, and I really just want to break down a bit of behind the scenes trivia for this. the scene described in Parasite Eve was actually from the opening of the game that I watched part of so I could describe in the chapter. To respond more opening to a review on the chapter regarding Jaune's colorblindness, I actually did a bit of research on colorblindness before writing, Jaune actually has a version of Cone Monochromacy which basically means his eyes never developed the pigmented rental cones that gives us the ability to see color. The original version of this actually had Jaune suffering from a version of Red-Green colorblindness but that was a bit to difficult to write for, so I went what we have in story.

This chapter is going to set up a few future arcs and character intro's, Also I'm sure someone is going to guess the ID of the Driver of the car that ran over Jaune, and possibly the ID of the injured cheerleader. I'll see you all next chapter when Blake and Jaune tag back up to finish what they started. See you next chapter.