Tuesday October 6 1998...

Jaune in the last month slipped into a comfortable routine of going to class, Spending the mornings with his circle of friends. Then going through the motions of classes, chatting with whatever friend he saw in the day. Then either going home or hanging out with the girls.

His right arm was resting in a sling, in the last month his arm went from merely sore to occasionally intolerable, his doctor finally relented to an examination and found his shoulder was in far worse shape than it was first thought to be. Since then Jaune had also been slipping into a routine of physical therapy twice a week to work out the issue. Even that was now part of the comfortable routine he now enjoyed.

Leave it to Jaune to find a way to fuck it all up.

The group sat around the table as Jaune thumbed through Ruby's copy of the Dungeon Fantasy 3rd edition core rule book and he noticed something that didn't sit right with him.

[Did they remove Dark knight as a class?] Jaune signed out to Ruby

[No they just moved it to one of the source books, I guess no one played it in second edition] Ruby signed back.

Jaune silently scoffed as Yang rolled her eyes and said "Nerds!"

[Dude, the Dark Knight class was pretty good though, had some of the better job abilities as well] Jaune signed back.

Yang was interpreting for Blake who was taking notes trying to learn sign language herself. Yang finally then spoke for herself "Yeah but the class sucked because you were always hurting yourself like a goth kid with a razor blade."

Jaune threw up his arms in exasperation [Yeah but then you get a healer to back you up and your suddenly one of the best melee fighters out there.]

Ruby signed out [Yeah but they cut that entire class out of this edition for being redundant. Now if you want a healer you need a priest or a paladin]

Jaune threw his arms up [Well why the fuck would they do that for?]

"Well for starters only goth kids played Dark knight, and man you had to be a real loser to play Healer!" Yang said with a laugh.

[First off I played Dark Knight, because that's how the personality test slotted me, and the comment about healers was just uncalled for] Jaune signed as he felt his blood boil at her comments.

"Wow, people actually used the second edition personality quiz for character class choice? Man I don't know anyone who did that either." Yang scoffed

Ruby and blake became silent as they both felt the change in the air of this conversation, Yang however didn't seem to notice or care as she kept talking. "Okay okay, goth kids and you played Dark Knight, but seriously what kind of nerd loser would want to play a healer, they were only good for one thing and other classes could do that and more."

Jaune slammed his closed fist on the table before rapidly and furiously signing out [My ex played Healer bitch!] Before he stood up and walked off to cool his head. As he walked away from the table to cool his head he found it easy to ignore the sudden influx of students watching him walk off.


Still having plenty of time before class, he went outside. In the last week the weather had chilled, and ruby commented how pretty the leaves were turning, not that he noticed. Now that he thought about it he didn't know the leaves changed color. He figured it never came up.

As he stood out front the realization hit him "Shit I don't think they knew about Pyrrha... Well looks like I'm the asshole now". He made a mental note to apologize later but didn't feel like going back at that particular point in time.

Lost in his thoughts, he almost didn't notice a girl being helped out of a higher end car and into a wheelchair. As Jaune watched the girl struggle to push the chair towards the front of the school entrance he had another thought "I wasn't aware of anyone needing a chair in this school..."

Jaune watched the scene unfold as principal Ozpin walk over to the student, Jaune decided to try and be polite and see if they needed help as well and walked over.

As he approached he heard Mr Ozpin speak to the girl "Ms Schnee, I can't begin to tell you how glad I am to see you able to return to classes."

The girl just politely smiled and halfheartedly say "Thank you sir, I..." She paused for a second "I need to return a few things to Cheerleader squad office since I had to stand down from my position."

Ozpin smiled with concern "I understand, I know how much being a cheerleader meant to you, if you need anything even a friendly ear to speak to..." Ozpin noticed as Jaune walked up with his arm still in it's sling "... I was going to say my office is open, but Jaune Arc here is an exceptional student to speak to as well."

Jaune politely waved and wrote out a note 'You two need help at the moment, my morning is suddenly wide open'

"I did find it odd you were not with Ms Long, Ms Belladonna and Ms Branwen this morning" Ozpin said in a laid back tone.

'I don't want to to talk about it.' Jaune said in a note.

"I won't ask you then. But please help Weiss here perform her errands in any way you can." Ozpin said as he walked off.

Jaune looked at Weiss, who looked pretty fragile at the moment. He noted that she was wearing some rather nice looking clothes, some designer brands even. The chair she sat in was also new to the point of having some of the original stickers on it. Jaune could also at a glance see that she had carefully had leg braces hidden under a long dress she wore in her seat, and half of her face was still bandaged up. But her hair was still meticulously combed and pinned up in a way to hide them.

Feeling a genuine sadness on this girls behalf, he held out his arm offering to carry her bag for her with his one good arm. Weiss handed it over with a embarrassed "Thanks... He said your name is Jaune?"

Jaune nodded in the affirmative.

"I see..." Weiss started to push herself forward "That damn principal, does he think I'm going to feel better about this damn chair if he has me hang out with another crippled kid?"

Jaune winced. and while trying to not loose the two bags he had handing off his left shoulder wrote out a note and handed it to her "Actually I was outside because I got in a fight with the other 'Cripple' girl's sister, but I wouldn't call her cripple to her face, her sister would tear you a new one."

"Right, your friends with the deaf girl right?" Weiss said. "Funny, none of my friends came out at all to see me while I was in the hospital and your the only student outside when I came back today."

Jaune handed her a note "Take it from me, it's pretty easy to make new friends."

Weiss "Yeah what's the damn point if there just going to stab you in the back! or discard you once your no longer useful to them."

Jaune saw her struggle with pushing her Chair along and put his lands on her chair and started to quietly help her out as they passed by a group of girls who waved at the pair as they rolled by.

Weiss didn't even spare a look at Jaune as he pushed her, she was too wrapped up in her self loathing to even notice him. Jaune felt his shoulder start to burn as they reached her first destination, the Physical education office. Weiss knocked on the door and a skinny woman. with a light colored hair stepped out and instantly covered her mouth at the sight of Weiss "Oh Weiss I'm glad to see your back, how are you holding up tiger?"

"Hi Ms Lavender... I'm... Well I'm as well as I could be as it stands" Weiss said to the teacher. as she asked Jaune to hand over her bag.

"Well I'm glad to see your back at school, they made it sound like you would have to home school the rest of the year" Ms Lavender said back.

"Well, I'm back... and I have to drop this off." Weiss said as she pulled a pressed and freshly cleaned cheerleader's uniform out of her bag.

"Don't be silly Weiss, your still a part of my squad, even if you can't participate anymore." Ms Lavender said to her student. "I told all my girls first day that were a family, and family sticks together."

Weiss started tear up. "I... Think I just want to close this chapter of my life if that's okay ma'am."

With reluctance Ms Lavender took the uniform from Weiss "I just want you to know, I'm going to put it aside for you. Your still one of us and this will be waiting for you when you want to come back."

Weiss just silently nodded and turned to roll away, Ms Lavender looked at Jaune and he shot her a quick two finger salute before he caught up to Weiss.

Weiss continued to struggle with her chair "Damn thing... I'm still not used to pushing this thing around." she turned to face Jaune "You don't need to keep following me god dammit."

Jaune quickly wrote out a note and handed it to her. 'No your right, I don't need to, or have to, but I'm just trying to help out a bit.'

Weiss crumpled the note up and tossed it away "Your just taking pity on me like the rest of them are, your just seeing me as a broken doll, just like everyone else is."

Weiss noticeably started to push a bit faster, which Jaune caught on to. He wrote out another note and handed it to her. 'To be fair, your kinda acting like one'

Weiss stopped and turn her chair and shouted at Jaune "Fuck you! How dare you judge me you prick!" she then turned the chair and started rolling faster, Jaune actually had to exert to keep up.

"I said stop following me you prick!" She said back to him.

Jaune handed her a note 'I'm still holding your bag. Besides your moving faster now that you have something to be pissed off at'

Weiss stopped for a second and stared at him. "You pissed me off on purpose? Because you saw I was rolling faster? What the shit is wrong with you?"

Jaune handed her another note 'My point is, that your trying harder. If you need something to be pissed off at so you don't quit, then be as pissed off at me as much as you can.'

Weiss rolled to the elevator to the second floor muttering "Damn Jerk" under her breathe. as they waited she finally took notice of his arm in a sling. "So what happened to your arm?"

Jaune wrote out a note 'Bored enough to ask me now?'

Weiss sighed "Sorry, I... Okay yes I'm curious, and I know I'm being kind of a bitch right now..."

Jaune waved it off and wrote out a quick note 'It's all good, you have a pretty good excuse for being a bit pissed off at the world.'

Weiss sighed at the note "I guess... I... I just wanted to so bad be a cheerleader here. Did you know we went to nationals at my old school last year? We even got third place... All that work, and it just got flushed down the drain because of some bitch who didn't know how to drive!" Weiss held up a hand to face to try to hide the fact she started crying at that moment.

Jaune leaned down and put his good hand on her shoulder. Weiss looked up at him. "What, are you going to feed me some bullshit about how it'll be okay? That i'll magically make new friends, and i'll grow a new pair of fucking legs?"

Jaune shook his head no and wrote out a note. 'I'm not going to lie to you, being mute as only taught me that people are in general are kinda a bunch of assholes, I lost count of the number of fights I've been in during my life, But I learned one other thing.'

Weiss read the note and asked not even trying to hide the tears "Oh, and what the hell is that?"

'That the few non assholes that can accept you, the new you, are the ones worth keeping around.' Jaune wrote out 'I'm sure if you wanted to hang out with my friends in the morning they'd accept you in a second.

"Oh, and what makes you so sure of that then?" Weiss said with a spiteful look on her face

Jaune just pointed at himself.

"Oh you trying to say because they put up with you, they can put up with anyone?" Weiss sarcastically spat out.

Jaune smirked and gave a thumbs up as the Elevator door opened, he stood up straight and held the elevator door open with his good arm. Weiss rolled her self in and he stepped the rest of the way in after her.

Weiss muttered "Oh my god I was joking, you actually think that?" Weiss shook off the question "Okay better question, what happened to your arm? You never told me."

Jaune's face contorted as he wrote out his note, his shoulder was starting to ache, he handed the note to her 'Got hit by a car. Driver was swerving like an idiot, almost hit me and my deaf friend, she didn't hear the car coming so I pushed her out of the way and took the hit myself.'

Weiss quickly put two and two together. "I had heard another student got hit by the same driver that hit me." she looked at Jaune "didn't know it was you though"

Jaune nodded and wrote a note out 'No one does, and no one outside of my friends and family cares. Didn't feel the need to bring it up, you had a lot worse time of it than me.'

Weiss looked down at her legs with her one visible eye "I guess that's true.", she was surprised to see him hand her another note. 'That said, we passed on everything we saw about that car to the police, we got a good look at it and got the plate number so maybe we'll get some justice out of it.'

Weiss sighed and leaned back in her seat "Justice won't give me my legs back Jaune, but I appreciate it." As the elevator stopped and the door opened, Weiss asked "Hey do you think I'm still pretty?"

Jaune shrugged and wrote out a note saying 'I didn't know you before hand so I don't know what you looked like, but sure, your still pretty I suppose.'

Weiss had a light smile creep on her face "Well Ozpin was right about you being a good listener."

As the first bell rang he gave her a thumbs up and returned her back.

"See you around Jaune" Weiss said with a halfhearted smile as she started to roll her way towards her class, and Jaune split off to do the same. parting with his signature two finger salute.


That evening, Jaune sat at his desk, next to him was a half finished sketch of Weiss on the same page as Blake, Yang, and Ruby. He didn't know why he got into the habit of drawing the faces of the people he's met at school the way he did. But it was giving his shoulder a decent workout.

Jaune looked at the open chat window for Pyrrha. Just another part of his routine, Even though she's been gone for almost 5 months, he still found himself write small notes to her AIM account like this.

DARKKNIGHTARC: Hey Pyr, not much to really say today, I guess I might of pissed off all my friends. But I might of made a new friend today. Yeah... It's another girl, I should try making some male friends, I might feel less guilty about making friends if I did.

Jaune leaned forward and wiped his eyes.

DARKKNIGHTARC: I don't know how to not feel guilty about this. You haven't been gone for long enough for me to feel like I can move on, I don't even want to move on. I don't even know if it's okay to make friends that are not you, Nora or Ren.

Jaune looked at the Sketch book and thought it over. he folded his arms around him and drew his knees up to his chest as he stared at the monitor.

DARKKNIGHTARC: I should have slapped Yang in her damn mouth for what she called you today, the only reason I didn't is because I never told her about you... About us. Ruby knows but I think I only told her because I couldn't not tell someone.

Jaune paused as he a new message notification got his attention, for a brief second his brain almost made him think it was Pyrrha IM'ing him from the grave, but he was almost disappointed to see it was just Ruby.

RBYROSE1: Hey you there?

DARKKNIGHTARC: What's up Ruby?

RBYROSE1: Heard you dumped us for a cheerleader!

DARKKNIGHTARC: Wow, the rumor mill worked fast didn't it?

RBYROSE1: Wait you actually did dump us! I was joking!

DARKKNIGHTARC: Jeez chill out! I just happened to be outside when Ozpin was welcoming that Weiss girl back to school.

RBYROSE1: Okay cause the rumor mill was saying you were totally making out with her

DARKKNIGHTARC: Honestly the rumor mill would have been more believable if it said I was that I was making out with Ozpin, you understand this right?

RBYROSE1: Okay, that's not the mental image I needed right now.

DARKKNIGHTARC: May it haunt your dreams!

Jaune found himself smirking at the banter they were sharing, it left a good feeling in his chest, that he struggled to explain to himself.

RBYROSE1: So your going to actually hang out with us tomorrow right? I mean Yang is sorry for being a bitch.

DARKKNIGHTARC: Yeah I just needed to cool my head off today

RBYROSE1: How's your shoulder?

DARKKNIGHTARC: Hurts, but I brought it on myself.

RBYROSE1: Did you, you got hurt pushing me out of the way. I think that makes it more my fault that yours!

DARKKNIGHTARC: You know I'd do it again in a heartbeat right?

Jaune stared at the screen while thinking "I would? I mean yeah of course I would, what kind of guy would I be if I wasn't there for my friends right?"

Ruby took a bit to respond, while the banter was going back and forth every ten to fifteen seconds, this time it took her a full minute to respond.

RBYROSE1: Gah, I just spent the last minute blushing you jerk

DARKKNIGHTARC: Oh, My Bad.

RBYROSE1: Also... I don't think I'd want you to do it again if you had a choice.

DARKKNIGHTARC: Why's that?

RBYROSE1: I don't feel like I'm honestly worth it dude. I mean you fucked your shoulder up, you have been in physical therapy for a couple weeks now, and didn't they say you'd need surgery on it if it didn't get better?

DARKKNIGHTARC: Yeah, what's your point?

RBYROSE1: I just don't think I'm worth that kind of pain Jaune.

DARKKNIGHTARC: I clearly disagreed at the moment Ruby, you are kinda my best friend after all.

RBYROSE1: My dad said they know who did it, you know ran over you and that Weiss girl.

DARKKNIGHTARC: Good, they need to lock her up for what she did. That girl deserves some closure on that.

RBYROSE1: And you don't?

Jaune thought about it. "She ran me over to, do I not need closure for what she did to me? I mean I'm pissed that I got hurt, but I didn't get hurt nearly as bad as that Weiss girl, and I did it to protect Ruby, so what closure do I really need?"

Then the uncomfortable thought crossed his mind "Then again... Maybe protecting Ruby was me trying to get closure, I wasn't there to save Pyrrha from the accident that killed her... right?"

Jaune felt his stomach churn until the feeling of his stomach tying itself up in knots overcame him and he rushed to his bathroom to throw up. It was several minutes later before he was able to return to his desk at a loss for words as to why that had happened to him. as he took a swig of his drink to get the horrid acidic taste out his mouth he read what Ruby had posted when he was gone.

RBYROSE1: Did I lose you?

RBYROSE1: Jaune you still there?

RBYROSE1: Starting to worry me now, are you okay?

DARKKNIGHTARC: Yeah I'm fine sorry.

RBYROSE1: What happened?

DARKKNIGHTARC: Uh Nothing my mom needed to ask me something really fast. Hey I'm going to hit the sack I'll talk to you later.

RBYROSE1: Okay Jaune, see you at our normal spot tomorrow.

Ruby then logged off pretty quickly. Jaune still feeling fragile in his stomach went and logged off the internet and laid in his bed staring at the ceiling. "What the fuck was that? No seriously, did I just throw up because I thought I was trying to get closure for Pyrrha's death. I don't need closure for her death, I don't plan on letting her die in my memories! I'll be a fucking monument for who she was!"

Jaune shook his head and as he laid their he tried to picture her face. He closed his eyes and remembered small details, her smile, her glasses. Her Hair. He was struggling though, it felt fuzzy. No longer fresh in his mind, almost like a picture that was starting to fade.

"Come on, remember her face..." He thought to himself as he laid there. one feature he thought most about was her eyes. her striking, beautiful, sad eyes.

Jaune's eyes shot open and he went over to his sketch book and flipped it to the various pictures of her. he had pages of drawings of her and one thing struck out, something he never thought about before "did her eyes really look that sad half the time?" He closed his eyes again and thought back, picturing the day he me her. then picturing the times they always walked home together. The common theme is that she often looked upset for no real reason.

"No, i'm just not remembering right, I'm upset right now, so of course I remembering things wrong." Jaune thought to reassure himself. He closed the sketch book and laid back down, he rolled onto his side facing the wall, and closed his own eyes to try and rest.

Jaune tried to get sleep after that, but sleep didn't come easy, and not for another couple hours.


When I first mentioned my plans for Weiss on the r/Rwby discord (hi fanfiction-corner) I got a general response of "What the actual fuck is wrong with you!". Semi related, I am on the r/RWBY discord's Fan Fiction corner often discussing writing, shit posting, and discussing stories we all have been reading, come join us!

I took that as a sign that I was doing it right. The story is not the happiest story on earth early on. I call it "Earning the Drama tag" for this story. I figure we can't tell a story of overcoming trama and life changing events with out the events though, so with that, I hope you all enjoyed reading this and I'll see you next chapter.