This chapter has a trigger warning the size of the state of new mexico on it. Read at your own caution, and I'll explain at the end of the chapter. Like last time I'll post a recap of this chapter at the start of the next chapter if you are unable to bring yourself to read this. I also wanted to post this chapter before tomorrow so no one thinks this chapter is a sick April fools joke. it's 3/31 here when I upload it.


Aprill 6th 1997

14 year old Jaune arc lounged comfortably in his room on a quiet weekend day, he wasn't expecting any company so he was catching up on some math homework he was behind on, his mom had the day off and way watching the TV in the living room. it sounded like TNT had Shawshank Redemption on again and his mother was a sucker for that film.

Jaune just figured she had a thing for Morgan Freeman, but he didn't feel the need to ever mention that to her. He wouldn't get the chance as he heard the doorbell ring.

Jaune got up and started to walk towards the door to see who it was, but he had an idea already.

As he got to the door and opened it, he was unfortunately not surprised to see his girlfriend Pyrrha standing there looking upset. the thought of "Again? are her parents ever not fighting?" Crossed the young man's mind

All Jaune could do as hold out his arms as Pyrrha walked into them and rested her head on his chest sobbing. This was the eighth time in the last couple months her parents fighting had caused her to seek refuge at the Arc home. Mina poked her head around the corner at her son and nodded signing to Jaune [I'll order dinner for three today] before backing off to give the two kids space.

A few minutes moments later, the young couple had taken up residence relaxing in Jaune's room, Jaune laid on his bed with his back against the wall in a way that was not entirely comfortable as Pyrrha laid her back against his chest. Jaune held his note pad and pen in a hand so she could read what he was writing as they talked it out.

"I'm not even sure what set them off this time... Dad probably was more than likely drinking again..." Pyrrha started

'I'm sorry Pyr... The whole thing is bullshit that you even have to put up with this.' Jaune wrote out to her.

"I just wish they would hurry up and divorce already..." Pyrrha said as she nuzzled the back of her head into Jaune's chest. "Last week they got in an argument over where they wanted to order a pizza from."

'Yeah, mom wanted me to say sorry for her, if she knew she would have gone over to the Safeway for Chinese food instead of Deep dish pizza' Jaune wrote out on his note pad as his arms wrapped around Pyrrha out of necessity.

Pyrrha has a slight chuckle "No it's okay, the funny thing is that was where I wanted us to get pizza from, but I didn't want to speak up to my parents over it."

Jaune folded his arms around her and pulled her into a tight hug. He heard a content sigh from Pyrrha as she spoke "I love you... Sorry I keep showing up like this..."

Jaune shoot his head and held out and hand signed out [Love you]

"I honestly don't know how I'd be able to cope with this without you. I doubt I could" Pyrrha trembled in his arms.

Jaune wrote out a noted to her saying 'Don't say stuff like that your far stronger than you think Pyrrha.'

Pyrrha just laid against her boyfriend sighed "I'm really not Jaune, I can kinda accept that about myself..."

Jaune leaned forward and kissed the top of her head as it laid back against his chest and wrote out a note. 'I guess I can be strong enough for the both of us for now then.'

Pyrrha's shoulders relaxed as she seemed to sink into Jaune's chest. "Yeah, just for a while at least..."


December 13th 1998...

Jaune arc steeped into the door to his home having just returned home from rather impromptu celebration started by Blake at the local pizza shop. Blake got word that her Ex boyfriend has just received been given a sentence of few years in a minimal security prison for the various crimes he had committed against Blake over the years.

Jaune would tell you that he didn't feel it was long enough, not for what he did. But Blake was overjoyed beyond words that he was going to be very far from her for a while. It made him pretty happy to see to see her smile as much as she did.

The last month and a half had seen a change in Jaune. as he pulled off his snow boots and scarf. A good snow had fallen on the town in the last week and was slow to melt. He knocked on the wall to announce he was home.

"Welcome home Jaune!" he heard his mom shout from elsewhere in the house. Jaune followed the voice to the kitchen where his mom was waiting on a bag of popcorn to finish popping.

[How was work?] He signed to his mother.

"Not bad. Actually pull up a seat, I got some good news for your friend Weiss."

Jaune pulled up a stood to the counter and sat down [Okay well don't keep me in the dark]

"The lady that hit you and Weiss? We caught her today." Mina said with a smile

[What! How did you guys pull that off?] Jaune signed out with a wide eyed look on his face

"Well I had a feeling that she was going to call in to get her car fixed at some point, I got called to a body shop the next town over to check out a car that was apparently damaged when it struck a deer" Mina said as she pulled out her bag of popcorn from the microwave and pulled it open as she say down.

[Are you serious, it was months ago, was she just driving around with a damaged car for almost three months?] Jaune signed out.

"Guess so, she probably wanted to wait till the news about her running Weiss over calmed down before she tried to get it repaired, but she didn't realize one important thing." Mina said as she snacked on popcorn.

[Oh I know what your going to say...] Jaune hand signed out as he started to silently chuckle.

"That's right, that I'm the baddest bitch on this side of the mountains and I hold a grudge, I saw the plate number you wrote down and called it in to my office right away. I played it cool, started writing up my estimate like I would normally, then Bam!" Mina punched her hand for emphasis "Two of the county sheriff's finest rolled up and cuff her instantly after confirming the plates."

[How did your boss feel about you getting one of the companies clients busted?] Jaune signed out with some concern.

"Well, We the company doesn't take our clients making false statements on a report very well it turns out. As a mater of fact, I'm looking at a nice raise now for this!" Mina said as she punched at the sky in victory.

[Oh sweet, so who was this bitch anyways?] Jaune signed out

"Well... that's something I'm going to have to talk to Alan about... the drivers name is Salem Ozpin..." She said with a less with a bit of stress in her voice.

[So what, she was Mr Ozpin's sister or something?] Jaune signed.

"No... it turned out Alan didn't mention to me that he had an Ex-wife" Mina said as she leaned on the counter?

[Is that a deal breaker?] Jaune asked. [That is a pretty shit way to learn about the boyfriends Ex]

"No, but I'm a bit miffed he didn't think to bring this up to me, Hey go let Weiss know the good news you dork!" Mina said waving Jaune off.

Jaune shot off a two fingered salute as he went into his bedroom and sat down on his chair logging into AIM, he tapped his fingers against his desk impatiently hoping that Weiss was online, as it turned out she was so he shot her an IM instantly.

DARKKNIGHTARC: Tell me you didn't forget to log off!

LIGHTANGEL1983: Did you click on the wrong screen name? I'm not Ruby.

DARKKNIGHTARC: I know your not!

*** LIGHTANGEL1983 has added RBYROSE1 to the chat***

LIGHTANGEL1983: This is Ruby, I am Weiss, Please learn the basic functions of AIM!

RBYROSE1: What? What's going on? Why are we group chatting?

LIGHTANGEL1983: I think Jaune was trying to start a cyber session.

RBYROSE1: And you invited me WHY?

DARKKNIGHTARC: I'm not trying to Cyber with anyone!

RBYROSE1: What's up then, you saw us like an hour ago.

DARKKNIGHTARC: Weiss... They caught the bitch that ran us over!

Jaune leaned back in his seat and let sink in for a second

RBYROSE1: Weiss that's awesome, they caught them! You said they wouldn't!

LIGHTANGEL1983: How? I need to know Jaune!

DARKKNIGHTARC: Thank my mom, She got called to do an inspection of a vehicle damages and saw the plate number! She called it in and they busted the bitch right away

LIGHTANGEL1983: I'm going to flip, My parents are going to flip!

Jaune smiled at his screen.

RBYROSE1: This is great for you as well Jaune, she ran you over as too!

DARKKNIGHTARC: I don't care about that, I'm happy for Weiss.

LIGHTANGEL1983: Oh heck, the police are here! I'm going to be a fly on the wall for this chat!

RBYROSE1: What do you mean you don't care Jaune?

DARKKNIGHTARC: I don't, my shoulder still hurts some times, but I can live with it, Weiss has it so much worse than I do Ruby.

RBYROSE1: You know I care right? I mean you got hurt because of me! It bugs me that your shoulder still hasn't recovered!

DARKKNIGHTARC: Your okay though, so whatever.

Ruby and Weiss were quiet for a few moments. Jaune saw that she was typing a few times before a message popped up.

RBYROSE1: Your hopeless...

DARKKNIGHTARC: Yes I am.

Jaune heard the doorbell ring again, This time his mother got it.

DARKKNIGHTARC: Someone's at the door I'm going to see what's up.

RBYROSE1: That's fine, I was going to swing by there... I have to talk to you about something.

Jaune didn't catch Ruby's last message before he got out of his seat. As he stood up he found himself thinking of his earlier outing with Ruby and the others. As time had worn on and as he became closer to them, he found himself actually starting to feel something resembling happiness, a feeling that had been becoming alien to him.

Jaune figured the dance was when it was when he turned that corner, that maybe... just maybe... it was okay to move on...

After all his mother and Ozpin seemed happy enough, they had been dating for almost 2 months now, and he could see the change in his mother, how much more she smiles, and how much less beer she drinks. It was something he very much enjoyed seeing in her.

As Jaune walked into the kitchen he signed out to her. [Just talked to Weiss, what's up?]

"You got a package!" Mina said setting it down on the counter. "I think Sam sent this over, I'm going to give her a call."

Jaune walked over to it with a bit hesitation, why would Ms Nikos sent him anything? He pulled a letter that was taped to the side and opened it up and looked it over.

'Jaune'

'I was cleaning out Pyrrha's old room, and she had left some instructions to send the the contents of this box to you after she died'

'Samantha Nikos'

Mina came back into the room with the phone in her hand and looked at Jaune "What's up?" Jaune must of looked confused and handed the letter that was attached to the box to his mother. Mina looked the letter over and asked "That's weird... why would Pyrrha leave instructions for after she died?"

Jaune looked the box over [I'll take this into my room and look it over] Before he started to lift the box.

"Yeah I'll give Sam a call, it's been a while since we talked." Mina said with a smile and started dialing.

Jaune carried the box into the bed room and set the heavy box on the bed "What in the hell did she send me, her entire bed?" After he did he reached for a Swiss army knife he had sitting on a nearby nightstand and carefully cut the tape on the box.

Once tape was cut on the box Jaune stared at the box for a few minutes. "Okay, it's just a box, it's not like it's going to take your damn hand off or melt your face clean off." Jaune thought. Giving himself a pep talk didn't make his hand shake any less than it did as he reached for the flaps and pulled the box open to reveal it's contents.

Inside the boxes were her old books, mostly Dungeon Fantasy books, he had an old copy of the rule book, but she had most of the books in the line. He looked over the books, pulling them out one at a time and flipping through them before he say them gently down on the bed next to the box.

"Jesus Pyrrha... I think you'd be disappointed if you knew that I haven't even picked up a die since I moved here let alone played the game." Jaune thought as he came across a spiral notebook. Jaune gasped and his hand shook as he traced his fingers over it's covered. "Gods this is her character book, she used to take game notes in here, wrote down moments from our games that she wanted to remember"

Jaune heard his mother talk in the other room "Oh jeez Sam, I'm sorry, I didn't know you and Tom were in the middle of a divorce!" Jaune figured she said that loud enough so he'd hear, his thoughts on the mater were in short "About time they did, they put Pyrrha through hell"

As Jaune opened the notebook, and Envelope fell out of it. One that was addressed to him. He set the Notebook back into the box with the rest of the books and sat the box down on the floor with care before he opened the envelope and looked at the letter.

He got two sentences in before he realized what he was reading and started crying, he heard his mother say something like "She what? No we didn't know..." before he heard a door close... But that might as well had been in another country now, The world shrank down and as Jaune read the letter.

'Hi Jaune.'

'I know that if i'm reading this, well I can only hope not a lot of time has passed. But If your reading this than I'm dead. I know, I know we made a promise, that it would only be a couple years, and that you would be back here with me, and then it'll be for the rest of our days.'

Jaune stopped reading for a second, he had to pause and wipe his eyes "Oh please god don't let this be what I think this is, please please please". After taking a moment he kept reading the letter.

'Jaune, I was never a strong person, but I always felt strong with you, I always felt safe with you. The last two years with you were the best years of my life. But, if your reading this, they were my last.'

'I was only able to stomach living in a home with a family that hated each other because of you and your mom. Before you I always felt teased, or cast aside from others from being just a scared little girl. Or because I was just a shy nerd. I always loved how strong you were, and how you always managed to turn your pain and sorrows into a strength to move forward.'

'What did you used to say about us, a Dark knight is worthless without a good healer. You were never worthless, and I don't think you ever needed me as much as you thought. But it's true that a Healer can't live without someone to shield her from the pain.'

'I know, that this is going to hurt you, and that your going to blame yourself for my death. But I love you, and I don't blame you or your mother for moving. I'm just not strong enough to live without someone to shield me from everything. I made up my mind when my parents started to fight again, only this time I couldn't just walk to your place and put my arms around you and feel safe from it all.'

'Don't blame yourself, and remember that I'll allays love you.'

'Pyrrha'

Jaune set the letter on top of the books and as the world began to crack around him, Jaune slumped to the floor silently screaming. completely broken from what he just read. "This can't be real, that can't be true!" It didn't take long for his mother to burst into her room and pull her broken mess of a son into a hug. "Jaune, hey buddy, it'll be okay alright." Mina stroked her son's back and kept whispering that it would be okay as her son thrashed out in a cross between rage and sorrow. Later Jaune would learn that Pyrrha's mother only became aware that what they though was a simple accident, Pyrrha being hit by a car, was an intentional act on her part in an effort to take her own life. He would later learn that losing her daughter finally gave Sam the courage to demand a divorce from her husband of almost 20 years.

The pair of mother and son sat in the middle of the floor and cried it out for the next 20 minutes.


It was an hour later and Jaune was laying in bed in the dark. He couldn't muster any solid thoughts and even efforts to picture Pyrrha was met with static. "It makes sense... I mean how hard a coincidence would it have to be for her to pass away in the two weeks from when we moved till we finally got a working phone here, I guess maybe I knew there was more to it than it being an accident, and maybe that's why I couldn't move forward. I wasn't allowing myself to accept how much of a failure I was."

Jaune felt a weight on his bed as someone sat down on it, whoever it was didn't say anything to him. Jaune rolled over and sat up to see that it was Ruby. He shook his head out and signed, slowly and deliberately [Uh, Hey what are you doing here?]

Ruby looked at him with sad eyes and signed out [You must of missed my last message, I had something I wanted to talk about but it can wait, are you okay?]

Jaune shook his head [What did my mom say?]

Ruby shrugged [She's out there crying her eyes out with Ozpin... but I got the impression that she was crying for you.]

Jaune wiped his eyes [ I wish she wouldn't, he has her own thing going now, and I'm not worth the tears]

Ruby rubbed her eyes and signed [Maybe she wants to cry with her son, she loves you. Talk to me you dolt, I know your not the type to talk about your problems but i'm here.]

Jaune leaned forward sniffing and rubbing his eyes [I'm such a fool... I should have figured out what really happened.]

Ruby signed to him [What happened?]

Jaune pointed Pyrrha's box of books that he had pushed into a corner. [Pyrrha left instructions to send that to me after her death.]

Ruby put two and two together and looked down covering her mouth signing with her free hand a shaky [Oh god]

[Yeah, She wrote me a goodbye letter in one of her notebooks...] Jaune said one one hand as he wiped his eyes only to find they were coming faster than he could get rid of them.

As he started to break again Ruby pulled him into a hug and rested her head on his chest. as she felt her own heart break with Jaune's. Jaune just signed with one arm [You don't have to do this Ruby.]

Ruby pulled back wiping tears from her eyes and signing out [Stop trying to be the strong one. Your always trying to take care of all of us. Looking after everyone else, even when it hurts you to do so. So just for one night, just one, let someone take care of you okay?] Ruby cupped one hand on his face and signed with the other [For just one night. All I'm asking is you let us take care of you. Please, just one night.]

Jaune felt the weight crushing down on him loosen a bit, and for one night, he let someone else carry the weight he had been holding on him since her death. When Ruby pulled his head to her shoulder he screamed in a silent howl, little more than a ragged pained exhale. He grabbed on to her shoulder and soaked her shirt with tears he thought he ran out of months ago. They stayed like that for over 2 hours. Ruby holding on to her best friend as he let out the demons he had locked away.

When Mina and Ozpin came to check on them later after Tai called to see if Ruby was still at their place they discovered that they had both fallen asleep. Jaune's head laid in her lap and she had fallen asleep with her back resting against the wall.

They let Tai know, and promised to keep and eye on the pair, and left them undisturbed...


So... Yeah this chapter requires some explaining I feel... Let me start off by saying, this is not a retcon, when I started playing this story in my head, before I even decided to have this story be a RWBY fic... the character that would eventually come to be this AU's version of Pyrrha was always meant to die by suicide.

The way Jaune and Pyrrha's relationship, was a cute relationship. Hopefully I showed how much they really loved each other, and what they meant to each other because I know i'm not exactly the best writer. But I had dropped hints of this leading up to this chapter throughout the fic. They were of course easy to miss like the real life signs of someone who's in danger of taking their own life. When Jaune commented how he noticed that in many of his memories Pyrrha always had a sad look on her face even when together. The timing of death could easily be chalked up to shit writing, and I don't blame any of you for thinking that. Or how Pyrrha in what should have been one of the happiest moments of her life was one of doubt and second guessing even when Jaune's confession was the very thing she wanted to hear.

The other side of this is something I would need to almost write a prequel fic to explain as clearly as I could, but the flashback scenes are shown to not only show what Jaune lost, but to show that they had a bit of a lopsided relationship. Pyrrha from the day she met Jaune was dangerously dependent on him. From the second they met in the story, Jaune ended up taking on a sort of bodyguard role in life. Yeah they were on equal footing for large swaths of their relationship, Jaune never mistreated or abused his role.

This had a negative affect on Jaune as well as we see in story, for the first 12 chapters of the story, he has been.. Lost. He saw himself as have a purpose in keeping Pyrrha safe. He wanted to see this move as him still being that protector, just from farther away. When she died he started only a 12 chapter 6 month guilt trip that would eventually lead to him feeling pain at the idea of moving past her. Furthermore as I wrote in the chapter above, he has suspected that there was more to her death than what he was told. He was in denial though. Which I'm sure didn't help the feelings of guilt any. One of the less subtle affects of this is in how Jaune always suffers to help others. I don't think I've had him actually help out a single person in the story so far that didn't hurt himself in some fashion.

But, the story is about recovery, Jaune started to recover as shown in this chapter. but recovery is a war, and in war you win and lose battles, and wars are never won alone.

The next few chapters are going to be painfull I won't lie. Like this chapter it's going to deal with some heavy shit. but it's also leading to the climax of the stories first overall story arc. So Hey ride it out with me and well come out the other side stronger for it. See you all next time.