February 10th 1999...

Ruby was being a bit of a couch potato today. She didn't have any homework today and her boyfriends was off a the mall with his mother. Not to mention the fact that none of the rest of her friends were online. As a result she found herself sitting in her living room watching a rerun of 'The Outer limits' with the subtitles on.

This episode in particular called 'The Message' is about a woman who gets cochlear implants installed into her ears and is able to hear for the first time. Of course being the show she's watching the implants causes the woman to hear an alien voice in her head.

But it put and idea in her mind. Once the episode ended she went to her computer and logged it on to the internet. Once Ruby was online she fired up 'Altvista' and started to read articles on the subject of cochlear implants. "This is at best wishful thinking" Ruby found herself thinking "But God damn it would be amazing if I was able to actually hear like Jaune."

Ruby leaned back in her seat and looked at the cost of the operation to get the implants "One Hundred thousand... man that's crazy... I mean dad's insurance might cover most of it..."

Ruby's thoughts were slightly interrupted as she felt a vibration in the floor through the one foot she always kept touching the ground out of habit. She turned and saw her mother standing in her doorway waving and speaking, It took her a second to get into full lip reading mode so she didn't fully catch what she said the first time.

"I was asking how was your day?" Summer said repeating herself with that fake ass smile Ruby has come to despise.

Ruby silently sighed and looked for the notepad she kept around for the few times she felt a need to actually talk to her mother "Oh no, don't bother learning to sign or anything, you might actually be seen as a decent human being" Once she found her note bad she wrote out a single word to try and placate her mother 'Fine'

Summer looked it over and slowly and Ruby assumed loudly said "Oh good, what are you looking at?" Summer asked looking over her shoulder forcing Ruby to re-angle herself to see her lips again "Implants huh? What are they supposed to do?"

"There more advanced hearing aids, since the doctor said that my inner ear was the reason I can't use hearing aids, these bypass my inner ear completely and send signals directly to my brain." Ruby wrote out.

"Oh Ruby these are expensive as hell, and it looks like it's require a pretty expensive operation to even install. How are you going to land a decent guy with scars and metal bits sticking out of your head?" Summer said shaking her head which made it an absolute pain in the ass for Ruby to lip read.

Ruby wrote out with an increasingly frustrated hand "I already 'landed' a decent guy, you remember Jaune?"

Summer shook her head again as she spoke causing Ruby to wonder if it would kill her mother to hold still. "Oh sweetie, I mean a real guy, one that could actually take care of you some day, not some broken mess."

Ruby set he notepad down and rubbed her temples before standing up and walking out of her room. Signaling that she was pretty much done with with this conversation.

Ruby could tell Summer was following her as she walked into the Kitchen. As she turned to Summer she signed out a frustrated [What the hell do you want?]

Summer held out the notepad "Were not done talking Ruby."

[Oh we are done walking alright] Ruby signed back

"Ruby how many times do I have to tell you to use the damn notepad to talk to me?" Summer said still holding out the notepad for her daughter to take.

Ruby's response was to slap the notepad out of summers hand, with a look of pure fury on her face she starts signing [Fuck you] Ruby clenches her fist as she fights back tears [In fact go fuck yourself, I'm not writing another goddamn thing in that notepad, I've been your daughter for fifteen years and you never once tried to learn how to speak with me. Why the fuck should I go out of my way to talk to you.]

Summer shakes her head "I don't know what your saying god dammit!"

Ruby pauses as she composes herself but fails at it. [I fucking hate you, I think everything that's wrong with our family comes right back to you. You ruined my father's first marriage when you tricked my dad into fucking you and getting knocked up with me. The truth is I never forgave you for what you did to him and Raven. I never forgave you for not learning until I was fucking seven years old that my dad had a daughter with Raven. Not to even mention that Yang never got to have a fucking dad because of you!] Ruby paused for a second and continued [I also fucking hate you for the fact that I was seven before I learned what it was life to have a family member actually love me as a person!]

Summer tried to speak "Ruby use the notebook if you want me to be able to understand you!"

Ruby stomped her foot into the ground thankful she knew how to read lips. [I don't want you to understand, I frankly don't care if you understand, your a homewrecking bitch, you ruined my life before I was even born! I fucking hate you!] Ruby finished it with one more gesture she knew Summer would understand before she grabbed her bag and stormed out of the house.

Summer leaned back against the wall "Okay I got that last one..."


Meanwhile Jaune and his mother were the next town over, it was a bit of a drive for them, but it had a large shopping mall including a JC Penny's where he and Mina had just finished shopping at for her date. Mina had actually purchased a form fitting Black dress for her date. One that she felt showed off her curves nicely.

Mina however had another reason she wanted to go out shopping all the way out here and it had to do with the drug store at this particular mall. "Hey buddy, I need to go into here." Mina said to her son "If you want you can go off and get Ruby something for Valentines day."

Jaune shrugged [Sure, where did you want to meet up at?]

Mina said with an uncharacteristically bashful tone "Lets meet up at the food court in an hour?"

Jaune seemed to catch that something is up [Okay, so is everything okay?]

Mina smiled "Yeah it's fine I just need to run into the drug store and grab a couple things... Feminine things"

Jaune shot finger guns at his mom and signed [I'll be at the bookstore then, my and Ruby had already agreed on a thing already.] Before he walked off.

Mina sighed out and thought "Gods i'm 35, I have a 15 year old, I shouldn't feel embarrassed about this." as she walked into the drug store. politely waving to the teenage cashier as she went straight for her destination. "Okay let's see here..." she muttered as she started to look at the pregnancy tests.

"It's not the same as it was with Jaune, your 15 years older now, your life is secure, you don't need to be nervous about this." Mina said as she picked up one of the more expensive ones. "I guess this one looks easy enough,"

As she walked to the cashier she grabbed a few things she needed, and a couple snacks to cover up the reason she came in here. As she watched the cashier ring everything up the cashier gulped like she had a question.

"Spit it out kid" Mina said.

The cashier said nervously. "I-I Don't usually say anything but your boyfriend looked a bit young for you d-don't you think?"

Mina didn't know if she wanted to laugh or cry as she spoke out a reply. "Kid, that's my fifteen year old son."

"Oh my god I'm so sorry!" the you cashier spat out as she quickly bagged her items "I'm sorry please enjoy the rest of your day!?"

Mina just giggled and said "Well thanks for mistaking me for looking young enough for that sort of thing, you take care kiddo." Mina said as she walked out.

Once she was out of the store and she finished giggling the serious look on her face returned... "Okay what in the hell am I going to do if this turns out positive? I mean I'd have to tell Alan and Jaune... Lord only knows how they would react to any of this." Mina just quietly pulled up a seat and pulled out on of her snacks.

Mina put a hand on her belly and thought "Well... if there is someone in there... it's going to be interesting meeting you."


Elsewhere in the mall. Jaune wandered the book store looking for a particular book, finally stumbling on it he picked it off the shelf "Score, I heard good things about this one, sounds like this might by up Ruby's ally..."

The book Jaune held in his hand was "Animorphs: The invasion" He felt the weight of the book "Kinda small isn't it? should probably get her the second book as well." He thought as he grabbed the second one as well for his girlfriend.

When he turned around to walk towards the front of the store, he ran into a wall that wasn't present a moment before. As he shook off the confusion the thought crossed his head "Since when do walls wear flannel?"

"Oh my, sorry about that young man. I wasn't paying attention. Have you seen a young girl around here? she's skinny has black hair tan skin and answers to Blake?" The Giant said to him.

Jaune started to reach for his notepad as mount olympus stared down at him. Once he pulled the notepad out of his pocket the man spoke up "Speak up lad. Does the cat have your tongue?" He bellowed with a laugh.

Jaune wrote a quick note 'Actually yes sir!'

The mountain that walks read the note and getting an amused look on his face "Well I guess that answers that, Sorry to bug you I'll just ke-"

"Oh there you are dad!" Blake said as she walked over to her dad before she glanced over at Jaune "Oh hey Jaune!" Before she paused for a second "Wait jaune?!"

Jaune signed out [Blake, this is your dad? You could fit your whole god damn body inside of him!]

"I think I understood enough of that to make me worry about you." Blake said to Jaune before looking at her father "Hey dad, this is Jaune from school."

"Oh so your the famous Jaune Arc then!" the brick shithouse Blake called 'dad' bellowed out.

Jaune politely waived and wrote out a quick "Pleasure to meet you sir!"

The flannel wearing Nimitz class aircraft carrier that was standing before him bellowed out a "Oh no lad, the pleasure is all mine. I'll leave you two be." before wandering off.

"Yeah, my dad is kinda tall..." Blake said.

Jaune wrote out 'We didn't need need to send an army into the gulf, we could have sent him and they would have surrendered at the mere sight of him.'

Blake chuckled as the clearly shocked Jaune wrote more 'I'm not kidding Japan would declare a state of emergency if he ever traveled there!'

Blake broke down laughing grabbing onto Jaune for support "Yeah well they make them tall in the Kansas Jaune."

Jaune tilted his head and wrote 'Your dad's from Kansas?'

Blake read the note and spoke up "Dad is yeah, my mom is from the area. I guess they met years ago when my mom was in college. Mom's family owned a farm they didn't use for anything. My dad is a farmer. See where this is going?"

Jaune tapped his chin and wrote out 'So when they got married your parents took over the farm?'

"Yeah I don't look much like a farm girl right?" Blake chuckled out before she continued "So what are you doing out today?"

Jaune wrote out a note 'Oh Ruby and I have valentine's day plans to hang out at the library and read books we chose out for each other. It's sappy as hell I know.'

Blake responded to the note "Aw, I think that's kinda cute Jaune. I hope you guys have a good time."

Jaune shrugged and wrote 'What's your plans?'

"Oh I'm just going to drag Weiss out to a movie, us single girls need to stick together." Blake said with a chuckle. "Hey I got to take off, I'll see you later!"

Jaune waived by as she took off. He managed to purchase the books in his hands without further incident.

As he left the bookstore he saw his mother waiting for him "Hey tiger, you get everything that you need?"

Jaune gave his mom a thumbs up.

Mina smile and said her mind reminding her of the imagined weight in her back "Yeah me to, lets get home!"


Lot happened this chapter, lot of set up for upcoming story arcs. Otherwise I don't have much else to say besides I clearly have way to much fun describing just how huge of a man Ghira is.

I did want to tackle two questions by reader "Ruby Rose Arc". In regards to Yang's residence, I can't recall if I ever made this clear or not. But no Yang does not live with Ruby in this story. She lives with her mother in a different part of town. Also Yang kinda takes it upon herself to interpret for her sister when she's around, which is why unlike with Jaune who always has his notepad on him, Ruby often has to scramble to find hers if she even has it.

Hope that cleared a few things up, I'll see you all next time.