10/23/1999…

Mina Arc-Ozpin poked her head into her son's room to try and wake him up, she didn't normally bother waking him up this early on a Saturday but she had the disturbing realization when she woke up that she didn't recall little Bethany waking up in the middle of the night hungry. Normally a baby as small as Beth ate every couple hours and it horrified Mina to learn that not only did she not wake up, the Bassinet was not even in their room anymore.

"Jaune wake up I can't find your-" Mina said quickly realizing that Jaune was gone from his bed as well.

"What in the fu-" She started to say before she felt her husband's hand on her shoulder. She turned to look, seeing his genuinely amused face.

"What is it? I can't find the baby or Jaune!" Mina said to Alan.

"Check the living room," Alan said as he guided his wife.

As they made it to the living room on the far opposite side of the house they discovered the Bassinet pulled up next to the recliner seat and discovered a very much sleeping Jaune with an even more content looking Beth curled up in the crook of his arm in the seat.

"Looks like we both crashed so hard from work last night that she woke Jaune up, who snuck out, changed her diaper, made a bottle and fed her to sleep out here," Alan said.

Mina chuckled as she saw Weiss poker her head in having just woken up herself.

"What's going on?" Weiss yawned out as she steadied herself on her walker. Once she rubbed the gunk out of her eyes she took one look at the slowly stirring Jaune and fought back a loud squeal of joy.

"Hey Jaune, wake up over there!" Alan called out causing Jaune's eyes to shoot open as he looked at everyone watching him.

After shaking it off for a moment with his freehand he signed out [What time is it?]

"Little after seven AM, you think you can let one of us take the baby for a while so you can go get a shower?" Alan said chuckling.

Much to Mina's amusement Jaune handed off his little sister to her and was escorted by Weiss to his room so he could pick out clothes. Mina shook her head and looked at Alan "Lord help us, that's what, three times in the last week he's done this?"

"He claims he's been having trouble sleeping because the Cat wakes him up," Alan said. "I think it's because he's up late chatting with that Penny Girl that joined their group at the start of the school year."

"I don't think I've met her," Mina said as she walked her husband to the kitchen.

"Well, I don't suspect there's much to say about her. As far as anyone knows she rather socially awkward." Alan said to his wife.

"Hmmm, It's a bit soon for him to date again after the breakup though," Mina said with a look of concern.

"I don't know if we have to worry about it," Alan said as he looked at the little infant being gently held in Mina's arms. "I think she's starting to stir, let me get a bottle ready for her."

"Yeah, she looks like she could use a diaper change again," Mina said. "When you get a chance, see what you can find out about this Penny girl okay?"

Alan smiled "Oh I can't just read her records, that info is supposed to be confidential after all."

Mina laughed it off as she left the room "I'm sure you'll figure it out hon..."

"I suppose I will," he said as he reached for the can of powdered baby formula.


An hour or so later Jaune wandered the center of town aimlessly and without a goal, Weiss had to meet up with her sister for her physical therapy appointment. Ren and Nora were going to meet up with him but had to cancel at the last moment. As he considered just heading home he heard his name called out.

Making a sharp turn on the balls of his feet he turned around just in time to see Penny running towards him. "Hey buddy how are you doing today?"

Jaune just smiled and shot her a thumbs up as he fell in line with her and the pair started to walk together.

"So what are you doing today?" Penny asked. "Anymore I only see you out like this when we have a game."

Jaune just shrugged revealing that he had no real plans for the day.

"So you didn't have any plans for today then?" Penny Asked.

Jaune shook his head No.

"So uh, Do you want to go hang out with me today? Just the two of us?" Penny asked him with a hint of excitement in her voice.

Jaune with a hint of a smile on his face shot her a thumbs up before Penny wrapped herself around his arm. "Alright, Lets hit the game store then and I'll buy you lunch okay!?" Penny shouted in an all too excited tone.

Jaune for his part was taken slightly aback by the innocent naive girl that just pulled his arm into her chest like they were boyfriend and girlfriend, while he didn't feel comfortable with the idea of dating anyone, it was a nice feeling to say the very least. As Jaune let himself be led along by Penny he failed to see a certain someone who had just noticed them out of the corner of their eye.


Twenty minutes later an extremely distraught looking Ruby stormed into her room past Blake and Yang who was waiting for her to return as they played video games. Ruby stormed past the pair and went straight for her bedroom not even sparing the pair a single thought as she passed.

Yang looked at Blake and said "Uh… I should go look into this…"

Blake paused the game "Lets both go…" as she stood up.

Both Yang and blake walked into Ruby's bedroom as she sobbed into her pillow.

Yang sat down next to her rubbing her back saying "Hey what happened?"

Through her pillow, Ruby said a badly mispronounced and muffled "Jaune…"

Yang pounded her fists and started to get up to go Before Blake reached out to stop her shouting "Hey, Hey! Lets her finish Yang!"

Ruby kicked her feet into her bed in clear frustration as it was Blake's turn to sit down and talk with her.

Blake sat down next to her and asked: "What about Jaune, what happened?"

Ruby signed out [I saw him and Penny earlier, I think they started dating] without even looking up at Blake.

Blake and Yang exchanged glances before Blake chimed in. "Are you sure your not miss-reading things? Jaune himself said that he's not trying to rush into dating again."

Yang spoke up "I mean yeah, with all due respect for Penny, she really doesn't strike me as the dating type anyways, she's was too, I want to say, a bit too basic for dating."

Blake sighed and spoke up "Yeah I mean, with respect to Penny, she really doesn't strike me as particularly interested in romance, to be honest. She's clearly on the path to end up owning a house with twenty cats and an entire room full of gaming books."

Ruby's legs kicked a little slower. For a moment as her friend and sister's words sank in and she sat up in her bed.

"Besides, I thought we were on the same page that your better off without that punk!" Yang said with her typical.

"I really wish you wouldn't talk crap about one of my best friends behind his back," Blake said with a surprising level of anger in her voice.

"Hey, I'm just saying." Yang.

"Yeah well that's all you ever do is 'say'" Blake barked out "You talk your mouth off but you never listen!"

"Well, all the problems in his life are of his own making if you ask me," Yang said with an aggressive tone to her voice. "He drove Ruby away with his attitude, He barely hangs around anyone anymore. Don't say that he's-"

"Shut the fuck up and listen for once in your god damn life," Blake said. "Yeah, he hasn't had time to hang out with us much, because He just became a brother! He's taking the time to bond with his new sister!"

"That doesn't excuse him not coming and hanging out with us in the mornings anymore!" Yang shouted.

"Why the fuck would he want to! As far as he's concerned, our circle currently contains his Ex-girlfriend. You know, the one that fucking cheated on him. As well as the bitch that keeps attacking him every chance she gets!" Blake shouted.

"He pushed Ruby away!" Yang shouted. "As far as I'm concerned He deserved it!"

The next thing Yang felt was the back of Blake's hand as she slapped her in the face.

All Yang could do was look at Blake in stunned silence as Ruby looked like her jaw was going to hit the floor. Blake saw the opportunity to get a Jab in. "Funny you should say that considering what happened between your parents…" before she walked off.

Yang turned and looked at Ruby what stunned into silence. "Did she just…"

Ruby just nodded and signed [Yeah I think she did…]


As the day wore on, Weiss was just finishing up a physical therapy session with her sister. Weiss was working on a weight machine to push a plate that would lift a set of weights to help her build up the muscles in her legs. Winter never actually let her see the amount of weight she was pushing and kept it hidden behind a cloth sheet. As Weiss grunted with every Extension of her legs Winter looked on with pride at her sister's progress.

"Christ what is is this thing set at!" Weiss grunted out with a hint of pain in her voice.

"Eh, I'd prefer not to say, but I have to keep it at a challenging level otherwise your not getting stronger," Winter said.

"It feels like you have me lifting Blake's dad!" Weiss complained.

"Oh please, I'm not that much of a bitch to you," Winter said with a giggle.

"You get off on human suffering, don't pretend you don't," Weiss said with a pained edge to her voice.

"Well just for that give me fifteen more and I'll tell you the weight your pushing against." Winter said as she took a look at her pager "Hmmm Better call him back."

"Call who back?" Weiss asked.

"My boyfriend," Winter said nonchalantly.

"I'm sorry, you have a what now?" Weiss asked having just dropped the weights hard.

"It's a guy I knew back from my environmental activism days, you know the one's dad was pissy about?" Winter said, "His name is Tukson, he's part of the Puyallup tribe from across the state."

"Your dating someone that had ties to ecoterrorism…" Weiss asked incredulously as she went back to lifting weights.

"Environmental activism," Winter said to Weiss correcting her.

"Dad said you spent half a summer handcuffed to a tree," Weiss protested "Also didn't one of the people you were in that group with get arrested for firebombing a logging truck?

"No one was in the truck and we were all ready to admit that our group had some bad apples," Winter said in her own defense.

"Wasn't there something bout a whalin-" Weiss started to say.

"Anyways! Finish your reps!" Winter barked out.

Weiss quickly hammered out her last fifteen or so reps as she giggled about picturing her sister handcuffed to a tree. Once she was done she east the weights back down and let her tired legs rest for a moment while winter pulled back the sheet.

"So as you can see, that was about 245 pounds!" Winter said proudly.

"Oh my God, I was kidding about making me lift Blake's dad with my legs!" Weiss said flabbergasted.

"Well I mean that was pretty damn impressive though, that's almost where you were before the accident, I mean we should have you start walking without the waler for a while to see how you do," Winter said with a smile.

"I don't know if I'd feel comfortable with that, the school is pretty crowded and Jaune's place is small enough that I still have problems maneuvering about easily." Weiss.

"Well, it sounds like we need a place that has a bit more room then," Winter said.

"Yeah well you haven't had luck finding an apartment, you're still at home…" Weiss sighed out.

"I actually wanted to talk to you about that one," Winter said with a faint smile,

"What you finally found an apartment?" Weiss asked.

Winter sat down next to Weiss on the machine. "Well… Not quite... Frankly, if I didn't want to move us out of the county we'd have a place by now."

"Then what's going on?" Weiss asked.

"Dad intervened, he knows neither of us wants to be in the same house as Mom anymore." Winter paused "But he wants us close by right?"

"I wouldn't know, I haven't talked to him since mom threw me out of the house," Weiss added.

Winter coughed into her hand before she spoke: "Okay well you're not wrong…" Pausing for a second after to find the wording for this. "Well, my point is, Dad's throwing money at the problem in typical dad fashion."

"Well I'm guessing Blake must not have mentioned this, but Dad bought a small parcel of land from her family" Winter

"We did what? Their ranchers! They need all the land they can for their cows right?" Weiss said.

"Can we not remind me that the slaughter cows for a living, you know I'm a Vegetarian," Winter added.

"Handcuffed. To. A. Tree Winter…" Weiss playfully said bumping her sister with each word with her shoulder.

Winter coughed into her hand. "Well, The point is, the reason they did it was so he could build a house…"

Weiss blinked and said, "Wait Dad's building a house on their land?"

"It's more like he's building a single story 4 bedroom house on his land, but yeah" Winter added, "He's doing it so we can have a place to live…"

"Dad's building us, the eco terrorist and the lesbian a house?" Weiss said

"What can we say, he still loves his girls," Winter said with a smile. "But it'll be around Christmas when the house is built so we have some time okay?"

Weiss was shocked beyond words that her dad was going this far… It took a few minutes before she said "I uh… I need to call dad…"

Winter smiled and said, "Get a shower first and I'll let you use my office phone…"

Weiss got up and winter helped her towards the showers to get cleaned up. For the first time in months, Weiss felt a strange and unfamiliar feeling in her heart. That for the first time in months, she felt like her dad actually loved her...


So this chapter has a lot of parts to it, and jumps around a bit more than I'd like it to. But it is setting up the next batch of story arcs that I believe should push us close to the end of he calendar year.

Also I really wanted to write a scene of Yang getting bitch-slapped, I think a few of you in the comments felt the same way.

Speaking of which since I don't have a lot to talk about today except to say that i'm sorry the gap between chapters was longer than normal. I must of spent the entire last week just arranging the timeline of events for the next couple months of story.

I do want to of course touch on some comments as i'm known to do.

Gustrubio, dose it count as a fuck off pill if it's applied directly to the side of her head?

0neWhoWanders: I mean I don't want to say what the future is going to bring to the story, but Ruby is clearly getting a rude awakening as far as making her less naive, right now she see's the guy she still loves potentially moving on from her, and she know's it's her fault. No need to Drag Cardin back into this one... Yet...

chinaluv and Alank2 , Glad you both approve of where the story is going so far, hope you still feel that way once the current dust settles.

But with that, Hey I want to say Thanks again for reading, and I hope you all have a great rest of your days!