10/26/1999...

[Okay, spill, what did he say?] Ruby signed out to her sister.

The pair had migrated from the school to the nearby Library and were both sitting out in front of the school. So far the plan had gone well, Ruby had notes to share on her chat with Penny, and Yang had notes of her own to share as well.

[You first, I want to hear what Penny said,] Yang signed to her sister.

Ruby rubbed the sides of her head, it was rare when she didn't wear her hearing aids. However, the batteries in them had died during the day and she had not thought to carry spare batteries with her. She signed out to Yang [Well she clearly has a crush on Jaune, but I don't think she's really able to realize that.]

[What do you mean?] Yang asked looking confused. [How does the girl not see she has a thing for Jaune?]

[I don't know, she said she enjoys hanging out with him and that she kinda thinks about him a lot, but she hasn't put two and two together yet.] Ruby signed out with a look of confusion on her face.

[Holy shit] Yang signed sarcastically [It's like their friends or something, who the fuck even does that in our group anymore.]

Ruby got, what could be described as a slightly pissy look on her face as she signed [You know what Yang…]

Yang started to laugh a bit at her sister as she signed out [Well it is true, I mean I would honestly prefer us to all hang out again… but…] Yang paused and let her hands drop.

[But I had to let Cardin happen…] Ruby signed out.

Yang shuddered thinking about what Jaune said about Cardin. [Gods don't even get me started on that sack of shit right now.]

[What did Cardin do?] Ruby signed out asking.

[Jaune said he overheard him claiming to someone that he had planned on using you for sex and then discarding you.] Yang signed, pausing before she finished that though [Not his exact words I'm sure.]

Yang watched the color drain from her face as the wheels turned in her head. [Jesus… I let him get in my head, let him flirt with me, and didn't stop him from destroying my relationship with Jaune by kissing me.] Ruby's face turned angry [All that, and it was just for a cheap lay?]

Yang frowned and looked at her sister [Look it's really best that you knew the truth, so you don't get suckered in by him again.]

Ruby rubbed her eyes as she fought back a wave of frustration, a couple moments later she signed out [Jesus what have I done Yang? I threw away something great for what? An asshole that saw me a rebound lay?]

Yang sighed and hugged her sister [So what do you want to do about it?]

[What can we do about it?] Ruby said.

Yang thought it over for a minute or two as Ruby watched her sister intently. [Honestly, I think we first have to fix the problems on our end before we fix things with Jaune.]

Ruby nodded buy still look confused [What problems are we talking about?]

Yang rubbed her hands together [I'm not on good terms with most of our group anymore,] Yang signed. [While I still feel like Jaune has some serious issues he needs to figure out before I'm going to sign off on you trying to get with him again. I know I didn't help by being so damn protective of you.]

Ruby nudged her sister before she signed out [Once again, I prove to be your greatest weakness.]

Yang signed [Well the point is, we got to win back the crowd. I'm not saying we let Jaune run the narrative here or anything like that. Because he's put no effort into this.]

[That would be Weiss.] Ruby signed to her sister

[Exactly, the idea that you were controlling the relationship, while it came from Jaune, was made worse sounding by Weiss.] Yang signed [Jaune might have been in a rough spot at the time, but the idea that you forced him into things seems so unlike you.]

Ruby paused for a second looking slightly ashamed [About that though…] She signed [I had time to think it over.] She paused and looked at her hands [I think I was forcing him to move too fast, I mean Jesus Yang. I was complaining about our relationship becoming stagnant, but the truth is, I was just wanting to go too damn fast.]

Yang signed out and said [Jaune may have felt like he was pressured to do things before he was ready. But he should have understood that he always could have said no.]

Ruby sighed out [God damn it, Yang that's not the point. If he didn't think he could have said no, that's on me. I should have been more clear to him that he was allowed to set limits. We both just did a piss poor job of communicating with each other.]

Yang sighed and signed [then make it a point to tell him that before Penny figures out her feelings for him and makes a move.] Yang paused for a second thinking about it [Yeah shit, if the endgame is you winning him back then that puts a time limit on us, Penny is the kind of simple soul he might be quietly yearning for in the back of his head.]

Ruby stopped and looked at Yang as she signed out [What exactly do you mean by that?]

[I mean…] Yang paused [Actually screw it, let's talk about who we are going to win back first? I'm thinking Blake might be the easiest to talk to right now.]

Ruby thought about it for a second. [I think I'm going to try to talk it out with Ren and Nora, I do live next door to them so it might be easy to talk to them.]

Yang nodded and said, [Sounds good… now let's get the hell out of here and go play some video games at your place or something.]

Ruby smiled and nodded as the pair got up and left.


Later in the evening, Jaune lounged in bed while Weiss chatted away with Blake on his computer. Jaune had been working on a sketch for a while now and Weiss typically didn't bother him while he was immersed in his art.

BLACKCAT42: So we still good for this weekend then?

LIGHTANGEL1983: Let's be honest Blake if I ever say no to that question assume I have been killed and a robot is wearing my skin as a suit.

BLACKCAT42: So do we have the house to ourselves then?

Weiss turned to Jaune and asked, "Hey Ocean-Spray, Are you going out with Ren and Nora to your game?"

Jaune signed back [I mean It's still up in the air right now, why do you want to know Hagen-Dazs?]

"Blake's asking," Weiss said.

[Well my parents won't be home and I have headphones so you won't be disturbing the peace.]

"We are not that loud…" Weiss said.

[Oh Blake is fine, But your loud.] Jaune signed before he pointed at the cat laying across his legs [I don't know, nor do I want to know what Blake was doing to you but you scared the cat with your screaming.]

Weiss turned when she heard the beep from the IM window.

BLACKCAT42: Well?

LIGHTANGEL1983: He said he's not sure, I guess he has to figure out if someone's going to flake out or not.

LIGHTANGEL1983: Do I actually get loud sometimes when… Ya know…

BLACKCAT42: I mean, I don't want to brag but you hit some high notes. Why?

LIGHTANGEL1983: Jaune was commenting on it.

BLACKCAT42: I mean if he wants to join in...

LIGHTANGEL1983: EW, EW, EW Why would you even joke like that.

Weiss made a similar sound as she was typing prompting Jaune to snap his fingers to get her to turn.

[What's she going on about?] Jaune asked via sign.

BLACKCAT42: Well, of course, I'm joking, while I think the boy clearly needs to get laid I'm not going to screw our friendship with Ruby to do it.

Jaune shrugged and had gone back to drawing.

LIGHTANGEL1983: Well don't hold me to this, but he was out kinda late yesterday, and while I can imagine that the Salon downtown could do hair dye… I can't think of any place in town that does Henna Tattoos…

BLACKCAT42: So what are you saying?

LIGHTANGEL1983: I don't know maybe he was out fucking the neighbor chick?

BLACKCAT42: Well ask him if that's what he was doing yesterday

Weiss turned and asked, "Hey Jaune, were you out fucking the lady that lives next door yesterday?"

Jaune signed [You mean Neo?]

Weiss replied, "Yeah that one."

Jaune Deadpan signed [In that case Yes.]

Weiss turned back to the computer

LIGHTANGEL1983: He said yes, granted he's also full of shit I'm sure.

BLACKCAT42: Yeah that's fair. I doubt He'd actually do anything like that either way.

Weiss smiled at the screen, she did feel slightly bad about taking over Jaune's computer like this to chat with Blake, but Jaune rarely seemed to mind himself.

She figured he didn't talk to too many people online these days anyway.

BLACKCAT42: Okay so in that case, I'll plan around you being alone this weekend there and if not then Jaune can join in.

LIGHTANGEL1983: Oh my god… I can't tell if you're being serious or not.

BLACKCAT42: If the answer is anything other than "yes" then I'm not being serious.

Weiss shook her head and laughed before she started typing again.

LIGHTANGEL1983: Okay, Blake, I'll see you tomorrow, love you.

BLACKCAT42: You too, sleep tight and try to not think of Jaune plowing his neighbor.

LIGHTANGEL1983: Well that's all I'm going to be thinking about now.

Blake then logged off as Weiss leaned back into her seat. As she glanced over at Jaune she saw that he had slipped into "The Zone" as she called it, when he was completely engrossed in something he was drawing. It was to the point where he didn't even notice when Weiss hobbled over to sit on the bed next to him.

In an effort to get a rise out of him she casually dropped "So I think Blake wants you to join us next time she's over"

Jaune looked up from what he was drawing to sign with what hand [Join you for what?]

Weiss giggled and just said, "Oh nevermind, what are you drawing?"

Jaune flipped the picture around to reveal that he was drawing a picture of her, leaning, on one hand, as she was looking at the computer monitor with a wide smile on her face.

"You were drawing me?" Weiss asked "While I was chatting with Blake? Were you that bored?"

Jaune started to sign [Well kinda yeah, but mostly it's because you always look pretty happy whenever you're

with her.] Jaune rubbed the back of his head [I mean I guess it's going to be a bit weird to say out loud, but I wanted to try and capture that happiness on paper.]

Weiss raised an eyebrow and asked, "Your not depressed again are you?"

Jaune silently chuckled as he signed [Nah, I wouldn't say I am.] Jaune shrugged and continued. [While I won't say things are peachy I wouldn't say I'm being overly depressed about things.]

Weiss raised an eyebrow "Is there anything we can do?"

[Honestly, I think it'd be best if we could just get everyone talking to each other again.] Jaune said.

"You mean your planning on forgiving Ruby for what happened?" Weiss said with a rather surprised look on her face.

Jaune leaned forward and leaned on his knees in his bed as he pondered the words he wanted to use. [Honestly, the more time passes and the more I replay the moment in my head, the more I doubt things.] Jaune signed out to Weiss.

"I don't think I understand Jaune what do you mean?" Weiss asked.

Jaune closed his eyes as he pictured the scene in his head [When I walked in on them kissing, I missed two things at the time that I can't ignore now.] Jaune pondered on the image in his head [First off, I'm fairly sure that it looked like she was surprised that Cardin was kissing her. Second off, it looked like she was pushing him off like maybe it's not what she wanted.]

"Come on, how can you be sure of any of that?" Weiss asked.

[I'm an artist, I have to be able to picture a scene in my head and hold it there for as long as it takes to get the piece done.] He signed before he tapped his head. [Not to mention it's also because I heard straight from Cardin's fucking mouth yesterday that he was trying to use her for sex.] Jaune signed. [I mean that was the final piece of the puzzle for me.]

[Weiss what I'm saying is that he played her, and he played me at the same time. It just didn't pan out for him in the end cause he's not sleeping with Ruby like he wanted to.] Jaune signed out with a growing look of anger on his face

Weiss exhaled and pondered his words briefly before she asked "Alright then, so what's the plan? What are you going to do with any new information of yours."

[I kept my mouth shut about the real reasons for the breakup because I felt at least partially to blame for how it all fell apart, I should have trusted her. In my own stupid way, I was pushing her away from me.] Jaune signed out. [Now I know there's no way I can hit the reset button, but I do know one thing.]

"What's that?" Weiss asked.

[I need to step up to the god damn plate and fix this mess I helped create!] Jaune signed boldly. [That starts now!]


Looks like Ruby and Jaune both decided to break out the hot glue guns and fix what they broke. So this was a rather problematic chapter to write out, it took a lot of breaks for me to sit back and walk away from the computer to think about it as I tried to piece together what I wanted from the chapter itself hopefully that's not super obvious as we you guys sat down and read this chapter.

We are getting into the Holiday crunch now, and while, mercifully enough, I don't have to worry about Christmas shopping or anything like that still, it's still a rather busy and exhausting time of the year so I hope you understand if I don't bang out chapters as consistently as I have been up to this point.

I mean in any rate I don't have a whole lot to add other than the fact that I still do in fact suck at Halo. So let's go over a couple reviews today. Once again excuse me if I don't hit this by the numbers or talk every point that your addressing, also if I don't bring you up, it's because you're bringing up points that will be addressed in story. I do appreciate the continued and varied viewpoints everyone brings to the chapter however, it's great to see as a writer.

JASK FUN: I'm glad your enjoying the story so far, While I won't say it's going to get crazier from here, I'm hoping to keep up the momentum and pace as I work us to the next major storyline in this story.

chinaluv and Alank2: Maybe she is, maybe she's not, I don't think Yang will ever fully shake off the inherent mistrust she has of Jaune, or her almost hardcoded over protectiveness, the best she can hope for is to learn to not let it dominate it they way it has in story.

Gustrubio: Ruby's motivations that led up to the actions she took that ended the relationship are coming in story, but that's more a payoff towards the end of the arc, so wait on that one.

Either way, I got to go get ready for work, so I hope you all enjoy the chapter, and have a great rest of your week. As Always thanks again for reading and I hope you all take care.