10/29/1999...

"Alright Yang you got me away from my princess, what do you want?" Blake said as she stood in front of Yang in the corner of the school gymnasium.

The time was seven pm, the school had opted to throw a Halloween party for the students that went there. No one really knew what inspired the school to allow such an event, as they had not had events like this in the past.

Whatever Principal Ozpin's reasons were, they were his own.

Yang stood in her costume, a white tank top, a pair of suspenders holding up a pair oh high cut short shorts as well as a pair of leather gloves that went up to just above her elbows. Yang looked reminiscent of a certain brawler character from one of those JRPG titles her sister enjoyed.

Blake meanwhile started at Yang with an intense fire in her eyes, standing in place in a long dark dress with a witches hat on her head

"Look, I didn't have a chance before now to say this, but I'm sorry," Yang said looking directly at Blake.

The fire in her eyes fizzled noticeable as she looked at Yang "You're apologizing? Why?"

Yang Rubbed her hands together as she spoke: "Well I have been making a perfect ass of myself for the last month or so, for starters."

Blake shook her head "That's a mild understatement."

"I want to try and make things right" Yang declared. "But I can't do this alone."

"You don't even understand what you did wrong, do you?" Blake asked Yang.

Yang opened her mouth but stopped herself. "I know what I thought I was doing, I thought I was supporting Ruby as I always did."

Blake folded her arms "But?"

"Clearly that's not what was actually happening," Yang said as she looked down.

"No, you were just pushing every one of us away. Oh sure Ren and Nora live next to your sister so they still hung out, Penny doesn't know any better either way. But you did real damage to our group Yang." Blake said.

"I get that, I took it to far…" Yang said. "But I want to try and make it up to people."

"So what brought this on?" Blake asked yang putting her hands on her hips.

"Ironically enough Jaune did…" Yang said. "I finally got around to talking to him…"

"Well don't leave me in the dark, what about this talk make you change your mind?"

Yang walked over and sat on one of the nearby bleachers "You know Neptune skipped out on this? He doesn't know what he's missing tonight."

"You're a mess…" Blake said bluntly.

"Yeah, I guess I am. Jaune didn't say anything unexpected or different than how he normally acts." Yang said folding her arms across her chest "It was more how he said it."

"Look, I kinda showed up here because Weiss is dressed as Sailor Moon, and I kinda like looking at her butt, can you find the point to this?" Blake asked.

"I'm getting there, I promise. Jaune looked more confident than I've seen him in a while, whatever he's been up to, it's working for him. But I don't think it's a great idea for us to hold these petty grudges anymore." Yang said.

"Grudges that you caused if I'm not mistaken," Blake said cooly

"I know goddamnit… I know I tried to get my sister to hook up with someone that was planning on using her for sex, while she had a boyfriend…" Yang said with a bitter tone to her voice. "Believe me, I get I caused all of this. That's why I have to find a way to fix it all."

"So what's your plan Yang? You can't tackle this head on the way you normally do." Blake asked folding her own arms together.

"I'm thinking… Maybe I need to find a way to get Ruby and Jaune back together…" Yang said with a noticeable lack of confidence in her voice.

"That is the worst thing you could do right now Yang!" Blake said holding a hand to her forehead "What makes you think that Jaune, or even Ruby for that matter would be best served by getting them together when they both have unresolved issues between them?"

"I mean, I honestly don't know, I'm going off my gut instinct here Blake, That's why I need to get everyone talking again." Yang said holding her arms out "I mean we have to tackle this as a group."

Blake spoke with a grimace "I'm tempted to agree to help you out because I'm deeply worried as to what utterly moronic plan you're going to come up with if we don't keep an eye on you."

"I'll take what I can get right now Blake," Yang said with a half-smile.

"Well good, the first bit of advice I'm going to give you is to look at the entrance. The other reason I don't see your planing working walking into the Gym" Blake said pointing off at a pair of students who just walked into the Gym.

Yang turned and focused on the pair of students, a certain purple-haired boy and a certain orange-haired girl walked into the gymnasium wearing Black shirts, Black fiddler style caps, and Black pants ending in their regular shoes. Both the shirts and hats had been emblazoned with red Rs on them.

"Is that…?" Yang started to ask.

"Yeah, that's Penny and Jaune, they decided to tag team this Halloween party," Blake said. "They kinda look cute together don't they?"

"Are they… you know official?" Yang asked Blake.

"Lord no, I don't see Jaune dating anyone in his state. He claims he's trying to take control of his life before he does anything else." Blake paused "Or that's what Weiss said."

Yang and Blake watched Jaune and Penny walk in, not exactly hand in hand and get drinks as Jaune listened to Penny talk to him. No doubt she had been doing all the talking since they linked up.

"Oh god damn it all…" Yang said thinking "they do look like a good fit for each other…"

"So what are you going to do about it? Do you want to try and potentially ruin something that could be good for both of them for your sister's sake?" Blake said looking at the pair "Or do you want to focus on helping your sister be a better person? Learn from the mistakes that. Frankly, all of us made here…"

"What mistakes did any of you make?" Yang asked.

"Well, I'm still trying to get Weiss to back off of Jaune, I mean she's getting better. But boy it's been slow." Blake said, "I still am flabbergasted that you seem to be the one trying to build bridges before her."

"He was actually crazy for a while there. I'm sure he was hallucinating for a while." Yang. "I had to keep one eye on him at all times."

"Well, I knew that part. I'm sure Ruby knew or at least suspected that as well." Blake said.

"You knew?" Yang said shocked "You knew and never said anything?"

"Hey, let's face facts we all met through him, of course, we told each other things," Blake said with a sense of conviction in her voice. "Look there are things you don't tell a therapist okay?"

"That's…" Yang stammered as her brain tried to process what she just heard. "That's the point of a therapist, you give them money and tell them things like 'I see the spectre of my dead ex'."

"Well, you sure as hell don't bring that up to your shrink when she answers to the same principal that's dating your mother." Blake retorted "Or let's not forget how crazy people went around here after that highschool in Colorado got shot up."

"So we what, covered up that he was falling apart mentally, what the hell kind of friends were we?" Yang asked.

"As I said, we all made mistakes," Blake replied.

"I'm still not following you," Yang said.

"We should have been, and this includes your sister, encouraging him to get help when he was at his worst. We're lucky he managed to find closure when he did." Blake paused. I still worry there's damage there that can't be fixed now."

"Blake…" Yang paused "Did you forget we're all teenagers?"

"Sorry…" Blake said.

"Don't worry about it, I know you had a lot ripped out of you from that Adam bastard," Yang said.

"But I got most of it back thanks to my friends who helped me with my problems, and not pretending they weren't there," Blake said. "Or pushing against me for them."

"Like what I was doing.." Yang said.

"While I and Ruby pretended they didn't exist, and while Weiss was struggling with her own problems." Blake.

Yang sighed out "So because of all of this, Jaune ended up being a damaged mess that struggled with connecting with Ruby." Yang rubbed her neck "Who ended up becoming dissatisfied with the relationship because she wanted more and Jaune just couldn't mentally get to that point."

"Jaune then instead of actually talking to his girlfriend about it just went along with it the best he could," Blake said.

Yang looked up for the moment before speaking "So to be clear we're talking out our asses here right?"

"Oh hell yeah." Blake chuckled out as she gave Yang a light shove.

"So we good then?" Yang asked.

"Sure, if you can stop being an intolerable bitch all the time," Blake said with a smirk. "Anywho, I got a booty to admire so I'll catch you later."

"Have fun with that," Yang said.

"Well, I lost my touching privileges when she took my joking about dragging Jaune in for a threesome seriously," Blake said.

"What would have done if she said yes?" Yang asked.

"Great question, best not to dwell on it," Blake said back as she walked off.

Yang shook her head and decided to call it a night while also attempting to scrub the mental image from her head.


Elsewhere in the party Jaune sneezed unexpectedly.

Penny smiled and handed him a napkin "Are you sure you're not coming down with something, that's like the fourth time in 15 minutes you've sneezed."

Jaune just nodded yes.

Penny just shot him a wide infectious smile. Jaune couldn't help but smile as well. He quickly pulled out his notepad and wrote out. 'I'm good Penny, I'm not coming down sick. At worst I have a slight case of the sniffles.'

"That's good," Penny said with a smile. "Hey I wanted to ask you something, have you ever thought about what you want to do after school?"

Jaune tilted his head up ignoring some of the whispered talks of students nearby talking about the two of them before he wrote out 'Got to be honest, I never

gave it much thought before, what's up?'

"I was just wondering, it seems like all you ever do is listen and I wanted to see what your plans were?" Penny asked.

Jaune tapped his chin and wrote out 'Honestly, I can see myself as an artist of some kind, maybe I'll get a job working for a comic company or something, I don't know'

"That's not bad, I mean your drawing is really good," Penny said grinding the whole time.

Jaune just pointed at her.

"Me?" Penny said confused. "Oh, you want to know what I want to do after school?"

Jaune smiled and gave her a thumbs up.

Penny said faster than her brain processed it, as it was on queue. "I want to be a veterinarian."

Jaune smiled and revealed his already written response 'Called it'. He then paused and added 'Why stop there, you could probably become a zoologist or something'

Penny paused and put her hands on her hips. "You know, that's a really good question." she said before she paused to choose her words "I guess when it comes down to it, I don't really want to be that far from my friends and family."

Jaune scribbled out a note 'I guess that makes sense to me, well I think you'd be great at it either way.'

Penny read the note and smiled before she looked at him and asked: "Well, I see people dancing, you going to dance with me or what?"

Jaune just smiled and held out his hand for her to take. When penny took his hand he led her off to the dance floor.


Hey looks like we managed to get this chapter in the bag. it was a bit of a challenge to get to this point today, I hit serious writers block more than a couple of times in the writing process and this update is being posted in the 11th hour as it were so I'll be brief. I know it didn't seem on the surface like much happened in this chapter, but not every chapter has to move mountains I was told. Hope you all enjoy it.

I don't honestly have the time this morning to go over reviews in detail like I normally like to. I do want to directly say that I do not plan on writing any smut for this story outside of the toe the PG-13 line levels of inudeno and "Wink wink nudge nudge" moments I scattered throughout the story.

So this may very well be the last update i'll get out before Christmas, I'm going to take the next week off to enjoy the holidays with my family, So I hope you all have a happy holidays and I'll see you all next time.