02/24/2000.

Three days after he woke up Jaune came home for the first time. The car ride home was quiet and Jaune spent most of the time riding home just processing what had happened.

Jaune lost two weeks of his life to Adam Taurus, he couldn't change that now, he was almost terminally behind on classes and had spent most of his waking time in the hospital trying to catch up on what he missed, but even still he was staring down the barrel of summer school and possibly being held back a year for missed classes.

Even on the ride home as he was catching up on some math homework his brain tried to process everything, something in the back of his head was scratching to be let out.

"You okay back there?" Alan said looking into the rear-view mirror.

Jaune with one hand-signed back [Yeah, I'm alright.] Noting consciously that his other hand was being played with by his younger sister in her car seat.

"Well I mean, it's okay if you're not doing a hundred percent okay back there, you went through one hell of a ride kiddo," Mina said from the driver seat.

Jaune groaned in his seat and shook his head and signed [I'm fine, I mean I've been through a lot worse and my meds are helping me.]

Alan looked at Jaune signing in the view car's rear mirror as he spoke up "That might be so, but you've still been through a rather traumatic experience. It's okay to not be okay." Alan paused for a second "Okay?"

Jaune just nodded in reply.

"You know it's okay to try speaking more…" Mina said looking back at him.

Jaune shook his head and signed out [It's still painful as hell to do for any real length of time.]

Mina smiled as she glanced in the mirror "I get it, I mean you went, what, almost 14 years being unable to speak at all?"

Jaune just smiled and shrugged from his seat as his sister was making an honest effort to gum off his ring finger.

"Your sister missed you, I can tell," Alan said.

"How did you manage to get her to sleep at night?" Jaune rasped out while holding a hand to this throat.

"It was, Well it was a challenge, to say the least," Alan said with a chuckle.

Jaune couldn't help but smile at that as his infant aged sister gummed happily on her brother's arm.


It was fifteen minutes later that Jaune saw his home for the first time since the ordeal began, he couldn't help but notice the fresh paint on the front door as he walked towards the front door leaning on his cane. Once he got closer he realized the entire door was new.

Alan walked next to him and said "Had to have the entryway repainted" in a very matter of factly tone of voice.

Jaune muttered out a quiet "Yeah" as he kept walking next to his stepfather. He only stopped to watch Alan get the door open to allow the family to enter the home. He noticed a new deadbolt lock on the door as well.

"That's new…" Jaune softly said.

"Well we can't be too safe, I also added some window alarms to all the windows as well," Alan said.

Jaune nodded as he found himself thinking "That makes sense, I've been out of the loop, I didn't see the fall out of the attack the way they did."

As Alan got the door and stepped inside to let Jaune walk in, Jaune took a few steps in before he noticed a spot on the wall that caught his eye. Jaune paused as he looked at it and took a second to run his fingertips over the spot as he felt the oddly smooth patch of drywall like it had been recently patched over.

"This is where it happened?" Jaune said in a soft rasp.

"Yeah, The wall was damaged when Sage slammed me into the wall, I hit my shoulder into that spot," Alan said cooly. "I mean I have to be honest, it's hard to sleep at night, but at least I know we won't be dealing with him again."

Jaune kept running his fingertips as he felt a surge of raw emotion race through his body and he leaned back into the wall with a sob. Alan was next to him in a second rubbing Jaune's back.

Jaune slipped into sign as he sobbed on the ground [God damn it all! I should have been here!]

Alan's head snapped back in surprise. "And what would that have changed, I wouldn't have been hurt, and maybe you wouldn't have been either? But we'd be mourning Ruby and Blake right now."

Jaune stiffened up for a moment as the logical side of his brain kicked back in and he signed. [Yeah but look at us, we have a deadbolt on our door, new locks on the windows, we're all paranoid now!] while a raspy shout raged out of his lungs screaming "Those bastards!"

Mina pulled up a seat with young Beth next to her son as Alan sat on the other side of him. As he sobbed out apologies through his still weak voice.

Alan and Mina pulled him into a group hug as his little sister reached out for him. Once Jaune noticed he pulled his sister into his lap and hugged her small form.

"I was wondering when that was going to get let out there buddy," Alan said. "You've been worrying us with how pent up you were getting."

Jaune hugged his little sister as the rest of his family wrapped arms around him and comforted him as he let out several days of built-up emotions in the middle of the entryway to his home…


The very next day, Friday, Jaune would make his "grand return" to the school that he hasn't stepped into for almost three full weeks.

For some reason, as he looked into the large double doors of the school he felt a certain level of hesitation he didn't expect to feel.

"Hey, you good?" Mina asked.

Jaune signed [Yeah I'm good.] before he paused for a second [Damn shame my offspring shirt got trashed yeah?]

"I'm sure we can replace it if you feel that strongly about it, it was on its last leg anyway," Mina said with an amused smirk. "Get out you wuss I have work today."

Jaune chuckled audibly and started to get out, as he did he stopped and signed [I'm never going to get used to making a noise like that.]

"Go, Alan's at work if you need anything!" Mina said.

Jaune waived and closed the door as he started to make his way to the double doors of the old brick building he called school leaning on his Metal collapsible walking cane.

As he stepped inside the building Jaune felt a smile start to creep on his face as he, slightly slower than he used to, started to maneuver through the crowd of students to make his way to the table where his friends gathered in the mornings. It didn't take long for other students to notice him and gawk as he maneuvered through. Jaune did his best to ignore the stares until he made it to his normal table and find a seat.

"Jaune!" Ren shouted as he sat "Mr. Ozpin finally stopped letting you skip classes slacker?"

[Very funny Ren] Jaune signed as he sat and started to collapse his walking cane so it wouldn't be out of the way.

Ruby quickly got up and moved next to him giving him a hug in the process saying in her awkward, special, sort of way "Well I'm glad to see you back in school."

Jaune gave Ruby a slightly longer than expected hug back while signing to the others [So how are you all doing?]

Weiss put on what Jaune could easily tell was a forced smile "Well, as best as we can do I suppose."

Jaune nodded and signed [I'm sorry about your sister.] as he felt his smile fade from his face.

Weiss said, "Hey, you don't have anything to apologize for, I've been working with Ms. Fall and as well as another shrink to try and get through it."

Jaune signed [Do they have you on anything, you know to help make it easier?]

Weiss shrugged and rubbed her neck as she spoke [A mild antidepressant I can't pronounce the name of.]

Jaune nodded and signed back [That's good, that helps, trust me.]

"I know," Weiss said, still wearing a fake smile.

"Well, I understand you're going to be back in your own house in a couple weeks right Blake?" Nora asked Blake while gently nudging her to get her attention.

"Yeah until then I'm sleeping in The guest room of Weiss's dad's place," Blake said rubbing her neck.

"Most of the time…" Weiss commented while not making eye contact with anyone.

Jaune read between the lines and had to break eye contact with the pair for a moment, Jaune felt a head come to rest on his arm for a moment and looked over to see Ruby looking up at him.

Jaune reached up and put a hand on his neck before he forced out a raspy "Missed… Me… huh?"

Jaune noticed the double-takes most of the others gave him, only Ruby and Blake didn't look completely shocked to hear words come from Jaune.

"Uh… I'm sorry what?" Ren asked with a surprised look on his face. "Since when can you talk?"

Jaune signed [It's still uncomfortable to do, my vocal cords are still damaged but I guess something happened when I was fighting Taurus to switch on the part of my brain that controls speaking, or that's what the doctor said after an MRI]

Jaune looked over as he saw Nora stand up with a squeal that lasted until she managed to dart around the table and pull Jaune's head into a mighty bearhug that almost pulled him from his seat. "Oh my God that is so awesome!" she shouted as she attempted to smother him with her entire body.

"Nora, He needs to breathe!" Ren shouted which caused her to pull back and allowed Jaune to loudly gasp for air.

Jaune laughed it off of course as he waved to his friends to relax. He didn't catch just how loud he laughed at that, everyone had come to expect his almost silent exhales when he laughed at something, not the raspy laugh that came out.

Yang grinned "Oh yeah, wait till you hear what his first words were. Even. Ruby told me this part?"

Jaune groaned and hid his face from embarrassment.

Blake chuckled at this as well as she heard it but didn't register it at the time.

"He told Adam to 'go fuck himself'" Ruby said with a proud grin.

Ren just blinked and smiled at Jaune "Yeah that sounds like you, overcome a lifelong disability just to tell someone off."

Jaune shrugged and signed out [Well, I'm going to just pretend I spoke for the first time in the hospital, that was a better memory]

Ruby snapped her fingers and pointed at Jaune before she said "I like that idea actually."

Everyone nodded in agreement at the idea just before the bell went off.


Later that evening Jaune laid in bed staring at the ceiling, he found himself musing at the situation he found himself in since he woke up from his Coma. Jaune couldn't put it into words, but something felt off with how his friends were all acting, for the most part, it was the same off feeling he got from teachers, and even his mother and Alan.

"It's their eyes… It's that lack of light in them, the whole damn lot of them have been traumatized by what happened." Jaune thought as he held his hand out in front of him, looking at the shades of gray that made up the skin of it. "Hell, it's like I woke up in a different world, like the entire world I knew was torn apart and put back together wrong. Like Adam was not just a man but a force of nature that remade the world into something more terrifying for everyone around it."

Jaune sat up and walked over to a shelf and pulled out an art pad and started looking at old pictures of his friends he drew. "All of them lost the light they had," Jaune mused "The worst part of it all is, their eyes remind me of the way mine used to look when I looked in the mirror. Weiss in particular."

Jaune thought about his friends, Yang has a subtle but noticeable bandage around her abdomen, Ruby still had faint discolorations on her neck. Weiss looked like been through hell and back, and Blake looked like she was her copilot.

"So…." Jaune thought to himself as he set his drawing pad. "How the hell do I fix this?"

The silence of the monochrome room he stood in once again failed to provide any answers for him.


So once again here we are, this chapter, i'm sorry to say took a particularly long time to come out, mostly due to a heavy addiction to Phantasy star online 2 I've been nursing for the week, but also because... Well with everything going on here in the United States, and by proxy the world, it's honestly hard to motivate myself to write. The country is changing and frankly it's a bit of a challenge to write about the past when that's going on could potentially change the world as we know it.

But mostly it was PSO2...

Well Sansman212, what are we doing to do, people got to ruin moments as they do, obviously given how this chapter is playing out Ruby and Jaune are slowly getting closer again, so it'll be fun letting that play out.

Dragonlord, Yeah it's has been, and is going to be fun writing the fallout of what happened so far post Adam, I'm not aiming to disappoint here, I have plans :D

Beowulf and Retrorque I'm doing a lot better right now than I was around the time of last chapter so thanks for the well wishes, yeah I figured I'd let Jaune, well be Jaune about how he reacted to waking up from his coma.

Starting with next chapter though, were going to start the endgame for this fic. It's not going to be a short arc, but depending on what people want, it might nicely tie things up. Until l then, thanks for reading, and i'll see you all next time.