06/10/2001…

Blake's Secret shelter had seen better days. In the last couple of weeks, a windstorm blew through and had more or less finished off what time and neglect had started.

"I think this place is a loss Blake,'' Jaune mused as he helped Blake push a part of the collapsed roof out of the way of the entryway. "I just hope you didn't have anything you actually cared about in here."

Blake coughed as a cloud of dust was kicked up by the roof falling aside "You mean besides mesothelioma?" She asked as she covered her mouth and nose with a rag.

"Well, whatever the hell freaky cancer shit they talk about during the commercial breaks of Judge Judy episodes," Jaune said in reply through his similarly covered mouth.

"Yeah… damn this place is a write-off, want to go sit behind the building and chat there?" Blake asked

Jaune considered the idea for a moment before he said "Yeah that might be the best." he started to follow Blake back out the front door and towards the rear of the building.

As Jaune followed Blake around the back he grabbed a small hand cooler she had brought with her before he Quipped "Saw your girlfriend yesterday."

"Yeah, she mentioned that to me when I saw her later," Blake absent-mindedly replied.

"Saw her legs as well, they looked nice." Jaune teased.

"Jaune I see a lot more than her legs on a regular basis, you're not going to make me jealous," Blake said as she started to crack up at her own comment.

Jaune either because he found Blakes's retort funny, or was laughing because Blake was also starting to chuckle before he said "Well you got that one on me, Blake."

"In that case hand me the cooler, it took some doing to get these," Blake declared

"You're going to have to introduce me to your contacts Blake," Jaune said as she handed the cooler over to Blake.

Blake sat the cooler down as she and Jaune moved some of the broken debris that looked safe enough to sit on into some makeshift chairs "I wish my chairs didn't get crushed by that damn roof!" Blake shouted as she dragged a large part of the brickwork over.

"Just be happy you were not in there when it happened," Jaune Grunted out when he also dragged over something to sit on.

"I weep for my beautiful lesbian cheerleader girlfriend over the sheer weight of the heartbreak she would have to endure if I was lost," Blake said with a giggle as she tried to sound as intentionally melodramatic as she could.

Jaune scoffed and said "Eh, she'd get over it in a few months"

Blake said as she opened the cooler and pulled out a couple bottles of beer as asked "Did you?"

Jaune took the bottle as he pulled up a seat and leaned with his back against the failing and exposed brickwork of the largely collapsed building. "So I guess Weiss is going to business school..."

Blake nodded as she popped the top off her beer bottle and tried to hand the bottle opener to Jaune as he just twisted it off with his hand.

"Yang, Neptune, and Sun all want to become deputies for the county," Jaune said

"Yeah I know, a bit of a massive swerve for Sun I'd have to say," Blake said.

"I know what it feels like to want redemption for past misdeeds," Jaune said. "Not quite on his level, but you know…"

"Oh, I know what you mean Jaune," Blake said as she took a sip from her beer.

"Weiss is also planning on studying to take over the family business," Jaune said as he took a drink of his own beer. "So that leaves you, Blake, what's in the cards for you?"

Blake sighed and took a drink of her beer "Honestly I wish she would have gone forward with her plans on becoming a Chef like she was saying she wanted to before her sister died."

"Oh dodging the question are we?" Jaune asked playfully.

"Hardly, have you ever had some of her cooking?" Blake asked.

"Actually she made dinner half the nights she was still living in my place, She's not quite at mine or my mom's level yet though" Jaune declared

"How do you figure?" Blake asked with a raised eyebrow

"Who do you think taught her to cook? It was a cross between her dad and my mom." Jaune said back with a satisfied nod.

Blake mused for a moment and said "Tell your mom thanks for helping my girlfriend become a good cook then."

"If I'm not drunk by them," Jaune said

Blake scoffed "One beer is not going to make you drunk Jaune."

"I don't even know if I should be drinking, my dad was an alcoholic" Jaune thought before he took another drink from his bottle

Blake shrugged "You're not chugging it and reaching for a third by now. I think you're going to be fine."

Jaune nodded as he stopped speaking for a moment and stared at Blake.

"What?" Blake said, looking confused as she held up her beer to take a drink.

"About that question I asked, I was wondering if you had any big plans after school?" Jaune asked again.

"I don't have any post-high school plans. I figured I'm going to spend some time finding myself, maybe help out on the farm." Blake answered

"You really have no plans?" Jaune asked.

"Not all of us are as ambitious as you and Ruby, I mean Ruby's going to be a doctor. That's not even a theory, it's really a statement of fact." Blake said before she took a drink "You have the art school thing, I mean how many options does that free you up for?"

"True, if it works out that is." Jaune paused and took his own drink "I'd love to maybe go into Animation of course, Maybe even learn some Computer animation like that Beast wars show that came out a few years back"

"You have it all figured out then?" Blake asked.

"Oh not at all, we don't know what school Ruby is going to land at if it's even on the same side of the state as where I'm going…" Jaune said. "Or if I'm even going at all."

Blake smiled and declared "I just think you don't want to admit quite how far you're willing to go to pursue your dream."

Jaune's face scrunched up "Even at the expense of Losing Ruby?"

Blake smiled "You've faced certain death for us. I know deep inside you're going to want the best for her."

"And yet…" Jaune paused and took a drink "Somehow losing her scares the hell out of me more than Adam ever did…"

"I know," Blake softly said. "I could see how important she was to you even when I first met you guys."

"I knew her for at most a couple weeks back then. I was still a mess back then." Jaune said.

"We both were," Blake said. "I guess that's why I latched on to you as hard as I did."

Jaune chuckled, "You're making it sound like you had a crush on me back then."

"Eh, I knew I never had a chance to be fair," Blake said as she took a sip of her beer causing Jaune to cough and almost choke on the beer in his mouth.

This caused Blake to laugh out loud and declare "Careful now. I don't think either of us wants to explain why you had to be rushed to the clinic with a beer in your hand."

Jaune hit his chest a few times till the lingering liquid was out of his windpipe and said "Jesus don't drop shit like that on me while I'm drinking!"

Blake laughed even harder at that. "But I guess to circle this all the way back around, I don't have any big ambitions at this point in my life."

Jaune thought about it for a few moments before he said "Well I guess at worst, you'd make a hell of a housewife, or you could stay with your parent's farm until you figured out what you really want to be."

Blake leaned back against the wall as she mused "Well…. I guess I've had some luck writing as well."

Jaune tilted his head. "Writing?"

Blake smirked "Never read the school newspaper?"

Jaune shook his head "We had a school newspaper?"

Blake looked at Jaune with a look of absolute disappointment before she asked. "I was in classes with you when they were given out, you normally just tossed them in your book back"

Jaune declared boldly "Well if we want to consider the fact that I was, in no particular order, either grieving my dead ex or up to my ass in problems. Problems that included helping arrest your ex, helping Weiss cope with being in a chair, Being hit by a car, my suicide attempt, getting with Ruby." Jaune paused for a breath. "Not to mention all that time I was struggling with hallucinations and breaking up with Ruby. Followed very closely with me almost being beaten to death, and spending two weeks in a Coma…"

"From the ex that I killed in self-defense," Blake added.

"Yeah, I've had some shit on my plate to not want to bother following school events," Jaune said.

"Can I add one thing to the list?" Blake asked.

Jaune Shrugged and said "Yeah go ahead"

"You're forgetting 'being a Drama queen'" Blake snickered and said.

Jaune's face scrunched up for a minute like he was going to get rather pissed off before the smile cracked on his face. Once Blake started laughing Jaune couldn't help but start laughing with her as he said "alright you got me on that one."

Blake fought down the giggles for a minute before she asked "What was I talking about?"

"You were talking about your writing," Jaune added.

Blake said meekly "Right, so anyways I took up writing as a hobby, I got a couple short stories published in the school paper"

Jaune squinted and said with an accusing tone "I mean how come I never heard about this?"

"Because I didn't want to tell anyone?" Blake said slightly embarrassed.

"I mean if you got in the school paper for a short story, maybe you should study writing and make a job out of it?" Jaune said with a shrug.

Blake said "Yeah I'll think it over… maybe… I kinda want to spend a little bit of time bumming around before I have to grow up and try out that whole 'being an adult' thing."

Jaune chuckled as he took a drink from his beer. "Well, I'm sure you'll figure things out…"

Blake smiled as she took a swig from her beer. "I just want to handle things one day at a time right now."

Jaune looked over and nodded "Yeah I remember being there as well."

Blake said, "Well there I go, killing the mood…" Before she took a drink

Jaune scoffed and chuckled "Hey, don't worry about me. I mean I can't really talk about shit like this with Ruby. She… Well, she was there when the worst days of our lives went down. But that was the last chapter of that story for you, just another chapter for me, and a thousand-word short story for her."

Blake smiled "Well I like how you put that honestly." Blake paused for a second and asked directly "Are you still having nightmares about things?"

Jaune smiled and nodded "They never really go away. I just don't remember much about them anymore, and my meds help me not fixate on them."

Blake nodded "Yeah I still have my therapy sessions and I take my anxiety meds as well." blake chuckles "Shit this is the type of crap Vietnam vets go through, not high schoolers"

"Yeah but we're not Vietnam vets though," Jaune added

Blake sat up and shook her head saying "We both went through some really traumatic shit, even if you didn't want to admit it. I mean you attempted to kill yourself two and a half years ago, and that was before the collective 'Worst night of our lives'.

Blake took a swig from her drink "We both had something break inside of ourselves, our pills are not the super glue to keep us held together, there the duct tape keeps us from falling apart. Both of us are going to struggle for the rest of our lives with that night, fuck, several nights even."

"Are you still in that bad of shape upstairs? How the hell did I never catch on to this?" Jaune asked.

"Because I don't let people see it, just like how you never let people see it. Weiss has seen that part of me, and I'm willing to bet that Ruby has seen that part of you." Blake said.

"That's the reason then…" Jaune said

"Huh?" Blake said as she looked at Jaune confused as well. "Oh, you mean Ruby."

"Yeah, I mean, I was wondering why in the hell I was so freaking obsessed with holding on to her." Jaune said with a sigh "I guess this makes sense."

Blake smiled "We both have the people we lean on, I don't know about you but the idea of losing Weiss scares the hell out of me."

Jaune chuckled "Yeah, I agree."

Blake smiled "Do what I'm going to do, fight to keep her no matter what."

Jaune smiled "I don't want to… you know, fuck things up for her though."

Blake said, "Wait and see, life has a funny way of working out, you might not ever quite what you want, but you'll get what you need at the end."

Jaune laughed "Who wrote that song?"

Blake chuckled "Rolling stones, but it's still true right?"

Jaune smiled as he finished off his beer "Yeah it's true. Ah shit, I got to go! I was going to pick up my Graduation clothes today."

Blake said, "Oh yeah same here, better chew some gum on the way to hide the beer smell!" Blake said as she slammed back the rest of her beer.

The pair stood up, tossing the bottles into the distance with a satisfying crash as they both made their way to his truck, chewing gum and breath mints the whole way.

Tomorrow was their graduation rehearsal, the say after that was graduation.

Across town, Ruby was looking at the letter from the last college she applied for with worried eyes. Tomorrow, their fates will be decided.


So this chapter was written as a personal milestone for me, it was the first chapter written since I got my formal diagnosis for chronic depression and ADHD, so this chapter is unofficially sponsored by Bupropion.

At this point, I have two chapters and an epilogue planned out. So yeah we're right at the end of the story it looks like.

Dragonlord: This version of Jacques would probably destroy canon Jacques in a fight, he's not depicted as a coward and more than a little bit ready to throw hands if need be.

ZHSteven: I was never aiming this at your typical "Highschool AU" so most of the crazy of the story is by design. The themes of mental illness came in as a result of the fic's original theme of recovering from loss.

Which kinda made me think about it, I kinda was not sure of this, but I didn't want to give the impression of romanticizing mental illness or Jaune's early story attempt on his own life. I wanted to make sure I hammered home the sort of brutality of the mental disorders Jaune is struggling with, so hopefully, I never gave the impression that his struggles, were in fact, noble in some twisted way.

Astray-Tech, Yeah I'm sorry to say you found us at the end, I don't know if I plan on doing a continuation, or even writing more stories in the same universe like about the characters parents or a possible story more closer to our modern-day (they would be in their 30's today). We'll see what happens.

In any rate, I want to thank everyone again for reading, and I'll see you all next time.