"Can you hear me? I uh, hope you can hear me."
"It's been like two day's since you stopped screaming, I over heard one of the doctors say the word 'coma' that got Yang really upset."
The voice went really quite. "It got me upset as well."
That made her feel really sad, it made her feel like hugging the owner of the voice and reassuring her.
Only she couldn't, and that was that.
"But you'll recover." The familiar voice grew more confident. "I know you will and when you do, I'll be waiting with a second date."
She then felt something soft on her lips, a kiss.
Then the feeling ended and the familiar voice went quiet and seconds or hours later, another different voice spoke.
"Hello!" The cheery voice said, even if Ruby was unable to greet her.
"I bought you some cookies." There was the sound of something being placed on a table. "I hope that you like them, they didn't have the brand Yang said to get at the store, so I got these ones instead."
That was nice of her, and Ruby wanted to thank her, even if her name eluded Ruby for the moment.
"Jaune also sent over some strawberries." The voice continued. "We can share all of these when you wake up, and the spend some time together as partners." She offered. "But until then, be safe."
The voice left her and Ruby was left alone.
But fortunately, it was not for long.
"You still asleep soldier?" A gruff voice asked. "Well, it's a step up from the screaming at least."
The voice became more demanding. "Now hurry up and get this over and done with, sleeping is for Grif and I think you know me feelings on lazy, good for nothing dirt bags like Grif. So get up red! We're all waiting."
the gruff voice finished talking and much like the others, but her memory was getting ever so slightly better and Ruby was almost certain that the voice had belonged to S-Dog.
Wait, that didn't sound right.
Then one last voice spoke to her. A voice that she would never forget.
"Hey Rubes." Yang said quieter than Ruby had ever heard her. "I tried calling dad earlier, but he didn't answer 'cause he's on a mission."
She could hear Yang push her fingers through her hair. "It's the same with Qrow. But eh, I guess it's a good thing after all how am I supposed to explain this to them?"
More memories came back to Ruby, the names Blake, Pyrrha, Sarge.
"This is all my fault. I should have never read out that stupid letter." Then Ruby could hear a soft sobbing noise.
Yang was crying.
No. Yang shouldn't be crying it wasn't her fault, and Ruby needed to tell her this. Right. Now.
But she still couldn't move. It was beyond frustrating, but slowly, painfully the memories came flooding back.
Getting into beacon, being the leader of her own team, fighting the White Fang, dancing with Blake and that letter.
Then finally, Ruby Rose opened her eyes.
Yang was sitting next to her on a chair, eyes red and tears on her face.
"Not... your... fault..." She wheezed out, throat feeling incredibly sore and physically very exhausted.
The effect was immediate.
"Ruby? Ruby!"
Yang leaped over to Ruby hugged her as tightly as she could.
"Need... air..." She chocked out, causing yang to loosen her grip.
"You had me so worried." Yang opened her scroll and typed in something. "There, Blake and Pyrrha are on there way. how are you feeling?"
"My throat is a little sore." Ruby admitted. "And..."
"And?" Yang pressed.
Half a dozen memories that didn't belong to her quickly surfaced to the forefront of Ruby's mind, causing her to flinch back and her breathing to speed up.
"N- nothing." She lied. This whole thing already was worrying Yang and Ruby didn't want her to worry more. Besides what was she supposed to say? That Another person had a mental breakdown inside her head and now she had a few memories from other people? No, Yang and the others would just think she was crazy.
Yang looked deeply sceptical. But before she could say anything Blake and Pyrrha burst into the room, a doctor in tow.
But something told Ruby that this wasn't over.
Not by a long shot.
For once, Cinder Fall was in the unique position of having absolutely nothing important to do.
It was a very rare occurrence, as such she had elected to take the opportunity to read a nice book.
So, she'd sent Mercury and Emerald to subtly evaluate the condition of Ruby Rose's mental state after Felix's attack and picked out a book.
She'd chosen a rather bleak and grim tale that had no happy endings and ended with the death of the 'heroes' after they found out that they could never have won.
Much like how Ozpin and his champions would fail when beacon falls.
However, when she was a mere third of the way through her scroll began to ring.
Not her regular scroll of course, but her secondary encrypted scroll for communications with her master.
So with much haste she put down her book, checked the locks on the doors and answered the scroll.
"And so you finally answer, I was wondering if you'd forgotten how to work a scroll." The smug and arrogant voice of doctor Arthur Watts filled the room.
"Hardly." She scoffed. "I was just ensuring that the proper security measures were in place."
"I'm sure." He said condescendingly.
"Why are you calling?" Cinder cut to the point.
"There has been a... complication with the black queen program." Watts stated bluntly.
"What do you mean complication?" Cinder said threateningly.
"No need for hostility, what I mean is that the program will not be available for some time due to unexpected resistance within the network." He explained. "It seems to be some for of artificial intelligence that is preventing the breakthrough into any of Beacon's, and the rest of Vale's, systems."
Cinder thought for a moment before latching onto a part of his statement.
"An artificial intelligence? Like the Penny robot?" She questioned.
He laughed. "No, this A.I in the system is much more advanced than that thing." Watts shook his head. "But that is irrelevant for now, I just wanted to inform you of this delay before you called me to whine about it."
"Your concern is touching." She said with a voice that dripped with sarcasm.
"Goodbye Cinder, and one more thing; she wants a report from you by the end of the week." He informed her.
Cinder simply nodded and ended the call.
Her break was over, it was time to prepare her report.
Where was agent Washington?
That was the thing that kept bugging Ruby for the most of the day.
Well that question and the fact that the wrong words would cause her to have something of a panic attack. the most prominent being 'goodbye' and 'Allison.'
But still, she was fine. (If you asked literally anyone other than Ruby they'd tell you that she wasn't and that she was far more twitchy and nervous than before.)
As such they let Ruby out of the infirmary at six pm that night.
Her team had agreed to give Ruby a breather for an hour after being by her side all day. So she decided to take the opportunity to talk with Church and the others alone.
"Hey guys." She greeted them on the roof.
"Hey kid." Church replied back. "I'm sorry that I didn't get a chance to ask earlier, but are you okay?"
"I'm fine. Really, really fine." She insisted.
"Well, you know you can talk to us, right?" Sarge asked. "We are here to help you."
"Thanks." she said quietly. "Where's Wash?"
"No idea, he ran off as soon as he woke up." Sarge informed her.
"Yeah, we even tried searching for him while you caught you with everyone." Church elaborated.
It was at this point that Caboose chipped in.
"Yeah, he's not even in the forest that he said he wasn't in."
"Wait, what." Church stated.
"Agent Washington told me that he wasn't in the forest while I was there and I believe him because he would never lie to me like that." Caboose explained matter-of-factly.
"Caboose, one of these day's I'm going to kill you in your sleep." Church grinded out.
So they all made their way to the Emerald forest cliffs.
And Wash was waiting there, sitting down and looking over the cliffs, seemingly lost in thought.
They all sat down beside him and sat in silence, watching as the sun made it's lazy descent beyond the horizon.
They sat there in silence for a bit until Wash himself broke the silence.
"I am so sorry."
"It's not your fault." Ruby told him.
But the freelancer just shook his head. "No, it is. If I hadn't-"
But Ruby decided that she wasn't going to deal with it.
"No. when I say that it isn't your fault I mean it." She said forcefully.
"But-" He tried to blame himself.
"No buts!" Ruby Said. "It is not your fault, it's Felix's you had nothing to do with it."
"You have some very strong opinions on this." Wash noted with a small chuckle.
"I'm sick of people blaming themselves for everything." She told him. "Pretty much everyone I know does it, you, Yang, Blake. But you shouldn't it's the bad guys fault."
"Are you alright Ruby?" Wash decided to change the subject.
"Fine. I'm absolutely fine."
"No, don't lie to me like that." Wash shook his head. "I know what it's like to go through that, so please be honest."
"Well... I get these flash's of memories and they kinda hurt my head? if that makes sense." She said quietly. "And just when i think there gone they come back worse than ever, I also just know things that I shouldn't like what your middle name is or where Carolina always hides in hide n seek."
Wash sighed. "The same think happened to me months after I finally was sane again." He put a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "But don't worry it gets easier as time goes on."
"Thanks Wash."
"And it would help if you had someone to talk to. someone that isn't one of us." Wash suggested.
"What would I say? People would just think I'm crazy." Ruby complained.
"There's always penny." He offered.
"It's true, I am a very good listener and would be happy to help out Ruby." Penny said cheerily.
The sudden appearance of Penny was enough to startle Church into taking a step back which sent him tumbling down the cliff side. This was immediately followed by Caboose jumping down to 'save' Church, but judging by the loud and excessive cursing, it was unwanted help.
"Penny! How long have you been there?!" Ruby exclaimed.
"A while."
"A while!?"
"I didn't want to interrupt as it would be considered 'rude' but I also found it very heart-warming." Penny informed them all sincerely.
"So what are you doing here then?" Sarge asked.
"Oh yes, I'm supposed to find you and bring you back to your room where al of your close friends, sister and girlfriend are waiting for you." Penny explained excitedly.
"well, it would be rude to keep them waiting." Wash said as he got up.
"What about Church?" Ruby looked over the cliffs edge.
"He'll be fine." Sarge waved his hand dismissively.
And with that they made their way to the room, but when she opened the door, Ruby was greeted with all of her friends sitting along the beds in chairs with a banner strung up between them.
"Ruby." Yang said seriously. "This is an intervention."
Finally, after far too many damn delays, Qrow and Tex arrived in the kingdom of Vale.
Qrow personally blamed his own damn semblance for the delay.
First all the flight paths were delayed due to bad weather and Grimm, then his last name was found out and he was declared a security issue and then Tex started a fight and she was declared a security issue.
It didn't get better once they were on the airship.
A airship which had an utterly ass backwards flight plan going from the airport to Atlas to Vacuo and then to Vale.
It also involved numerous delay's on Atlas due to bureaucratic nonsense and even more in Vacuo due to corrupt nonsense.
And to top it all off he was stuck sitting next to a elderly blind woman with techno goggles that gave him sass the entire trip.
But still, he was finally in Vale. it couldn't get much worse than this.
But the universe didn't take kindly to that statement and the second Qrow stepped outside into the Vale night sky bird poo landed directly on his clothes and another piece directly into his open flask.
"You have some really bad luck." Tex observed.
"I hadn't noticed, thanks." He snarked back.
"Then it's good to have me here to tell you these things." Tex took it in stride. "Anyway where this Beacon place you keep talking about then?"
"A little ways from here, we'll need to take a bullhead up, but there all closed this time of night so I suggest a good hotel."
"Then lead the way shitbird."
As they walked Qrow thought of something. "You know when we've taken you to see Oz I could probably take ya to see my nieces as well."
"I think I'd like that, what are they like?" She asked.
"Well first there's Yang, a bit of a hot head, but she's got a good heart, a real brawler you'd probably like." Qrow then chuckled. "Then there's Ruby, probably the most pure good person I know. she'll be head over heals over you once she find out you've got a robot body, hell she's building a robot herself."
"They sound like good kids." Tex said with a surprising amount of sincerity.
"They are."
Notes:
And that's the end of that chapter.
Well I had a pretty fun time writing this one, and I'd like to credit ReaderWarrior for the idea of Ruby's friends talking to her while she was asleep.
Let is be said that Penny will always be one of my favourite characters to write.
And so Qrow and Tex enter Vale, from here things are going to really heat up. Especially once we hit chapters 23 and 24 when they- [REDACTED]
As always I'd like to thank everyone for reading and for those who comment/review, you guys are great. And don't be afraid to let me know about any ideas you have.
Next time Ruby struggles as her well meaning friends and family stage a intervention for Ruby's mental help. But till then, I'll catch ya'll on the flip flop.
Review replies:
ReaderWarrior: No need to be suspicious, you can trust me, much like one can trust Shang Tsung.
Annonamous Elephant: To be honest, that just really warms my heart. Thanks for the support!
Brain.H.H.: Always good to hear, and yes Ruby does remember, only bits and pieces fortunately for her.