Winter was beaming as she turned off the timer on her phone, "I think these are gonna be perfect! She bent down and opened up the oven, and a column of smoke poured out of the oven right into her open mouth.

Winter broke into a coughing fit as she waved the smoke out of her face, blindly trying to pull the cookie sheet out of the oven and throwing it on the counter in a panic. She ran to open the windows, the bitter taste of soot in her mouth.

"Come on, this is the third batch I've messed up!" Winter moaned as she laid down on the carpet in the tv room. Winter waited for the smoke clear out before she timidly went to check on her cookies. The last two batches had come out looking like clumps of black dirt more than cookies, so Winter took her time walking over.

Winter had her eyes squinted as she stepped into the kitchen, her bare feet cold on the wooden floor. The cookies… Weren't that bad. They were odd sizes and shapes, and dark brown, bordering on burnt, but a few of them were passable.

"Not bad" Winter smiled, taking a spatula and scraping the cookies off the sheet, a few of them breaking in the process. She dumped most of them into one plastic bag and a few into a smaller bag.

Winter quickly changed into an outfit she picked out a few days prior, a pair of tight blue jeans and a white sleeveless button-up with a collar, paired with white heels. Winter tried to make it as 'casual' as she could without coming across like she didn't care… She might have spent two days putting the outfit together.

Winter stepped out of the elevator and turned to see Earl sitting in the same place as always, "Do you ever move?" Winter teased, walking up to his desk holding the plastic bags behind her back.

"Of course I do, I just do my best thinkin' here!" Earl laughed, his eyes still on his book.

"New book?" Winter wondered, leaning on the side of his desk. He looked up and showed her the cover, 1001 Master level crossword puzzles.

"Yup just got it a few days ago. It's not bad" it looked like he was already halfway done with the book.

"Hey, so I wanted to give you something" Winter smiled at him, he put the book down.

"Is it next months rent?" He asked with a laugh. Winter gave a nervous laugh, but he didn't look serious… She hoped.

"No, its something sweet!" Winter pulled out the small baggie of chocolate chip cookies and put them on his desk. His face lit up when he picked up the bag.

"Aw, you shouldn't have, Winter" He opened the bag up and grabbed a cookie.

"Well, I made some extra and figured you'd like some of them. I mean, you've been good to me so far, so I wanted to return the favor is all"

"Well thanks, I appreciate it. This isn't your way of telling me rent's gonna be late, is it?"

"No, of course not!" Winter gave a tight smile, she would probably be on time for rent, her paycheck was due any day now.

"Good" he laughed as he bit into one of the bigger cookies. His face instantly contorted as if he had just eaten a lemon followed by a big gulp of mud.

"What? Are they bad?" Winter asked, her voice going up a pitch. "I'm sorry, I've never made these before!"

"No, no, they're fine, Winter. Just went down the wrong pipe is all" He gave a pained smile, taking another bite of the cookie, flinching when he did.

"You're sure? You don't have to eat them if you don't want to" Winter pleaded, but he just shook his head.

"They're fine. Thanks again, I do appreciate it" Winter couldn't help but smile at the words, pride filling her up.

"Alright then, glad you like them, Earl. Have a great night" Winter waved goodbye to him and walked towards the door. He waved back, slowly chewing his cookie with a tight face.

Winter turned up the radio in her car, her hands tapping along on the steering wheel to the random pop song that was playing. She tried her best to let the music drown out her thoughts. The song was saying something about flying, but all Winter could picture was Qrow, Ruby, and Yang playing a board game with some random woman- person. A random person who could be any gender.

Winter sighed and turned down the music. She thought about her texts to Qrow the past two weeks, trying her best to figure out who else was gonna be there. Hey Qrow, will there be enough space there? If I brought food, how many portions should I bring? Should I be expecting anything when I get there? She tried every angle she could think of, but he always responded with either a sarcastic comment, was too vague, or he didn't even give her a straight answer.

"Turn right in five-hundred feet," her phone told her. Winter obeyed, coming off of the highway that had taken her right to the outskirts of the city. She was only about ten minutes from her apartment and the city loomed in the distance, obscured by a deep fog.

Winter looked around wide-eyed at her surroundings, it wasn't exactly the peak of luxury. She had pulled off the highway and was now to the right of a small neighborhood. There were rows of unique houses that were mostly two stories. They all had small, mismatched lawns, with the sidewalk and the road both cracked and filled with potholes that were bigger than her tires. Most of them looked like they hadn't been power washed in years.

Only a few seconds after getting off of the highway, she had to make a hard right, turning onto a side street. "You've arrived at your destination," It said suddenly, so she parked on the side of the road. She looked, and the house to her left had the red pick up truck she recognized sitting in the broken, uneven driveway.

The house was two stories and was trying its best to be white, but was covered in dirt and sludge from the highway. There was a small garage separate from the house that looked too short to hold the truck, with the door closed and dented.

Winter got out of her car, triple-checking she locked it, and walked across the street. Her heels caught a few times on the cement cracks but straightened herself before she could fall. Winter had to hold her arms out to make sure she didn't lose balance in her dumb heels as she walked up the uneven pavement up to the door.

The glass on the door was dirty and looked like it was about to fall off, so she knocked on the wooden door. Winter held her breath, for a second she was scared that they wouldn't open the door, wouldn't let her in, or maybe she was at the wrong house…

She heard quick footsteps from the other side of the door and they suddenly came to a halt. There was talking on the other side of the door, but Winter couldn't make out what was being said. She waited outside, trying to fix her hair, making sure her bun looked good. Then all of a sudden the door flung open. Winter was expecting to see the tall Qrow standing in front of her, but she was just looking at space. Winter had to look down pretty far to see who had opened the door.

It was a woman who was short with dark skin with long gray hair in a ponytail. She wore thick glasses so her gray eyes were barely visible. She was carrying a cane with a blue skull on it. Winter didn't know what to say, standing there awkwardly. The woman looked her up and down, looking confused and annoyed. Then she angrily barked, "Who the heck are you?"

-Authors note-

Hey everyone, hope you're enjoying the story! When I started to write this I had a vague idea of where I wanted it to go and end up, but I finally sat down and planned out a road map of where this will go. I hope you guys decide to stick around for the ride! See you guys next week!