AUTHOR'S NOTES: Warning: this is a very, very sad chapter. But in a war, there are always casualties.

If you've never seen a missing man formation, it is simultaneously one of the most moving, sad, and magnificent sights in the world.

Building 91213 (Female Officers' Quarters)

Joint Base Beacon, Wisconsin, United States of Canada

10 April 2001

Ruby Flight was sound asleep, despite Yang's snoring. She lay on her top bunk bed, arms splayed open like she had been shot. Blake, for her part, was curled up under her covers. Weiss slept almost at attention, which surprised no one. Ruby could be found in any sleeping position, but currently she was on her stomach, arms clasped around her pillow like it was a teddy bear.

The phone rang. Each room was equipped with a landline, a holdover from the pre-cell phone age. Weiss opened one eye; Blake was awake instantly. Ruby and Yang did not so much as stir. The Faunus and the Schnee heiress both stared at the phone as if by doing so they could compel it not to ring again, but perversely it did. Weiss was closest, so she shuffled in her bed until it was within arm's length, and picked it up. "Ruby Flight, Oberleutnant Schnee." She unsuccessfully fought back a yawn. "Oh, Colonel Goodwitch. Good morning." She waited. "Yes, right away. Hold a moment, please." She set the phone down carefully on the table, got out of bed, winced at the cold floor, then turned and shook Ruby. There was no response, so Weiss shook harder.

"G'way," Ruby mumbled.

"Get up," Weiss commanded. "It's Colonel Goodwitch. She wants to speak with you personally."

"Tell 'er to c'min…"

"She's on the phone, you dolt." Ruby reached out a hand. "The phone won't reach. Get up."

Ruby's head came off the pillow, gave Weiss a dirty look, then finally got up. She dropped to the floor and grabbed the phone, still half asleep. "Yeah, Lieutenant Rose. 'Sup." She didn't even try to fight down a yawn. "Uh huh. Formation at…now?" She glanced at the clock. "Colonel, it's 0530! Why—" Ruby's eyes flew wide open. "What?"

Her shout woke Yang up. "What the fuck, Ruby…"

"Y-Yes," Ruby stammered. "Are you sure—" Even the rest of Ruby Flight heard Goodwitch shouting "Of course I'm sure!" "Yes, ma'am. I'll…I'll let the rest of my flight know. Should I, um, tell Juniper? Pyrrha and Nora are right, they're right…okay. Yes, ma'am." They heard the line click off, and Ruby hung up as well. Then she staggered backwards and fell on Weiss' bed. Weiss was about to say something, but she saw that her flight leader had gone pale, and her silver eyes began to fill with tears.

"Ruby? What's wrong?" Blake was out of her bed in an instant, and Yang swung down from hers. "What's wrong?" she repeated.

"It's…oh, God…" Ruby covered her eyes with a hand and shuddered as tears ran down her cheeks. "It's Ruth Lionheart," she finally choked out. "She's dead."

Winter Schnee had been awoken from a very pleasant sleep next to Qrow by the sound of screams downstairs. They had gotten dressed quickly, but by the time they were down there, several Security Forces and a shaking maid were already present. Winter had gone into the room.

Winter had seen the face of death before—what was left of a pilot after hitting the ground at 600 miles an hour, the ejections that went wrong and broke necks. She had seen the bloated dead after a failed White Fang raid on a Schnee GmbH warehouse. A medic nodded at her as she came into the room.

Ruth Lionheart did not even look dead. She looked asleep, even a faint smile on her lips, as if at any moment she was going to sit up and laugh at them for falling for a prank. Winter put the back of her hand on the Faunus' forehead and drew it back quickly; the skin was dry and cold. There was no reason to check for a pulse.

"Please don't touch the body, ma'am," the medic said. "We don't know what happened to her yet."

"Of course. My apologies."

She stood a silent vigil by the body with the medic until Ozpin arrived half an hour later, for once looking sleep-tousled, his uniform obviously put on hastily. "Goodwitch called me," he said. "What's happened?"

It was the medic who answered. "Captain Ozpin, the VOQ maid came by around 0445 and found Flying Officer Lionheart's room door open. She came in to check, tried to wake her—usually Miss Lionheart goes for a jog about this time—and when she didn't respond, the maid called SF."

Ozpin looked down on the body. He leaned on his cane, and to Winter, he suddenly seemed very old. "Ah, God," he said quietly. "You poor woman. And Leonardo." He lifted a hand to his eyes, visibly fought for control of himself, and finally asked, "Cause of death? Do you know yet?"

The medic shrugged. "It doesn't look like she was attacked or anything, sir. Near as I can tell, she just died in her sleep." He paused. "Anyway, sir…I don't think she suffered. For what it's worth." The medic was nervous; this was not his usual line of work.

"She had been drinking, sir." Winter had noticed the bottle of scotch and the cup. "But there's only a third of it gone."

"Begging your pardon, ma'am—" the medic began.

"I know, Sergeant," Winter interrupted. "Not enough to kill. I'm familiar with the symptoms of alcohol poisoning."

"And Ruth drank far more than that at the party." Ozpin nodded at the medic. "You're dismissed, Sergeant. Thank you." The medic came to attention for a moment and left, leaving Ozpin and Winter alone. "Where's Qrow?" Ozpin asked.

Winter did not bother to lie. "He was with me all night. He returned to his room."

"I'm not suspecting him, Winter. I just wanted to make sure he was all right." He pretended not to notice the slight blush on her cheeks.

"Do you think she was murdered?" Winter said quietly. The question had hung in the air since she had walked into Ruth's room; she supposed she was getting paranoid.

Ozpin was silent for a moment. "There would be no reason to. Ruth had no enemies; she wasn't privy to any secret information. I would expect there to be signs of a struggle, but there isn't any that I can see." He shook his head. "No, I don't think so. Were it you, or me, or even certain members of Ruby Flight, then I might suspect it, but not Lionheart. Perhaps that family is just cursed." A long sigh. "And now I have to call her father. Poor man. He loved his daughter so."

One of the Security Forces airmen stuck his head into the room. "Sir, OSI is here."

"Very well." Beacon, like all USAF bases, had a small Office of Special Investigations branch permanently assigned to it; since Beacon was a Joint Base with the Navy, there were also one or two members of the more well-known Naval Criminal Investigative Service. The investigation was going to be a jurisdictional nightmare, since Ruth had been a citizen of the United Kingdom as well.

"Captain Ozpin?" Unlike the Security Forces, OSI agents tended to wear civilian clothes. The OSI man was tall, prematurely balding, but every inch the professional.

"Lieutenant Friedman."

Friedman looked down at the body. "Damn," he breathed. Ruth Lionheart had been very well known around the base.

"Lieutenant," Ozpin said in a low voice, "I hate sounding callous, but I don't want her leaving this base until a thorough autopsy is done."

"Absolutely, sir."

"Colonel, let's leave the Lieutenant to his work." Winter nodded and followed Ozpin out the door. He had to start making phone calls. The first would be to Leonardo Lionheart in the UK. The second would be to Rissa Arashikaze at CIA.

Hangar One

Joint Base Beacon, Wisconsin, United States of Canada

10 April 2001

The pilots filed into the hangar quickly, exhausted, sleepy, and in shock. There were no seats; they simply milled around, and the news quickly spread. Glynda Goodwitch could hear gasps of surprise, curses, and crying. She took a deep breath. She had done this before, but it never got easier.

She came out from behind her F-22. Goodwitch had taken the time to shower and dress in her formal blues. Blake saw her and shouted "Attention on deck!" Instantly the pilots came to attention.

Goodwitch stopped before them. "At ease." She put her hands behind her back. "There is no easy way to say this, so I will just say it. Flying Officer Ruth Lionheart was found dead this morning, about an hour ago. We do not have any information on cause of death, but to avoid any wild speculation, it is believed that she died of natural causes." She surveyed the front row of pilots, which had ended up being Ruby Flight and Creamer Flight. Cinder Fall was pale, clearly stunned; tears ran down Emerald's face, her lips trembling; Mercury Black was stoic. As Goodwitch came to Ruby, the lieutenant was trying to be brave, but she was crying as well, held up only by Yang, who wasn't in better shape. Weiss and Blake were standing at ease, but Goodwitch could tell they too were just barely hanging on.

Goodwitch sighed. She felt sorrow, but it was muted; she really had done this too many times. "All flying is cancelled today. We will have a memorial service this afternoon; uniform is formal dress. I realize that is sudden, but unfortunately we must get back to the exercise as soon as possible. I need volunteers for the flypast; Creamer Flight…no longer has enough." A sob escaped Emerald's lips before she bit it back.

Jaune raised his hand. "Colonel, Juniper Flight would like to volunteer."

"Very well. Thank you, Lieutenant Arc. You and your flight meet me in the auditorium so we can plan for it." She paused. "Ruth Lionheart was a great person. She was a fine officer and superb pilot. She will be missed, to say the least." Another pause. "Dismissed." There was nothing more to say. Goodwitch walked over to Creamer Flight—what was left of it. As she passed, Ruby finally fell to her knees, Yang with her, both hugging each other, crying inconsolably. She watched for a moment as Weiss walked over to Neptune and hugged him; the Navy pilot was sitting down, utterly in shock. "You have my condolences," Goodwitch told them. Cinder nodded blankly; Emerald was rubbing her eyes. Mercury still said nothing, but she noticed he was pale as well. As she turned to leave the hangar, she saw the young man turn and run out of the hangar, shrugging off anyone who tried to stop him. Goodwitch shook her head, understanding the need to be alone. Cinder and Emerald soon followed. No one tried to stop them; Creamer Flight needed to mourn among themselves.

Cinder and Emerald walked back to the VOQ in silence. They saw the ambulance pulling away. "Vaya con Dios," Emerald whispered as it went past them, and wiped new tears from her face.

The VOQ was deserted, but Mercury was waiting at Cinder's door. She unlocked it and let him and Emerald go in first. Once it was closed, Cinder opened the closet and unlocked her suitcase. Hands behind her back, she walked towards the two remaining members of Creamer Flight. Mercury stood against the wall; Emerald sat on Cinder's bed.

"What the hell did you do?" she asked Mercury, her voice low.

Emerald looked from Cinder to Mercury, and her expression became one of horror as she realized what had happened. "Oh my God," she said. "You killed her, Mercury. You killed her."

Mercury gave a shrug. "No point in trying to deny it."

Emerald was on her feet. "Chingada madre!" she shouted. Her hands came up, her eyes filled with tears and rage.

"Keep your voice down," Cinder ordered. She returned her attention to Mercury. "Why?"

"She knew," Mercury said. "She was going to tell Ozpin."

"Tell him what?" Emerald wanted to know.

Cinder took a breath. "You stupid bastard. We had this conversation. She wasn't going to tell Ozpin anything."

"You don't know that," Mercury told her. "We couldn't risk her endangering the plan."

Cinder said nothing for a moment. Then she moved like a striking snake. The pistol came out from behind her back and hit Mercury in the forehead with the barrel. He fell to the carpet, more surprised than hurt, but then Cinder was standing over him, the pistol leveled at his head. "You fucking idiot. You've done more to endanger the plan in the last twelve hours than Ruth ever did. What do you think Ozpin is going to do when he figures out Lionheart was murdered?"

"He won't," Mercury insisted. "He'll never figure it out. No one will."

"You'd better start explaining," Cinder threatened.

"You're not going to shoot me and have another murder to explain," Mercury snapped.

"I'll discuss it with Ozpin and let your corpse know how it turns out," Cinder hissed. "Start talking. Now."

Mercury got up to his elbows. "I bought her a bottle of Johnny Walker Red at the package store. When I got back to the dorm, I poured enough sleeping pills in there to put an ox to sleep. Even accounting for the alcohol dissolving some of it, there was enough to put her out like a light. Not to kill her, just knock her out."

"How did you get into her room?" Emerald, the former thief, knew it wasn't all that easy to break into the dorm rooms. She could do it in a few minutes, but Mercury wasn't a thief; he was an assassin.

"Lionheart was nice enough to leave her door open for me. Seems she thought I was going to come in and bang her later. I walked in about one in the morning after everyone was in bed, and put a pillow over her face. She didn't struggle."

Cinder stared at him. "You smothered her."

Mercury nodded. "And before you ask, Cinder, I know what I'm doing. My pa taught me that much, the son of a bitch. I checked the pillow to see if she had bit into it. She hadn't. I checked her mouth to see if she bit her tongue. She didn't. And yes, I wore gloves—surgical gloves I bought off base. I'll dispose of them off base as soon as I can." He glanced at Emerald, who was looking like she wanted to commit homicide herself. "She didn't suffer, if you're worried about that. To everyone who looks, she just died in her sleep, probably from mixing sleeping pills and booze. Happens to people all the time."

Cinder held the pistol on him a moment longer, then stepped back. "All right, Mercury. All right. It sounds like you at least used your head. It was still remarkably fucking stupid and completely unnecessary, and if I didn't need you, I'd shoot you in the fucking head and claim you admitted to the murder and I killed you in revenge. If you fuck up again, I'll go to OSI—and you'll find me a lot fucking harder to kill than some stupid, naïve Faunus." She kept the pistol at her side. "One more time, Mercury. Just once. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yeah. Can I get up?" At her nod, he got to his feet. "I did the right thing, Cinder."

"Go back to your room," Cinder ordered. "At the memorial today, you'd better act appropriately somber—maybe throw some tears in there, you inhuman piece of shit. And if your idiot little stunt causes Leonardo to blow our cover, I swear I will make sure I kill you first." She motioned with the pistol. "Get the fuck out of here before I change my mind and kill your stupid ass anyway." Mercury did as he was told. At no point had Cinder raised her voice, which made it all the more effective.

After he was gone, Cinder set the pistol on the nightstand and sat on the bed across from Emerald. "Of all the idiot fucking things," she said.

"Why?" Emerald asked.

"Ruth found out that I gunned down Fox Alasdair and Velvet Scarlatina during the battle last week. My fault; I forgot about the stupid gun camera. But I had her convinced that it was a friendly fire accident. Ruth destroyed the gun film, but that simple asshole killed her anyway, because he's shit-scared that Ozpin's going to find us out. And now he's made that more likely."

"You convinced Ruth?"

"I know I did, Emerald." Cinder sighed. "I didn't like that insipid little bitch, but we needed her, if for no other reason to control her father."

Emerald swallowed in fear. "Do you think he'll…"

"He shouldn't. I'll call him here in a moment. We'll stick with the story that Ruth just died of natural causes. It will devastate Leonardo, but I'll lie and tell him we had nothing to do with it. Since he's more afraid of Salem than he is of anything else, he should go along with it. I hope." Cinder slammed a fist on the bed. "God damn that fucking Mercury. We never should've been saddled with that psychopath. We should've had Hazel. Christ, Tyrian might even be an improvement."

Cinder levered herself off the bed. "All right. We might as well get ready for the service. I'm sure there's going to be people coming by to make their condolences. I have to put on a good act." She walked towards the closet.

"You don't care?" Emerald said it before she thought about it.

Cinder stopped. "I regret its stupidity. Remember what we're here for, Emerald."

There was a threat in Cinder's voice, and Emerald picked up on it. "I won't betray you, Cinder. I owe you too much for that."

Cinder waved her towards the door. "You're the only one on this whole damned team I trust, Emerald." The former thief nodded as she opened the door. "Nice work on the tears in front of Goodwitch. That will help."

"Thanks," Emerald said, and left. In the hallway, she wasn't sure what angered her more: Ruth Lionheart's murder, or the fact that Cinder thought her tears weren't genuine.

The dais was moved out onto one of the runways. No chairs were set up, because it would not be a long service. The funeral would be held back in England for Ruth, once the autopsy was finished. Ozpin had also forbidden any cameras; the news crews had learned of the death of one of the Vytal Flag pilots and had wanted to film the memorial, but Ozpin had turned that down, hard. When one of the reporters complained, Ozpin told him it was as much for the media's protection as the pilots'—a reporter clicking away with a camera or offering commentary during a memorial would probably end in broken cameras and broken teeth.

Ruby got there early. She was in her dress blue uniform, which she hated wearing—mainly because it always made her look like a little girl playing dress up. Naturally, Yang made the uniform look great. Blake's Marine uniform was also, as usual, crisp and sharp, and Weiss' Luftwaffe uniform was all silver braid.

The other reason was that it seemed like the only time she ever wore the uniform was to funerals.

Ruby only remembered dimly Summer Rose's funeral. There was no coffin, because there was no body. There had been a service of some kind, and she remembered the warmth of Yang's hand in hers. Yang hadn't really understood either: it was just that Mom was there and then she wasn't, and never would be again. They still didn't know exactly what happened: officially, Summer Rose was listed as Missing in Action, but so many Huntsmen and Huntresses were.

The other pilots soon arrived. Ruby took a deep breath and walked over to Cinder Fall. "Cinder?" She didn't know if it was appropriate to use the older woman's first name instead of rank, but she did it anyway. "I'm sorry about Ruth."

"So am I." Ruby was surprised: Cinder seemed more angry than sad. Of course, everyone reacted to grief differently. Then her expression softened a little, and she smiled down at Ruby; Cinder topped her by six inches. "Thanks for saying that, Ruby. It's appreciated."

Ruby gave her a nod, then went over to say hello to Emerald and Mercury. The Spanish girl was composed, but Ruby could tell that she had been crying. Mercury was shaking, and when she tried to talk to him, he just covered his eyes and shook his head. Unsure of what else to do, she gave both of them a hug and rejoined Ruby Flight as Ozpin came through the crowd, in his dress whites. He stopped as Ruby walked back. "Lieutenant, you'd mentioned to Colonel Goodwitch earlier about wanting to say a few words?"

"If that would be all right." Ruby had gone from Hangar One to Goodwitch's office soon after the announcement.

"It would be welcome. Thank you."

A small table was set in front of the dais, and a picture of Ruth was placed on it. There had been a base-wide scramble to find something, but it had been Velvet who had provided one. It was a shot of Ruth standing next to her old Jaguar, a grin on her face, flashing the V-for-Victory sign, the day she had "shot down" Nora. Seeing the picture made Ruby feel better: she could hear the Cockney accent: What's this lot? Why's everyone sad? Have a wake, you sods!

Ozpin got up to the dais and said a few words, praising Ruth's bravery in the Battle of La Crosse, then invited anyone who wished to say a few words. Velvet stood up first, and told some funny stories about how she and Ruth had trouble communicating, despite both being from the United Kingdom—Velvet's parents were originally from Australia, whereas Ruth's mother was East End London.

Coco went up next. Her speech was halting at first, trying to find the words in a language she wasn't native to, but she soon warmed up and told a hilarious story about Ruth trying to speak Arabic and ending up asking how old someone's camel was when trying to ask Coco her birthday. Nobody knew if it was true or not, but fighter pilot stories were none the worse for embellishment. Then it was Scarlet David, who told the story of Ruth's marriage proposal. Now everyone was laughing; Ruby caught even a small smile on Cinder's face.

Finally, it was Ruby's turn. She walked up the stairs to the dais and stood behind the podium. As she looked out over the pilots, every word she had practiced vanished from her brain. Near panic seized her. Then she took a breath, closed her eyes for a second, and winged it.
"We're all going to miss Ruth," Ruby said. "But if she was standing here, she'd say 'Steady on, Ruby Rose, don't bore them to tears!'" It was a fair approximation of Ruth's accent. Everyone laughed because it was true.

"Ruth lived her life at full throttle. Her mom got killed at an airshow, but she joined the RAF anyway. Yeah, she could be annoying. Yeah, she was a bit, um, forward with her affections. But she loved all of us, for real. And when we needed her, she was there." Ruby, with an effort, kept her eyes dry. "Ruth was here, doing the thing she loved the most. When it's our time to go to the big O-Club in the sky, I hope we can all say that. And Ruth…" Ruby could not stop her lower lip from trembling. "…save me a seat." She could say no more, and left the dais.

Ozpin returned. "I will add no more but to paraphrase the famous General George Patton: we should not mourn that such people like Ruth Lionheart died. We should be thankful that she lived." He turned at the sound of jet engines. Ruby saw Juniper Flight approaching at about two thousand feet, and immediately her throat tightened. She was going to burst into tears; there was no stopping it.

Juniper Flight came over the runway, but before they reached the crowd, Pyrrha's F-16 suddenly broke formation and climbed hard into the blue sky, engine roaring. She was soon gone from sight, leaving a gap in Juniper's formation as they came over. Known as the missing man formation, it was traditional at fighter pilot funerals, a way of saying farewell; the gap showed that a friend had "flown west," as the pilot slang went, the climb a soul going to Fighter Pilot Heaven, where the beer was always free and the missions were always fun.

Ruby buried her face in her hands, tears running through them. It got worse every time, from the first missing man formation she had seen, for her own mother. She had been to too many others since. She was hardly alone: Yang was crying too, with the same memories. Weiss was trying to hold it together and not succeeding very well. Blake's face did not move, but the tears ran down her cheeks silently.

Slowly, the pilots filed off as the noise of Juniper's passing faded. And suddenly, Ruby thought, it wasn't fun anymore.